Fever Beach: A Novel by Carl Hiaasen

Sometimes called the inventor of “Florida Guy Noir,” Hiaasen’s novels are something like margaritas, Jimmy Buffett music, a conch sandwich and flip flops in laugh-out-loud print. The fact that he wasn’t tarred and feathered years ago, in the predominantly Republican-leaning state he has always called home, would seem to indicate humour works like some sort of invisibility cloak, or that bipartisanship is not dead (at least when it comes to novels).

Fever Beach is more of what we’ve come to expect from Hiaasen, which is to say a zany sun soaked caper that skewers racists, corrupt politicians, the willfully ignorant and those who would pave paradise to put up a parking lot. He isn’t breaking any new ground here, but given current political events in the US, this is exactly the sort of lampooning satire required to laugh instead of rage against the news cycle for a change.

Adult Fiction pr7839859

The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource by Christopher Hayes

An argument by the MSNBC host and author that the most precious resource in the world today are not diamonds, oil or gold, but our attention.

I’ll admit that when I included this in an LBI Bestseller list, I was simply going through the motions: noted, well reviewed author? Check? 100k print run? Check. Big 5 publisher with a marketing budget to promote this? Check. But it never occurred to me that I’d actually want to read it myself, assuming it was just another “cellphones, Facebook, Tik Tok bad” sort of screed.

But then I heard the author on CBC... background noise turned into something I stopped to pay attention to, and later became a hold at my local library. And I’m glad I did, because even though a lot of this is familiar, Hayes has crafted an extremely interesting, readable book that easily held my attention for the two sittings it took to devour it. Now it has me reevaluating where I put my attention, not only how, but for how long.

This would be a great Non-Fiction book club pick – I can’t stress enough how enjoyable this was to read, despite the distressing subject matter.

Adult Non-Fiction pr7834846