Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I tend to wander through the non-fiction audio section of my library's Overdrive and tag books that I might enjoy listening to while I do my daily walks. This was one of those selections, an excellent choice for walking.   Title: Surfacing Author: Kathleen Jamie. Read by Cathleen McCarron Publication Info: Books on Tape, 2019, 6h 45 min. Original hardback, 2019, Sort of Books, 240 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: An immersive exploration of time and place in a shrinking world, from the award-winning author of Sightlines. In this remarkable blend of memoir, cultural history, and travelogue, poet and author Kathleen Jamie touches points on a timeline spanning millennia, and considers what surfaces and what reconnects us to our past. From the thawing tundra linking a Yup'ik village in Alaska to its hunter-gatherer past to the shifting sand dunes revealing the impressively preserved homes of neolithic farmers in Scotland, Jamie explores how the changing natural

I'm headed to the Bears Ears National Monument in a few weeks, so I figured I should do some more reading about the area. It's not new history to me, but a refresher never hurts, and many details were new. Title: The Bears Ears: A Human History of America's Most Endangered Wilderness Author: David Roberts Publication Info: 2021, W.W. Norton. 336 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: The Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, created by President Obama in 2016 and eviscerated by the Trump administration in 2017, contains more archaeological sites than any other region in the United States. It’s also a spectacularly beautiful landscape, a mosaic of sandstone canyons and bold mesas and buttes. This wilderness, now threatened by oil and gas drilling, unrestricted grazing, and invasion by Jeep and ATV, is at the center of the greatest environmental battle in America since the damming of the Colorado River to create Lake Powell in the 1950s. In The

I guess this is classified as Young Adult? Who cares--anything Pratchett wrote is worth reading. And more YA lit should be like this: long on thought, short on romance.     Title: Nation Author: Terry Pratchett. Read by Stephen Briggs Publication Info: Harper Collins, 2008, 9.5 hours. (367 pages in hardback). Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: Alone on a desert island — everything and everyone he knows and loves has been washed away in a storm — Mau is the last surviving member of his nation. He’s completely alone — or so he thinks until he finds the ghost girl. She has no toes, wears strange lacy trousers like the grandfather bird, and gives him a stick that can make fire. Daphne, sole survivor of the wreck of the Sweet Judy, almost immediately regrets trying to shoot the native boy. Thank goodness the powder was wet and the gun only produced a spark. She’s certain her father, distant cousin of the Royal family, will come and rescue her but it seems, for now, that all she

My sifting through the history audio books at the library (Overdrive) brought me this at times painful read about US submarines in WWII.   Title: The War Below: The Story of Three Submarines that Battled Japan Author: James Scott. Read by Donald Corren Publication Info: Simon & Schuster/Blackstone Audio, 2013. 448 p. hardback, 14 hrs 20 min. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: The riveting story of the submarine force that helped win World War II by ravaging Japan's merchant fleet and destroying its economy The War Below is a dramatic account of extraordinary heroism, ingenuity, and perseverance—and the vital role American submarines played in winning the Pacific War. Focusing on the unique stories of the submarines Silversides, Drum, and Tang—and the men who skippered and crewed them—James Scott takes readers beneath the waves to experience the thrill of a direct hit on a merchant ship and the terror of depth charge attacks. It's a story filled with incredible

Teddy Roosevelt and saving our public lands.   Title: Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt's American Wilderness Author: David Gessner Publication Info: Simon Schuster, 2020. 352 pages hardback; 12.5 hours audio. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: “Leave it as it is,” Theodore Roosevelt announced while viewing the Grand Canyon for the first time. “The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.” Roosevelt’s rallying cry signaled the beginning of an environmental fight that still wages today. To reconnect with the American wilderness and with the president who courageously protected it, acclaimed nature writer and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner embarks on a great American road trip guided by Roosevelt’s crusading environmental legacy. Gessner travels to the Dakota badlands where Roosevelt awakened as a naturalist; to Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon where Roosevelt escaped during the grind of his reelection tour;

Reviewing this fascinating memoir today. Title: The Electricity of Every Living Thing: A Woman's Walk in the Wild to Find Her Way Home Author: Katherine May Publication Info: Trapeze, 2018. 285 pages (Kindle edition) Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: In anticipation of her 38th birthday, Katherine May set out to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path. She wanted time alone, in nature, to understand why she had stopped coping with everyday life; why motherhood had been so overwhelming and isolating; and why the world felt full of expectations she couldn’t meet. She was also reeling from a chance encounter with a voice on the radio that sparked her realisation that she might be autistic. And so begins a trek along the ruggedly beautiful but difficult path by the sea that takes readers through the alternatingly frustrating, funny, and enlightening experience of re-awakening to the world around us… The Electricity of Every Living Thing sees Katherine come to terms w

