Over the past couple of months, I've read a few books that I didn't get a chance to review yet. These were all enjoyable in different ways and are recommended reads. A Will to Kill by R. V. Raman I've been looking for an Indian mystery for a while now. So when I came across A Will to Kill in Netgalley set in one of my favorite places in India (also close to my home town), I just had to request it. In so many ways, this is a typical Agatha Christie type mystery - there's a death (in an isolated mansion, no less) and the investigator/detective tries to solve the mystery. Harith Athreya is visiting the owner of the mansion, Bhaskar Fernandez, where a small gathering has been planned for the owner's relatives and friends. Bhaskar has written two wills - and how he dies will determine which will goes into effect. That night, there is a murder and Athreya spends the next few days trying to find the culprit. I generally enjoy the Agatha Christie class of murder mysteries.
Now off to the main topic. This is our first month, first week and first day of this feature. As I mentioned yesterday, the book we are focusing on this month is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben. Bill's assertion is that the earth as we know it doesn't exist anymore. Instead, it has undergone so many changes over these decades, many of them irreversible, that we may just have to stop thinking of reversing damage or restoring the earth to its old glory and just get on with adjusting to the new one, which he prefers to call Eaarth. The faster, the better for all involved. The changes happening, the drastic climatic conditions, all those failed conferences - they've all been in the news, but the one thing we (or at least I) never really paused to consider is that things may have possibly crossed that invisible line from which there is no return. I still remain optimistic, but I'm not sure how practical it is to be so. That's the gist of the book Eaarth.
So, if we can't go back to normalcy (whatever that is), why bother? That's a question that Eaarth tackles, and something that we want to explore with you. This was the first book by I read by Bill McKibben. And during my conversations with Ash, I found that this environmentalist is actually the founder of 350.org. Don't know what 350.org is? You're not alone - I hadn't heard of it until a few months ago, when I began to get actively (no longer passively) interested in all this. So, if you want to know more about 350.org and who Bill McKibben is, head on over to Ash's blog, because she's doing a post about it today!
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