Quarantined and Survival Series by Tracey Ward

Tracey Ward has written two short young adult series that deal with a zombie apocalypse that began in the Pacific Northwest.  The first is Quarantined, which consists of two books, Until the End and In the End.  The opening pages of Until the End show the beginning of the zombie apocalypse in Portland, Oregon.  Two college students, Alissa and Jordan, escape together and try to get out of the quarantined area, which consists of much of Oregon.  Until the End is told from Alissa's point of view, and In the End continues the story but is told from Jordan's point of view.

Adding to the drama is the fact that Alissa suffers from a mental illness that causes hallucinations.  She needs medication, which becomes an immediate problem after the zombies attack.  Medication is not easy to acquire in the chaos.

The Survival Series is set in Seattle around eight to ten years later.  The Survival Series consists of three books, Writing on the Wall, Backs Against the Wall, and Tearing Down the Wall.  This series features Joss and Ryan as they try to stay alive in Seattle.  The threats are the zombies as well as different factions of colonists who have various agendas.  Alissa and Jordan make an appearance towards the end of the second book and in parts of the third book of the trilogy.

Both sets of the books are worth reading and are similar in feel to other young adult dystopian novels that feature zombies, such as The Forest of Hands and Teeth.  Overall, I enjoyed the Quarantined Series more than the Survival Series.

The Three Investigators #37 Two-Toed Pigeon and #38 Smashing Glass

In the Three Investigators #37, The Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon, the Three Investigators meet a man named Blinky in a diner.  Blinky has a wrapped package that he leaves behind by mistake.  The boys take the package to headquarters for safekeeping and discover that it contains a pigeon with two toes on one foot.  The next day, the boys check on the bird and discover that it now has three toes on each foot.

The boys' investigation leads them to Miss Melody, who has a mystery of her own.  Her birds are being killed!  The boys suspect that Blinky, their pigeon, and Miss Melody's mystery are all connected.

The book is The Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon.  Why doesn't the cover show a two-toed pigeon?

The following passage is from pages 43-44.

"Great," Pete told him.  "So we find the murderer's footprints.  What do we do then?  Take a plaster cast of them and try to find out where he bought his shoes?"

Jupe sighed.

You tell him, Pete!  He has just pointed out how a plastic cast of a footprint is absurdly expected to provide the solution to a mystery.  I always want to roll my eyes when I read a Nancy Drew book, and Nancy notes a tire pattern or makes a plaster cast which always leads her directly to the villain.  After all, the villain is the only person in the world who wears those shoes or has that kind of tire, right?

In this book, Jupiter is worried about his weight.  At times, this distracted me from the story.  During Chapter 12, "Jupe Has a Plan," Jupiter reasons out the solution while he eats a sandwich.  He tears the sandwich in half so that he won't eat all of it.  As he talks through the solution with Pete and Bob, he absentmindedly tears off additional pieces and eats them.  The chapter ends with Jupe realizing with dismay that he ate the entire sandwich.  My attention was fixated upon the sandwich because I knew what was going to happen.  I was so distracted by the sandwich that I quit paying attention to the conversation.  After I finished the chapter, I had to read through a couple of pages again so that I could follow Jupiter's reasoning.

I enjoyed this book.

In the Three Investigators #38, The Mystery of the Smashing Glass, car windows all over town are breaking, and no one can figure out how or why.  The Three Investigators take the case when their new friend, Paul, is no longer allowed to drive his father's truck because the window keeps breaking.  Paul insists that he did not break the window.

As the boys work out possible solutions, they gradually realize that the culprit somehow knows their plans.  How is this possible?

On page 82, Bob explains that a satellite dish allows people to watch television shows without having to pay a cable company.  Pete remarks, "That sure sounds like Jarvis Temple."  Temple is a very disagreeable old man, so that remark comes across as critical towards satellite dishes.  It sounds like the author didn't agree with the idea of people avoiding cable companies!

