I managed 5 books in February. 1 was an Audible Original, about 4 hours long, 1 was an artsy style book, 2 were short stories, and 1 was non-fiction. 3 of the 5 were audiobooks, listened to at work.
Little Birds – Hannah Lee Kidder
This is a collection of short stories by a Youtuber I follow. Since I liked her videos, I thought I would like her book. It’s okay, I’d give it a 3 out of 5 because I just didn’t connect.
Her writing style is fine, but her subject matter is a little weird. It’s darker, more macabre, and a little creepy. It might have been my cup of tea if the first story hadn’t lead off with a trope I hate: truck driver crossing the line and killing someone. Sorry, spoilers. I think it might have put me off the entire collection.
Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World – Michael Pollan
An Audible Original, this 4 hour audiobook goes into the history of caffiene, mostly coffee, and how our dependence on it shaped the world. I enjoyed this one, and it led me to A History of the World in 6 Glasses, which I really enjoyed. This one’s a 3/5
The audiobook focuses mostly on coffee, with a little about tea, and even less about soda. Did you know that coffee, tea, and chocolate all came to England in the 1860s? In addition to the history of coffee, Pollan goes off caffeine while writing his piece, and talks to sleep experts and others about the affects of caffeine. It was most interesting.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses – Tom Standage
This is Caffeine’s bigger, more interesting brother. The 6 glasses are: beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola, and some are more interesting than others. I really ended up enjoying this book, especially the cola section. 4 out of 5 because 4 of the 6 segments are really interesting, and cola blows it all away.
The first 2 sections, beer and wine, are kind of blah. Beer and wine don’t have a date they were discovered or invented; they predate our written history. In fact, beer was so important in Mesopotamia that they had a special mark for it. These marks on clay slabs eventually turned into cuneiform, which is one of the first known forms of writing. Did you know that beer, when it was made, wasn’t strained, so people would use long reed straws to drink from communal vessels, and avoid the unstrained bits? I thought that was interesting.
Where Standish really shines is in the last 3: coffee, tea, and soda. You’ll see I skipped spirits. It was interesting, and I’d love to go into it, but we’d be here all day. So back to the caffeinated drinks. You can tell Standish likes these a lot: there’s more detail, and he seems more excited to talk about them. Like Caffeine, there’s a lot of information about coffee, including how they smuggled a cutting of a coffee plant out of where it was and to the West Indies so the Dutch and English could break Arabia’s hold on the coffee monopoly.
The tea portion was shorter than I’d like, but it did shed light on how the British drank tea. What they drank is more like our oolong today, although English Breakfast and Earl Grey were also common, so you can get tea like they drank back in the 1860s-forward.
Cola was the most interesting to me, and I really liked this segment. It focuses on Coca Cola, and how it went from patent medicine to a global brand. Patent medicine, or medicine that was dispensed to cure all ills (think snake oil) was distributed by pharmacists, who were the first owners of carbonated beverage fountains, the predecessor to the soda fountain. Coca Cola, made from the coca plant (and having trace amounts of cocaine) and cola nuts (which had caffeine) was originally made to cure all ills, and give you energy. Cocaine and large doses of caffeine will do that. From the patent medicine days, they moved to selling to to everyone as a refreshing drink, which helped them survive not only p[prohibition, but also the taxes put on patent medicines of the time.
From there, Standish goes into the wars, and how during World War 2, Coca Cola followed the soldiers around the world to ensure they had access to the drink. Where they went, Coke followed, and so the locals developed a taste for it. So Coke eventually because a global brand, either depicting American Capitalism (in a bad light), or the American way (in a good light) depending on where in the world you are. Supposedly Coca Cola is the most globally recognized brand in the world.
Death Wins a Goldfish: Reflections from a Grim Reaper’s Yearlong Sabbatical – Brian Rea
This cute book is a whimsical picture book. Death, yes that death, has saved up too many vacation days, and is required by HR to take a year long sabbatical. So off he goes, to win the titular goldfish, order Starbucks, attempt dating, surf, and do other things.
At first I wasn’t so sure about the book, because the drawings were a little haphazard. Like, the bodies of people would be drawn, but not coloured in, so you could see the background lines already drawn in. Then I got to the carnival, and changed my mind.Rea really put a LOT of work into it, and it was fantastically done. From there, I started noticing more things about the book, and started liking the book more. In the end, I have to give it 4/5.
Joe Ledger: Unstoppable – Jonathan Maberry and Others
I love Joe Ledger, both the books, and the character. This is like the best of the Fan fiction for Joe Ledger, and I really enjoyed it. There’s something like 20 stories in this collection, including Atoll, which is the last story, and by Maberry himself.
Some of the stories are great, like Mira Grant’s Red Dirt, which is set after book 2. Genome therapy set up to destroy a certain group slips the leash, and members of the DMS are called in to handle it. Also good is Psych Eval, which has Dr Rudy Sanchez (one of my favorite characters), called in to do a Psych Eval on the lone survivor of an assault. I also enjoyed No Guns at the Bar, which involves tech from some of the stories, and Echo Team, minus Joe, on a night out.
Some stories are not as good, like Black Water by Weston Ochse. Teenage Joe and his not great family life don’t really match up to the view of Joe and his family I have. So that was a pass. Also, there’s one I can’t remember the name of, but it’s subtitled A Ghost Story, and it’s about Joe’s big white shepherd, Ghost. Told from his point of view, I appreciated the story, and the potential backstory for Ghost (as we don’t know it), but I didn’t like the voice Ray Porter used for Ghost. It reminded me too much of the voice of Homer from Dennis E Taylor’s Bobiverse stories.
Atoll, the final story, written by Maberry, was fantastic. I fully appreciated the care he put into the story, and the buildup. Even if he hadn’t added a story to the anthology, this still would have been most enjoyable, and I give it 4/5.