Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah

This book, written by Colm A. Kelleher, Ph.D., and George Knapp, is the true story of strange, and sometimes terrifying, occurances that happened on a ranch that had just been bought by Tom Gorman (not his real name) and his family.
They had bought the house from a couple who was living in town, but said they didn't want the ranch anymore. They had put some very strange clauses into the business contract including not to dig anywhere under any circumstances. They thought it was odd, but what was even stranger were the dead bolts, two or three to a door, on both sides of the door and two iron rings on either end of the house with a chain to perhaps hold two big dogs. They decided to overlook this.
They first noticed something was wrong when they saw a big "wolf-like creature" who was easily twice as big as a real wolf, walking across their property. The wolf saw them and walked right over to them, letting them touch him. The wolf noticed the new calves and walked to where they were penned. One of the calves, braver than the others, went over to see the wolf. Suddenly the wolf chomps down on the poor calves snout and refuses to let go. Tom Gorman and his son shoot the wolf several times, but it doesn't slow it down and it doesn't start bleeding, but it must have tired of them shooting at it because it let go of the calf and ran away. They never saw it again.
That's only the beginning: cattle mutilations, incinerated dogs, mysterious flying objects, strange creatures and invisible beings.
This book is told from a scientific point of view, (they had called in some paranormal researchers for help) as well as putting the Gormans view into play.
It's a very strange story, and the ending, although predictable, is shocking as well.
Well, that's all I'm going to tell, because Muse, our kitty, is asleep on my lap. She seems to like me and mom the best.
But anyway, I'm not here to write about my kitty, so if your into this kind of stuff, I recommend you read it. It is about an older case, but well worth the read.

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas is no writer of short stories. He writes long stories, filled with detail, and he writes them well.
The Three Musketeers is about d'Artagnan, the intrigues he gets mixed up in and how he meets and becomes a musketeer.
D'Artagnan is determined to become a musketeer and while trying to deliver his letter of recommendation to Monsieur Treville, he is attacked and the letter is stolen. He makes it Treville and explains that he had a letter, but it was stolen. Treville places him in the gaurds instead, under the command of his brother.
Meanwhile, he meets Athos (he was injured and d'Artagnan ran into him), Porthos (he had a gold sash and d'Artagnan ran into him and discovered it was only half gold) and Aramis (d'Artagnan noticed he was standing on a white, embroidered handkerchief and pulled it out from under his foot, forcefully, and thoroughly embarrassed Aramis in front of his guests), and is challenged to a duel by each one of them.
Long story short, (635 pages), d'Artagnan is accepted by Athos, Porthos and Aramis and becomes a very close friend to each of them, meanwhile discovering that the two women he loves are not what they appear.
The last scene with Lady de Winter is a moving one, very emotional.
The book is very unlike the 1993 movie, (which was awesome, dont get me wrong), but the book shows a completely different storyline and characters.
I highly recommend this book if your looking for a good old romantic adventure book.

I will update my reading list when I decide what I'm going to read next.

War of the Worlds by HG Wells

Another classic by HG Wells- What a wonderful writer he was!
What makes this even more interesting is his commentary on the scientific and medical aspects of the martians and their machinery. He was a very learned man and he would not write a book about martians unless he had some kind of solid belief in the fact that they could very well exist. He didn't have solid proof, but he believed that there was life out there, and at the time of this books writing, the focus happened to be Mars. He did a wonderful job writing this book.

If you haven't read the book, it's about martians coming to the earth in the late 19th century (approx. 1898-99). Several cylinders from Mars crash land in several places in and around London and reveal strange creatures who begin building machines so that they can walk around and destroy the land. They begin a rampage that goes for about a month, month and a half.
Now, the book differs from ALL of the movies in several respects:
First of all, in the book the martians DO NOT have sheilds on their machines. In the first hundred pages, three (if I remember correctly) martian machines are destroyed.
Secondly, in the movies, the martians succumb to the germs and diseases of this earth within a few days, in the book it takes a more appropriate 4 or 6 weeks for them to succumb.
Third, the martians are incapable of walking upright on the earth without great effort due to the severe change in the gravity of earth compared to Mars.

The book is a wonderful read. It's a fast read and written with a scientific knowledge of how things work (machines) and biology (the martians, red plant). He writes it very well as if it were a memory of his. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys the classics. Definately a classic.

Next up on my list:
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (Wonderful!!!)
Faith of Our Fathers by N.C. Allen (put on hold)
Hiroshima by John Hersey (put on hold)
A Fresh Start in Fairhaven by Sharon Downing Jarvis (put on hold- cant get into it)

My book list seems to have dwindled. (on the interest side anyway.) I will look over some of the other books I have and update my list accordingly.

