The Thin Red Line

First, my thanks to Techfun for suggesting this one to me.   It’s taken me an awful long time to read it but I have and I’m glad I did.   In Friday’s post I pointed out that art can be much more effective than traditional in conveying complex realities.   I believe that A Thousand Splendid Suns is an excellent example of a novel that conveys the complex and messy truths of the real life story through novels that, imho, do a better job than history books sometimes in educating a mind about a particular place and peoples.    I previously posted about Gary Geddes’  Kingdom Of Ten Thousand Things which touches briefly on the plight of present day Afghanistan before rushing off to pursue a very different main theme.

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Just a short post today, before heading back to the library to work my Friday–Monday week and discover lots of new and interesting books and re-discover a few old favorites to share in this space.

The cover illustration sadly does not do justice to the charming juvenile science book titled POOP: A Natural History of the Unmentionable. Written by zoologist Nicola Davies with clever and clear illustrations by Neal Layton. It is as advertised everything you might want to know and then some about the old ‘number two’.

With wit and humor Davies and Layton tell the story of poop, from an illustrated guide to identifying various varieties of animal feces (hold your nose!) to odd and important facts– such as birds and bats pooping seeds that bring vegetation to a new area or that Blue Whale poop is the biggest– at ten inches wide and several yards long.

If all of this was more information than you really wanted from me over your morning cup of coffee, I apologize. But do stop by the library and check out POOP. The kids will love it and learn something and who knows, maybe you will too.

In the library POOP can be found at 573.49. Thanks everyone for a great week, and hope you have a festive weekend. I will post again on Monday.

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