Notes from a bibliophile

I mentioned before how I love mythology, but one book I read made me realize how little I know of Norse myths, so I decided it was time to correct that. I am seeing a lot of similarities between the myths and that novel, so it's nice to see their origins. I was very fortunate to be able to take a mythology class in college by a wonderful teacher, Merrilee Cunningham. She made you feel like you were seeing something really unique when probably it was something she's read from students throughout her teaching career. But the boon to that, at least for me, is that I wanted to keep researching to see what else I could find. One paper I wrote for her was an attempt to classify gods and goddesses by their Greek/Roman counterparts. I didn't have oodles of time, so I wasn't able to delve into the project like I really wanted to, but it was enough to see that there are similarities throughout the ancient civilizations. For instance, there's just about always a flood myth,

This is another YA series I've been into for a while. Sort of an alien invasion/dystopian tale. Many years ago, the evil Mogadorians destroyed the planet Lorien, but not before several of the inhabitants escaped with several children. These people made their way to Earth and have been living among us, hiding and honing their powers, their Legacies, ever since. Of course they are discovered here by their destroyers who are out to wipe them from the face of the universe. Destruction ensues. I've been a fan since the beginning, but I recently I found out who the real author was. James Frey. A Million Little Pieces James Frey. Bald faced lied to Oprah James Frey. Now I'm not a Oprah-ite. She's awesome and all, but I don't have to buy her favorite things and working at the bookstore caused a good amount of distaste for her book club. But to lie about your life on national TV to sell books. That's sacrilege, man. Of course now I have to finish the series. Luckily

Another Great Courses lecture. This one delves into novels that I am (mostly) to terrified to even think of picking up. Here's the line up: Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Moby-Dick by Herman Melville Bleak House by Charles Dickens Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Death in Venice by Thomas Mann The Metamorphosis and The Trial by Franz Kafka Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust Ulysses by James Joyce To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez Most of these cover two, sometimes three, lectures. I've only managed to get through 5 of these: Dangerous Liaisons (loved!), Wuthering Heights (yawn), Bleak House (yea

I am a huge fan of mythology, but I haven't really explored the Norse myths that much. This new series has made me want to delve a little deeper. This series, like the Percy Jackson series and Kane series published previously, focuses on an unwitting demi-god just trying to make it in the real world. Magnus Chase is homeless, though, making him one of the sadder cases. Almost all the other heroes in the other series had at least a family member to lean on. Magnus has family, but his mother warned him to stay away from them. Now, after she has been killed by wolves and he has had to make do on his own, his family is seeking him out. But of course, there are ulterior motives. Each and every book in these myriad series is just a delight. They are fun, they are witty, they are smart without being stodgy, and Riordan not above a good bodily function joke, because, let's face it, farts will always be funny, no matter what age you are. I think what I love the most is the interpl

Ian Doescher obviously loves Shakespeare. He takes such care of a very beloved script, translating it into iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. It must have taken a heck of a lot of diligence and research to accomplish, and to think he's done this 6 times, one for each film! I am thoroughly impressed and obviously incredibly lazy. I can't even write on this blog every night. Despite the impressiveness of Doesher's feat, I do feel he took a few shortcuts. He relies heavily on Henry V , utilizing the St. Crispin's Day speech. Luke also has an Antony "Friends Romans Countrymen" moment and a sort of "Alas, poor Yorick" moment too. I don't remember anything similar in the actual films. Luke, as a relative newcomer to the Rebellion, has no place speechifying to the pilots in the war room. I can maybe see how Henry's journey mirrors Luke's, but it feels like a bit of a cop-out. But then again, he's just re-written a script in iambic pen

