Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver

by Carol4 Comments
We know the facts in Anatomy of a Murder from early in the book. The defendant's wife, Laura, was raped by the local innkeeper and the defendant, army lieutenant Frederic Manion, took a gun, went to the bar, and shot and killed the rapist. He reported that he had done so and was taken into custody. It becomes Biegler's duty to try to get him off. The defense? Irresistable impulse, a type of temporary insanity. The story was broken into two parts: the investigation and the trial. The investigation is not a whodunnit , obviously, it was looking at all the players in the story, finding out all the ins and outs, who knew what when, what the people involved were like. The trial was fascinating. The back and forth between the lawyers, the interjections from the judge, the witnesses' statements, and jury reactions all kept me involved in the story. Our defense attorney and the narrator of the story,...
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The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan

by Carol8 Comments
I was actually at Lakeside Chautauqua on Lake Erie for a week earlier this summer. I've lived in Ohio most of my life and even if we don't go up to Lake Erie often, it's still part of our state identity, if that makes sense, which is why The Death and Life of the Great Lakes caught my attention. It's an interesting book and an easy read, even for a non-history, non-science girl like me. We all know that humans affect the environment, but found it really interesting how a lot of the problems the lakes experience now can really be traced back to the 1800s when the lakes were first opened to the Atlantic Ocean and the Chicago River and onto the Mississippi. Egan does a wonderful job of combining history and science in relating all the lakes have been through and why. He also includes individual's stories, about what the lake was like when they were young versus today,...
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