For December 2022 I ran each day of the month, amassing a good amount of mileage and keeping myself generally in shape. I did run a public race, the 5K Depot Parkrun on the 10th, although due to online registration misinformation I missed running the Tyler's Hope 15K I had intended to run on the same day...sometimes I think that with the charity events, the organizers get so caught up with their admittedly worthwhile causes that they forget about providing reasonable conditions and pertinent information for the participants. I had run this race twice in the past and, should circumstances permit, will seek it out next year. As has been the case recently, my walking mileage comes naturally over the course of my day, especially with my walk-intensive job. Unfortunately, my eating habits of late have created a creeping weight gain over the course of 2022 that interferes with my running...a few small habit-change corrections should solve that issue. As for 2023, in January the Florida Track Club is holding a marathon/half-marathon/10K race on the 15th and the Newnan's Lake 15K will take place on the 29th...both on Sundays. The Five Points half-marathon will not happen in '23, but they are still holding the 5K race in February...not that I intend to be in it. I am a member of the Florida Track Club, and they offer a 10-mile run in Micanopy on February 11th...I ran it earlier this year, enjoying the course. Being 66 and not getting any younger, I know that my finishing times in different distances aren't going to improve very much...most likely it's going to be a gradual slowing instead. That's all right...one of the things I look for when scanning posted results of races that I just ran is to see who the oldest runners are...with this I'm usually among the "top" finishers. Here are the races I ran in 2022:
Saturday, December 31, 2022
Year-End Running and Walking Report
Friday, December 30, 2022
My Favorite Songs in 2022
Thursday, December 29, 2022
Enjoying Jigsaw Puzzles Over Holiday
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 6
Tuesday, December 27, 2022
Just Finished Rereading Insomnia by Stephen King
Back in the first decade of this century (the "Aughts") I was tearing through nearly all of Stephen King's books to date, both novels and collections. One of my favorites...the first time I read it...was his 1994 Insomnia, a story set in his imaginary, sinister Maine town of Derry, site of the events in his earlier tumultuous novel It but set in 1991, six years after that tale's climax. The protagonist is 70-year-old retiree Ralph Roberts, recently widowed and spending his time hanging out with the loose association of fellow elderly friends they collectively dub themselves "the Croaks". As the peculiar change in a younger friend, Ed Deepneau, shows him becoming a violent and dangerously delusional man, the issue of abortion takes center stage and Ed and Ralph's closest friends, Bill McGovern and Lois Chasse, become more and more prominent in the developing narrative. Ralph finds himself in the unsettling position of falling asleep at night easily enough...but he keeps rising out of bed fully awake earlier and earlier each morning until, eventually, he no longer sleeps. At the same time, he begins to see an enhanced hyperreality of auras and strange "people", among them three figures who seem to have both the power and duty designate who will be next to die. Eventually, a lot...maybe a little too much...gets explained as Ralph gets sucked into the monumental struggle that King covers much more deeply within his Dark Tower fantasy series. What appealed to me then...and now...about Insomnia was the attention that King paid to the elderly and their attitudes and concerns. This aspect of the novel gets magnified each time I reread it...this is my third, the last in 2017 (click HERE to read my review from then)...and I'm only four years removed now from Ralph Robert's age. Yet I have to admit that while I considered Insomnia in years gone by as a favorite, I didn't particularly enjoy it as much this time around...I never could get into Stephen King's Dark Tower universe although I read all seven core novels twice, as well as the associated Wind Through the Keyhole. King himself has been critical of this novel, earlier stating that it diverged from his usual writing pattern as he atypically outlined the story in advance...and the Dark Tower series itself seems to distance its narrative from that in Insomnia. But perhaps the most disturbing thing about this story is something that, if I bring it up, is bound to be a plot spoiler...so stop reading this article NOW and go no further if you're planning on reading Insomnia in the future. Still sticking around? Okay, here goes...