I used to think I didn't like mysteries. When I worked at the bookstore, I used to wander past the mysteries and look over at the books by Tasha Alexander and think, "Those look interesting, but I don't read mysteries, so I guess I'll never know." Then I'd toddle off to do whatever I was doing: shelving, helping customers, pretending to look for a book I knew good and well we didn't have but someone insisted, etc. Eventually my good friend John brought me to my senses, for which I shall be forever grateful. For those not familiar with these novels, the heroine is Lady Emily. There are now 10 books in the series: And Only to Deceive A Poisoned Season A Fatal Waltz Tears of Pearl Dangerous to Know A Crimson Warning Death in the Floating City Behind the Shattered Glass The Counterfeit Heiress and now The Adventuress Lady Emily is the daughter of an earl. Because this is the Victorian age, her only real option for her future is to marry someone

In a previous post I admitted being confounded by the praise some award-winning novels get. This novel is pretty much the polar opposite of that problem. The A-List is what it sounds like: a novel about uber rich teenagers. Anna lives in Manhattan, but when her secret crush starts dating her best friend Cynthia, she decides she needs to re-invent herself. She jets off to the West Coast (as one does when a boy doesn't think one's hot), downing vodka tonics and trying to avoid being hit on by older men. She's saved by a gorgeous hunk named Ben. He invites her to the wedding he's going home to attend, which just happens to be the wedding of the biggest movie star on the planet. But Anna isn't the only one under Ben's spell. She soon meets his ex Cammie (who is determined to get him back and is not accustomed to not getting what she wants), his friend Samantha who wants to be so much more (and who is the daughter of the groom), and Dee, a ditz who also has a crus

The ads for the movie look really good, so when I saw this on the shelf I decided to give it a try. After I got it home, I was a little reluctant. After all, it could ruin everything too. So if you haven't figured it out from the trailer, a Mars mission gets aborted due to a huge dust storm. As the astronauts are trying to make their way back to the ship that will get them back to Earth, some debris is blown into one of them and he goes spinning off into the distance. The crew search for him for a bit, but they have to leave or risk death themselves. Assuming their crewmate is dead, they very sadly return to space and journey back home. But astronaut Mark Watney is one resourceful dude. He manages to stay alive and keep himself from dying. He manages to reconnect with Earth. He is calm, cool and collected; the sort of guy you want to have around when all hell breaks loose. And I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. This is a never-give-up kind of guy, although he has a st

I have always read a lot, but I guess I'm not a very cultured reader. There are some novels that are praised to the skies, win awards and all kinds of accolades, but they sound so boring to me. I usually just pass them by, but this one sounded interesting and I liked Remains of the Day , so I thought I'd give this one a try. Wow, it's hard to imagine a book where so little happens. Maybe if the other novel's pages were blank, this novel would stand a chance of being a bit more exciting. It centers around a group students at a private school. You get the feeling right from the beginning that something's up with these kids, but for the longest time you aren't told what. Then, just as an aside, they just happen to mention that they are clones. I thought I missed something. Surely that's an important part of the plot; shouldn't there be more made of it? Even when they do let the penny drop, it's like saying they all have brown hair or something else eq

Sidney Sheldon is one of my mom's favorite authors, so we made a bet - I would read one of her books if she read one of mine. On the positive side, I think I'm getting her hooked on Harry Potter. On the negative side, I had to read Sidney Sheldon. The plot revolves around several unusual deaths around the world. The only connection between the deaths is that the dead people all worked for the same company, Kingsley International Group. KIG is a think tank originally begun by Andrew Kingsley, but after a workplace accident, run by his younger brother Tanner. Two of the murdered men's wives begin to seek answers, but soon their lives are in danger as well. There's also a sub-plot centering on climate change and the odd weather events that global warming appears to be causing around the world. It has a few not-too-startling twists. It also has some odd little quirks that must be addressed. Let's start with facts, though. This novel was written in 2004 when Sheldon

I love to travel, but I do it so little that if I'm honest I'd have to say I love the idea of travel. I can count the number of places I've visited on one hand and still have some fingers left over. There are so many places I want to go, but for now they are only a dream. The list is mostly the tourist-y places. Not a lot of places outside the norm, because frankly, I'm a little scared of a lot of places. You hear so many bad things. And I don't want to be an "ugly American". I think that is what led me to listen to this course - I want to be able to understand how other cultures work so that, on the wildly implausible chance I can ever afford to travel, I will understand what I am entering into and hopefully enjoy myself more. Professor David Livermore talks about 10 cultural dimensions that differ to some degree from culture to culture. They are: 1. individualism vs. collectivism - he talks about how babies are treated, how they are encouraged to s

