Jacob Have I Loved

Sara Louise, nicknamed Wheezie, lives on an island with her mom, dad, grandma, and twin sister. Her dad is a fisherman of sorts. He works a lot, going out to get crabs and other seafood. Louise would like to accompany him. But they don't let females on the island do that type of work. Instead, she uses a small boat with her friend Call. They also go out searching for seafood to sell. She gives all her proceeds to her parents.

Louise's sister Caroline is the golden child. She is pretty and sings very well. Initially Louise and Call try to investigate whether a captain who recently returned to the island is a spy. They befriend the man. Caroline also joins them when they visit the captain. The captain somehow cajoles Louise and Call to help repair his house. Louise tries to return a stray cat to Miss Trudy, who she finds unresponsive. Trudy is sent to the mainland for medical help. The captain, Louise, and Call then try to clean up Trudy's house.

Call is a loner. He is also fat. As we are in a war, he heads off and becomes a man at war. Meanwhile, Trudy and the captain marry. However Trudy is sick and dies. She leaves a considerable amount of wealth to the captain. The captain then uses his money to fund Caroline's musical schooling abroad. When Call returns from the war, he has become a strapping man. He asks Caroline to marry him. This infuriates Louise. Just another case of where Caroline gets everything.

When the men were away for war, Caroline dropped out of school and was able to help her father with his seafood business. Eventually she complains to the captain and her mom how unfair life is for her. The captain encourages Louise to go live her dreams. That includes leaving the island to try to go to med school. In that time, women generally did not become doctors. So she became a nurse instead. She achieves another part of her dream by moving aboard to the mountains.

Louise meets Joseph in the mountains. He is surprised about her background, and wonders why she would come out to nowhere and live there. They eventually marry and have kids. 

A Wind in the Door

This book is the direct sequel to A Wrinkle in Time. Main character is Meg. Her little brother is Charles Wallace. He is bullied badly at school for being smart and weird. Their parents are doctors Murray. They meet Progo the Cherubim who Meg must pass a test with. Mr. Jenkins has some clones. Meg needs to discern the true principal, love him, and name him.

We also meet Blajeny the teacher. He is the one who set out the tests. He does not seem to be a main character. The enemy the Echthoi want to X everyone I think that means murder. Meg meets Sporos the faradolae. She need to convince him to join them in healing Charles and fighting the Echthoi. 

There are a number of other characters such as Calvin, who is Meg's boyfriend. There is also Louise the snake, he we find out is also a teacher. In the end, Progo gets X'd by the bad guys. But Charles is saved. The majority of the story was Meg learning to kythe (communicate telepathically) with assorted people. There were also other faradolae to convince and rally. 

Then Again, Maybe I Won't

Tony is 12 years old. He lives in Jersey with his mom, dad, grandmother, brother, and sister in law. Grandma cannot speak. But she cooks all meals. Tony's brother gets his wife pregnant. The family is worried about money. Tony's dad invents some electrical device. He sells it to some big wig, then gets hired to head up the plant that will manufacture them. They get rich due to this arrangement.

Tony and his immediate family move to Long Island. His brother and sister in law also move to New York. They now have a nice house. They hire a maid who takes over cooking, to grandma's dismay. There is a rich kid who lives next door. He is a thief. It causes Tony pain when the kid steals from stores. Lisa also lives next door. She is the big sister. Tony spies on her at night in her bedroom.

There is a tall skinny girl nicknamed Corky at school that has the hots for Tony. But he thinks he is in love with Lisa. Eventually the boy next door gets caught stealing by store security. They have him on tape. By then, Tony has had sessions with a shrink who helps him cope with troubling situations. Two years later, the thief kid is sent away to a military boarding school. And Tony think about warming up to Corky, seemingly giving up on his dreams about Lisa.

This book is by Judy Blume. It was published back in 1971. I must have read it before. I only recognized a scene when Tony and his pals hide a tip for a diner waitress in a milk jugs. The waitress screams at them that the tip pays for her loaf of bread. They stop sitting at her tables in the diner.

Damned, Volume 1, Three Days Dead

This is a graphic novel. Eddie is a man who worked for a demon. Apparently he was dead for three days. But he awoke. He was summoned by his demon boss. The boss and another clan were trying to broker a peace deal. The mediator went missing. The boss sent Eddie to investigate.

Eddie is searching for his ex-girlfriend's brother, who is in hiding. Eddie runs into assorted members of the gangs. He eventually finds out that there is something going down bigger than some gang truce. A book has been found that has an accounting of deals humans made with demons. And it lists demon names. Those names can be used to obtain power over those demons.

Eddie confronts the mastermind behind trying to translate the demon names from the books. He has a gun to this human's head. But then his ex-girlfriend shoots Eddie from behind. Luckily Eddie has the power to come back from the dead. The mastermind is apprehended. Eddie takes back the book. His demon boss gives Eddie a club to run. Eddie hands the book over to his boss.

Eddie creates a new rule for the club. No demons. During the ruckus he learns his ex-girlfriend also made a deal with the devil. He does not use his new found luck and power to save her.

Be a Work in Progress

This is a book by WWE wrestling star John Cena. It is actually a collection of quotes. These seem to be from his Twitter. Here are some example sayings:

• Do things for the reward of doing them
• Crisis can breed opportunity
• Be who you say you are
  

Sharknife

Sharknife is a boy who works in a factory. A nemesis has placed monsters in the walls. When the monsters come out, the boy turns in the Sharknife defender. He needs to eat a fortune cookie to make the transformation.  He works with a girl that he seems to like. The latest monster from the wall was very powerful. The boy needed assistance to defeat it.

The bad guy boss was disappointed that his latest monster could not defeat Sharknife. His minion was optimistic that Sharknife had to draw his blade to defeat the monster. The big boss seems to think his own sword is better than Sharknife's dagger. I guess it will be tested in the sequel.

This was a black and white graphic novel. Dialog was written in small font. Many pages were dedicated to the battles. The author seems to have been drawing for over 10 years. His Instagram is filled with tons of drawings.

IBM - The Rise and Fall and Reinvention of a Global Icon

This book covers the history of International Business Machines, the company. Also know as IBM. It initially started as three companies. I was surprised to find that the early CEO was Watson. I only know about the AI product named Watson from IBM.

I was hoping this book would cover the IBM PC. Unfortunately, this book dedicated just one chapter to the PC. The earlier IBM was more about mainframe computers. They were very successful at that.

The company sold to German Nazis. The Nazis even presented IBM's CEO with a medal. He later had to return it due to bad PR associated with it. 

Recent CEOs from the 2010 to 2017 era were more interested in stock value. They would lay off employees, sell off parts of the business, and buy back stock to prop up earnings per share. They stopped trying to grow the business. Trouble ensued.