What book are you reading now

[Drummond]

In these days of doom & gloom, where a Covid-19 pandemic has occurred and a second wave of it is threatened .. what else was I going to do, but revisit an old favourite of mine, to 'perk up my mood' ... ??

Here it is ... a cracking read.

dtass.jpg

Plot 'spoiler' ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_to_a_Sunless_Sea

The story is told in the first person by Jonah Scott, a British pilot for the fictional airline Air Britain who has arrived in New York City on his regular flight from London. The United States has collapsed after using up nearly all of its oil reserves and the collapse of the dollar.

During the night, Jonah and the apartment superintendent and guard, John Capel, must fight off armed burglars disguised as military police looking for the food Jonah and Senior Flight Attendant Kate Monahan brought with them. Capel is wounded but Kate demonstrates her basic medical skills in cleaning and dressing the wound. Jonah offers to help Capel and a newly orphaned girlfriend, Nikki, of one of his crew travel illegally to London aboard his aircraft, in order to escape the anarchy that has befallen America.

Shortly after takeoff from New York, Jonah is informed that Israel has attacked Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo with nuclear weapons in retaliation for their radioactive poisoning of Tel Aviv's water supply.

Israel's strike triggers a worldwide nuclear holocaust while the plane is en route to London, the Soviet Union and China attacking America and its allies. Four Soviet diplomats on board try to hijack the plane, only to be killed.

Unable to continue to Europe due to the fact that it has suffered nuclear attack, or return to also-attacked New York, the crew attempt to find a place to land their plane. They are granted landing rights at Funchal, but its airport is destroyed by the collision of an El Al flight and a desperate pilot disobeying instructions.

Jonah and his crew wonder whether to crash land on an island in the Azores chain with the help of Juan, a local resident who has contacted them via amateur radio. Jonah sights a NATO airfield, Lajes Field, which is mostly intact. Jonah and the nuclear scientists who are on board deduce that the Soviets needed Lajes intact and accordingly attacked it with a short-lived neutron bomb to occupy it. Jonah lands the plane at Lajes.

Although safe for now, rising levels of fallout from Europe require that they evacuate, and they decide to fly to Antarctica. They are not sure how many passengers they can bring and how many supplies they will need to bring. Jonah and the SAS soldiers on board manage to re-activate the base radar and use the teletype machines to make contact with a sheltered-in-place British naval officer in the Falkland Islands who is able to break cover and confirm with the McMurdo Antarctic base the existence of sufficient provisions, plus a nuclear reactor for warmth. He dies quickly.

A Soviet Antonov freighter aircraft lands at Lajes. Initially suspected of being a Soviet landing party to secure the crucial mid-Atlantic air force base, it turns out to be carrying two female Soviet Air Force crew and a large number of civilian refugees. Next morning both aircraft, fully fueled plus carrying as much extra fuel as possible, fly to Antarctica. When the Antonov cannot make the necessary altitude to overfly the worldwide belt of hot radiation (with the weight of cargo, passengers, and fuel), fifty Soviet volunteers sacrifice themselves by jumping from the plane.

Soon after the characters arrive at McMurdo, it is realised that the tilt of the Earth on its axis is being affected by the numerous nuclear explosions. There are two different endings of Down To A Sunless Sea which suggest either a radioactive death for all the survivors with a theological twist, or minus the polar advance of radiation, a chance for the almost one thousand survivors to rebuild the world.

[Kathianne]

​The Weight of Ink

[revelarts]

3 audio books


Miracles We Have Seen
America's Leading Physicians Share Stories They Can't Forget
"Publisher's Summary
This is a book of miracles - medical events witnessed by leading physicians for which there is no reasonable medical explanation, or, if there is, the explanation itself is extraordinary. These dramatic first-person essays detail spectacular serendipities, impossible cures, breathtaking resuscitations, extraordinary awakenings, and recovery from unimaginable disasters.
Among the extraordinary cases poignantly recounted by the physicians witnessing them:
A priest visiting a hospitalized patient went into cardiac arrest on the elevator, which opened up on the cardiac floor, right at the foot of the cardiac specialist, at just the right moment.
A tiny premature baby dying from irreversible lung disease who recovered almost immediately after being taken from his hospital bed and placed on his mother's chest.
President John F. Kennedy's son Patrick, who died shortly after birth, and whose disease eventually led to research that saved generations of babies.
Miracles We Have Seen is a book of inspiration and optimism, and a compelling glimpse into the lives of physicians."

Medical Apartheid
The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
"Publisher's Summary
Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge - a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the 20th century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism were used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks.
The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit."

Undeniable
How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed
"Publisher's Summary
Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the "design intuition" - the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge. For the ingenious task of inventing life, this knower can only be God.
Starting with the hallowed halls of academic science, Axe dismantles the widespread belief that Darwin's theory of evolution is indisputably true, showing instead that a gaping hole has been at its center from the beginning. He then explains in plain English the science that proves our design intuition scientifically valid. Lastly, he uses everyday experience to empower ordinary people to defend their design intuition, giving them the confidence and courage to explain why it has to be true and the vision to imagine what biology will become when people stand up for this truth."

[SassyLady]

Earth Unknown by M.R. Forbes

Just finished 3 book series by same author ... The Forgotten, The Forsaken and The unForgiven.