Reader's Place: January 2020
New year, new beginnings, a focus on the future
Future perfect: a skeptic's search for an honest mystic, by Victoria Loustalot. 2019. 133.8 LOU
The author draws on her own personal experience to launch a broader inquiry into the phenomena of psychics, shamans, astrologers, and their fans. Through historical documents and interviews with clairvoyants, seers, and their believers, Victoria opens herself up to the modern mystical complex in cultures and cities around the globe. She pays close attention to what they have to tell us about how we choose to live, what we might be missing out on in the process, and what in the world we're supposed to do with all that information.
Killing Eve : no tomorrow, by Luke Jennings. 2019. FIC JENNINGS
"In Venice, where she's just completed a routine assassination, Villanelle receives a late-night call. Eve has discovered that a senior intelligence officer is in the pay of the Twelve--the secretive and subversive organization that employs Villanelle--and she is about to debrief him. As Eve interrogates her subject, desperately trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, Villanelle moves in for the kill. The duel between the two women intensifies, as does their mutual obsession. The action moves from Europe to Russia, and to a shattering face-to-face confrontation, as Eve finally unwraps the enigma of her adversary's true identity and intentions.
Eating tomorrow: agribusiness, family farmers, and the battle for the future of food, by Timothy A. Wise. 2019. 338.1 WIS
Who will feed the world's expanding population? Do multinational agribusiness corporations have the knowledge, resources, and vision to supply nutritious and affordable food globally? If they cannot, who will? These are issues that Wise, senior researcher at the Small Planet Institute, studies. Here he recounts his travels to Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Mexico, and India to learn how Green Revolution agricultural methods, supported by the international development community, have worked. Much of what he reports is discouraging. While land is stolen from some farmers, others are forced by their governments (at the demand of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) to use foreign hybrid seeds requiring expensive fertilizers instead of native seeds developed for local soils. Often, the crops decline after a couple of promising years, and only the corporations profit. Rates of poverty and hunger in some developing countries are increasing. Wise does see hope in the small-plot farmers of the world who are rising in protest. His report will interest readers concerned about human rights and the environment.
The next to die, by Sophie Hannah. 2019. FIC HANNAH
What if having a best friend could put you in the crosshairs of a killer? A psychopath the police have dubbed “Billy Dead Mates” is targeting pairs of best friends, and killing them one by one. Before they die, each victim is given a small white book. For months, detectives have failed to catch Billy, or figure out what the white books symbolize and why the killer leaves them behind. The police are on edge; the public in a panic. Then a woman, scared by what she’s seen on the news, comes forward. What she reveals shocks the investigators and adds another troubling layer to an already complex case.
Compiled by Ina Rimpau