I greatly enjoyed this book.

The 5th Wave Trilogy by Rick Yancey

Alien books are not my thing.  However, last year, Amazon had a free chapter sampler of The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, so I tried it out.  Even though the plot has to do with an alien takeover, what I read was enough like the typical zombie-driven young adult dystopian novel that I ended up purchasing the book.

In The 5th Wave, an alien mothership has arrived and is orbiting the Earth.  After 10 days, the mothership sends an electromagnetic pulse that wipes out all electronic devices.  Later, the ebola virus is used to wipe out most of the human population.  The aliens want the planet for themselves, so they must wipe out the entire human population.  The book follows the story of several humans who try to stay alive in the midst of the chaos.

The 5th Wave contains this great quote about books.

"Books? They're heavy and take up room in my already bulging backpack. But I have a thing about books. So did my father. Our house was stacked floor to ceiling with every book he could find after the 3rd Wave took out more than 3.5 billion people. While the rest of us scrounged for potable water and food and stocked up on the weaponry for the last stand we were sure was coming, Daddy was out with my little brother's Radio Flyer carting home the books."

I enjoyed The 5th Wave, but not quite as much as other dystopian novels.  Not surprisingly, it is because I don't like books about aliens very much.

The second book, The Infinite Sea, was published this month.  I found The Infinite Sea not to be as interesting as The 5th Wave, and I felt that the book was bogged down with too many details.  Throughout the entire book the question is posed as to why the aliens are not content with killing humans as quickly as possible so as to be finished with it.  Why are they killing humans in the cruelest way possible in order to inflict great emotional trauma?  Apparently, the aliens are killing people in a cruel fashion because they hate people—or something like that.  I'm not really sure that I completely understood.

Near the end of the book, there was a revelation about the aliens and what they were doing.  I think it was supposed to be shocking, but I had no reaction.  I didn't care.  I so very much didn't care and didn't see what it changed that I almost want to say what it is.  But since that might be a plot spoiler for people who might think it matters, I'll refrain.  My reaction was, "Whatever."  I don't see how it changed what had happened.  Maybe a little bit.  But I really don't care.

So this book lost me around halfway through.  I suppose I'll purchase the final book in the trilogy once it is released just to see what happens, but I'm rather ambivalent. 

The Three Investigators #35 Kidnapped Whale and #36 Missing Mermaid

In the Three Investigators #35, The Mystery of the Kidnapped Whale, the Three Investigators save a beached baby whale by digging a hole on the beach for the whale, lining it with canvas, and filling it with water.  The boys return later before the tide comes back in and discover that someone has taken the whale!

Near the end of the introduction, Hector Sebastian states, "I hope you'll enjoy [the story] and that you won't find it difficult to read."  Almost anything would be better than that last horrible book!

This book was written by Marcus Breresford under the pseudonym, Marc Brandel.  I assume that Breresford was given some Three Investigators books written by Robert Arthur when he was hired for this one.  He clearly modeled the book after those books, which resulted in this book having the feel of the early books in the series. 

On page 9 after Pete and Bob have dug the hole, Pete remarks that he hopes Jupe does his part when they heave the whale into the hole.  "Jupe didn't bother to answer him.  It seemed to him he had already done more than his share.  The whole plan had been his idea."  Priceless!

This story is more sinister than most of the books.  The villain's threats are dangerous, and the boys know they are in great danger.

This is a very good book.

In the Three Investigators #36, The Mystery of the Missing Mermaid, the Three Investigators spend time in Venice, California so that Bob can interview people for a school project about areas that are undergoing change.  The boys spend a lot of time around Mermaid Court, which is owned by Mr. Burton.  A young boy, Todd, disappears with his dog.  The Three Investigators take the case.

While the cover art shows what appears to be a real mermaid, the story does not have one.  The mermaid is simply a statue, and the cover art does not depict a scene in the book.  The cover art is pure fantasy.

