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439. Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  David and Tammis Matzinger

Author:   Adam Higginbotham

Genre:   Non Fiction, History, Science, Foreign

561 pages, published February 12, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Midnight in Chernobyl is an exhaustive look at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster which follows individuals from many different facets of the story, from those working in the plant to the scientists who desperately try to mitigate the crisis to the leaders who make the ultimate decisions of life and death.  The book also provides the reader with an inside look at the corruption and rot within the Soviet system that led to both the nuclear disaster and the eventual downfall of the USSR.

Quotes 

“a society where the cult of science had supplanted religion, the nuclear chiefs were among its most sanctified icons—pillars of the Soviet state. To permit them to be pulled down would undermine the integrity of the entire system on which the USSR was built. They could not be found guilty.”

 

“Radiation is all around us. It emanates from the sun and cosmic rays, bathing cities at high altitude in greater levels of background radiation than those at sea level. Underground deposits of thorium and uranium emit radiation, but so does masonry: stone, brick, and adobe all contain radioisotopes. The granite used to build the US Capitol is so radioactive that the building would fail federal safety codes regulating nuclear power plants. All living tissue is radioactive to some degree: human beings, like bananas, emit radiation because both contain small amounts of the radioisotope potassium 40; muscle contains more potassium 40 than other tissue, so men are generally more radioactive than women. Brazil nuts, with a thousand times the average concentration of radium of any organic product, are the world’s most radioactive food.”

 

“Yet the economists in Moscow had no reliable index of what was going on in the vast empire they notionally maintained; the false accounting was so endemic that at one point the KGB resorted to turning the cameras of its spy satellites onto Soviet Uzbekistan in an attempt to gather accurate information about the state’s own cotton harvest.”

 

“For the first time, Soviet scientists admitted that 17.5 million people, including 2.5 million children under seven, had lived in the most seriously contaminated areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia at the time of the disaster. Of these, 696,000 had been examined by Soviet medical authorities by the end of 1986. Yet the official tally of deaths ascribed to the disaster to date remained the same as that announced the previous year: 31.”

 

“A year after Calder Hall opened, in October 1957, technicians at the neighboring Windscale breeder reactor faced an almost impossible deadline to produce the tritium needed to detonate a British hydrogen bomb. Hopelessly understaffed, and working with an incompletely understood technology, they operated in emergency conditions and cut corners on safety. On October 9 the two thousand tons of graphite in Windscale Pile Number One caught fire. It burned for two days, releasing radiation across the United Kingdom and Europe and contaminating local dairy farms with high levels of iodine 131. As a last resort, the plant manager ordered water poured onto the pile, not knowing whether it would douse the blaze or cause an explosion that would render large parts of Great Britain uninhabitable. A board of inquiry completed a full report soon afterward, but, on the eve of publication, the British prime minister ordered all but two or three existing copies recalled and had the metal type prepared to print it broken up. He then released his own bowdlerized version to the public, edited to place the blame for the fire on the plant operators. The British government would not fully acknowledge the scale of the accident for another thirty years.”

 

“As the Era of Stagnation began, the Soviet scientific establishment lavished resources on the immediate priorities of the state—space exploration, water diversion, nuclear power—while emergent technologies, including computer science, genetics, and fiber optics, fell behind.”

 

“and leveling inconveniently situated mountains with atom bombs—or, as the Russian expression went, “correcting the mistakes of nature.”

 

“But of the dozens of dangerous incidents that occurred inside Soviet nuclear facilities over the decades that followed, not one was ever mentioned to the IAEA. For almost thirty years, both the Soviet public and the world at large were encouraged to believe that the USSR operated the safest nuclear industry in the world. The cost of maintaining this illusion had been high.”

 

“the atomic chieftains of NIKIET and the Kurchatov Institute apparently believed that a well-written set of manuals would be enough to guarantee nuclear safety.”

 

“So, to save time, Sredmash decided to skip the prototype stage entirely: the quickest way to find out how the new reactors would work in industrial electricity generation would be to put them directly into mass production.”

 

“the origins of the accident lay with those who had designed the reactor and the secret, incestuous bureaucracy that had allowed it to go into operation.”