Sometimes when I watch certain movies and TV series, especially the ones dealing with crime and violent acts, I wonder whether the writers who dreamed up these fictional scenarios were aware of the many mentally or morally disturbed viewers who might take those ideas and copy them in real life. Insomnia has someone flying on a suicide mission in a plane with the intent of crashing it into a crowded building where a rally is going on. I wander what Stephen King felt seven years later on the morning of September 11, 2001, when this idea was implemented on a much more massive scale. Is there any concern felt by writers that the villains of this world might just adopt some of their material? Not that this sort of thing was original in Insomnia: it goes back to the desperate Japanese suicide kamikaze attacks against American ships during the final months of World War II. By the way, the excellent 1975 Robert Redford spy thriller Three Days of the Condor takes up this concern of life imitating fiction as well. Anyway, I've read Insomnia three times now...that's probably enough, especially considering all the other books out there waiting for me. But I still think that King did a wonderful job with his characters and his empathetic treatment of the elderly...
Monday, December 26, 2022
Constellations of the Month: Aries and Triangulum
Saturday, December 24, 2022
Merry Christmas
I think I'll take a couple of days off from this blog as I wish you and your family and friends a most Merry Christmas. Right now, as I am writing this the temperature here in Gainesville, Florida has climbed all the way up to 30 degrees...elsewhere in the eastern and central U.S. it is much colder with snow covering much of the land. No snow here, but for a lifelong Floridian this is definitely uncomfortable, and it's supposed to get to about 20 tonight. They say around the New Year, temperatures are supposed to be warmer than usual, but for me that's an awfully long wait. Again, Merry Christmas!
Friday, December 23, 2022
Quote of the Week...fron Neil deGrasse Tyson
While casting shade on Elon Musk for what he's done, is doing, or will do, try to pause and remember that he made electric cars a normal thing in society and he commercialized space...for cargo, satellites & people. Count him among those who are inventing civilization's future. ---Neil deGrasse Tyson
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Give Billy Napier the Time He Needs to Restore Winning Gator Football
I was just discussing with a coworker how he felt about University of Florida football head coach Billy Napier after his first season, going 6-7. We both agreed that Napier had replaced previous coach Dan Mullen because Mullen was perceived to have done poorly with his recruiting...basically, the team that Napier was forced to deal with in his first season was Mullen's product. The sports gurus who others think are knowledgeable about this sort of thing have just ranked the Gators as #12 in this year's recruiting, so maybe the new coach is performing as hoped. Only real games, starting next year, with reveal the trend as my friend and I feel inclined to give Napier the time he needs to build up a higher quality football team. After all, I reminded him, Charlie Pell went 0-9-1 in his first year coaching UF (1979). As for my expectations for Florida football, I don't expect a national championship or SEC conference title every year, but I do want them to at least be in contention for the title game late in the regular season and finish with a higher than 2:1 ratio with their win-loss record. If they accomplish that, then I'm happy...even if many of my prima donna fellow Gator fans aren't...
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 5
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
Podcaster Discusses Momentum
On his Mindset Mentor podcast yesterday, personal development coach Rob Dial brought up the subject of momentum. Giving the word picture example of getting a car moving from a still position, he stressed that getting started in anything can be an arduous task...even becoming more difficult after the initial actions...but that once it all is in motion, that is, the habits begin to set in more and more, it begins to pick up momentum, which provides positive feedback and encourages more effort. Then it is a matter of keeping with it and not interrupting the flow of your efforts, for once the car comes to a rest again, the whole process of getting it moving has to start from scratch. I think that sometimes we confuse taking necessary small breaks from an endeavor, or even just a little rest, with walking away from it "for a season"...that latter break has a tendency to be a momentum destroyer. Also, there is nothing like having people around you who see the intensity of your initial efforts in something as a kind of unhealthy fanaticism that must be curtailed and balanced...just contending with this kind of opposition can be discouraging: in my childhood I felt I was victim to this sort of negativity, with no recourse to the kind of personal boundary-setting that folks like Dial like to suggest. But even without outside interference, it can be imposing to get started moving that "car" along, and not only that, but you're more likely to see how immense your undertaking is once you're finally moving down the road, with the possible inclination to put on the momentum-destroying brakes...