This story has a more gritty feel to it.  A dog is killed, which is not an event typical for a series book.  A boy is missing, and one can't help but wonder about the boy's fate, since the dog is dead.  Normally in these books, the reader has no doubt that the missing person will be found alive, but the events in this book keep the reader in suspense.

During the entire story, the reader gets the idea that the boys are in a bad part of town around rather bad people.

The book mentions specific streets in Venice, California, and I looked at Venice on a map and was easily able to find the area.  The plot is centered around the Ocean Front Walk with some events on Speedway, Pacific Avenue, and Main Street.  I would have to read the entire book again to see whether a specific cross street was mentioned, so I am unable to narrow down the location any closer than along Ocean Front Walk on this portion of a map of Venice.

I was amazed that I was able to narrow down the area as close as this.

This book is very engaging, and I greatly enjoyed it.  The fact that I spent a good amount of time gazing at both a map and satellite image of Venice after I finished the book should make it apparent that the book fascinated me.

This book is outstanding.

Cataloging My Collection

This summer I decided to catalog my collection.  I cataloged 4,485 books, which are most of my series books.  I did not do all of my books.  I wasn't concerned about getting everything cataloged.  I hadn't kept up my written records well for around 10 years, and I wanted to get a database that was more current.  I also wanted to get photographic documentation of my most important books and have the prices I paid for all of my books in an online database in case of loss.  It's not helpful when one's records are in the same place as one's books.  In the event of a loss, both the books and the records would disappear.

Here are the series for which I own the most books.

Nancy Drew - 2,368
Trixie Belden - 281
Judy Bolton - 221
Dana Girls - 199
Three Investigators - 135
Hardy Boys - 111

I discovered that at least two books are missing, and I cannot account for what happened to them.  The first one is my copy of the first Girl Scouts book by Edith Lavell, The Girl Scouts at Miss Allen's School.

I suspect that I might have sold the book accidentally around four or five years ago when I had other Girl Scouts books that were extras, but I really don't know.

Even more puzzling is the disappearance of my hardcover book for Nancy Drew #130, The Sign of the Falcon.  I have in my written records that I have this book, but I cannot find it.  I would not have accidentally sold it.  This is a mystery.

Both missing books should have been on shelves on the same wall and would have been within five feet of each other.  Perhaps their disappearances are connected, but I can find no trace of either book and have no idea where they would be.  I have looked under and behind all bookcases.

I used LibraryThing to catalog my books.  Words cannot express exactly how little I relished the task of cataloging my collection.  I had put the process off for years, then one day in early July, I decided to force myself.  And force myself I did.  It was tiresome photographing thousands of books.  It was brutal trying to interpret my rather disorganized and incomplete records.  In some cases, I was never able to figure out what I paid for a book.

I found the process of entering the data on LibraryThing quite cumbersome at first until I figured out how I could enter the data very quickly.  I have a CueCat, which scans the barcodes.  Since I have a massive quantity of Nancy Drew books that do not have barcodes, I spent one hour compiling barcodes for Nancy Drew #1-56.  I did this by searching the internet for each Nancy Drew title followed by "UPC."  This brought up a page which has a barcode.  I took a screen capture of the barcode and created documents that I printed.  Here is a sample of a part of one of my pages.

I took the CueCat and scanned the printed barcode pages, thus speeding up the creation of my entries for my Nancy Drew books.  For other series, I had to manually search from within LibraryThing for entries, which was slower.  

By the time I had entered a few hundred books, I quit editing titles.  I decided to go with whatever showed up.  After all, I know what each book is, and the title doesn't have to be perfect.  While I'd love everything to be perfect, I wanted to get the data entered as fast as I could since I did not want to do it at all.  Remember, I had to force myself to do the cataloging during the entire process from start to finish. 

While leaving the title alone, I did add a photo of my book to each listing and entered the price paid and date acquired.

I found that I could enter the data directly from the following screen on LibraryThing, which sped up the entry of data greatly.

