By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sex

Code Gray: Death, Life, and Uncertainty in the ER, by Farzon A. Nahvi, M.D.
c.2023, Simon & Schuster $27.99  256 pages

You know exactly who’s in charge here.

It’s the person in the white coat, a physician with a stethoscope around their neck and a packed pocketful of paper notes and pens. The white coat instantly gets your attention. It’s meant to quickly convey authority, and it does – so much so that you trust your very life to the person wearing it. In “Code Gray” by Farzon A. Nahvi, M.D., that white coat won’t leave you in the dark.

It was only supposed to be a friends-catching-up kind of text thread but for Farzon Nahvi and his colleagues around the country, the flurry of messages they exchanged during the pandemic became a lifeline. For each, it was good to know that their hospital’s reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t the only one lacking.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

Gray Love: Stories About Dating and New Relationships After 60
Edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin and Daniel E. Hood
c.2023, Rutgers University Press $24.95 303 pages

It was supposed to be a nice night out.

But you drove around and around looking for the restaurant and once you found it, you learned that you needed reservations. Practically before the evening started, you sensed that your food could be as cold as your date. As in “Gray Love,” edited by Nan Bauer-Maglin and Daniel E. Hood, looking for love wasn’t like this when you were younger.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

“How to Sell a Haunted House” by Grady Hendrix
c.2023, Barkley $28.00  432 pages

You forgot that there were strings.

You forgot who was doing the talking, too. No, your eyes were stuck on the puppet with a funny voice that made you forget that this was a show, that a bit of cloth and a wooden face were only objects of theater. Didn’t you see the puppeteer’s lips move? As in the new book “How to Sell a Haunted House” by Grady Hendrix, wasn’t there a human holding the strings?

Driving by it, her parents’ house looked smaller then she remembered.

Then again, it had been some time since Louise Joyner had been home. Years ago, she’d escaped the place and never looked back, returning only when necessary – like now, when she and her brother, Mark, had a double-funeral to plan and that shabby old house to clear out.

“A History of the World Through Body Parts” by Kathryn Petras & Ross Petras
c.2022, Chronicle Books $22.95 255 pages

Give the gentleman a hand.

He did a good job, and he deserves it. Seriously, someone gave him a leg-up, he jumped in with both feet, and shortly after he put his nose to the grindstone, he found himself rubbing elbows with influential people. He shouldered some responsibility, kept his ear to the ground, and look where he’s been – so give him a hand, and read “A History of the World Through Body Parts” by Kathryn Petras & Ross Petras.

It all begins with Cleopatra’s nose.

Mathematician Blase Pascal seemed fascinated by it, not because it stood out (though it did), but because Julius Caesar and Marc Antony were both smitten with it and their obsessions changed the world. That got Petras and Petras thinking how other bodily bits might have affected history. Can “zeroing in on a body part” help make sense of our world?

You’ve moved – how many times already?

A couple times as a child, a few times in college and a lot more boxes, once or twice in truckloads since then, the average American moves more than 11 times in a lifetime. And then one day, you won’t. As you’ll see in “Over My Dead Body” by Greg Melville, then you’ll have your real, true Forever Home.

Everybody, they say, needs a hobby and Greg Melville’s just happens to be visiting cemeteries. His family knows that every vacation will be wrapped around gravesites, every chance for a run happens to circle around tombstones. While the family complains, Melville studies the grounds upon which so many rest and he thinks about those who are interred.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

Halloween Books for Kids and Adults
c.2022, various publishers $16.95-$29.99
various page counts

The leaves are crunchy beneath your feet.

There’s a chill in the air, too, and darkness creeps into the day earlier and earlier. It’s the perfect time to get terrified, isn’t it? These three books will do it to you…

Let’s start with something for everybody over the age of 8 in your haunted house: “Tales to Keep You Up at Night” by Dan Poblocki (Penguin Workshop, $17.99). In it, young Amelia’s grandma has disappeared and it’s natural that Amelia would look for her, right? But grandma’s not in the attic. What is there is a book, one that sure looks like a library book but the library says it’s not. Nope, it’s a book of stories and as Amelia begins to read them, they start to look a lot like real-life, making her wonder exactly what’s merely story and what’s not.

This book is written in chapters that are the perfect length for reading aloud every evening. Start a tradition: turn off the lights, bring a spooky candle, but do it well before bedtime.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez

The Book of Phobias & Manias: A History of Obsession,’ by Kate Summerscale
c.2022, Penguin  $20,00 256 pages

You don’t know whether to run or scream in fear.

Or maybe both. When you see whatever it is that scares you to the point that you’re a babbling puddle of mess, well, it’s no longer a fight-or-flight thing – it’s just plain flight. Funny, you’re normally big and brave, fearless to the end, so read “The Book of Phobias & Manias” by Kate Summerscale. See what other scary things are out there…