government

Progress Updates Friday – June 14, 2024

by Stefani

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

Progress: 147 of 432 pages

Check this book out at: Goodreads

How it’s going:

I think I have fallen in love with this book. This letter is told entirely in letters and occasional excerpts from books. It starts with anxious, introvert “E” writing to her favorite scholar about a creature that she saw in her front yard. To her surprise, he writes back. And the two of them start corresponding back and forth about their various interests and their families, and eventually they start to develop feelings for each other. The romance so far is very light. It appeals to me in a “talk nerdy to me” sort of way.

Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

Progress: Page 191 of 540

Check this book out at: Goodreads

How it’s going:

Now that this book has transitioned into the boom period of Area 51 I am making some excellent progress. I’ve been reading more about reckless nuclear bomb testing. Did you know that the US government nearly blew a hole in the ozone layer with a nuclear bomb? They wanted to see what would happen if one detonated in the upper atmosphere. And we’re also getting into the tense Cuban Missile Crisis, and the President is placing enormous pressure on Area 51 to get their new A-12 spy plane up and running immediately. They want it to more effectively spy on what the Russians were doing in Cuba. This morning I was also greeted to a news article that apparently Russians navy ships and submarines arrived in Cuba again today…ironic timing I’m sure you’ll agree. Ironic and disconcerting.

Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi

Progress: 20%

Check this book out at: Goodreads

How it’s going:

This is my current audiobook selection. So far it’s a fairly typical “group of people has to confront terrible thing they did as kids” kind of horror/mystery book. Andrew, the main protagonist, is rather dull so far. A bit of a boring fellow who works and worries about his pregnant wife. I am getting a good feel for the few characters we’ve introduced so far.

Progress Update Fridays – May 31, 2024

by Stefani

Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins

Progress: 184 of 320 pages

Check this book out at: Goodreads

How it’s going:

I am cemented in my belief that Fern doesn’t know a single normal human being. Everyone she knows seems to be a complete psychopath who thrives on making her feel afraid. At this point Fern has become convinced that she is the girl that Astrid referred to as witnessing her kidnapping. She is attempting to track down clues to prove that fact, but also to try and unlock more memories of what happened. There have been some big revelations too, that I can’t really mention without spoiling the book. I have developed a theory about who is responsible for the kidnapping, I’ll be interested to see if I’m right. Hopefully this book has a better payoff at the end than the last one.

Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen

Progress: 74 out of 540 pages

Check this book out at: Goodreads

How it’s going:

This one has been slow going. I went out of town this week for a long overdue vacation with my spouse and kids. It was fantastic but also meant I couldn’t read much, and I didn’t even bring this book with me. I didn’t really want to lug a 540 page book around to hotels. So far we’ve delved into the history of Area 51, it’s original use as a testing facility for spy planes. This led to some misidentifications as UFOs, which the Air Force was more than happy to play along with. UFO rumors provided cover to what they were actually testing after all. But we’ve now also covered how the UFO rumors started to become inconvenient for the CIA and Air Force, people were making too many assumptions that the government was covering things up. And so they changed tactics and admitted that they were researching UFOs, but that most of the time there was nothing unusual after investigation. I’m interested to see where we go next.