The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey is lovely work of nonfiction about the bedridden author and a connection she felt with a snail that was put into a pot on her nightstand. It's a interesting book that includes the topics of kinship, resilience, and survival. 

Bailey fell ill at the age of thirty-four after picking up an illness while in Europe, and upon getting back to the United States, became largely unable to get out of bed due to the unknown pathogen. 

Her friend brought a snail to her and, first in a pot and then terrarium, Bailey provided for the snail and watched as it lived its small life. As Bailey wrote, the snail provided comfort and focus to her and buffered her feelings of uselessness. She learned what environment the snail liked and what it wanted to eat (portobello mushrooms), and provided it. Bailey appreciated how the snail would make it through the day, something that was all she could do as well. She notes that the energy of her human visitors, loved them as she did, wore her out, but the snail inspired her with its curiosity and grace in a peaceful and solitary world. 

Also noted is the concept of how time is finite, but morphs between one not having not enough of it, like all her friends, and having an abundance of time to fill, which she faced. She eventually improved some, and was first diagnosed with autoimmune dysautonomia and chronic fatigue syndrome, and then told she had acquired a mitochondrial disease, from either a virus or bacteria. It's excellent writing as well as a touching story and something that felt to come out of the book is that there's all kinds of lives, and they all matter.

True Grit by Charles Portis

True Grit by Charles Portis is an entertaining novel that was turned into an equally entertaining 2010 movie with Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin.

Portis tells the story of fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross retaining U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn to track down and bring to justice the man, Tom Chaney, who murdered her father. Joined in the quest initiated by Mattie is a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf.

One thing that the movie did, which was actually a remake of a 1969 film starring John Wayne, was show just how amusing the scenes written by Portis were. It's a tremendously fun western story set in 1870s Arkansas and Indian Territory. 

The skill with which Portis sets scenes and provides dialogue is remarkable, with the writing a first-person account by Mattie Ross done decades after the fact. Among many great stories in the book is the saga of Mattie's horse Little Blackie, from when she acquires him from Col. G. Stonehill through to the conclusion of the book.

The Siege by Ben Macintyre

The Siege by Ben Macintyre is an interesting work of nonfiction book A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World. 

Macintyre details the 1980 hostage crisis at the Iranian embassy in London, with twenty-six hostages taken. The perpetrators were Iranian Arabs from the Khuzestan region of Iran, where the Arabistan people were persecuted by the government in Iran, and the effort was bankrolled by Saddam Hussein, with he an enemy of Iran.

This occurred six months into the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Iran, and six days prior to the hostage-taking in London, eight U.S. soldiers were killed during an effort to rescue hostages. The Iranian government said the CIA was behind the London embassy attack, and that Iranians there would be happy to die as martyrs. 

It's a fascinating account from Macintyre of the six-day event, which the attackers believed would be over a day, including the eventual raid on the embassy by British SAS forces acting on the go-ahead from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is a solid follow up to his first book, The Tipping Point from 25 years ago, and the new effort subtitled Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering.

In part one, "Three Puzzles," Gladwell writes about bank robbers in L.A., Medicare fraud in Miami, vaccination rates, and the dangerous quest for achievement, as told through the story of the fictional town Poplar Grove and its wave of teen suicides.

Part two, "The Social Engineers" includes the decades-past integration of Lawrence Lane in Palo Alto, CA and the concept of the Magic Third, the point at which something becomes normalized or integrated. If about individuals, when you get to three, you have a team, not just a single person or a friendship between two people. 

Related to the concept of ratios, Gladwell, tells a fascinating story about Harvard University, and the varsity women’s rugby team. He notes that Harvard competes in more D1 varsity sports than any other university in the country, and that Harvard has a two-track admissions process, the first for people who simply compete based on merit, and second for ALDCs, or Athletes, Legacies, Dean’s Interest List (children of rich people), and Children of faculty. The ALDCs leave admissions control to university discretion, and there is a corresponding impact on the makeup of the student body. Gladwell makes the point that varsity sports are a mechanism by which Harvard maintains control of admissions decisions, and whether nefarious or not, that that maintains group proportions within the student body.

Also included is the story of the Marriott outbreak, where a hotel in Boston became an early epicenter of the covid virus. It was interesting from the perspective of how specific individuals have the propensity to be superspreaders. Gladwell refers to it as the law of the very, very, very few, and we can somewhat tell who those people are based on the characteristics of that person. This raises the question of whether in the future people identified as potential superspreaders will be treated differently than others.

Part three, "The Overstory," includes the L.A. Survivors' Club about holocaust discussion and the impact of the 1978 tv miniseries Holocaust. For decades after the war, the Holocaust wasn’t spoken of much. Many people wanted to simply move past, to not get bogged down in thoughts and discussion of things horrible. The show airing then had a huge impact on people using the term and opening discussing the atrocities that happened.

Gladwell also writes about how the tv show Will & Grace had an impact on gay marriage becoming law, it normalized behavior, showing that homosexuality wasn’t a problem to be solved.

The conclusion to the book includes detail on the opioid crisis. Gladwell notes how select states forced doctors prescribing opioids to make triplicate carbon copies of the prescription (one for the doctor, one for the pharmacy, and one for the bureau of narcotic enforcement), and how those states have had way lower rates of addiction. There’s also an interesting point made about opioid superspreaders, doctors who prescribe way more opioids than others, similar to covid superspreaders, or pollution superspreaders.