 

“The temperature inside the reactor rose to 4,650 degrees centigrade—not quite as hot as the surface of the sun.”

 

“Slowly at first, but then with gathering momentum, the Soviet public began to discover how deeply it had been misled—not only about the accident and its consequences but also about the ideology and identity upon which their society was founded. The accident and the government’s inability to protect the population from its consequences finally shattered the illusion that the USSR was a global superpower armed with technology that led the world. And, as the state’s attempts to conceal the truth of what had happened came to light, even the most faithful citizens of the Soviet Union faced the realization that their leaders were corrupt and that the Communist dream was a sham.”

 

My Take

When I first picked up a thick copy of Midnight in Chernobyl (which clocks in at 561 pages and had been assigned by one of my book groups), I was expecting a bit of a long slog.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Author Adam Higginbotham is a skilled writer who weaves a gripping tale of what went wrong in Chernobyl and how a corrupt Communist system built on deception and covering up unpleasant truths laid the ground work for one of the biggest manmade disasters in the history of the world.  I learned a lot and highly recommend this book.  I also recommend the HBO miniseries Chernobyl which is an engrossing watch.

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438. Pieces of Her

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:    Karin Slaughter

Genre:   Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Crime

496 pages, published May 21, 2019

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

Pieces of Her is a twisty thriller that follows two tracks.  In the present day track, Andrea Cooper is on the run after watching her mother Laura professionally kill a would be killer.  As she makes her escape, Andrea learns that her mother is not who she thought she was.  The second track takes places more than twenty years earlier and provides the back story for Laura.

Quotes 

“Love doesn’t keep you in a constant state of turmoil. It gives you peace.”

 

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds. —Mexican Proverb”

 

“She had dozens, even hundreds, of friends, but not one single person knew all of the pieces of her.”

 

“Men can always reinvent themselves,” Laura said. “For women, once you’re a mother, you’re always a mother.”

 

“Age is a cruel punishment for youth.”

 

“Men never have to be uncomfortable around women. Women have to be uncomfortable around men all of the time.”

 

My Take

I found Pieces of Her to be a serviceable thriller with a few interesting plot points.  However, it would have been improved by condensing to a shorter version.

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437. A Thousand Days in Venice

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Joni Renee Zalk

Author:   Marlena de Blasi

Genre:   Non Fiction, Travel, Foreign, Memoir

290 pages, published June 3, 2003

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

A Thousand Days in Venice tells the story of Marlena de Blasi, a divorced, middle aged American chef and restaurateur, who meets the Italian banker Fernando on the last day of her trip to Venice.  That meeting turns into a romance which turns into a marriage after Marlena uproots her life to become a Venetian and give love another chance.

Quotes 

“Living as a couple never means that each gets half. You must take turns at giving more than getting. It’s not the same as a bow to the other whether to dine out rather than in, or which one gets massaged that evening with oil of calendula; there are seasons in the life of a couple that function, I think, a little like a night watch. One stands guard, often for a long time, providing the serenity in which the other can work at something. Usually that something is sinewy and full of spines. One goes inside the dark place while the other one stays outside, holding up the moon.”

 

“Much of my crying is for joy and wonder rather than for pain. A trumpet’s wailing, a wind’s warm breath, the chink of a bell on an errant lamb, the smoke from a candle just spent, first light, twilight, firelight. Everyday beauty. I cry for how life intoxicates. And maybe just a little for how swiftly it runs.”

 

“How strange it is, sometimes, which conversations or events stays with us while so much else melts as fast as April snow.”

 

“Some people ripen, some rot.”

 

“Life is this conto, account,” said the banker in him. “It’s an unknown quantity of days from which one is permitted to withdraw only one precious one of them at a time. No deposits accepted.”

 

My Take

A Thousand Days in Venice reminded me a lot of A Year in Provence as it is the type of book that transports and immerses you completely in a different place and culture.  While reading it, I felt like I was in Venice.   De Blasi is a talented and passionate writer and I enjoyed taking this trip with her.

