The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier is translated from the French by Adrianna Hunter. Jenny wrote a very compelling review of the book, so I ordered it from the library immediately.

In this book, it's March 2021 and a plane encounters some turbulence. It lands and everyone's fine and then in June the exact plane lands again with the same passengers on it. We meet some of those passengers and how this event changes their lives. 

In general, I really liked this book. I liked that it raised interesting questions and I really liked the way it looked at how governments would react in this sort of emergent situation. But my biggest complaint about the book seems to be a common one: the first passenger we meet is the most interesting one and we don't hear from him very often throughout the book, even though he's what really got me into the book!

It's also sort of interesting because the book takes place in 2021, but the pandemic doesn't get a mention. That seemed weird to me. Oh, well. 

3.5/5 stars - I bet it would be an excellent book club read. There's lots to talk about!

Line of note:

He had hundreds of ginko trees planted all along the banks so that he can gaze at them and meditate. He's always been fascinated by these primitive trees. Their ancestors existed millions of years before even the dinosaurs appeared, and will outlive the human race. A plant version of memento mori. (page 241)

Things I looked up:

Annemasse (page 9) - a city in France on the Swiss border

Fields medal (page 106) - a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years

Gromov's non-prological theories (page 108) - non-squeezing theorem, also called Gromov's non-squeezing theorem, is one of the most important theorems in symplectic geometry. It was first proven in 1985 by Mikhail Gromov. The theorem states that one cannot embed a ball into a cylinder via a symplectic map unless the radius of the ball is less than or equal to the radius of the cylinder.

What's sympletic geometry, you ask? I don't know because the Wikipedia definition dares to use the term symplectic manifolds in its definition. I refused to do further research.

Markov chain (page 116) -  a process describing a sequence of possible events in which the probability of each event depends only on the state attained in the previous event

Kendall notations (page 116) - the standard system used to describe and classify a queueing node

Lebensraum (page 133) - the territory that a state or nation believes is needed for its natural development, especially associated with Nazi Germany

radome (page 146) - a plastic housing sheltering the antenna assembly of a radar set especially on an airplane

modafinil (page 162) - a prescription wakefulness-promoting agent used to treat excessive sleepiness caused by certain sleep disorders

Grothendieck's topoi (page 163) - categories that behave like sheaves on topological spaces

What does that mean? Search me. 

Abel prize (page 165) - a prize that recognizes pioneering scientific achievements in mathematics - it's  administered by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters on behalf of the Ministry of Education and Research and given out yearly

Romain Gary (page 324) - a French novelist, diplomat, film director, and World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt (a prize in French literature) twice (once under a pseudonym)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

He'll wear gloves, a hood, a hat, and glasses...(page 8)

There was a hi-hat on page 347, but it's not in the spirit of the thing. 

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Would you read a book about issues with flying? A science fiction book told in a contemporary world and time? 

Update #4: The Leg

Jenny asked, I answer.

Many years ago, I had a tib-fib fracture on my left leg. There was surgery, lots of screws and plates, and then I went on with my merry little life. But lately it's been causing me a lot of pain. It's also limiting my ability to do certain movements/exercises. And this is the thing that gets me more than the rest, which is unpredictable seizing up. I was in a fitness class and was happily skipping up and down the gym when my left ankle REFUSED TO BEND and I nearly fell over. This has also happened when I've been standing in front of a classroom, walking down stairs, and you know, just when I'm sitting around doing nothing. 

I went to PT and it helped with the pain, but I was essentially told that there's not much to be done about my range of motion. There are literal plates that hinder the angle at which my left ankle can bend. So this means running is not a great idea for me for exercise and there are various yoga poses I will never be able to do or, at the very least, not do without extreme discomfort. Because I tend to overuse my good leg, there is a definite difference in muscle tone between my left and right lower legs, so I have to be really careful when I'm doing bilateral work on my lower body to not do less with my left leg. Honestly, I have mostly switched to unilateral work so I can focus specifically on the left side. The x-rays show some arthritis, as was predicted when I first broke it, but not as much as they would have anticipated. 

I saw the local orthopedist and he gave me two options: surgery to undo the hardware and another surgery to replace the hardware (which would give me modern hardware, but no more mobility) or surgery to fuse the ankle in place (which is a great option for older people at times, but is the exact opposite of what I wanted). I gave myself the third option of PT. 