Monday, December 19, 2022
Interesting Winter Weather Hitting Gainesville as Christmas Approaches
Looks like an unusually wet and cold upcoming week in Gainesville as Christmas on Sunday approaches. Whenever precipitation is forecast and the temperature is below freezing, the obvious inference is that it's gonna snow...such is the case this coming Friday, two days before the big holiday. All I know is that in the next few days we're going to get a lot of water...in whatever form...falling from the skies and plummeting temperatures as the weekend approaches. At last glimpse The Weather Channel has Christmas day's high in my hometown here in northern Florida at 45, bracketed with lows in the 20's. My main concern in all this...and perhaps yours as well...will be potentially icy roads: hardly anyone here, including myself, is prepared to handle driving over them. The last time that happened in Gainesville to any substantial degree was just before Christmas in 1989 when roads iced up overnight. I was at work in the downtown post office in the wee hours of the morning and after my shift spent several minutes trying to clear my car's windshield of the thick ice. Then the treacherous 6-mile drive home...I managed to make it nearly into my own neighborhood before the car began briefly to skid on the frozen road. And then it began to snow in earnest while icicles formed all around my house. Nothing like that has happened here since...until possibly this coming Christmas weekend. Should be interesting...
Sunday, December 18, 2022
Just Finished Reading Starry Messenger by Neil deGrasse Tyson
I've previously read two other books by astrophysicist and popularizer of science Neil deGrasse Tyson: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry and Cosmic Queries (cowritten with physicist James Trefil)...click on the titles to read my reviews. Starry Messenger, just out, is the latest in a string of popular science books by Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and Carl Sagan's long-time replacement as narrator of the recurring Cosmos TV series. As in other books of his, he presents a diverse set of perspectives in science and society, this time claiming a special perspective from the viewpoint of space, looking down at our planet. In everything he extols objective truth, as opposed to the highly subjective personal and political truths so many of us adhere to, and also claims for it a kind of transcendent aesthetic beauty that enhances, not diminishes, what the subject of focus is. Then he goes on to discuss how scale...the extremely fast/slow, large/small and distant...can distort our perceptions of reality. Tribalism, a subject that I only sadly know too much of from my own life experiences, gets the Tyson treatment: seems we're in the same "tribe" on the subject. How people like to label themselves these days goes beyond ethnic, national, religious and socioeconomic distinctions...sexual identity and even the ethic of being a vegetarian versus eating meat come into play and are subject to, well, subjectivity. Finally, the author discusses the highly subjective nature of race, law and order, presenting as a whole a smorgasbord of topics under the perspective of seeing us from "above", either in a literal or figurative sense. Since I tend to see eye-to-eye with Neil deGrasse Tyson, I suppose this is an instance of reading for the sake of picking up talking points, rather than to have my eyes opened to a differing perspective that would challenge my beliefs. I enjoyed Starry Messenger...maybe you will, too...
Saturday, December 17, 2022
Overslept for Depot Parkrun 5K This Morning, Checked the Park Out Later
Friday, December 16, 2022
Quote of the Week...from Ludwig van Beethoven
The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly about how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius appears as a distant, guiding sun. ---Ludwig van Beethoven
Thursday, December 15, 2022
Artemis I Successfully Returns, Future Lunar Missions Scheduled
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 4
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Comments about Football and Football
In football, the Sunday night national stage...which has pretty much supplanted the famed Monday Night Football spotlight of decades earlier, "my" Miami Dolphins were in the spotlight as they were finally in a featured game, this one on the road against the "Los Angeles" Chargers. I put that location in quotes because I still think of them as belonging to San Diego. It seems that ever since they went into general decline following Jimmy Johnson's retirement as head coach after the 1999 season, Miami has been pushed to the background with network sports attention, only getting coverage when something negative is going on. But this year they are doing better in the standings with first year head coach Mike McDaniel being heralded as some king of genius (they say it, I don't) and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa seeming to hit his stride, with star receivers Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill beginning to resemble Dan Marino's famed receivers of the past, Mark Clayton and Mark Duper. NBC sports announcer Chris Collinsworth even went so far before the game to proclaim the Dolphins as Super Bowl bound...ha, ha, ha, I'll believe it when I see it! True to form, the Dolphins, already known for being a poor road team on the Pacific Coast, quickly fell behind to the Chargers as Tua seemed to choke up earlier under all the media focus and the highly touted Dolphins defense found itself full of holes for San Diego Los Angeles to run right through. Still, they nearly pulled the game out but now have lost two in a row, with a difficult road contest against Buffalo next week...
