Luna: New Moon

Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald

This is a long space opera about people on the moon. There are big families that control a lot of the moon activity. Law is primarily carried out as contract negotiations, thus there is little need for appeal. A marriage between two families goes bad and conflicts arise. The book is long and boring, and is lies much more in the "soap opera" realm.

This Isn't What It Looks Like: Secret Series, Book 4

This Isn't What It Looks Like: Secret Series, Book 4 by Pseudonymous Bosch

Cass is in a coma. She tried to consume chocolate to travel back in time to find the secret. Max-Ernest's parents are now in love again, so much so that they ignore him and are expecting a second child. Max-Ernest is trying to figure out a way to get to her mind as well as deal with other challenges in the world. There is a renaissance fair (both "real" and modern.) There are also Junior High kids being junior high kids. People look in the minds and in the past. It is time travel, but is it? The book also has random commercial interjections, including an "if you liked this, you would also like" section. There was double monocle that gave each bearer special powers. (It may include mind reading or x-ray.)  Owen appears in a weird disguise - again. At times I got lost figuring out what the goal of the characters was, but the way it was carried out made it fun. 

Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe

Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss

Hunting for a preserving books and records was a key part of World War II and the post war experience. It is interesting that there were serious efforts to ban all Nazi works. Isn't that just a repeat of what the Nazis did, but in reverse?

The Overstory: A Novel

The Overstory is a story about trees and the humans associated with them. It starts with the story of migrants from the east coast to the Midwest. They happen to have chestnut seeds with them and end up with a lone tree. Things happened to the family on their farm, but the tree remained, eventually becoming an area landmark. Meanwhile, the chestnut blight wiped out almost all trees in the native habitat, leaving the isolated trees as loners.

Other characters have very different histories, yet eventually come together through the trees. There is a lawyer, a game programmer, a vet, a neo-hippie, a daughter of a Chinese immigrant, a psychologist and a botanist. They all come to respect trees. The trees have lived longer than people. They have their own communities and even have means of communicating with each other. Different species have different means of reproduction - some requiring fires and other extreme events. Clear cutting and replanting can create a monoculture, but don't create diverse forests. Similarly, the suburban vegetation is an attempt by humans to control the environment - but often far from a healthy ecosystem.

The message is that trees are important. We should respect what they have given to us. If we treat them as partners we can benefit from them without sacrificing their (and our) futures. The book paints "tree huggers" in a very positive light. Timber companies and loggers can be good also. However, once the finance make money as the ultimate goal, they become evil destroyers of forests. Even local cities can become too focused on "beauty" at the expense of the trees. The book can be a little extreme in the demonizing, but it flows well with the story.