This same orthopedist is the one that "helped" my husband with his broken collarbone and literally lied in his documentation about a physical exam that he did not actually do on my husband - and charged insurance for this non-existent exam. The PT that I worked with gave me the names of other foot/ankle doctors who deal with complicated leg injuries like mine more often than the local ortho. (She did this sneakily and clearly felt some guilt while doing it, but also said that my repair is much more extensive than the average patient and the local ortho doesn't usually see anything like it. I like that she tried to defend him, but I'm over him.)

ANYWAY. 

I want to avoid surgery if possible. So for now I'm focusing on unilateral work. When I do too much and my leg hurts, I ice it and try to avoid doing those exercises again. I'm carrying around more weight than I should be and that's NOT helping. One of my goals will be to lose some of that weight in 2026, but I will be close-mouthed about that process here on the blog because there's nothing more boring than people talking about how restricting calories is hard. Don't get me started on the boringness of discussing macronutrients.

If, at the end of 2026, the combo of PT exercises, careful unilateral work to build up strength in my bad leg, and losing weight doesn't help with the pain, I'll make some phone calls to those other doctors.

But for now this is the plan. 

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Do you have any old nagging injuries? Have you ever done PT?

Update #3: The Yoga Bags

The brand is Magnilay. 

I now have TWO yoga mats and two yoga bags. Since I do yoga at the student union twice a week, I have a bag at work that includes two blocks, a strap, my mat, and leggings. The bag can fit a blanket, but it's really tight and hard to repack, so for now, there's no blanket. This has worked out well for me. I leave it at school most of the time, but if I am going to a yoga class somewhere else, I bring it home with me. 

Then I splurged and bought a new yoga mat for home so that I could leave the other bag at school. I have a blanket, bolster, and another set of blocks at home. I could probably use a strap for home use, but I mostly just use a tie or a PT resistance band. I had a different yoga mat at home, but it was not very good quality and was constantly shedding tiny pink pebbles everywhere. So now I have a good quality mat at home and the whole set up seems seamless. 

While I was buying my new mat, I bought a bag just for the mat. I take that with me to the community center when I go to my fitness classes and just throw some hand weights into a bag with my water to do those classes. This system is pretty new - I've only had the new mat for a couple of weeks - but so far this system is working for me!

My set up for fitness classes. It's a Manduka mat and bag. 

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Do you have an exercise bag? Were you choosy about picking it?

Update #2: The Silent Auction Wins

A few weeks ago we went to a fundraiser at the local community center. I think I've mentioned in the past that I have never actually paid to go to these fundraisers, but there's a board member who always pays for my tickets. Well, that happened AGAIN. Now that I not underemployed anymore, I can actually probably afford to pay for my own tickets, but this year I just forgot to buy them (I am overwhelmed by other things, as you can probably guess) and she emailed me that she put our names down for tickets. I am grateful to her, but I really need to start paying my own way.

ANYWAY, because of this, I felt obligated to actually donate money while I was there and one of the things I sort of went crazy on was the silent auction. 

I won two items. 

1) A monthly scone subscription! Every month I get three scones from a local bakery delivered to a small business just down the street. I get to choose the flavors and then just go pick them up. HOW FUN. My first order came in while I was in Michigan, so Dr. BB picked them up for me and I had a scone for breakfast for three days when I came back!

Blueberry lemon in November!

2) A decorative, handmade plate. Do I need this plate? No. Do I have any way to display this plate? No. Did I bid on it thinking someone would certainly outbid me? Yes. 

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Have you ever won a silent auction item? Did you ever win when you thought someone else would bid higher than you?

Update #1: The Great Car Search of 2025

I have a series of updates that I originally thought would be a good Five for Friday post, but that post got unwieldy and long. So I'm going to do shorter posts with updates and then resume my regular sporadic posting about books and nonsense.

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We have been test driving cars for months. On one hand, we're in a good position because it's not like our old Hyundai is actually out of commission. On the other hand, we'd like to actually make a decision before the snow falls. (NOTE: Snow fell last Saturday. We're already past our self-imposed deadline.)

Here's the situation. We technically have a two car garage, but only if those cars are pretty narrow. Right now we drive two compact cars and we're still squeezing in and out, so we can maybe extend the width of a new car by three or four inches, but then it's going to be super duper tight/impossible. We currently have a 2010 Hyundai Elantra that has served us well, but is on its last tires. We also have a 2019 VW Golf Sportwagen. We don't have  his and her cars - we both drive the cars in equal amounts. The VW is basically for Hannah since she fits nicely in the back. 

