Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

This one comes out of the "random audiobooks on historical/science/nature topics" file.     Title: Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner,and an Gentleman Solve the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail Author: Stephen R. Bown Publisher : Phoenix Books, Inc., 2007, 8 hours. Original hardback published 2003 by Viking, 256 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (from Overdrive) : A lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of 18th century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era. The cure for scurvy ranks among the greatest of military successes, yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored. Stephen Bown, in this engaging and often gripping book, searches back to the earliest recorded appearance of scurvy in the 16th century, to the 18th century, when the disease was at its gum-shred, bone-snapping worst, to the early 19th century, when the preventative was finally put into service. Bown introduces us,

Another book I picked up from the fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop  hosted by Greg Pattrige of Always in the Middle . Check out his blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.     Title : Chasing Helicity Author: Ginger Zee Publication Info: Disney Hyperion, 2018. 204 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads): Helicity is well aware that her name is unusual - kind of like Helicity herself. The word Helicity means to spin, and for as long as she can remember, Helicity has been fascinated by the weather. The weather is Helicity's escape from her own reality - may that be school, her father's strict discipline, or her brother's imminent departure for college where he's all set to play football. One fateful day, Helicity and her horse head out on a long ride to take a break from life at home. Even with her vast experience with weather, Helicity is unprepared for the elements she faces. The choices Helicity makes before,

I was going to share photos today from my April backpack in Grand Gulch, but I realized there were too many fun shots from the roadtrip parts of the journey, so I'm starting there. On April 15 I left Seattle, headed to southern Utah via Salt Lake City airport, where I picked up my friend Gretchen. We had a half day extra before meeting other friends to backpack, so we visited Little Wild Horse Canyon, a beautiful slot canyon where I was very careful not to hurt myself.* *See report from last year on my spring trip to Utah . On the Road I do love me a good road trip. Leaving Seattle in the dregs of winter and heading into the Canyon Country is a special bonus. Made it over the Cascades with only a few snow flurries, and could enjoy a look back at snow-covered mountains and interesting lenticular clouds. Rest stops can be interesting. I was intrigued by the truck they had to invent in order to transport windmill vanes to the wind farms. I camped the first night in a state park in Ore

 I'm not ordinarily a huge fan of books in verse. This one will have to be an exception.     Title: Louder Than Hunger Author: John Schu Publication info: Candlewick Press 2024. 528 pages Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: (Goodreads)  Revered teacher, librarian, and story ambassador John Schu explores anorexia—and self-expression as an act of survival—in a wrenching and transformative novel-in-verse. But another voice inside me says, We need help. We’re going to die. Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish him

Hard to believe, but my account of the Great African Adventure is nearly complete! This visit to Victoria Falls should finish it up. But don't despair--I have more photos to share from adventures enjoyed since getting home! The other posts from my Africa trip are: Arusha , Tarangire National Park , South Serengeti Part 1 , South Serengeti Part 2 ,  the rest of the Serengeti tour ,  Ngorogoro Crater ,  Mt. Meru , Mt. Kenya, Part 1 , Mt. Kenya, Part 2 ,  Kenya Safari Part 1 , and Kenya Safari Part 2 .     When we finished our second safari (the Kenya version), we had just one more plan before heading back to the States: a visit to the world's largest waterfall.  Located on the Zambezi River, which at this point in its long course divides the nations of Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls is more than a mile wide--making it one of the largest in the world by width, though it is exceeded by many in both height and volume of water. One feature that struck me, however, was the nature

Important stuff, but hard to hear. Title: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Author: Bill McKibben. Ready by Olivery Wyman Publication Info: Macmillan Audio 2019. 11 hours. Hardback by Henry Holt & Co., 291 pages. Source: Library Blurb: (Goodreads): Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself out. Bill McKibben’s groundbreaking book The End of Nature -- issued in dozens of languages and long regarded as a classic -- was the first book to alert us to global warming. But the danger is broader than that: even as climate change shrinks the space where our civilization can exist, new technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics threaten to bleach away the variety of human experience. Falter tells the story of these converging trends and of the ideological fervor that keeps us from bringing them under control. And t

This week we continue with our Kenyan safaris. The other posts from my Africa trip are: Arusha , Tarangire National Park , South Serengeti Part 1 , South Serengeti Part 2 ,  the rest of the Serengeti tour ,  Ngorogoro Crater ,  Mt. Meru , Mt. Kenya, Part 1 , Mt. Kenya, Part 2 , and Kenya Safari Part 1 .  After our short and early drive at Lake Nakuru, we settled in for our 250-mile drive, which took 8 hours altogether--another day to stretch our boxed breakfast into a lunch! The drive wasn't without interest (great vistas of the Great Rift Valley, and insights into the transit problems of a country whose main truck route is a two-lane road), but we were glad to arrive at Amboseli National Park. A glad sight. Amboseli greeter. Back to Masai Giraffes, here just a few miles north of the Tanzania border. A really sweet room. Fences kept out the larger animals, but you had to be careful to keep the patio door latched when not in the room--the baboons painted on the wall are kind of a wa