I could try to explain The Big Machine, but it’s sprawling and strange. A group of down and out individuals are invited to a giant library in the mountains of Vermont where they are given jobs that are unexplained and turn out to be about the unexplained. Ultimately Ricky Rice and Adele Henry travel to San Francisco to assassinate a former library worker and current cult leader. That is the gist but in no way encompasses all of the stuff that happens. It’s entertaining, some moments more than others. You may have doubts about this one, but, according to the book, doubt is the big machine.

In the near future, parents are so concerned about their children that they do not allow them to play outside or get dirty or do any of the fun things they did as children. As a result, their children have weakened immune systems. To combat this, a company develops a preventative, a parasite. To be more exact, the company develops a modified tapeworm that is introduced to the body. As you might expect, there are side effects. Unfortunately, what could have been hard science fiction, veers into light horror. I didn’t hate it, but it is the first of a trilogy and I don’t plan to read the next two.

The book seems shorter than the author's name. It is a really quick read. Most of the reviews I read compare it to Twin Peaks. I love Twin Peaks, and there is definitely a bagful of quirky characters and more than a few umlauts residing in the small Finnish town of Rabbit Back, and a mystery or two to go along with it. The book focuses on Ella, the soon to be the 10th member of the renowned Rabbit Back Literature Society (RBLS). The RBLS is the child of famous Finnish children's author Laura White. She hand picks students to tutor and the society has produced nine successful authors. That's a decent set up. Toss in a plague that potentially spreads from book to book changing the content, a few gnomes and fairy creatures, and a pack of dogs... There's a lot in this package. I enjoyed it quite a bit. 

By now, most students have probably read The Giver. My daughter, who is in 8th grade, was a bit upset that she wouldn’t be able to read it with her class. She is not a reader, so I jumped on that, and the whole family read it. Family book clubs are nice and something to do when everyone’s stuck at home. The Giver is one of the early YA takes on a dystopia. When children reach 12 years old, they are assigned jobs. Jonas is surprised to receive an important position, and it allows him to understand how his society works. It’s a see-how-the-sausage-is-made scenario.

I liked it when I read it for a college YA course, and it holds up pretty well. My daughter devoured it and really liked it. That’s a pretty good recommendation.

Even in times where disease is not ravaging the world, I find books about plagues fascinating and scary. The Deep tempted me with a world inflicted with a disease called the ‘Gets, for forgets. The ‘Gets causes its victims to slowly forget everything, including how to breathe. It makes a connection with the honey bee colony collapse disorder. Seems pretty cool and the type of book that I usually will listen to rather than read. About a third of the way through I was skeptical. By half way through, I increased the playback speed just to get it over with. I think Cutter ‘gets what the premise of the book is and drops the reader into the Mariana Trench with dark visions, evil goo, and giant bees. I find realistic scary much more frightening than goo. This book is dark, and not in a good way. TV-MA