We need to talk. There's been some distance between us for some time now. I've tried many times to bridge that gap, but it just seems insurmountable. You and I, we come from different worlds - I'm from Venus; you're from Barnes and Noble. I know all my friends love you, but we just want different things right now. I want to be entertained; you want to annoy me. In the past it might be trite cliches, forced dialog, or unbelievable scenarios, but in this case I just can't put my finger on it. I know what you'll say: this is a pattern of mine. First there was The Foundation Trilogy. I know the only reason I balked at that relationship was because it was my dad's favorite and at the time I just wanted a rebel - a book dressed in black leather, riding a Harley. Foundation was like all those other books in high school, just another book someone else chose for me, and I wanted to make my own choices. You're going to point out that I hated The Hobbit the first

This is a complex whopper of a tale. There are so many characters that are integral to the plot, even though they aren't the three main women the story focuses on. Molly, just emerging from a severe depression after losing her baby, is given a story reporting the discover of an infant's body near a creek on the grounds of the local university where her husband Justin teaches. Despite her husband's misgivings, she insists on reporting the story and eventually finds that this is not the first death found at that spot. There is also Sandy, a high school dropout trying to change her life despite all the odds being stacked against her. The last main character is Barbara. She is the typical, type-A PTA mom and wife of Steve, the chief of police.  The story alternates between each woman's story and is interspersed with the articles Molly writes, her notes from her psychologist visits, and Sandy's mother Jenna's high school diary. In addition to these characters the

Akutagawa is a wonderful storyteller. The language is rich and atmospheric, really evoking a mood. Here are the synopses of the stories included in this book: In A Grove : The testimony of seven witnesses to a murder, one of which is the ghost of the murdered man told through a medium, is told to a court investigating the crime. All are slightly different, leaving the reader to wonder what really happened in that bamboo grove. This story is the main plot of Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon . Rashomon : Although this short story gives its name to the film, very little of the story makes it into the film. It's the story of a servant who has just been dismissed by his samurai master because Kyoto has fallen into decline. He sits at the Rashomon gate to escape the rain and ponders whether to stay an honest man and starve or survive by becoming a thief. An encounter with an old woman scavenging amongst the corpses left to rot at the gate helps him decide his next course of action.

As a bibliophile, is there any wonder I felt I needed to listen to this course? It's a very interesting look at several books written throughout history that had a profound impact one the world. I've read very few of them, but most of them are on my "to read at some point in my life" list. Here's the breakdown and the lecturer(s) on each: 1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth 2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers 3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy 4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson 5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse 6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver 7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton 8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett 9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver 10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson 11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman 12. The Koran by Grant Hardy 13. Fibonacci's Th

If you haven't discovered these short stories by notable authors published by The Mysterious Bookshop, I highly recommend you search them out. I found them at one of my local independent bookstores, Murder by the Book in Houston. As of now there are 26 books in the series, a couple of which I've already blogged about: 1. The Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen 2. The Book of Ghosts by Reed Farrel Coleman 3. The Scroll by Anne Perry 4. The Book Case by Nelson DeMille 5. Pronghorns of the Third Reic h by C.J. Box 6. Death Leaves a Bookmark by William Link 7. An Acceptable Sacrifice by Jeffrey Deaver 8. Book Club by Loren D. Estleman 9. The Book Thing by Laura Lippman 10. The Long Sonata of the Dead by Andrew Taylor 11. The Final Testament by Peter Blauner 12. The Caxton Lending Library & Book Depository by John Connolly 13. Rides a Stranger by David Bell 14. What's in a Name? by Thomas H. Cook 15. It's in the Book by Mickey Spillane & Max All