As for the other "football", that is, the sport that most of the world gives this designation, the men's World Cup soccer semifinals are set to be played: Argentina vs. Croatia at 1 pm today and France vs. Morocco tomorrow at the same time. The overwhelming consensus has Argentina and France winning to play each other in the finale on December 18th. I've written before about begin bummed out over excessive nationalism in sports, so I haven't been giving all this hoopla much coverage...or thought, for that matter. I like more to watch different leagues play, most notably the English Premier League and Mexico's Liga MX with my favorite teams in them Leicester City and UANL Tigres, respectively. On the league level, different teams hire their players across national borders and usually aren't so hung up about national divisions, the opposite of what happens with this highly politicized World Cup scene. Since I happen to like Lionel Messi, I'm going to root for his Argentina team to win it all, but otherwise I couldn't care less about this tournament of nationalism and waving flags...
Monday, December 12, 2022
Just Finished Reading It by Stephen King
Sunday, December 11, 2022
My #1 All-Time Favorite Album: Led Zeppelin IV
LED ZEPPELIN IV, my #1 all-time favorite album, came out in 1971 although I didn't hear all eight of its tracks for another nineteen years until the British hard rock band produced its first box set and my local rock station, WRUF-FM "Rock 104", played it in its entirety to my amazement. What a group, and what an album, with guitarist wizard Jimmy Page doing his riffs and studio production, Robert Plant's soulful singing (and harmonica), John Paul Jones on bass guitar and keyboards and the late John Bonham pounding out the drums. The album is technically untitled, but everyone pretty much refers to it as "Led Zeppelin Four". My initial exposure to it was during my teens with the playing of the opening track Black Dog and then Stairway to Heaven on the radio...the former I never did care for while I became obsessed with the latter in the fall of 1973 as a strong consensus of its greatness had spread throughout the rock listening community. During this time and subsequent years, I would also hear songs like Rock and Roll, Misty Mountain Hop, Going to California and When the Levee Breaks on FM album rock radio without taking much notice of them. But in late 1990 I was ready for their music and the impact of that box set, along with the advent of stations nightly playing Led Zeppelin music at set times, converted me into a die-hard fan, ten years after they broke up following Bonham's death. Although Stairway to Heaven was on Side One, it was the album's second side with four striking tracks that has elevated Led Zeppelin IV to be my favorite one for all-time. Below I have its tracks listed by order of my liking, with a little commentary thrown in...
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Ran Depot Park's Free Saturday Morning 5K Today
Friday, December 9, 2022
Quote of the Week...from Mark Twain
Thursday, December 8, 2022
"Aught" We to Stop Referring to Decades?
Dr. Rick, the dude on the Progressive insurance commercials who has committed his efforts to helping young adults to stop acting like their parents, has one less item to work on. The tendency for baby boomers like me to group decades together from the previous century (Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties) came to an abrupt wall with the advent of the twenty-first. The opening decade of this century is technically called the "Aughts", but I kind of like to use "Zeros" although nobody really uses either term...or even any name at all for this crucial span of time. Lots of neat stuff happened in my life during this period, and significant events (like the 2000 election, 9/11, the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars, the Christmas tsunami, Katrina, Obama's election) occurred...but the Good Doctor has yet to feel any need to dissuade straying young'uns from grouping it all together as a decade. No, young and old alike seem to have a mental block about time once the calendar shifted over from "19" to "20". You might think then that once 2010 came around than at least, at that time, folks would resume with the decade talk, calling it the beginning of the "Teens"...but nothing doing. And now, deep into the Twenties, I had yet to hear any such reference to the times we live in, with most people I imagine thinking more of the roaring 1920s when the term does come up instead with the associations of Prohibition, silent flicks and Calvin Coolidge. Are we truly finished with the decades talk? I've heard references made to the "2000s", but as far as I'm concerned, that term covers every year in this century, not just the first decade...
