Light At The End Of The Tunnel by Sallyanne Monti (Memoir)


In 1995, Sallyanne Monti was a 34-year-old mother of four, married to her husband of fifteen years, living on Staten Island, New York, an island in the Verrazano Narrows Bay. When by an act of fate and via a misdirected email, she met Mickey Neill, a 44-year-old human resources manager, married to her husband of twenty years, living 3,000 miles away in Alameda, California, an island in the San Francisco Bay.

The rapid progression of events that led to their whirlwind friendship would test the bonds of matrimony, sexuality, and love.

Amazon just delivered it today! The first pages really drew me in when I read it first on Bella Books and then on Amazon!

But first....The Power by Naomi Alderman

I finished The Push by Tommy Caldwell. Amazing person. Now I am reading Alone on the Wall by Alex Honnold. I think I will shift gears to something other than rock climbing after this. They are so self-disciplined that they make me feel like a giant slacker. It is good to read about people living their best lives out in nature. I loathe mountain climbing stories. All ego and testosterone. And corpses. But these two rock climbing memoirs are the opposite. These two guys are so not ego-driven. Driven for sure. But totally different from alpinists. Not at all about conquest and mastery. More about perfection and growth. I have enjoyed these books.

I am currently obsessed with Audible books. I was listening to The Tale of Achilles by Madeline Miller and have found myself so emotionally invested in the two main character's relationship that I had to stop listening when I realized something negative was going to happen. It has been almost three weeks and I still can't get myself to go back. I went back to read some reviews of the book and found other people have experienced the same thing. Such a great book.

While I continue to avoid the above story, I am going to start her other book Circe.

I realized that when I read books I skip over parts where there seems to be a lot of description because I rush to get to the point (and inadvertently miss out on a lot of information), so when listening to someone read through it all, I find myself getting enveloped in the scenery I would normally ignore. It makes my hour commute to and from work fly by and I have less road rage. Win - win.

Eventually I want to get a welder, maybe next year, so I am reading about welding. It is so interesting how you select certain metals for specific tasks and why. It would certainly prove to be a handy skill around my house. Sometimes I have found myself hitting a brick wall when I am visualing a useful and fun project. You know --->>> "If I only had a welder ... " and of course
"knew how to use it."

This is a free download I found last night. It provides nice overview:

Hobart Filler Metals - Helpful Hints to Basic Welding

If any of you welders would like to provide me information or advice of any kind, please message me.
I thank you in advance. :)

For useless entertainment, I love Jonathan Kellerman books - the Alex Delaware series are the best.
This type reading is relaxing for me because I am not taxing myself to learn anything.

I should of read further........LOL

I just finished the audiobook Calypso by David Sedaris. I have never read one of his books because I love listening to him read his books. His voice adds a lot to the story that I fear I wouldn't get by reading them.

I am currently reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. I would not have thought I would find a book about a library fire so interesting but something about the way she writes makes it enjoyable reading. Enough so that I want to check out her other books.

I have two other books to read which are Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I decided to check this out after watching the movie Bookshop and it is also mentioned in The Library Book. Also, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I just watched the movie which I found to be powerful and wanted to read the book.

Our library just started a "Lucky Day" shelf. You can't renew these books or put them on hold. I have had very good luck with the books and movies I have checked out from it.

I am on the waiting list for Michelle Obama's book Becoming. Nine people ahead of me.

I was disappointed in Song of Achilles. I was upset not with the heartbreak, but with the projection of current values and ethics onto Achilles and the Greeks. The author has a BA and an MA in Classics. So she did it on purpose, and I guess most historical fiction does that. But it bothered me. It reminded me of the endless number of undergraduate essays on Odysseus as a hero, droning on about whether his lying made him less heroic. The most cursory review of Ancient Greek culture would tell you that the Greeks thought that kind of tricksterish deception was admirable, the hallmark of a hero.

It bothers me watching Victoria, also. The fine ethical concerns the TV character debates would have been laughable to the real Victoria. It's entertaining. It's relevant to current questions we ask about leadership and politics, but it's absurdly irrelevant to Queen Victoria and the politics of her early rule.

I have Circe, but haven't read it yet. A friend tells me it is a much more satisfying book.

I'm halfway through Circe and I also think you will enjoy it much more.

Preet Bharara
 

Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts On Crime, Punishment, and The Rule Of The Law (March 19th, 2019; Knopf Publishers).

I've only had this book just a bit over 24 hours, and I'm on page 23 of Part 1. The preface, the introduction and the first few chapters explode at a breakneck pace, talking about the work of an prosecutor, his early days while in school, and the first few cases that dramatically impacted his life before he even became a prosecutor. I'm seriously glad I bought his book. It's simply the best book I've read in quite some time and will certainly be reading it many times over.

I've already underlined key concepts and phrases pertinent to current day political issues we read about in the news, and hear about via favorite media outlets (CNN, Politico, MSNBC, VOX, etc). Preet Bharara's book is outstanding. Even today, while reading from the book on my lunch hour, several passer's by (engineers) spied the book I was reading and asked me what my take on it was. They're buying copies of it, too. In fact, it won't surprise me at all if this book becomes required reading in several fields of study: Sociology, Communication, Law, Psychology, and Criminology.

Just finishing Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou.

I used to live in Silicon Valley and have strong feelings about the ethics of the tech industry. I hope not one of those TED Talk hypocrites ever uses the phrase "change the world" again. I was impressed by how many folk did quit Theranos, mostly, but not all, from the medical field. This is why the profit motive needs to stay out of medicine and law and education, etc.

When is that wretched woman going to jail? Fucking A. If she were a poor person of color, she wouldn't be tooling around SF with her new rich boy fiance telling everyone her husky is a wolf.

Theranos & Elizabeth Holmes
 

There is actually a film (which I have access to, but have not seen) called The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019), a documentary about "the story of Theranos, a multi-billion dollar tech company, its founder Elizabeth Holmes, the youngest self-made female billionaire, and the massive fraud that collapsed the company."

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is airing on HBO too.

44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith

In reference to above ~ I enjoyed reading Circe.

I am reading several things atm:

Journal articles on traumatic brain injuries

and

Journal articles on dissociative identity disorders aka (DID).

All very interesting

I just finished John Cleese's memoir So Anyway. The parts about his early life were great. I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, a YA novel about a 15-year-old British boy who has Asperger's. I had to read that for a class, but I liked it. I've been rereading a book about WWII because the first go through I was so appalled I don't think I took it all in.

I can't recall what else. More classic mysteries, mostly Rex Stout.