I can't. I wish I could, but I can't. I made it through the introduction and skimmed the first chapter. Maybe in a couple of years, but not now.

This is my #FridayReads and Dewey RAT TBR pile in one single post. 

My base library re-opened their curbside service this week - just on two days, but it is so easy to email them a list of items wanted and get a bag of books in return. So all but one is from my libraries. I am a bit behind on the Library Love challenge since my library was closed, so I am making up some ground there as well. 

I know these seem like heavy topics to read in 24 hours, but my mind is actually soothed by reading something heavy and it not be any COVID-19 or politics. It's really engrossing to learn about other periods of crisis, disaster, strife and see people come out the other side - changed for sure but it is in a way hopeful?

For Friday, I want to finish Pox. I have one chapter and the epilogue left to get through.

For Dewey RAT and Sunday: 

1. Eisenhower 1956: The President's Year of Crisis/Suez and the Brink of War by David A. Nichols - this is for S&L 2020 and from my own shelf.

2. An American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic that Shaped Our History by Molly Caldwell Crosby - a nice follow up after finishing Pox. 

3. Minority Leader: How to Lead From the Outside and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams - hoping I can come away with a few tips to make my volunteering activities more impactful.

4. Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed - and Why It Still Matters by Andrew Gumbal and Roger G. Charies - did you know earlier this week was the 25th anniversary of this bombing? At the same time we are having armed demonstrations at state capitols no less. History you bitch.

5. War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow - another book that has been sitting on my wish list to read. There's no time like the present, eh?

6. Beauty Queens by Libby Bray - listening to this on audiobook that I downloaded from my local library's OverDrive. My IRL book club is meeting Monday night to discuss it. I am just not in the mood to read a fluffy book, so I hope to get through it via my ears while I do some cross stitching, coloring, or playing Star Dew Valley. 

Ship of Theseus is the final book written by V. M. Straka and published in 1949. It's about a man who has no idea about his past or who he is. He's shanghaied onto a strange ship with a strange crew and thrown onto a perilous journey. The writer himself, Straka, is enigmatic. Nobody knows what he looks like or exactly who he is. Even his translator had never seen him face-to-face.

When a young woman named Jen picks up this book, left behind by a stranger, she discovers margin notes. She, too, becomes entranced by the story and responds with notes of her own and leaves the book for its owner. While Jen is a college senior, Eric, the owner of the book, is a disgraced grad student. But they're both facing crucial decisions about who they are and who they want to be. And how much they're willing to trust another person. And they're both trying their hardest to figure out the hidden secrets of Ship of Theseus.

Oh. My. God. This book was so good. It's easy to be intimidated once you open it up and go through it. There's so many things underlined and so much written in the margins and in different colours. There's pages and pictures and postcards stuck in between the pages. How do I read this thing?? I went through the main part first - Ship of Theseus. We follow a man simply known as S. He doesn't know who he is, his past, what he's supposed to be doing. The story had a lot of depth. It was very interesting and kept me turning the pages. Then we read Jen and Eric's notes back and forth to each other. The way I read this was penciled notes, which are Eric's notes to himself, along with blue and black notes first. Then orange and green. Then purple and red. Then, finally, black and black. As much as I enjoyed Ship of Theseus (especially the first couple hundred pages!), I enjoyed their story more. They're trying to find out just who Straka was and there are all kinds of hidden clues in Ship of Theseus for them to uncover something amazing. The book itself is beautiful. It's made to look like an old library book - stamps on it, yellowed pages, stains. The actual book and the stories inside are well-written, clever and amazing and I'm just so in love!

And I'm back. My training has been completed, IT finally resolved my issue with logging into my profile on our system (it only took 2 1/2 weeks) so I can now do billing under my own user name, and we're back to 8 hour days, five days a week.

Books Read: 6

Why I March: I had to make a minor correction here. I previously had written that I had purchased this book from Amazon due to a review written by Grimlock ♥ Vision, but she pointed out in the comments that she hadn't read it yet, though she had written about it. So, I actually have Grimlock ♥ Vision to thank and Stacy Alesi, thank you so much both of you.There are so many powerful images packed into this book: men, women, children, the young, the old all marching for a cause. The royalties go to several nonprofit organizations. 5 stars

The Invention of Murder: This is one of my favorite non-fiction books. Judith Flanders walks the reader through some of the more well-known Victorian murders and the public's reaction to them; how people profited from them, how public opinion played a large role in the outcome of the trials, and the influence these murders had in the writings of some well-known authors including Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Wilkie Collins. 5 stars

The Slippery Slope, The Grim Grotto, The Penultimate Peril, The End: And this wrap-ups of A Series of Unfortunate Events. The series itself is, as it's name suggests, rather dark, but book eight, The Slippery Slope, is where it pulls out all the stops. 4 1/2 stars.

Nope.  Not for me.  But, I can see it appealing to other readers.

I get the send-up of books like Pretty Little Liars.  Clearly going to be an outrageous, juicy series.  Funny.

I don't mind high school drama and mean-girl-ness if — like in this book — it really is teenagers in high school so intentional.  (It irritates me when supposedly immortal supernaturals centuries-old do it in other genres.)

I'm just not (maybe because of my age) going to get into or care about these girls.  I have little patience with slut-shaming, even when in snarky give-as-good-as-you-get comments.