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
Weekly Short Stories: 1988 Science Fiction, Part 3
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Florida Gators Get Bowl Bid, But Without Season's Starting QB
The University of Florida football team somehow managed to finish their 2022 season bowl eligible, with a 6-6 record reflecting erratic performances. They surprised the football world early on with an upset 29-26 opening day win over favored Utah...the Utes went on to win their Pacific-12 Conference championship. And they delivered impressive 41-24 and 38-6 wins over Texas A&M and South Carolina, respectively...the latter went on to upset Clemson. But the Gators also went flat in other games, nearly losing to a very weak South Florida team and actually bowing to lowly Vanderbilt. First-year coach Billy Napier gets the customary rookie season pass on the 2022 edition's efforts. After all, one of the chief criticisms of previous head coach Dan Mullen was that he was coming up short with recruitment...the real season for Florida football is about to begin as "Billy Ball 2.0" is set to go into high gear...will our new coach be another Billy Donovan? Only time will tell. But first they have one more game in '22: the Las Vegas Bowl in that Nevada entertainment city on December 17th against an exciting Oregon State team that just recently knocked cross-state rival Oregon out of Pac-12 contention with a massive come-from-behind victory. Since Florida's talented, but inconsistent quarterback Anthony Richardson has decided to enter the NFL draft, they will be hard pressed in that position...apparently many transfer and draft decisions are depleting other football rosters in advance of the upcoming bowl games. Still, I'm looking forward to the Las Vegas Bowl, which will air on ABC at 7:30...and it will be on a Saturday, so I'll most likely be off from work then...
Monday, December 5, 2022
Podcaster Talks Again about the "Hundred Days"
On his Mindset Mentor podcast, personal development coach Rob Dial tends to recycle the same topics over the course of time. That's good...there's such a thing as being all over the map and disjointed with your message: better to keep it to a few profound principles. Last December he had a show about the "hundred days"...the other day he discussed it again. In a nutshell, Dial maintains that the key to success crucially depends on maintaining consistency in an area...and doing something daily for one hundred straight days is a good way to attain it. As with the other podcast on this topic, he brought up the example of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who maintained that he kept the habit of coming up with a set amount of new material each and every day...and marking his progress on a big calendar. So according to Dial (and Seinfeld), you first pick a specific endeavor...not too cumbersome...to habituate yourself to doing, preferably one that if implemented could make a real positive difference for you. Then you do it every day for a hundred straight days, refusing to give in to pressure from without or negative self-talk from within to take "days off". And finally, RECORD your progress, either on a Seinfeld-styled calendar or in a journal. Oh, and Rob Dial strongly hints that it's best to work on one thing at a time for the hundred days. I don't know which aspect of this is more difficult: coming up with one high-leverage goal or realizing the enormous number of things I want to change for myself. I think it's a good idea, in any case. I've done this sort of thing already although not according to any formula, and it works...
Sunday, December 4, 2022
My #2 All-Time Favorite Album: Revolver by the Beatles
Ever since REVOLVER by THE BEATLES...my all-time #2 favorite album...came out in 1966 and my parents promptly purchased a copy, I've liked it and the great variety of music on it. I wouldn't discover until many years later, though, that the version sold in the United States, as opposed to the original marketed in Britain and elsewhere, was diminished in what it offered. Three tracks...I'm Only Sleeping, And Your Bird Can Sing, and Doctor Robert, were missing in "our" version, having been placed on an America-only patched together album titled Yesterday and Today that was released earlier in '66 (I was nine going on ten at the time) ...my mom and dad quickly snapped that one up, too. When CDs came out, the record industry bosses decided to just use the more complete British version of Revolver, which I am naturally totally okay with. Every one of the fourteen tracks on it are good, although over the course of the 56 years I've heard it they've varied as to which are my favorites. Back then while I was growing up, I tended to prefer the last two tracks of the album, Paul's Got to Get You into My Life and John's Tomorrow Never Knows...although my parents disliked the latter and never did buy a subsequent Beatles album. Revolver came out just as the Beatles had finished a harrowing world tour and had decided to stop performing live and just produce studio albums instead. The next album would be the somewhat pretentious Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, still an all-time favorite of mine. But Revolver stayed true to the tried-and-true formula that had vaulted the Fab Four to fame and fortune...although its opening track Taxman, a George Harrison piece, strongly insinuates that it was the British government with its excessive taxation that has profited from their success the most. "Back then" I preferred Side Two with those two aforementioned songs along with the melancholy Paul piano-and-horn piece For No One. Now, though, I kind of dig the Harrison contributions, especially the heavily Indian music-influenced Love You To. Below I have the album's fourteen tracks rearranged into the order of my own personal preference, with the principal singer and songwriter (with the exception of Yellow Submarine, sung by Ringo but written by Paul and John) following the title...