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436. The Design of Everyday Things

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Donald A. Norman

Genre:   Non Fiction, Business, Psychology, Design

240 pages, published September 19, 2002

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Design of Everyday Things is about how the design of objects and systems can help or hinder users.  Author Donald Norman explores how bad design can be avoided and the desirability of good design.

Quotes 

“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”

 

“When people fail to follow these bizarre, secret rules, and the machine does the wrong thing, its operators are blamed for not understanding the machine, for not following its rigid specifications. With everyday objects, the result is frustration. With complex devices and commercial and industrial processes, the resulting difficulties can lead to accidents, injuries, and even deaths. It is time to reverse the situation: to cast the blame upon the machines and their design. It is the machine and its design that are at fault. It is the duty of machines and those who design them to understand people. It is not our duty to understand the arbitrary, meaningless dictates of machines.”

 

“Principles of design:

  1. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
  2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
  3. Make things visible: bridge gulfs between Execution and Evaluation.
  4. Get the mappings right.
  5. Exploit the power of constraints.
  6. Design for error.
  7. When all else fails, standardize.”

 

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible,”

 

“Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.”

 

“A brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem.”

 

“Fail often, fail fast,”

 

“Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible, serving us without drawing attention to itself. Bad design, on the other hand, screams out its inadequacies, making itself very noticeable.”

 

“The problem with the designs of most engineers is that they are too logical. We have to accept human behavior the way it is, not the way we would wish it to be.”

 

“The vicious cycle starts: if you fail at something, you think it is your fault. Therefore you think you can’t do that task. As a result, next time you have to do the task, you believe you can’t, so you don’t even try. The result is that you can’t, just as you thought.”

 

“The idea that a person is at fault when something goes wrong is deeply entrenched in society. That’s why we blame others and even ourselves. Unfortunately, the idea that a person is at fault is imbedded in the legal system. When major accidents occur, official courts of inquiry are set up to assess the blame. More and more often the blame is attributed to “human error.” The person involved can be fined, punished, or fired. Maybe training procedures are revised. The law rests comfortably. But in my experience, human error usually is a result of poor design: it should be called system error. Humans err continually; it is an intrinsic part of our nature. System design should take this into account. Pinning the blame on the person may be a comfortable way to proceed, but why was the system ever designed so that a single act by a single person could cause calamity? Worse, blaming the person without fixing the root, underlying cause does not fix the problem: the same error is likely to be repeated by someone else.”

 

“It is easy to design devices that work well when everything goes as planned. The hard and necessary part of design is to make things work well even when things do not go as planned.”

 

“It is easy to design devices that work well when everything goes as planned. The hard and necessary part of design is to make things work well even when things do not go as planned.”

 

“A story tells of Henry Ford’s buying scrapped Ford cars and having his engineers disassemble them to see which parts failed and which were still in good shape. Engineers assumed this was done to find the weak parts and make them stronger. Nope. Ford explained that he wanted to find the parts that were still in good shape. The company could save money if they redesigned these parts to fail at the same time as the others.”

 

“Norman’s Law: The day the product team is announced, it is behind schedule and over its budget.”

 

“Poor feedback can be worse than no feedback at all, because it is distracting, uninformative, and in many cases irritating and anxiety-provoking.”

 

“original ideas are the easy part. Actually producing the idea as a successful product is what is hard.”

 

“If designers and researchers do not sometimes fail, it is a sign that they are not trying hard enough—they are not thinking the great creative thoughts that will provide breakthroughs in how we do things. It is possible to avoid failure, to always be safe. But that is also the route to a dull, uninteresting life.”

 

“Cognition and emotion cannot be separated. Cognitive thoughts lead to emotions: emotions drive cognitive thoughts. The brain is structured to act upon the world, and every action carries with it expectations, and these expectations drive emotions. That is why much of language is based on physical metaphors, why the body and its interaction with the environment are essential components of human thought. Emotion is highly underrated. In fact, the emotional system is a powerful information processing system that works in tandem with cognition. Cognition attempts to make sense of the world: emotion assigns value. It is the emotional system that determines whether a situation is safe or threatening, whether something that is happening is good or bad, desirable or not. Cognition provides understanding: emotion provides value judgments. A human without a working emotional system has difficulty making choices. A human without a cognitive system is dysfunctional.”