In 2019, when we bought our Sportwagen, I essentially fell in love with it from the test drive. If they still sold Sportwagens in the US, we'd just buy another one. Unfortunately, 80% of the market in this country - man do I wish I was buying a car in Europe - is pickups and SUVs. Sedans are a rarity and compact sedans are even rarer. And, honestly, there aren't any wagons sold in our price range anymore - if we want a wagon that isn't electric, we're looking at Audi ($45,000+), BMW ($100,000+), Mercedes ($76,000+), and Volvo ($70,000+). Would I love a Mercedes or Volvo wagon? YES. Is that price range appropriate for us? NO. 

Wagons are great for our lifestyle. We can put the dog in the back and it's perfect for when we go on road trips and there's a place for us to put our cooler. But wagons are so expensive that we eventually settled on test driving the few remaining compact cars left on the market because, after all, we're replacing a sedan. 

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The logistics of life are hard, too. We would ideally like to test drive these cars in the daylight. That leaves weekdays off the table since the sun has set by the time we get home from work these days. Most dealerships are only open on Saturdays on weekends. But our Saturdays are often filled with non-car shopping things. So, as you can imagine, this has made all of this a bit more protracted than is ideal.

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I want to fall in love with a car again. Or at least I want one of us to fall in love with a car again. Here's what we've test driven so far.

VW Jetta - Look, it's fine. It's a safe car. If someone put a Jetta in our garage right now, we'd be fine with that. But that's it. Just fine. Also, it doesn't come with a spare tire or floor mats and I was sort of annoyed by the nickel and diming situation. 

Subaru Outback - This is an SUV crossover that sometimes gets called a wagon. In the 2026 model year, they're truly going to be an SUV because they are moving up its chassis size, so this might be our last chance if we want a Subaru, or frankly, anything close to a wagon in the future. But do we want one? It's big, barely able to fit in our garage. It accelerates like a dog and is no fun to drive. It's a little on the high side of our price range. It's FINE. The financing deals are great. It has all wheel drive. We also test drove a Legacy (sedan) and it was also fine. We *seem* like we should be Subaru people, but I don't know if we really are. 

Honda - We test drove a Civic and an Accord. We test drove Hondas in 2019 when we brought the Sportwagen and I almost had a panic attack because I was so claustrophobic in them. Nothing has changed. Those cars are like caves. I know Honda has its fans, but I am not one of them. (We drive compact cars and I'm used to tight spaces. I was reeeeeally annoyed with the car salesperson who asked what I expected since we were looking at smaller cars. Well, Bob, I guess I was expecting you not to have your interior fabric in dark colors and the windows tinted so it seems like we're belowground.)

Hyundai - We test drove an Elantra (an updated version of our beloved Hyundai) and a Sonata. Frankly, the cars are ugly and look like they've already been in an accident with weird sharp juts and angles. There's a weird gearshift thing. They are fine to drive, but not very exciting. The warranty is very good.

Mazda 3 - I liked this car a lot more than my husband. It's zippy and fun. The financing deals aren't great and my husband thought the engine whined a bit more than he would like. The road noise bothered Dr. BB a lot, too. The warranty is shit. There is a 2026 model that has AWD and we might test drive that one, but then the price isn't as good because it's a new model year. 

Toyota - We test drove a Prius. I refuse to tell you how excited I was about the Prius. I thought it was going to solve all our problems. The sightlines are sort of terrible. The regular rearview mirror has a very limited range, so you can turn on this newfangled camera thing and then you have a wider view, but it also made me nauseous. This one had a whine in the engine that irked me and the turn signals made a sound that was like nails on a chalkboard to me. I know that seems silly, but if I had to listen to that noise multiple times a day, I might not survive the drive. 

Genesis 2025 G70 AWD - Are you familiar with Genesis? It's the Hyundai luxury brand. It comes with the Hyundai warranty and this one is deeply discounted, which is the only reason it's vaguely at the upper-end of our price range. My husband really likes this one and I'm pretty sure we'll probably end up getting it. 

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What's next?

Well, the Genesis got sold, so that's off the table.

We're going to test drive an Outback with a better engine. My husband thinks that's what's going to make me fall in love with it.

We're going to test drive a 2026 AWD Mazda 3. 

So the choice is probably the Outback and the Mazda 3. I'll be sure to let you know when and if we figure any of it out.

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Anyone want to just tell me what to do? Do you like car shopping? Do you make decisions a lot more quickly than we do?