History was second only to math in my most hated school topics. The way it was taught in my school it seemed to be like binging and purging - you cram as many dates and really similar names down your throat as you can and then regurgitate it when it's time to take the tests. Take 1066 for example: two of the major players are Harold Godwinson and Harald Hardrada. Then later you need to figure out how to separate the Roosevelts. If I ever get on Jeopardy, a sure way to make sure I don't win is to have a category on US Presidents. Once I finally got through with school, I gradually began to find history more interesting, so much so that I actually considered getting a degree in history (then quickly un-considered it). It's books like this one that make history a delight to me now. Granted, this is a bit unusual, covering everything from the Neanderthals to Jimmy Hoffa. Price gleefully pokes fun at the more ridiculous of theories, and some of them are hilarious. Some people

I received this book from a giveaway on Goodreads. This is the story of Amy and her friend Kevin. About to graduate from college in Pennsylvania, they go out to celebrate. Kevin walks Amy home, then Kevin brutally stabs his ex-girlfriend to death. I can understand Amy's obsession with the incident, but my feeling for this book go in completely different directions. First, I feel, like many people Amy knew told her, that this wasn't her story. Emily doesn't necessarily get lost, but Amy is the main character in this story, and nothing really happened to her. Sure, I can understand survivor's guilt and endlessly pondering the "what if's", but still. Then the term PTSD comes out. Can a person be traumatically stressed by an event they did not witness or experience? Apparently they can. It's strange to think an affliction that affects so many battle-hardened soldiers could also affect this young woman who was only incidental to the crime. Kevin h

Another in the Great Courses series. I'm grateful that I didn't start with this course because I may not have continued. Professor Murray covers a whole slew of cases, from Jack the Ripper to several cyber-crimes and identity thefts. I found most of the stories interesting, especially the really high-profile cases that I had heard about before. Some of the minor cases were interesting as well, but some were just a bit tedious. They were so small, most of the taking place around her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio (which she will tell you is her hometown in each and every course). If this was a course at a Cleveland area community college or university, that would make perfect sense, but this is a course that's being peddled for fairly big bucks to people all over the place. I would expect a more international array of cases. Even worse is her presentation. She has a really monotonous, drony voice. You can tell she's just reading from notes or something and not actually stan

I ran across this series many years ago when I worked at the bookstore. It was an advanced reader's copy of the first of the series called The Last Kingdom. I was hooked. I think I liked it so much because I was taking a linguistics course at the time, and Cornwell seemed to write the way the Saxons would have spoken (I've since learned that's kind of just his style, but by now I just don't care; I'll read whatever he writes). The series starts, like I said, with The Last Kingdom, where we meet the hero of the series, Uhtred of Bebbanberg. When the Danes invade his home, he is taken as a slave and raised as a Dane. He accepts their religion and lifestyle, barely holding on to his Saxon roots. Throughout the series he increases his reputation as a warrior until eventually he is driving the Danes from Wessex and Mercia for King Alfred and his successors. The battle scenes are amazing. The writing is thrilling and engrossing. Every time I read a Cornwell book, I can

Technically this is not a book, it's a recorded lecture. But hey, it's my game, so it's my rules. I keep getting these catalogs from a company called The Great Courses. They sound so cool and there are so many I want to listen to, but, although the catalog advertises that they are 80% off, these CDs range from $20 to $140. Now I have to admit, I'm a bit cheap nowadays. I used to not be so much, which is why I have to be cheap now. Credit cards, man. They are Satan's spawn. Working in a bookstore introduced me to the joys of the Advanced Reader's Copy and I have rediscovered the wonders of my local library, so I can manage to go several months without buying a book and not show signs of withdrawal. One of my discoveries is Audible.com. If you read any of my other posts, you'll see I have quite a few audiobooks.The monthly fee is fairly low, and that brings these lectures well within my reach. There is supposed to be a guidebook that goes along with the co