 

My Take

While there are some interesting ideas in The Design of Everyday Things (as exemplified by the quotes above), I found the book to be dated with lots of discussion of computer and phone systems that are no longer relevant in 2020.  2002, when this book was published, is an eternity in the world of technology.

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435. The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author: Arthur C. Brooks

Genre:   Non Fiction, Public Policy, Politics, Philosophy, History, Economics

261 pages, published July 14, 2015

Reading Format:  e-Book on Hoopla

Summary

In The Conservative Heart, former American Enterprise Institute President and author Arthur C. Brooks writes about his vision for conservatism as a movement for happiness, unity, and social justice that will challenge the liberal monopoly on “fairness” and “compassion.”  While Progressives have always presented themselves as champions of the poor and vulnerable, Brooks argues that they have failed the people they are trying to help as more and more people are hopeless and dependent on the government while Conservatives possess the best solutions to the problems of poverty and declining mobility.  However, because the right doesn’t speak in a way that reflects their concern and compassion, many Americans don’t trust them.  In response to this problem, Brooks presents a social justice agenda grounded in the four “institutions of meaning”:  family, faith, community, and meaningful work.

Quotes 

“No one sighs regretfully on his deathbed and says, “I can’t believe I wasted all that time with my wife and kids,” “volunteering at the soup kitchen,” or “growing in my spirituality.” No one ever says, “I should have spent more time watching TV and playing Angry Birds on my phone.” In my own life, nothing has given my life more meaning and satisfaction than my Catholic faith and the love of my family.”

 

“The ideals of free enterprise and global leadership, central to American conservatism, are responsible for the greatest reduction in human misery since mankind began its long climb from the swamp to the stars.”

 

“There is a lot to be mad about in America today, but we must never forget that our cause is a joyous one. Conservatives should be optimists who believe in people. We champion hope and opportunity. Fighting for people, helping those who need us, and saving the country—this is, and should be, happy work.”

 

“Meaningful progress toward social justice cannot be made in sclerotic education systems that put adults’ job security before children’s civil rights.”

 

“the best data consistently show that more than eight in ten Americans like or love their jobs. And incredibly, that result holds steady across the income distribution. This notion that “knowledge work” is fulfilling, but everyone who works in a garage or a restaurant loathes his or her life, is an incredible act of condescension masquerading as concern. The truth is much more egalitarian. Again, economic mobility is crucial, and stagnant wages are a huge problem for American families. But this doesn’t change the deep truth that work, not money, is the fundamental source of our dignity. Work is where we build character. Work is where we create value with our lives and lift up our own souls. Work, properly understood, is the sacred practice of offering up our talents for the service of others.”

 

“When Ronald Reagan made his case to the American people, he didn’t spend a lot of time talking about what he was fighting against. He spent most of his speech talking about who he was fighting for. This is what conservatives too often forget.”

 

“Households headed by a “conservative” give, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a “liberal.”

 

“First, we should concentrate each day on the happiness portfolio: faith, family, community, and earned success through work. Teach it to those around you, and fight against the barriers to these things. Second, resist the worldly formula of misery, which is to use people and love things. Instead, remember your core values and live by the true formula: Love people and use things. Third, celebrate the free enterprise system, which creates abundance for the most people—especially the poor. But always remember that the love of money is the root of all evil, and that the ideal life requires abundance without attachment.”

 

“But at the same time, a bloated welfare state that nudges middle-class citizens away from the labor force is moving our society away from the dignity of earned success.”

 

My Take

I had previously read and enjoyed Love Your Enemies by Arthur Brooks, so I had high hopes for The Conservative Heart.  I was not disappointed. Brooks posits compelling ideas and makes a strong case for him.  He also weaves in a lot of on point anecdotes which makes the book very readable.  I was also struck by his thought that the ideal life requires abundance without attachment.  It made me think about my relationship to things and how I need to hold them loosely.  Recommended.

