Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller

A Story of Loss, Love and the Hidden Order of Life

Great book.

One thread is the astonishing story of David Starr Jordan, Stanford University’s first president, a leading scientist of his day.

Did he murder Jane Stanford, wife of the University founder?

More interesting to me was the life story of the author, intertwined with her research into this obscure topic. Lulu Miller is hilarious.

One awful thread is the fact that the USA was the first nation to legislate eugenics. Forced sterilization was the law in 32 U.S. states, and actually inspired Hitler.

AND there’s the fact new to me that … Fish Don’t Exist.

Read the National Book Review.

Christmas dinner – the MOVIE

Yvonne and Rob hosted Christmas dinner 2020. AND served up the same meal for Boxing Day.

We all agreed, leftovers are even tastier than the original. 😀

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Christmas Eve dinner in Parksville has evolved into an annual burger bash.

Prime Rib with  Portobello mushroom

Merry Christmas from Parksville

It’s coming up to 9 months I’ve been living at my parent’s place in Parksville on Vancouver Island.

A lovely part of the world.

Parksville firefighters rescuing Santa 😀

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Fairytale of New York

The bittersweet Christmas song reinvented.

Cameron Barnes & Blythe Duff (Feat. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Cameron Barnes roped in veteran actor Blythe Duff, best known for her role in Taggart, and bagpipe supergroup the Red Hot Chilli Pipers for his version of the hit.

The song is transformed from two lovers arguing to one of a son calling his mother over the festive season. …

Barnes, who is from Methil in Fife, was inspired to reimagine the tune due to controversy over radio stations “censoring” some of the lyrics from Fairytale of New York, which was originally sung by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.

Courier

Thanks Rockin’.

The Last Mile by David Baldacci

I kind of enjoyed Memory Man, the first book in the Amos Decker series.

Happily, I enjoyed Last Mile, 2nd in the series, more. Interesting and entertaining. Though it bogged down towards the end.

Decker is 6′ 5″ and an obese 350 lbs.

He has perfect memory.

Convicted murderer Melvin Mars is counting down the last hours before his execution–for the violent killing of his parents twenty years earlier–when he’s granted an unexpected reprieve. Another man has confessed to the crime.

Amos Decker, newly hired on an FBI special task force, takes an interest in Mars’s case after discovering the striking similarities to his own life: Both men were talented football players with promising careers cut short by tragedy. Both men’s families were brutally murdered. And in both cases, another suspect came forward, years after the killing, to confess to the crime. A suspect who may or may not have been telling the truth. …

Last Mile

The audio book has two narrators. That normally doesn’t work for me. And it didn’t work this time.

Click PLAY or watch an interview on YouTube. Baldacci writes more books / year than just about anyone.

I Hear the Sirens in the Street – Adrian McKinty

Excellent.

#2 in the Sean Duffy series set in northern Ireland.

Sean Duffy knows there’s no such thing as a perfect crime.

But a torso in a suitcase is pretty close.

Still, one tiny clue is all it takes, and there it is. A tattoo.

This book is set during the Falklands War 1982. Duffy gets involved with the John DeLorean cocaine trafficking scandal. Recall the doomed DeLorean Motor Company set up in Belfast,  Northern Ireland to reduce sectarian violence. Create jobs.

This was during The Troubles.

Listen to the Audible version so you can enjoy the Irish accents.

Bletchley Circle – seasons 1 & 2

The Bletchley Circle is a television mystery drama miniseries, set in 1952–53, about four women who worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park during WW II.

Seven years after the war’s end, disappointed with police not investigating complex crimes, the women join to investigate for themselves.

It’s quite charming.

A sequel took the ladies to San Francisco.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.