When friends of mine invited us to a picnic at Jack London State Historic Park I realized that I'd never read anything by the famous author. I grabbed the eBook of "The Call of the Wild" from the SF public library and read it last Sunday afternoon. It was great!

The story is told from the point-of-view of a large dog, Buck, kidnapped from his home in California and taken to work as a sled dog in gold-rush Alaska. Jack London believably captures what might be the thoughts of a dog in such a situation, while also giving an interesting perspective on life in the north during the gold rush.

Timothy Zahn is best known for his "Heir to the Empire" trilogy of books that served as the official sequel trilogy to the original three Star Wars movies until Lucasfilm "de-canonized" them. The books are still near-and-dear to the hearts of many fans as well as to many members of the Lucasfilm story group. This is evident in the resurrection in recent "canon" works of the main villain of the books, Grand Admiral Thrawn.

That resurrection is completed with this book, which brings Zahn back to write an official, canon, origin story for this amazing character.

I liked the book, but it's not exactly high literature. I'm pretty sure that anyone who might enjoy it already plans to read it and doesn't need to read my recommendation.

I can't remember what pointed me to this book, but the concept intrigued me so I bought the e-version. Peter Temin is an economist at MIT and argues that America has regressed to a dual economy situation closely resembling that of many nations in the developing world. In such a situation a minority of the population has access to advanced education, health care, housing, and employment while the majority suffers with substantially worse versions of these necessities of life.

Temin further argues that not only does a minority of America's citizens have access to the "good life" but that that same minority (especially the upper 1%) actively work to prevent the advancement of the underclass majority through control of the political system.

Each section and chapter rigorously cites other studies and focuses on pointing out facts rather than drawing concrete conclusions. However the presentation leaves little doubt to the reader what such conclusions would be. Not only is America severely broken, but the breakage was intentional and motivated by a combination of racism and blind greed. It's hard to disagree with the mountain of statistics, studies, and anecdotes. The discussion of education vs. incarceration was particularly horrifying.

It's been a while since a book left me so cold and horrified.

Earlier this Spring Sarah had to go to Amsterdam and London on business and so I tagged along, spending some time working out of the ILM London offices. It was a great combination of personal and professional adventure! Read more here.