The above page can be changed to show what you want it to show.  Double-clicking in each box allows for the information to be edited.  As I stated, I did not edit most titles.  I usually did not edit the author's name unless I noticed something that I cared to take the time to fix.  I did try to edit all the dates to reflect the actual age of each book.

After quite a bit of debate with myself where I changed my mind several times, I decided to keep my books in a private library.  This is because I have had aggressive collectors use high pressure to try to get me to sell certain books to them.  Having all books in my collection cataloged publicly makes me very nervous.  I never thought that the small percent of my books mentioned here and on my website would cause problems.

I try to be very careful about how much information I make public online.  Sometimes I worry that I have shared too much in this blog or on Facebook.  Sometimes I have gone back and edited posts, removing some information.

The trend nowadays is for everyone to share everything with everyone else.  That works fine for many people, but I am much more cautious.  My Facebook account is nearly stripped of all personal information.  I use Facebook only to interact with other collectors in the groups and do not use it for anything of a personal nature.  Facebook asks me every few weeks where I went to high school and college, and I refuse to answer.  I'm so sorry, Facebook, but you don't need that information.

I know that many people refuse to use Facebook because they don't wish to share their information.  You can be like me and not share much of anything. 

The Three Investigators #33 Purple Pirate and #34 Wandering Cave Man

In the Three Investigators #33, The Mystery of the Purple Pirate, an advertisement offers to pay anybody who can tell Major Karnes about local pirates.  The Three Investigators respond to the ad and are dismayed when Karnes barely listens to what they have to say, and even worse, he doesn't pay them!  Jupiter is convinced that Karnes is up to something, so the boys eavesdrop.  Soon they learn that Karnes is only interested in the Purple Pirate Lair and the man who runs the attraction.

The plot of this book is a bit convoluted.  While I overall enjoyed this book, I could have done without the excessively long description of the pirate attraction.  It went on and on!  The book also should have had slightly fewer villains.

This book is good but borderline mediocre.  It is also rather confusing.

In the Three Investigators #34, The Mystery of the Wandering Cave Man, bones of a hominid are found in a cave.  Before the bones can be properly recovered, the owner of the land confiscates them and launches a tourist attraction!  Later, the bones are stolen!

Early in the story, I was quite bored while the boys watch an excruciatingly long television interview with two men bickering about the bones.  They discuss the bones for what seems like an eternity.  I was so bored! 

Not until page 71 did I feel like perhaps the story was finally getting started. 

On page 77, the boys question why the bones would have been stolen because the bones "aren't valuable in themselves, like gold or jewelry."   The bones are said to be at least 10,000 years old and maybe older.  Why wouldn't somebody steal them?

The final chapter of the book is titled "Mr. Sebastian Is Impressed."  This just proves that Mr. Sebastian is an idiot.  I wasn't impressed!  This book is so boring!  I skimmed so many parts of the book.  I skimmed the last chapter.  I couldn't take anymore of it.

This book is my least favorite of the first 34 books in the Three Investigators series.  I like it less than #30, 31, and 33, and I didn't like those very much.  Reading this book was almost painful at moments.

A Mobile Map Application for Book and Antique Hunting

I like to use a map application on my iPad when I'm out hunting for books.  Most often, I use the app if I am visiting a series of estate sales.  Occasionally, I might be traveling somewhere and wish to enter the locations of a number of book and antique stores into the app.

The old Google maps worked fine for entering a series of locations in that it stored the locations in its recent history, so they could be recalled by checking the list.  The new Google maps does not work the same way, so I no longer like it. 

Apple maps works in the fashion that the old Google maps did; however, it would be nice to be able to see all of the locations pinned on the map at the same time.  That functionality does not exist with either Apple or Google maps.  I want to be able to see all of my planned stops at the same time on the screen just like if I had sticky notes placed on a paper map like I used to do 20 years ago.