I admit that one of the reasons I picked up this book was because the cover has a blurb by J.K. Rowling. The great thing about writers is that they are also readers. The good ones were the bookish kids, just like me, always with a book somewhere in tow. As readers, they know a good book when they run across one. One of my favorite books of all time is Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I never would have picked it up if I hadn't read an article in Entertainment Weekly by Stephen King calling it one of the best books nobody was reading (at the time). I read it in hours, literally. I think I got home at three and by dinner time I was done. So considering J.K. Rowling has rapidly become one of my favorite authors (and not just because of Harry Potter), I felt confident this novel might just work for me. It's the story of the Mortmain family. There's father James, stepmother Topaz (ok, that one almost tripped me up), children Rose, Cassandra, and Thomas, and Stephen Col

I'll admit right up front here that i got this book for free from Doubleday through a Read it Forward giveaway. I *heart* giveaways. Every day I wish I could stay in bed. That I didn't have to go to work. That the night would linger just a little longer. After reading this book, I may change my mind. Anna Lyndsey was just going about her life until, in 2005, she develops a severe insensitivity to light. It's called photo sensitive seborrhoeic dermatitis. I've heard of people being overly sensitive to sunlight, but I had no idea it could extend to even non-natural light sources. Her first indications that something is wrong came from her computer screen. She describes it as having someone hold a blowtorch in front of her face. As her issues develop further, her skin even gets irritated through her clothes. She literally has to block out every ray of light in order to live her life. No reading lamp beside the bed. No TV. No open windows. No light ever. Kinda makes you

I have this tendency, usually at the beginning of the year, to go through a period where I just am not in the  reading mood. It's usually with a book that I'm not entirely jazzed to be reading, and unfortunately this was the book that waylaid me this time. It's not that it's not interesting, although I can't imagine it being on too many people's to-be-read lists. This book is about the circumstances Geoffrey Chaucer found himself in leading up to his writing The Canterbury Tales. You learn quite a lot about medieval London - the political machinations of not just those in the royal court, but those with pretensions to power; the ins and outs of everyday life, etc. - and it is very interesting. One thing that I didn't realize was that in this time, reading silently to oneself was considered a bit odd. I know I've seen movies where people sit around the fireside reading to the family, but I never would have imagined that to be the standard. Chaucer was w

There are several storylines going through this novel. The main plot line is a serial killer case where the perpetrator is called The Watchmaker. He leaves very particular clocks behind - they have one of those windows for the phases of the moon - as well as a poem referencing the moon. Plot line 2 is a police corruption story, where two men were possibly killed because of their dealings with these dirty cops. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs are the detectives on the case. This is the seventh novel with Rhyme and Sachs, although it's the first one I've read. I did see the movie of The Bone Collector, which is the first in the series, so I'm at least familiar with the characters. Rhyme is paralyzed and Sachs serves as his eyes at the crime scenes. I can't speak for all these novels. Maybe this one is unusual to the series, but I found it very dull throughout most of the novel. About two-thirds of the way through it picks up as things begin to come together. I just fel

From all I'm reading, it looks like this is going to be on everyone's most-buzzed-about books list. Goodreads is comparing it to Gone Girl , The Silent Wife , or Before I Go to Sleep , the latter of which I really enjoyed.  The story revolves around three women. We first meet Rachel on the train. Her London train stops next to the row of houses where she sees a couple she imagines to be perfect, naming them Jess and Jason. She creates whole lives for them, so different from her own. Her own life is on a downward spiral. She's an alcoholic, recently divorced, and even more recently fired from her job, due to her alcoholism. She's a highly unreliable narrator, obviously. Her actions are embarrassingly erratic. It's a fascinating character study. I'm not an alcoholic, nor do I know one (as far as I know), so this is like getting a glimpse into the life of an addict.  There is one particular drunken fugue state that is proving problematic. Rachel can't recal

In Anna Karenina Tolstoy says, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Let me explain why he's wrong. This Is Where I Leave You is a really funny novel about a profoundly unhappy family. We first meet Judd as he finds out his father has died. It's really just the cherry on the cake his life has recently become: he's recently jobless, homeless, and wifeless, all after walking in on his wife having sex with his boss in his bed. Now he has to go sit shiva with his family, who he doesn't get along with. His mom is a child psychiatrist guru who mined their childhoods for fodder for her "What To Expect When You're Expecting" style parenting books. His older brother Paul resents him for ruining his college career when a Rottweiler attacked them. Paul's been running the family sporting goods store since their dad's been sick and trying to conceive with his wife. His older sister Wendy has three kids who