Saturday, December 3, 2022
Watching College Football Conference Championship Games Today
Friday, December 2, 2022
Quote of the Week...from George Santayana
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ---George Santayana
Thursday, December 1, 2022
My November 2022 Running and Walking Report
In November my running increased, with walking staying pretty much the same...with the former, it's something I need to intentionally do while the latter just comes about naturally over the course of my day. I ran on every day of the month and participated in two races, the Tom Walker Memorial Half Marathon on the 6th and the Depot Parkrun on the 12th. With the half-marathon, held on the Hawthorne Trail just southeast of Gainesville, the temperature/humidity combination was an unhealthy 70s/90s and I had to resort to long walking breaks during the last half of the race. A week later the shorter 5K was held under cooler conditions...no problem there. I had thought of running in yet another race, the Cupcake Half-Marathon on the 20th and also on the Hawthorne Trail...but originating in the town of Hawthorne. But it was forecast to rain that morning, and I steered clear of it. On Saturday, December 10th...once again on that dang-blasted Hawthorne Trail will be still another race, this one the Tyler's Hope 5K/15K dual event held to raise awareness and money to combat dystonia. I've run their 15K race twice before, the last time in 2019 before Covid shut everything down for a while. Once again, the weather will be a factor on whether I enter it or not...I plan to check the forecasts attentively. It's generally been warmer and muggier for this time of year...although I complain on race morning if the temperature is in the 30s or 40s, the races go much better under those conditions, which are also usually accompanied by lower humidity. I intend to continue my daily training in any case...
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
Reading List Authors A-C
BEFORE THEY ARE HANGED 9-22-18
THE LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS 12-20-18
Abraham, Daniel THE DRAGON’S PATH 10-30-14
THE KING’S BLOOD 2-7-15
THE TYRANT’S LAW 3-7-15
THE WIDOW’S HOUSE 3-27-15
l THE SPIDER’S WAR 4-23-16
Abrahams, Peter BULLET POINT 6-4-19
Acuff, Jon FINISH 6-11-21
START 6-24-21
DO OVER 7-3-21
Adams, Richard WATERSHIP DOWN 2-19-18
Alcott, Louisa May LITTLE WOMEN 6-4-17
Alexie, Sherman THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN 1-12-19
Asimov, Isaac THE STARS, LIKE DUST 1-28-14
PEBBLE IN THE SKY 2-3-14
FOUNDATION 8-19-15*
FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE 8-29-15*
SECOND FOUNDATION 9-11-15*
PRELUDE TO FOUNDATION 9-19-15
FOUNDATION’S EDGE 10-5—15*
FOUNDATION AND EARTH 10-18-15*
NEMESIS 1-7-18
THE END OF ETERNITY 7-2-19
FORWARD THE FOUNDATION 7-18-19
THE GODS THEMSELVES 5-23-20
Austen, Jane PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 12-6-14
Austen, Jane EMMA 6-25-16
Baldacci, David DIVINE JUSTICE 12-27-13
THE COLLECTORS 1-11-14
ONE SUMMER 6-4-18
DELIVER US FROM EVIL 8-4-18