Pompeii by Robert Harris

First off, I give this book a "PG 13" rating. It's a great book, but has some questionable items in it. It was also a very slow read. That is, until the last 100 pages, then it got interesting. But you had to go through 100+ pages to get to the good part.
The story follows Attilius, the new Aquarius, who is in charge of the water supply to all the towns surrounding Vesuvius. Up until the day before the eruption, Vesuvius was thought to have been just a mountain peak, not a dormant volcano. As the water supply becomes "poisoned" and Attilius sets out to find whats causing it all, he discovers that Vesuvius may not be just a mountian peak at all.
The story follows him all the way up to the eruption of Vesuvius, and what happened afterwards.

Now, if you dont know anything about Pompeii or Herculaneum, then let me first remark that they were very much like Sodom and Gommorah. Debauchery galore. But I still have an immense interest in Pompeii, but then it really just a morbid interest of the body casts... (I know, I cant help it though...)

So, just be wary of reading this book if you are sensitive to sensual matters.

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

This book is awesome! I love ice climbing, so its even cooler because of that. :)
Anyway, Joe Simpson and his friend Simon go climbing in the Andes and climb a 21,000 foot mountain to reach the summit and to climb down the coveted east face, which no one had succeeded in climbing down before.
This takes place in 1985, and Joe and Simon take photos of their journey, until the accident on the east face. Joe was climbing down, with Simon up top, when he fell and broke his leg. Very, very bad. If your up that high, breaking your leg is essentially a death sentence. Simon decided that he would lower him down 300 feet at a time until they got to the bottom. A blizzard starts and gets so bad that niether can hear the other after maybe 20 feet and visibility is very low. When they are almost to the bottom, maybe a thousand or so feet from the base camp, Joe falls into a crevasse and Simon starts getting dragged down with him. Since Simon cannot see Joe, and since neither had seen a crevasse while climbing up, Simon thinks that there must have been something they didn't see, but cant figure out what it would be. Simon keeps slipping and Joe keeps falling when Simon makes the choice to cut the rope. He cuts it and Joe begins the first part of his journey on his own. It's a race to make it to base camp before Simon leaves, otherwise it's all been in vain. He climbs out of the crevasse (read it to find out how!) and crawls and limps his way back to base camp. It's an amazing story of human endurance in extreme conditions.
It's a very good read and, although there is obscenities in it, it's a wonderful read that makes you feel as if you are there with him. You feel his wonder, joy, and pain. I recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of ice climbing, if you ice climb yourself, or you just like reading adventure books. This one certainly qualifies.

Next up:
Pompeii by Robert Harris
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Faith of Our Fathers by N.C. Allen
Hiroshima by John Hersey
A Fresh Start in Fairhaven by Sharon Downing Jarvis
And more to come! I have a due date for most of these...

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

I love H.G. Wells' books. They are wonderful! The one I read recently was The Invisible Man.

It starts out with the Invisible Man (known now as the stranger), showing up at an inn called the Coach and Horses demanding a room and privacy. He is dressed from head to foot, with not an inch of skin showing, save for his pink nose.
The story follows him as he is driven out of the inn, pursued by the townspeople and the police, and eventually he finds himself with an old friend from college, wounded and telling him the entire story of how he came to be invisible.
He talks about the advantages he originally saw, "for I could see no disadvantages", and quickly comes to realize that there are many more cons to his invisibility than pros. He is consumed by the madness that follows his transformation into invisibility, his desire for riches and fame, and his desire to find a cure.
It's a very well written book and I would suggest it to anyone who hasnt read it.

Next up on the reading list:

Touching the Void: The True Story of One Mans Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson
Pompeii by Robert Harris (fiction)
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (fiction)

I have some LDS books I'm reading as well, but they will go onto my other blog, Everything LDS! instead of this one.

Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperment

This book by Kay Redfield Jamison (the same author who wrote "An Unquiet Mind"), has done a wonderful job writing this book. Not only is it written from a researchers point of view, it also has writings on manic-depressive illness by those who have the illness. Writers like Virginia Woolf and painters like Van Gogh, and the people that loved and cared for them.
It talks quite deeply about what every artist/writer who is diagnosed with manic-depressive illness asks: Will this affect my art? If I take this medication will I lose my inspiration?
These are very valid questions because if an artist is unable to paint, draw or a writer write, then what are they supposed to do? If that is your only way a truly expressing yourself, why do anything to jeopardize that?
Many artists refuse treatment because they feel that the highs and lows of the illness give their art "an edge". They see things they wouldn't otherwise have seen when they are high or low.
One thing it talks about is how the "highs" of manic-depressive illness can get an artist/writer started on a new project, but then the "lows" can give them the vision to "refine" what they had started in their manic phase.
This book also touches on how fatal this disease can be. Artists/writers have been known to commit suicide because of this illness. Virginia Woolf walked into a river and drowned herself. Lord Byron was kept in an asylum and he died from self-starvation. The list goes on.
Not many people are going to read a book like this unless they really have an interest in mental health, have a friend who has this illness, or has this illness themselves. It is my hope that friends/family/patients themselves will learn about this illness and that they have a broad support system. Tell only those you trust. And dont worry, it can be treated, but it may take a while.
Meanwhile, read some books about the disorder and get educated!