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434. American Dirt

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Lisa Stock

Author:   Jeanine Cummins

Genre:   Fiction, Foreign

400 pages, published January 21, 2020

Reading Format:  e-Book on Overdrive

Summary

American Dirt tells the horrific story of Lydia Pérez and her eight-year-old son Luca who must flee for their lives in Acapulco after Lydia’s journalist husband Javier and her entire family are brutally murdered by a ruthless drug cartel.  Lydia and Luca encounter many incredible difficulties as they try to make their way to the safety of American dirt.

Quotes 

“That these people would leave their homes, their cultures, their families, even their languages, and venture into tremendous peril, risking their very lives, all for the chance to get to the dream of some faraway country that doesn’t even want them.”

 

“[Author’s Note:] When I was sixteen, two of my cousins were brutally raped by four strangers and thrown off a bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. My brother was beaten and also forced off the bridge. I wrote about that horrible crime in my first book, my memoir, A Rip in Heaven. Because that crime and the subsequent writing of the book were both formative experience in my life, I became a person who is always, automatically, more interested in stories about victims than perpetrators. I’m interested in characters who suffer inconceivable hardship, in people who manage to triumph over extraordinary trauma. Characters like Lydia and Soledad. I’m less interested in the violent, macho stories of gangsters and law enforcement. Or in any case, I think the world has enough stories like those. Some fiction set in the world of the cartels and narcotraficantes is compelling and important – I read much of it during my early research. Those novels provide readers with an understanding of the origins of the some of the violence to our south. But the depiction of that violence can feed into some of the worst stereotypes about Mexico. So I saw an opening for a novel that would press a little more intimately into those stories, to imagine people on the flip side of that prevailing narrative. Regular people like me. How would I manage if I lived in a place that began to collapse around me? If my children were in danger, how far would I go to save them? I wanted to write about women, whose stories are often overlooked.”

 

“she was a book lover who enjoyed reading aloud to her baby. She liked the idea that, even before he understood them, he might begin with the most beautiful words, that he’d build language from a foundation of literature and poetry.”

 

“They hike almost three miles without incident, and it’s amazing to watch the colors leach back into the desert after the day’s blanching. There’s a moment, Lydia realizes, or no, more than a moment – a span of perhaps fifteen minutes just at twilight – when the desert is the most perfect place that exists. The temperature, the light, the colors, all hang and linger at some unflawed precipice, like the cars of a roller coaster ticking ever so slowly over their apex before the crash. The light droops ever farther from the sky, and Lydia can smell the heat of the day wicking away from her skin.”

 

“Bookstores, invariably, are a refuge. There’s one in the town where they live, and the first time Lydia ventures in, it takes her breath away. She has to steady herself against a shelf. The smell of coffee and paper and ink. It’s nothing like her little shop back home. It’s stocked mostly with religious books, and instead of calendars and toys, they carry rosaries, Buddha figurines, yarmulkes. Still, the upright spines of the books are bedrock. Steady. There’s an international poetry section. Hafiz. Heaney. Neruda. Lydia flips past the twenty love poems and reads “The Song of Despair.” She reads it desperately, hungrily, bent over the books in the aisle of the quiet shop. Her fingers ready the next page while she devours the words. The book is water in the desert.”

 

My Take

American Dirt is a compelling page turner.  Author Jeanine Cummins put in a lot of research to get the facts right of the drug cartels and the migrants who travel to el norte and it shows in this book.  She transports you along with Lydia and Luca as they make their horrific journey to the United States.  An eye-opening, well told story that I highly recommend.

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433. The Case for Easter: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for the Resurrection

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Karen Reader

Author:   Lee Strobel

Genre:   Non Fiction, Theology, Christian

90 pages, published March 26, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Case for Easter is a very short book that focuses on empirical arguments for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Author Lee Strobel interviews experts from a number of disciplines to methodically make his case.  In journalistic fashion, he looks at the medical evidence of Christ’s death on the cross, the evidence of the missing body from the tomb and the evidence of Christ’s appearances after death.

Quotes 

 

My Take

While The Case for Easter is a quick read at just 90 pages, author Lee Strobel (who also wrote The Case for Christ), makes compelling and evidenced based arguments for the resurrection of Christ.  Highly recommended during the Easter season.

