What Are You
Reading?
What Are You Reading? A project sponsored by the Friends of the Macomb Public Library District to encourage reading and book discussion in our community. Would you like to share your favorite books with other readers? Please send your name, occupation or grade level, book author and title, and a brief statement about the book and why you liked it to Kate Joswick, [email protected].
Reviewer’s Name: Carol Clemons Reviewer’s Occupation: Graphic Designer Book Title: Murderland Book’s Author: Caroline Fraser Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, Richard Ramirez, Randy Woodfield—all brutal serial killers in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But the super villain of this book is ASARCO, the mining corporation that ignored regulations and put profits before people. Fraser highlights recent data linking the toxic chemicals spewing into our air, land, and water as major factors affecting physical and mental health in the Pacific Northwest. Ted Bundy lived in Tacoma, Washington, home of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world. There is a prevailing theory that the high levels of lead in the air from lead gas and smelters contributed to the increased violent crime, namely serial killers, that peaked in the 70s. Washington state alone has had 31 serial killers in their history, including Ted Bundy. The author doesn’t spend a bunch of time on each killer and his victims but slowly builds on the horrors of the slow poisoning of people and everything they eat, drink, and breathe.
This story should wake us up to the fact that we can’t live on a poisoned Earth. The constant assault on our environment still takes its toll on us today. I hope that people wake up and protect what we have left. If we can’t breathe or drink the water, we all die.
