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juushikaKitchen, breakfast nook, kitchen respectively. These are all pretty good while not being great: interesting subjects, lots of momentum, flawed treatment, but not egregiously so. Kitchen &c. area looks great; all walls done, lots of decor under way, but still need to do ever more shopping QQ. And maybe someday remove random artifacts-of-moving (boxes) so I can take pictures to send to my mum.
Title: Bone Deep: Untangling the Twisted True Story of the Tragic Betsy Faria Murder Case
Author: Charles Bosworth Jr., Joel J. Schwartz
Narrator: Gary Bennett
Published: Tantor Audio, 2022
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 413,820
Text Number: 1558
Read Because: true crime while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: When Betsy Faria was murdered, her husband, Russ Faria, who discovered her body, was the police's initial and for too long their own suspect, at the cost of investigating a viable suspect, Pam Hupp. This is the third account I've read of wrongful police investigations in high-profile cases (the others were Victim F, Huskins et al. and A Rip in Heaven, Cummins), and it's not lost on me that all these innocent suspects are white. It makes palatable the assertion that "police: bad, actually," and wants for a larger examination of police practices and corruption, of bad-faith prosecution and false convictions, of prosecution bias in the legal system, of the demographics of those affected. (There's a moment in the second murder case when Russ Faria again talks to the police without legal counsel which goes unquestioned by the narrative and is just ... hilarious, and awful.)
But what a case. It hits all the beats: Russ Faria's experience is pretty clear-cut and appropriately enraging, while the later events surrounding Pam Hupp are incredible—they provide a lot of closure but have a can't-look-away-from-a-car-crash energy, tragic and wild. Hardly a perfect book, but certainly engaging.
Title: Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life
Author: Sarah Edmondson, Kristine Gasbarre
Narrator: Sarah Edmondson
Published: 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 416,130
Text Number: 1570
Read Because: more nonfiction while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Edmondson makes a fuss about being complicit but not in the bad way that those other people were complicit, which undermines what's otherwise a promising exploration of cult members as simultaneous victims and perpetrators, particularly when they hold power within the cult. But on the whole I liked this, primarily because it sold me on what makes an MLM-style personal improvement hustle culture wellness cult appealing, and how that appeal can be leveraged. It's nothing I didn't know about NXIVM, which has received a lot of great coverage, but it's a meaningful insight into one person's experience within it
Title: The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
Author: Kirk W. Johnson
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
Published: Random House Audio, 2018
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 416,825
Text Number: 1573
Read Because: this came up in a Jacob Geller video, so I grabbed it when the available audiobooks selection reminded me it existed; audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The story of a flytier who broke into a natural history museum and stole hundreds of historically and scientifically priceless bird specimens. The subject is fascinating—a hobby turned passion turned obsession turned internal-justification-for-crime; a hobby which is simultaneously a lost art and an artifact (and perpetuator!) of consumerism and colonialism; an exploration of what guilt looks like when the damage is ... priceless museum specimens. The writing is a little roughshod, and I regret the missed opportunity to compare obsessions given the author's relationship with this investigation. (Also the role of an autism diagnosis plays isn't great, but it could be worse.)
Title: Bone Deep: Untangling the Twisted True Story of the Tragic Betsy Faria Murder Case
Author: Charles Bosworth Jr., Joel J. Schwartz
Narrator: Gary Bennett
Published: Tantor Audio, 2022
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 413,820
Text Number: 1558
Read Because: true crime while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: When Betsy Faria was murdered, her husband, Russ Faria, who discovered her body, was the police's initial and for too long their own suspect, at the cost of investigating a viable suspect, Pam Hupp. This is the third account I've read of wrongful police investigations in high-profile cases (the others were Victim F, Huskins et al. and A Rip in Heaven, Cummins), and it's not lost on me that all these innocent suspects are white. It makes palatable the assertion that "police: bad, actually," and wants for a larger examination of police practices and corruption, of bad-faith prosecution and false convictions, of prosecution bias in the legal system, of the demographics of those affected. (There's a moment in the second murder case when Russ Faria again talks to the police without legal counsel which goes unquestioned by the narrative and is just ... hilarious, and awful.)
But what a case. It hits all the beats: Russ Faria's experience is pretty clear-cut and appropriately enraging, while the later events surrounding Pam Hupp are incredible—they provide a lot of closure but have a can't-look-away-from-a-car-crash energy, tragic and wild. Hardly a perfect book, but certainly engaging.
Title: Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life
Author: Sarah Edmondson, Kristine Gasbarre
Narrator: Sarah Edmondson
Published: 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 416,130
Text Number: 1570
Read Because: more nonfiction while painting, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Edmondson makes a fuss about being complicit but not in the bad way that those other people were complicit, which undermines what's otherwise a promising exploration of cult members as simultaneous victims and perpetrators, particularly when they hold power within the cult. But on the whole I liked this, primarily because it sold me on what makes an MLM-style personal improvement hustle culture wellness cult appealing, and how that appeal can be leveraged. It's nothing I didn't know about NXIVM, which has received a lot of great coverage, but it's a meaningful insight into one person's experience within it
Title: The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
Author: Kirk W. Johnson
Narrator: MacLeod Andrews
Published: Random House Audio, 2018
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 416,825
Text Number: 1573
Read Because: this came up in a Jacob Geller video, so I grabbed it when the available audiobooks selection reminded me it existed; audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The story of a flytier who broke into a natural history museum and stole hundreds of historically and scientifically priceless bird specimens. The subject is fascinating—a hobby turned passion turned obsession turned internal-justification-for-crime; a hobby which is simultaneously a lost art and an artifact (and perpetuator!) of consumerism and colonialism; an exploration of what guilt looks like when the damage is ... priceless museum specimens. The writing is a little roughshod, and I regret the missed opportunity to compare obsessions given the author's relationship with this investigation. (Also the role of an autism diagnosis plays isn't great, but it could be worse.)
