Women & murder

Over the summer I read five great page-turners. Although I picked each out for different reasons, they all coincidentally fit a grisly theme:

NOS4A2 - Our teen heroine, who rides her bike across a bridge/portal to "find things," goes looking for trouble. She finds a mass-murder who kidnaps children away to "Christmasland." She escapes but doesn't really get away.  Recommended in a NYT article by Janet Maslin.

The Shining Girls - Our young heroine escapes a mass-murder who finds his victims across time using a house/portal. She has to track him down and thwart him. For my office book club.

The 5th Wave - Our teen heroine has survived the first four waves of an alien invasion that murders 99% of humanity. She has to stay alive and rescue a kidnapped kid. Recommended in a NYT article by Janet Maslin.

The Rook - Our heroine wakes up with no memory, surrounding by the bodies of people who were trying to kill her. She has to figure out who was trying to kill her while running an intelligence agency that combats supernatural foes. Recommended by a friend.

The Cuckoo's Calling - A famous model is murdered. Our hero, a down-on-his-luck PI, tries to crack the case. The new book by JK Rowling.

I'd highly recommend all of them - they're fun and fast.

Moonwalking with Einstein

From the cover and the title, I can understand why no one would understand what the heck the book is about. If, however, you observe the tiny subtitle, "The Art and Science of Remembering Everything", you'll find this book to be a treatise on memory and its history.

While the book's main story is the chronicle of how its author, Josh Foer, became the Memory Champion of the United States, some of the more interesting parts of the book are about the history of memory. In fact, the ability to remember things particularly well has been around since ancient Greece, and in ancient cultures, a proclivity towards recall was considered one of the chief attributes of intelligence.

Today, no one cares how well you can memorize things. And Josh Foer gives a detailed account of why. If you think you'd be interested in learning how to remember everything you ever wanted, maybe check out this book.