Book Reviews

John Geiger’s first book, The Third Man Factor was the first time I realized I wasn’t crazy. I had a near death (in some ways an actual death) experience when I was caught in a flash flood in the Fiordland’s of New Zealand in 1984. I saw my life pass before my eyes, the white light at the end of the tunnel, a wonderful warm beautiful feeling throughout my body.

After reading his first book, I realized I was not the only person who had a guardian angel help them out of a difficult situation. Read my short version of my drowning on his website and others in the Third Man Factor Forum http://bit.ly/18HuLma. (I just looked at nearly 8000 people have read my story there so far).

An interesting read. The author is a Yale graduate who has written a few books on fishing but he gave this one a different ‘spin’. Connecticut is on the 41st parallel so he decided to go around the world fishing that parallel for trout.

He fishes much of the time with an Austrian who is a amateur expert on native trout. Johannes loves to snorkel in streams and net trout and then take pictures of them, snip a fin for a DNA sample, and then return them to the stream. He is a fanatic about finding native trout and James the author is in good company.

A thoughtful look at Baby Boomers from an economic point of view. Chris Farrel is a senior economics contributor at Marketplace on American Public Media’s radio programs.

This book has so much food for thought and is an optimistic look at what boomers can look forward to, an engaged, vibrant, and productive time of life…if we choose to. Here are a couple of key quotes.

Who would have thought that one reason civilization grew faster in EurAsia is that the continent is laid out ‘east to west’ vs North America / South America and Australia which is  ‘north to south’?

Who would have believed that the domestication of animals was so complex and vital to human development?

We all hate germs but I didn’t realize how much of a factor germs were in European development across the world.