Channel Blue  (2014)  Jay Martel

Perry Bunt is a screenwriter / teacher at a local community college.  Through ineptitude and bad luck his career in screenwriting is washed up.  One of his students – Amanda Mundo – catches his eye because she is lovely and encourages him.  When she leaves her coat in class he follows her to her work place and finds out she is actually a producer for Channel Blue, which runs the planet Earth asa reality show for aliens.  She had sat in on Perry’s classes to get ideas for storylines because the ratings for Earth were so bad that cancellation was in the plans.  Cancelling the show means destroying the Earth in one last ratings-busting Grand Finale.  Perry and Amanda try to save the Earth and themselves by getting the ratings up.  Along the way they meet G.O.D. and Satan along with Elvis – none were who we thought they were.  Does Earth burn or do they save the day?  Is this book a comedy or tragedy?  This book has been compared to Douglass Adams -  I’d say maybe Adams-Lite.  But hey that is still pretty good.

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (2010) Michael A. Hiltzik

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (2010)    Michael A. Hiltzik

The story of the building of Boulder re HOOVER Dam.  What an incredible American Adventure!  I always wondered how a dam could be built for such a raging river like the Colorado.  The creation of the four bypass tunnels were amazing.  Hiltzik captures much of the detail of the actual building and the labor issues involved.  It would have been interesting to understand more of the basic engineering issues involved.  The curing of the immense amount of concrete was astounding.  Well over a hundred deaths happened during the construction and it sounds like it could have been many more.  Hiltzik does a good job of placing this project in time along with the Great Depression and the New Deal Era of FDR.  Overall a great read!