A simultaneously slightly absurd and frightenly real story of WWII, for kids 8 and up.   Title: Island of Spies Author: Sheila Turnage Publication Info: Dial Books, 2022. 384 pages. Source: Library digital resources. Publisher's Blurb: Twelve-year-old Stick Lawson lives on Hatteras Island, North Carolina, where life moves steady as the tides, and mysteries abound as long as you look really hard for them. Stick and her friends Rain and Neb are good at looking hard. They call themselves the Dime Novel Kids. And the only thing Stick wants more than a paying case for them to solve is the respect that comes with it. But on Hatteras, the tides are changing. World War II looms, curious newcomers have appeared on the small island, and in the waters off its shores, a wartime menace lurks that will upend Stick's life and those of everyone she loves. The Dimes are about to face more mysteries than they ever could have wished for, and risk more than they ever could have imagi

  Murder of Pearl: A Silverman Sisters Cozy Mystery (Pearl Party Cozy Mysteries) by Nellie H. Steele   About Murder of Pearl Murder of Pearl: A Silverman Sisters Cozy Mystery (Pearl Party Cozy Mysteries) Cozy Mystery 1st in Series Setting – Fictional estate of Willow Lake Estate A Novel Idea Publishing, LLC (October 21, 2022) Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 182 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1951582780 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1951582784 Paperback ‏ : ‎ 202 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1951582675 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1951582678 Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B5Y497HD The world’s her oyster…until someone is stabbed with her shucking knife.   With a struggling pearl party business, sisters Kelly and Jodi Silverman are thrilled to land a weekend long jewelry party at a large estate. But the gothic house, complete with its weeping woman fountain, gives Kelly a bad vibe.   A nasty storm strands them at the spooky mansion. And when the birthday gal is found with Kelly’s shucking knife poking fro

I'm doing a two-fer here, reviewing Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna and The Other Side of the River together, since having read the first I went and jumped right into the second.      Title: Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna and The Other Side of the River Author: Alda P. Dobbs Publication Info: 2021 and 2022 by Sourcebooks. As ebooks, 264 pages and 242 pages respectively Source: Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb (Barefoot Dreams): It is 1913, and twelve-year-old Petra Luna's mama has died while the Revolution rages in Mexico. Before her papa is dragged away by soldiers, Petra vows to him that she will care for the family she has left―her abuelita, little sister Amelia, and baby brother Luisito―until they can be reunited. They flee north through the unforgiving desert as their town burns, searching for safe harbor in a world that offers none. Each night when Petra closes her eyes, she holds her dreams close, especially her long-held desire to learn to read. A

  Title: A Quick and Easy Guide to Asexuality Author: Molly Muldoon and Will Hernandez Publication Info: Limerence Press, 2022. 72 Pages. Source: Library digital collection Publisher's Blurb: Asexuality is often called The Invisible Orientation. You don’t learn about it in school, you don’t hear “ace” on television. So, it’s kinda hard to be ace in a society so steeped in sex that no one knows you exist. Too many young people grow up believing that their lack of sexual desire means they are broken – so writer Molly Muldoon and cartoonist Will Hernandez, both in the ace community, are here to shed light on society’s misconceptions of asexuality and what being ace is really like. This book is for anyone who wants to learn about asexuality, and for Ace people themselves, to validate their experiences. Asexuality is a real identity and it’s time the world recognizes it. Here’s to being invisible no more! My Review: I picked this book up because I have recently had my attenti

  Title: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest Author:  Wade Davis, read by Enn Reitel Publication Info: Random House Audio, 2011, 29 hours. Original hardback, Knopf Canada, 2011, 672 pages. Source: Library (Overdrive) Publisher's Blurb: If the quest for Mount Everest began as a grand imperial gesture, as redemption for an empire of explorers that had lost the race to the Poles, it ended as a mission of regeneration for a country and a people bled white by war. Of the twenty-six British climbers who, on three expeditions (1921-24), walked 400 miles off the map to find and assault the highest mountain on Earth, twenty had seen the worst of the fighting. Six had been severely wounded, two others nearly died of disease at the Front, one was hospitalized twice with shell shock. Three as army surgeons dealt for the duration with the agonies of the dying. Two lost brothers, killed in action. All had endured the slaughter, the coughing of the gun