False Witness by Karin Slaughter

I'm plugging away at the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge even though there's no way I'm going to finish it. False Witness by Karin Slaughter is a book that features a character with chronic pain AND the audiobook was available immediately for me on the Libby app when I was doing yet another road trip. Do we think Karin Slaughter is her real name or a pseudonym? 

In this thriller, Leigh and Calli are sisters. They are close as they both survived a childhood with their abusive mother. When they are young teens, they do something (sort of) bad 

(note: this is a morally grey area if you think what they did was bad and I honestly don't think it was, but I don't want to give away spoilers)

and they get away with it without any legal consequences. That is until years later when Leigh is a lawyer and Calli is a heroin addict and their past comes back to haunt them. Thriller things ensure.

Look, this is a good book. It's fast-paced and well-written. But maybe, just maybe, listening to a story about sisters who truly love one another and are devoted to each other was not the right choice for me at this exact moment in time. (If you're new around here, I have a tumultuous relationship with my sister, my mother died earlier this year, and so everything surrounding my family of origin is difficult.) ANYWAY. I found some scenes really hard to listen to. Really hard. There's graphic (GRAPHIC) depictions of sexual violence; violence violence, including guns; child abuse and neglect; pandemic stuff; and drug abuse. This is not for the faint of heart and I'm slowly coming to the realization that perhaps I *am* the faint of heart. 

 

4/5 stars, but be forewarned

Things I looked up:

Vince Dooley (Spring 2021 - Chapter 1) - an American college football coach. He was the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs from 1964 to 1988, as well as the University of Georgia's (UGA) athletic director from 1979 to 2004.

viviparous (Spring 2021 - Chapter 4) - there are two definitions, one in zoology and one in botany

• (of an animal) bringing forth live young that have developed inside the body of the parent.
• (of a plant) reproducing from buds that form plantlets while still attached to the parent plant, or from seeds that germinate within the fruit. 

Hat mentions (why hats?): 

his hat in his hand (Spring 2021 - Chapter 10)

colorful hat on her head (Spring 2021 - Chapter 11)

his hat in his hands (Summer 2005)

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Are you the faint of heart? Do you read a lot of thrillers?

CBBC Week Five: The Joy Luck Club Wrap-Up

Past discussions:
Week One: Part I
Week Two: Part II
Week Three: Part III
Week Four: Part IV

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What were your overall thoughts on this book? 

Here's what I think:

• The POVs were too similar so it was impossible to keep the characters straight. The fact that the POV changed in every chapter made it even worse. 
• I didn't want to spend time in this world. The people were mean, the subject was heavy, and I was just not interested in being there.
• I thought this book was graphic and gross. It wasn't just the food descriptions, although that didn't help.
• The writing was both elliptical and unclear and also heavy handed at times. There were times she was sort of oblique about what was going on (see: the watermelon scene and the two sentence abortion mention in "Waiting Between the Trees") and other times when her use of imagery and metaphor hit you over the head. I don't know. I didn't love the writing style. 

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Pop culture:

There's a 1993 movie starring Tsai Chin, Kieu Chinh, Lisa Lu, France Nuyen, Rosalind Chao, Lauren Tom, Tamlyn Tomita, and Ming-Na Wen. I've heard of none of these people. I bet no one is shocked to learn that I have not watched the movie, but the plot seems to follow the the book fairly closely. A few differences:

• In the movie, Lena and Harold get divorced and Lena has a new relationship.
• Rose and Ted get back together in the movie.

Has anyone seen the movie? 

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TJLC questions to ponder:

1) Which of the characters did you identify with the most? Why?

2) While the book has been critically received positively for the most part, there are some criticisms that the book leans into stereotypical portrayals of Asian men and some aspects of parenthood. Do you think this book challenges stereotypes or leans into them?

3) I hate to keep harping on the structure of this book, but why do you think Tan structured it this way using parables as framing devices for each section? What would have changed if the book had been told chronologically or through back-to-back chapters featuring mother and daughters?

4) What does the book tell us about American culture? About American immigrant culture? 

5) In the first chapter, June discusses her mother's take on the elements that make people:

Each person is made of five elements, she told me.

Too much fire and you have a bad temper. ..

Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other people's ideas...

Too much water and you flowed in too many directions...

How do you think these elements are used to establish personality traits in the rest of the book? 

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Most iconic line poll:

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That's a wrap on 2025 CBBC! Thanks for joining and participating.