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432. I Found You

Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Lisa Jewell

Genre:   Fiction, Mystery, Thriller

352 pages, published April 25, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

Middle aged, single mom Alice Lake finds a man on the beach outside her house.  He is suffering from amnesia and has no idea who he is or what he is doing there.  Alice invites him in and he slowly becomes part of her life.  At the same time, 21 year old Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one and the police tell her that her husband never existed.  Alice and Lily’s stories intertwine as a 20 year old secret is unveiled.

Quotes 

“She’d been acting the role of the scary woman for years because deep down inside she was scared. Scared of being alone. Scared that she’d had all her chances at happiness and blown each and every one of them.”

 

“But when it is just me. Alone. With myself—there is no sunshine.”

 

“His minute steak was tough and chewy, the chips were too greasy, and the ketchup wasn’t Heinz.”

 

“Someone, somewhere has liked something that Jasmine has posted on Instagram. This means that Alice’s phone will continue to pop for the next ten minutes or so as everyone Jasmine knows likes the thing she posted. Alice pictures a sea of disembodied thumbs senselessly pressing hearts. She sighs.”

 

My Take

I would characterize I Found You as a serviceable thriller.  It’s not a quick paced page turner, but there are enough twists to hold your attention.

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431. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:    J.K. Rowling

Genre:   Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult

870 pages, published September 1, 2004

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is book number five in the classic Harry Potter series.  Harry is growing up and as an emerging young adult/wizard is facing greater and more fearsome challenges.  Other than the dark lord Voldemort who continues to gain power, Harry’s chief adversary is the head in the sand approach of the Ministry of Magic, personified by the new Hogwart’s Headmaster Dolores Umbridge.  However, Harry is not alone in his battle, but is joined by the Order of the Phoenix which includes Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, Mad Eye Moody and the Weasley’s.

Quotes 

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

 

“Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”

 

“Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?”

“Yes.”

“You called her a liar?”

“Yes.”

“You told her He Who Must Not Be Named is back?”

“Yes.”

“Have a biscuit, Potter.”

 

“You’re a prefect? Oh Ronnie! That’s everyone in the family!”

“What are Fred and I? Next door neighbors?”

 

“Why were you lurking under our window?”

“Yes – yes, good point, Petunia! What were you doing under our windows, boy?”

“Listening to the news,” said Harry in a resigned voice.

His aunt and uncle exchanged looks of outrage.

“Listening to the news! Again?”

“Well, it changes every day, you see,” said Harry.”

 

“From now on, I don’t care if my tea leaves spell ‘Die, Ron, Die,’ I’m chucking them in the bin where they belong.”

 

“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters.”

 

“You should write a book,” Ron told Hermione as he cut up his potatoes, “translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them.”

 

“Harry, don’t go picking a row with Malfoy, don’t forget, he’s a prefect now, he could make life difficult for you…”

“Wow, I wonder what it’d be like to have a difficult life?” said Harry sarcastically.”

 

“Well?” Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. “How was it?”

Harry considered it for a moment. “Wet,” he said truthfully.

Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell.

“Because she was crying,” Harry continued heavily.

“Oh,” said Ron, his smile faded slightly. “Are you that bad at kissing?”

“Dunno,” said Harry, who hadn’t considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. “Maybe I am.”

 

“By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many.”

 

“Well, we were always going to fail that one,” said Ron gloomily as they ascended the marble staircase. He had just made Harry feel rather better by telling him how he told the examiner in detail about the ugly man with a wart on his nose in the crystal ball, only to look up and realize he had been describing the examiner’s reflection.”

 

My Take

I am thoroughly enjoying my re-read of the Harry Potter series, this time by listening to the excellent audio versions narrated by the incomparable Jim Dale.  He really brings the story to life with spot on voices for each character.  Although clocking in at a lengthy 870 pages, The Order of the Phoenix moves swiftly along.  It also benefits from Rowling’s clever analogy to the pre-World War II mindset in which most of the world underestimated the looming danger of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.  The execrable Dolores Umbridge is the perfect character to illustrate this concept.

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