This week: supercooled birds, President Palpatine, and people causing a ruckus

We're off to a good start for 2015, opening the year up with Bernard Cornwell and two science entries, both of which (Lives of the Planets,  Winter World) will get comments as the week goes on.

Yesterday at the library I picked up:

• The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey
• A World Lost, Wendell Berry
• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Richard Feynman  (2015 Reading Challenge)
• The Hidden Wound, Wendell Berry
• Tearing down the Streets: Adventures in Urban Anarchy, Jeff Ferrell
• The Human Zoo, Desmond Morris (2015 Reading Challenge)
• The First Day on the Somme,  (pos. 2015 Reading Challenge)

Last week I mentioned the 2015 reading challenge, which is a literary scavenger hunt with fifty categories on it. I've made good progressed so far,  with three(ish) item taken down:  a book published this year (The Empty Throne, Bernard Cornwell) a nonfiction title (Winter World, Bernd Heinrich), and -- well, I'm not sure. Yesterday I reread The Pigman by Paul Zindel, but I haven't decided what entry it will claim:  a book that made me cry (which it did, when I was younger); a book from my childhood, or a book I can read in one day.  Surely First Day on the Somme might make the eyes damp? The books from the library today should keep me going strong, though I won't necessarily be reading everything: not only do I have two purchased books awaiting, but I have two interlibrary loan books in the works, both political. (One: Green is the New Red, on federal agencies' war on environmental groups.)

Well, happy reading!