Book Report: The Charlatans (Remnants of America: Vol. 1)

I bought The Charlatans (Remnants of America Vol. 1) by J.T.R. Brown soon after it was released last fall. However, I just got around to reading it. I worked with J.T. at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana when we lived there. It was really interesting to read a book by someone I know!

It took me a couple of chapters to really get into The Charlatans but once I was in, I was in and I struggled to put it down to get to sleep on time. The character building and world building are excellent. Overall, I really like J.T.'s style of writing though sometimes it's a little wordy for me. He also uses an awesome variety of vocabulary words. I had to pull out the dictionary a few times (which I love).

My favorite quote from the book was from page 151:

This country has organized a religion around a man who hated organized religion.

This stuck with me particularly because it reflects my current religious beliefs so well.

J.T. recently announced that Remnants of America Vol. 2 will be out in Fall 2015. I can't wait to find out what happens next!

Title: The Charlatans (Remnants of America: Vol. 1)
Author: J.T.R. Brown
Genre: Post-apocalyptic fiction
Pages: 288
Stars (Out of 5): ***

Race Report: Shamrock Shuffle 8K

 

Natallie and I ran the Shamrock Shuffle this morning. It was our second year running together (though last year we were in different corrals so didn't actually run together but ran identical times) and my third year overall. It's a fun race that kicks off the Chicago running season.

We met in the lobby about 7:45am and walked over to the start corrals. We were a little too early as we were entering the corral a couple minutes after 8am, nearly 20 minutes before our corral closed. The sun peaked out just a little while we were waiting for the start. It was still freezing but the sun made it bearable.

We were in Corral C so we started about 10 minutes after the official 8:30am start. It took a good mile for my legs, feet, and fingers to defrost. By mile two, I was unzipping my jacket and taking off my gloves. It was super windy but it didn't impact us much until just past the 5K mark going south on Franklin. Then, it eased up as we turned east but then hit us again going south on Michigan. I lost Natallie towards the end but found her pretty quickly after the finish.

Immediately afterwards we thought maybe it was going to turn out to be nice enough to enjoy the finish party for a little bit but by the time we made it there we were freezing again.

2015 Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle finishers!

We did a good job of pacing ourselves, starting out between 8:30 and 9 and slowly getting faster. I'm not sure if we ended up with negative splits or not (mile 3 may have been slightly slower than mile 2) but it was close!

Distance: 8K
Time: 41:44
Cost: $50
Pros: Super close to home, well organized start corrals, fun course, super cute green Dri-Fit t-shirt, great on-course support
Cons: Weather kinda sucked this year, fairly crowded
Would I run it again?: Yes!

Wisconsin Alumni Association Chicago Chapter

Last night I participated in the Wisconsin Alumni Association Chicago Chapter scholarship interviews. We interviewed 23 high school seniors (plus a few others via phone) for six $5000/year scholarships renewable for four years. The students were amazing! A few of them were pretty nervous but most of them hid any nerves and answered our questions extremely well.

There were 322 total applicants which were whittled down to 70 applicants by a few committee members. Then, more of us reviewed those 70 applications on paper and listed our Top 25. The applicants with the most Top 25 votes were invited to the interviews. The interviews consisted of four different panels who asked the same few questions to every interviewee (so every interviewee met with four different panels). It's a long night but it's so fun to hear their responses and have the opportunity to answer some of their questions about UW-Madison too.

The best part is calling the winners. An interviewer is assigned to call each of the winners. It's so fun to deliver such great news! The excitement is palpable through the phone. This is the second year that I made a call and I've teared up both times.

Book Report: Cordelia's Honor

I've decided to track the books I read by writing short "book reports" for each one. These book reports won't be very long and will just give a short description of each book including what I liked and what I didn't like.

 

I finished my first book of 2015 a week or so ago, Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. John recommended it as the next series I should read, adding that each book could stand by itself so it wasn't super important to read them all at once. It took me almost 100 pages to really get into it but once I was in, I was in! I should note that this is actually two books, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, put into one.

I absolutely adore the title character, Cordelia. She's a very strong, independent woman which clashes a bit with her eventual husband's upbringing (though he finds it very attractive himself). I also really like the comparisons between the highly technological Beta Colony and the barbarian Barrayar. The concepts of contraceptive implants and uterine replicators were especially interesting to me.

If you like science fiction (I think John also called it a space opera) then I highly recommend this book! I'd call it an adventurous space love story.

Title: Cordelia's Honor
Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Science fiction, space opera
Pages: 596
Stars (Out of 5): ****