This summer I tried the Click2Map app.  Click2Map is offered in both a free and pay version.  I chose the free version.  In the free version, users can enter and store up to 150 locations, and every single location is displayed on the map at the same time.

Users sign up for an account on the Click2Map website.  The pinned locations are stored on the website, and the app syncs with the website whenever it is opened.

The app does exactly what I wanted, and I have found it very helpful in my book hunting.  The app does use up a lot of data, more so than other maps applications.  It constantly syncs with the server, which is what uses the data.  I did encounter a few glitches, such as the app closing abruptly.  Even though the app has some glitches and uses a lot of data, the benefits far outweigh the problems.  It's the only free app I was able to find after extensive searching that allowed me to display multiple locations on the map at the same time.

The Three Investigators #31 Scar-Faced Beggar and #32 Blazing Cliffs

In the Three Investigators #31, The Mystery of the Scar-Faced Beggar, Bob witnesses a bank robbery and suspects that a scar-faced beggar who was nearby helped provide a distraction.  The beggar drops a wallet that belongs to someone named Hector Sebastian.  At first the Three Investigators think Sebastian is the beggar, but they later learn that the wallet was lost by Sebastian and likely picked up by the beggar.

This book caught my attention better than the last book but mainly because it introduces Hector Sebastian, the fictitious famous writer who takes the place of Alfred Hitchcock.  While I enjoyed learning about Hector Sebastian, I found the overall story not to be particularly interesting. The book is quite uneven. I alternatively enjoyed and didn't enjoy parts all through the book.  Sections dragged for me, and I was bored.  Then, I would get interested again, followed by more boredom.

This book is an example of what happens when a story is built around a gimmick.  This was the first book published after Alfred Hitchcock's death, and the publisher wished to write him out of the series while introducing the new character, Hector Sebastian.  The lost wallet provided the means for the boys to be introduced to Sebastian, and a mystery was written around the missing wallet.

I knew that I had experienced a similar story recently that was written around a gimmick.  I mentally reviewed what I have read during recent months, and I finally realized that I was thinking of the Nancy Drew game, The Shattered Medallion.  The mystery was weak in that game, because the game was built around the gimmick of Sonny Joon's first real-life appearance in a Nancy Drew game.  This book turned out the same way, although I enjoyed the Nancy Drew game far more than I did this book.

I skimmed some parts of this book, because I wanted it to be over.  This book is mediocre. 

In the Three Investigators #32, The Mystery of the Blazing Cliffs, Charles Barron and his wife make some purchases at the Jones Salvage Yard for their ranch.  Mr. Barron has made his ranch self-sufficient, because he believes that the world's economic system will soon collapse, resulting in chaos.  He believes that currency will be worthless and that people must buy gold.  Mrs. Barron believes that a superior alien race will be coming to take the chosen people away right as a catastrophic event occurs.

The Three Investigators help deliver Mr. Barron's purchases to his ranch, and shortly after they arrive, the military closes off all roads.  Nobody is allowed to leave, and a UFO is spotted in the nearby hills.  Apparently, Mr. and Mrs. Barron's predictions have come true!  The Three Investigators suspect a hoax and set out to prove it.

This book starts off good and flows quite well from start to finish.  The book starts in the Jones Salvage Yard, just like all Three Investigators books should.  The investigation begins as a result of junk that the boys help deliver to a ranch.  The book grabbed my attention immediately, just as a book should, and kept my attention throughout the story.

I don't think much of series books with UFOs, but this book is an exception.  I was skeptical about this book at first, and I was most pleasantly surprised.

Mr. Barron believes that the world will come to an end, so he has stockpiled his ranch with weapons and fuel.  He is totally self-sufficient.  This part is very plausible today, since many people are currently doing this.

Mr. Barron is hilarious.  All through the book, he delivers quite a few spectacular one-liners that made me laugh.  This book is extremely funny and engaging.

This book is absolutely outstanding.