Baldwin, James IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK 5-20-21
Bardugo, Leigh NINTH HOUSE 12-14-19
Barry, Kevin BEATLEBONE 1-11-19
Baum, L. Frank THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ 10-8-18
THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ 1-28-19
OZMA OF OZ 2-11-19
DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD IN OZ 2-11-19
THE ROAD TO OZ 3-12-19
THE EMERALD CITY OF OZ 3-12-19
Beaton, M.C. DEATH OF A BORE 1-19-14
Bellow, Saul HERZOG 10-16-15
THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH 8-12-17
HUMBOLDT’S GIFT 8-28-17
Berendt, John MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL 2-26-19
Berg, Elizabeth TAPESTRY OF FORTUNES 5-22-17
Blish, James VOR 8-7-17
Boehner, John ON THE HOUSE 6-14-21
Bowman, Akemi Dawn SUMMER BIRD BLUE 4-24-21
Bradbury, Ray FAREWELL SUMMER 11-16-14
Bronte, Charlotte JANE EYRE 9-24-16
Bronte, Emily WUTHERING HEIGHTS 11-19-14
Brooks, Terry THE SWORD OF SHANNARA 12-18-18
THE ELFSTONES OF SHANNARA 1-3-19
THE WISHSONG OF SHANNARA 1-19-19
Brown, Eleanor THE LIGHT OF PARIS 3-10-18
Brown, Jeff FLAT STANLEY 2-27-21
Buck, Pearl S. THE GOOD EARTH 4-4-15
Butcher, Jim FURIES OF CALDERON 1-7-20
ACADEM’S FURY 1-21-20
CURSOR’S FURY 2-6-20
CAPTAIN’S FURY 3-1-20
THE PRINCEP’S FURY 3-28-20
FIRST LORD’S FURY 4-16-20
Card, Orson Scott ENDER’S GAME 8-20-16
Carr, Caleb THE ALIENIST 6-21-21
Cather, Willa MY ANTONIA 8-27-18
Cervantes, Miguel de DON QUIXOTE 2-29-16
Chesterton, G.K. THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY: A NIGHTMARE 7-23-18
Chilton, Ski THE REWIRED BRAIN 9-15-20
Christie, Agatha DEATH IN THE CLOUDS 6-23-18
SAD CYPRESS 4-25-19
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS 7-30-19
THE SECRET ADVERSARY 8-6-19
MURDER ON THE LINKS 8-20-19
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE TRAIN 9-28-19
THEY DO IT WITH MIRRORS 3-15-21
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE 6-7--21
Clare, Cassandra CITY OF BONES 4-13-19
CITY OF ASHES 4-22-19
CITY OF GLASS 5-6-19
Clark, Mary Higgins NIGHTTIME IS MY TIME 3-26-08
A CRY IN THE NIGHT 1-6-19
THE MELODY LINGERS ON 2-13-21
JUST TAKE MY HEART 7-5-21
Clarke, Arthur C. & Pohl, Frederick THE LAST THEOREM 12-26-15
Clarke, Suzanna JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL 5-11-15
Coelho, Paulo THE ALCHEMIST 5-7-21
Colfer, Eoin ARTEMIS FOWL (1st 3 books) 2-12-18*
Collins, Suzanne THE HUNGER GAMES 5-27-14
CATCHING FIRE 6-24-14
MOCKINGJAY 7-3-14
THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES 11-8-20
GREGOR THE OVERLANDER 11-21-20
GREGOR AND THE PROPHECY OF BANE 12-15-20
GREGOR AND THE CURSE OF THE WARMBLOODS 2-12-21
GREGOR AND THE MARKS OF SECRET 3-13-21
GREGOR AND THE CODE OF CLAW 3-22-21
Collins, Wilkie THE WOMAN IN WHITE 12-18-16
Condie, Ally ATLANTIA 4-10-17
Connelly, Michael THE LINCOLN LAWYER 1-24-14
Conrad, Joseph HEART OF DARKNESS 3-5-15
Cook, Robin PANDEMIC 4-21-20
Cornwell, Patricia AT RISK 5-9-14
Coulter, Catherine THE COVE 9-12-14
THE MAZE 9-12-14
Craig, Erin A. HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS 11-1-20
Crichton, Michael STATE OF FEAR 3-22-09