Apr. 3, 2015, Book: 'The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific'

We're on a roll and Anjanette has selected the Apr. 3, 2015, book: "The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific" by J. Maarten Troost. Don't let the racy title fool you. It's actually a travelogue. Here is a description from the most excellent Amazon.com:

At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.

Little bit of a cliffhanger there.

Here is a review:

You know how you feel when you've just finished a really good book and want to tell everyone you know about it? That is how I feel about THE SEX LIVES OF CANNIBALS. During the first few chapters I was laughing out loud so much and reading passages to my husband so often that he mentioned he wouldn't even have to read the book. However since he formerly lived in the Marshall Islands, this book hits home to him and he could hardly wait until I was done to grab it from my hand.

Feb. 20, 2015, Book: 'Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats'

Amy has changed her book selection to "Full Body Burden" by Kristen Iversen for the Feb. 20, 2015, book club meeting. (This replaces "Lone Survivor.")

Here is the overview from Amazon.com:

"Full Body Burden" is Kristen Iversen's story of growing up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant. It's also a book about the destructive power of secrets—both family secrets and government secrets. Her father's hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what they made at Rocky Flats—best not to inquire too deeply into any of it. But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions and discovered some disturbing realities.

As this memoir unfolds, it reveals itself as a brilliant work of investigative journalism—a shocking account of the government's sustained attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic and radioactive waste released by Rocky Flats, and of local residents' vain attempts to seek justice in court. Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book promises to have a very long half-life.

They are talking about our small town!