Think Twice
by Lisa Scottoline
Think Twice, by Lisa Scottoline, tells the story of Bennie Rosato, a successful lawyer and head of her own law firm. Bennie never knew she had a twin sister who was given up for adoption at birth, until one day her twin contacts her for legal help fighting a murder charge.
Bennie proves her twin not guilty of murder, but finds her to be much wilder and more undesirable than herself.
While Bennie lives a life of luxury, reaping the rewards of her hard work and career pursuits, her twin Alice Connolly has lived a hard life of crime and drugs, getting herself into one mess after another.
One day, Alice goes too far - stealing a large batch of drugs from her violent ex. With her life now in danger, Alice devises a horrific plan to steal her sister's life and money, and to flee the country.
When Bennie wakes up to find herself buried alive and left for dead by Alice, she fights with all her will to escape. Once free, she had but one thought - Alice must die!
Consumed by the desire for revenge, Bennie begins to think and act more like Alice, while Alice begins to seem more and more a sympathetic character.
Think Twice is an interesting exploration of good and evil. Are people simply born one way or the other, or do life's circumstances determine which direction they follow?
As the story progresses, the "good twin" becomes more evil, while the "evil" twin becomes more relatable. Only one twin can win this battle; which one will it be? And can she find redemption?
You can find this thriller in the adult fiction area, the large print area, and the Book Express. It can also be downloaded in audiobook format to your computer, mp3 player, and iPod.
- reviewed by Teresa DeReis, readers' advisor
at the P.G. Public Library
Empires of Food
by Evan Fraser
and Andrew Rimas
In Empires Of Food, authors Evan Fraser and Andrew Rimas explore how civilizations are largely defined by their systems for growing and delivering food to their citizens.
Today, when we think of food, we think of supermarkets which are the outlets of enormous agricultural corporations. We assume that inexpensive food will always be available on the shelves of our local grocery store. Chillingly, Fraser and Rimas suggest that this assumption may not be valid.
The book starts with a description of ancient agricultural systems, like the sophisticated networks of the Roman Empire and medieval Europe. For example, Rome's million citizens were fed for hundreds of years with food shipped from across the Mediterranean and stored in warehouses larger in area than the Coliseum.
Despite their infrastructure, however, agriculture at that time was not efficient or productive. For every city resident in Rome there were 95 people working in the fields. A contributing factor to the decline of Roman civilization was actually dropping crop yields due to climate change and exhausted soils.
Fraser and Rimas go on to describe our own food empire that arose when the Europeans began exploring other parts of the world, bringing back spices and exotic foods. Then they bring readers to the present and posit that a perfect storm is brewing in our modern day food empire.
Demand for food is rising due to a growing population and increased consumption of meat in developing countries. Can we sustain that demand, or will modern-day civilization experience the same issues that the Roman Empire did, and eventually decline?
The problem with modern food production, say Fraser and Rimas, is that it is based on huge monocultures of hybrid plants that require large quantities of water, fertilizers, and industrial chemicals. The growing of monocultures - or a limited range of plant species with little genetic variation - results in a constant see-saw battle between pests and scientists. It is not unusual for crops over vast areas to be wiped out by insects or new plant diseases.
And while fertilizers can mask the effects of the steady deterioration of our topsoil and replace missing nutrients, they cannot fix the underlying issues and they cause problems of their own. Fertilizers are a major source of water pollution and have rendered water in many areas undrinkable.
Irrigation, which is obviously crucial to agriculture in much of the world, also has a downside. Water in warmer climates evaporates, leaving salts and other compounds behind in farmers' fields. The result, over a number of decades, is salt deposits that end up decreasing agricultural yields.
Empires of Food concludes that our system of agriculture is not immune to basic physical limits. We can fertilize depleted soil or irrigate deserts, but that does not keep our food supply out of danger.
This book is available in the adult non-fiction area.
- reviewed by John Shepherd, former trustee for the Prince George Public Library board
