My anthropologist, nerd, and bibliophile sides are all very happy tonight. The first category is the only one I have a degree in, but I think my love of books should be pretty obvious, and, well, you’ll just have to trust me on the nerd thing.

These were just delivered to me:

Monique and the Mango Rains is a memoir about the friendship between a Peace Corps volunteer and a midwife in West Africa. I obtained my bachelor’s degree in anthropology before going to nursing school with the idea of working in labor and delivery, and played with the idea of going for a master’s degree in midwifery. For now I am very happy with my role as an RN in a NICU, and trying my hand at writing novels on the side – but this book touches on many subjects I still find fascinating.

And then there’s Bill Nye the Science Guy! Creator and host of the educational television show for youngsters, and all-around kind-of-amazing dude. His book is entitled Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation. I am a firm believer in evolution, and wish very much that more people understood it better. I am an atheist myself, but support the idea that everyone has the right to believe what they choose, and practice what they will as long as doing so causes no harm to others. As Voltaire is credited with saying, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”. That being said, I do cringe at the idea of blind belief that runs contrary to proven scientific fact. When I discovered that Nye had written a book with the intent of spreading awareness of what evolution really is in response to a controversial debate about creationism, I was excited to get my hands on it.

(As a side note, I have even more respect for Mr. Nye after learning more about him from the inside flap of the book.  For instance, in turns out he studied under Carl Sagan at Cornell University. Having just recently finished reading The Martian, Andy Weir’s book about an astronaut stranded on Mars, this fact of course reminds me of the fantastic humor in the impressive novel’s narration: “By my reckoning, I’m about 100 kilometers from Pathfinder. Technically it’s “Carl Sagan Memorial Station.” But with all due respect to Carl, I can call it whatever I want. I’m the King of Mars.”

We Were Liars and Red Rising were two of my absolute favorite reads of 2014. When Golden Son, sequel to Red Rising and second installment in Pierce Brown’s science fiction/fantasy trilogy, was released just earlier this month, I knew I had to get my hands on it – literally. The other two novels I only owned in eBook format, but decided that these were books I very much wanted physical copies of.

Plus, my Golden Son came with this:

Totally worth it 🙂

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go do a happy dance.