Codename Nemo: The Hunt for a Nazi U-Boat and the Elusive Enigma Machine

Codename Nemo: The Hunt for a Nazi U-Boat and the Elusive Enigma Machine

Charles Lachman, Qarie Marshall (reader)

The story of U-505. I've seen the fictitious U-571 which claims the US captured the enigma. History is bunk. Don't believe anything you read in print or hear or see on radio or TV, especially tabloids. Social Media.... And if you've ever been involved in an event reporters carried you'll wonder, where was I when that happened. Am I cynical....

The most remarkable part of this story is that the German Sailors aboard the sub were kept incommunicado in violation of the Geneva Convention until the end of the war and the thousands aboard the vessels involved in the seizure were sworn to silence on pain of death. Their superiors maintained the secret as well. How they hid a 200 ft sub is another matter.

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Station Eleven

Station Eleven

Emily St. John Mandel, Kirsten Potter (Narrator)

Set in Toronto initially at locations I've actually visited such as Allan Gardens, The Elgin, Queens Quay. I've ridden streetcars, the subway. I'm getting tired of attempting to follow novels that jump around in time and place. We have here a traveling troop of entertainers somehow linked to a former star actor/movie star. Throw in the EMT we meet in the initial stages.

At the heart of this tale is a Pandemic which figures in a story written 6 years before Covid. The troop attempts to make a living in a post-apocalyptic world. Described in detail are the inevitable tensions between the performers inevitable in any close-knit group.

I've assayed reading this book several times since it first came out and may make better progress listening to an audiobook.

The time and place are constantly changing back in time to earlier periods of key character's lives. Members of the orchestra are referred to by the instruments they play, not their names.

Station Eleven is a space station in a Graphic Novel.

The book begins and ends with the death of the character playing King Lear.

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How to Cook Everything

How to Cook Everything

How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food

Mark Bittman

I'm finding the culinary wisdom amassed here interesting and practical. The author has become a celebrity chef and influencer with newspaper columns and social media posts. His initial publication has grown to an entire library of topics. He does have certain biases which reflect his income and access to fresh ingredients.

As the title suggests his approach is to explain how food is prepared, not to give the reader specific detailed recipes. As a chef he probably doesn't follow recipes in the first place. The average person engaged in food preparation is not likely to mix their own curry or chili powder, make their own mustard or ketchup, infuse oils, create fancy sauces or pastes but it is informative to read what goes in them.

This is not the type of book anyone is likely to read cover to cover though I did make it half way. It's another matter investing $56.00 in the book.

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Proof

Jilly Truitt #3

Proof

Beverley McLachlin

This is the third outing for this defense lawyer, now a single parent. A young woman aids a rock star's career and after 3 miss carriages gives him a daughter or so it seems. They disagree over using the child for publicity purposes, the mother favouring the child's privacy. After the inevitable divorce an ugly custody battle ensues. Jilly gets involved after the child is abducted while the father sleeps on a private beach.

Justice is what can be proved in a court of law, truth is quite another matter. The case in question here shows what happens when law enforcement have tunnel vision.

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Haven Point

Haven Point

Virginia Hume, Cassandra Campbell (Narrator)

Life among the yacht club set. Not the kind of people with whom I normally associate.

When a hurricane strikes the delicacy of their life is exposed and it is the working class stiffs the elites so disdain who are called upon to effect repairs.

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The Goodnight Trail

Trail Drive #1

The Goodnight Trail

Ralph Compton, Scott Sowers (Reading)

No one could consider this great literature but it is the first in a 34-book series. Charles Goodnight was a real Texas Ranger Scout who discovered the Palo Duro Ravine during his travels and when he left the Rangers rounded up a few thousand wild Texas Longhorns and corralled them in that natural stockade.

This tale interested me because I've read of him before and been to Palo Duro.

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The Life Impossible

The Life Impossible

Matt Haig, Joanna Lumley (narrator), Jordan Stephens (narrator)

Grace inherits a house on a remote Spanish Mediterranean Island from a woman she barely knew and met only briefly. Grace, a retired Math teacher appreciates the logical nature of her chosen subject. The legacy bequeathed her is anything but. Suddenly she can sense the thoughts of those around her and not just humans. She can sense the ethos of inanimate objects. Worse she can see the future. These gifts are not something she asked for or particularly enjoys.

The book embraces what I'd call New Age philosophy.

Grace goes to a casino and her talents make poker a steal.

The suggestion that none of the reporters got the story right and the one exception that did ended up in institutional care rings so true.

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Kit's Wilderness

Kit's Wilderness

David Almond, Charles Keating (Narrator)

The location, a coal mining town. The author is Welsh but the town could be there, in Virginia, Cape Breton or Springhill. Coal mining is dangerous work. You may have heard of the tradition of taking a canary into the mine Firedamp is odourless. Collieries are notoriously unstable.

The Welsh aren't the only singing coalminers. In any industry where there is tragedy and unexplained occurrences myths and superstitions abound and little people.

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