EPBOT Readers discussion

Hello everyone,
This might be a repeat. I wrote a post yesterday and would swear I hit "Post" but today I don't see it. I have no idea what happened. I hope you all had a good week.

I have two finishes this week. The first I mentioned last week You Are Not Broken: Stop "Should-ing" All Over Your Sex Life. This was very interesting and informative. I wish it had existed when I was much younger but it was still good.

The other is another library book The Field Guide to Citizen Science: How You Can Contribute to Scientific Research and Make a Difference. I retired this spring and now finally feel like I can think about how I want to spend my time. Citizen science and local medical research are both interesting to me. This is a good guide to start finding things.

For neighborhood book club I'm listening to Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery. This is a good seasonal choice for October. I'm enjoying it so far. It is set in New England during Puritan times.

I'm back to reading Alton Brown's essays Food for Thought: Essays and Ruminations. He's one of my three celebrity crushes and I'm enjoying the stories. Some of them are also ones he has told at his theater shows. Essays are short and easy to read, stop and read something else, come back to another time, etc.

QOTW:
If someone made a movie of your life would it be a drama, a comedy, a romantic-comedy, action film, or science fiction?

I think it would be part action film and part drama. The action would be my hobbies which are circus aerial arts, including performing flying trapeze. The drama would be feeling like I'm the current sandwich generation with having new grandchildren on the opposite coast and an elderly mother who has been having problems the last few months. But mostly the general public would probably find my introverted life boring.

Sorry I missed last week! Work has been busy.

Grass - I think I saw John Scalzi mention this as an influence or something. I did not like it! It was blurbed as an ecological fable, but actually it seemed to be about Catholic guilt and the meaning of sin. It was way too long, had way too many characters briefly getting the POV, too much, uh, weird sex stuff... I kept flipping ahead to see what happened because I didn't feel like slogging through the part I was reading.

A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom One Step at a Time - Did I get this from someone here? I thought I did, but I can't find the post. Anyway it was a bit preaching-to-the-choir for me, because I walk a lot already. Also some of the sections were fairly tangentially related to walking. Some of the relationships between walking and other developmental areas in children were news to me, so that was interesting.

QOTW: A movie about my life would definitely be very boring. I think it would have to be an art film, like the ones where the artist just sits silently in a chair and nothing happens. They could play it on a loop in a museum for people to ponder briefly and then move along.

Susan wrote: "Hello everyone,
This might be a repeat. I wrote a post yesterday and would swear I hit "Post" but today I don't see it. I have no idea what happened. I hope you all had a good week.

I have two fin..."
Susan-wanted to make sure you know about Zooniverse. I found it during pandemic, and you can help scientists by categorizing things on photos and videos. All sorts of topics. My favorites so far have been identifying penguins and cataloguing elephant ear shapes in photos. https://www.zooniverse.org/

Had a few things I really liked, probably recommended by FoE, so wanted to share.
First was audiobook, Empire of Shadows, which had a very Brendan Fraser's "The Mummmy" vibe to it. Very fun. Already requested the next one.
I think there are many Amelia Peabody fans in our group, and the Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn gives me a similar comfort read feeling. Just finished the ninth book and they are all solid.
I think the author who shows up on my feed as the book goblin recommended Burn for Me by Ilona Andrews. I had credits to use so bought it, and am on the third one in the series. Then I noticed there are many other Ilona Andrews fans among FoE, and more series besides this one. Yay!
Last one to share was The Penguin Lessons, which was this month's IRL book club pick. Autobiographical story of a British guy teaching in South America in the 1970s who saves/adopts a penguin. He told stories of the penguin to his family who encouraged him to write a book. I believe it's been made into a Netflix movie.
For QOTW, I bet someone, with a lot of exaggeration, could make a drama out of some of the research projects I've done. Our lab designed the pregnant crash test dummy, which could be good images for a movie.

@kathy thank you for the suggestion and link. I will look it up. I also go for my first visit for a medical study specific for older women and bone health this week.

Also @kathy - have you read Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age? I enjoyed that and there is now a 2nd book.

Susan wrote: "@kathy thank you for the suggestion and link. I will look it up. I also go for my first visit for a medical study specific for older women and bone health this week."
Thanks for donating your body to science! I use volunteers for research all the time and we appreciate it.

Susan wrote: "Also @kathy - have you read Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age? I enjoyed that and there is now a 2nd book."

Yes, loved this too! It was my book club pick last year. Second book is good too, but that was a spectacular first book and hard to follow.