I love reading, but sometimes it's just such a hard slog. This was one of those. It shouldn't have been. It's essentially the story of Chicago at the time of the World's Fair (or the World's Columbian exposition). If you've ever read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, you have an idea of the reeking atmosphere of Chicago at the time. It seems incredulous that people would consider building a world's fair in such a place. But Chicagoans are apparently a stubborn, head-strong lot, and were intent on showing the world what they could do. And, oh my, did they ever show the world. So many things found their origin at or in relation to the World's Fair - the first Ferris wheel, Juicy Fruit gum, Shredded Wheat, Cracker Jack, Aunt Jemima, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, the first time the pledge of allegiance was said, the beginnings of the minimum wage, time and a half for holidays, the five day work week, and of course the first time Columbus Day was celebrated. They

First off, let me state I got this free from Audible for Christmas. I do love me some free stuff. The story begins with an enchanted mirror created by demons which basically makes good things appear bad. the demons want to show it to the angels for a laugh but they drop it on the way to heaven and it shatters into billions of teensy-tiny pieces. If they get in people's eyes, they make them see the negative side of things. If they get in people's hearts, it turns them to ice. The intro states that this is the inspiration for the movie Frozen. Maybe that heart-into-ice thing, but that's about it. It almost has more to do with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe than Frozen. Kai and Gerda are best friends. One day a piece of the aforementioned mirror gets in Kai's eye and heart. He immediately turns on his little friend and runs off to play with the older boys, who played the ancient Nordic equivalent of Marty McFly grabbing the fender of a passing car while on his s

It's Mr. Bond take a holiday. M sends Bond to a resort in Brighton to wean him off the red meat, martinis, and 60 cigarettes a day (seriously, how does he have time to save the world from terrorists? How can he even see them through the smoke?). But trouble follows Bond, of course, because who wants to read about 007 eating yogurt and vegetable broth? This novel introduces the world to SPECTRE and Blofeld. They have stolen a plane with two nuclear bombs and are threatening to blow up cities if they aren't given (and you can't help hearing Dr. Evil) ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Bond goes to the Bahamas to investigate. It's pretty good, as long as you're willing to overlook the female stereotyping and raw machismo seeping from the pages. The interesting thing is how this novel sort of anticipates the terrorist society we live in today. When the plane is first reported missing, M and Bond speculate on how any person any where could sneak a bomb into any where in a golf bag

This novel starts pretty boldly. Sophie is fishing with her dad, enjoying a pleasant day, when he pulls out a gun, kills his wife and tries to kill her son. You feel like you're missing something. I turned back a few pages to see if some of them got stuck together, but nope, that's it. The why of it all is the rest of the book. Sophie was working on a drug to help people who suffered from night terrors, by controlling their minds. Because no one would ever think of trying to manipulate that... Royd is a survivor of one of the bases where this drug is being used, taking soldiers, assassins, and other deadly individuals and making them brain-controlled weapons. He's out to kill the heads of the program, and he thinks Sophie is one of the people involved. She however has parted ways with the program and is out to kill the same people and destroy her research. It's a pretty good story. It's a pretty short story, too. This is my first time reading Iris Johansen. She&

First off I should state that I got this for free, although I can't remember from where. The book is subtitled Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking. Rudder examines date from various websites such as his own dating website OkCupid, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other dating websites. The theory is that we reveal our true thoughts and feelings when we feel the freedom of anonymity that the internet provides, and apparently that is true because the information he examines is quite interesting. One of the more interesting of those topics is racism. I imagine that most people if you confront them directly with the question, "Are you a racist?" would say no. The OkCupid website has a preliminary questionnaire, one of which asks something along the lines of "would you ever date someone that has made racist statements" and not surprisingly, most people say no. But the data Rudder presents shows something quite different. The interesting part is that there