tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-568879164158219412024-02-20T13:23:31.269-08:00Toms Book PagesTom blogs about books he has read and hopes you will find some good reads from this site.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-78967281601667526592015-08-19T17:53:00.000-07:002015-08-19T17:53:02.264-07:00Page 59: Some Non-Fiction<br />
Here are three examples of great non-fiction writing, one published in 1962 and two more recently.<br />
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<i><b>The Guns of August</b></i> by Barbara W. Tuchman<br />
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This was originally published in 1962 and won the Pulitzer. Since World War I started in 1914 we are currently one-hundred years beyond the horrors of this war, but not war itself. The great leaders and generals of World War I, on both sides of the conflict, suffered from a similar hubris that infects our leaders today. This is a classic.<br />
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Here is what you will find on Amazon when you search for <i>The Guns of August</i>.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">"In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players, Tuchman’s magnum opus</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">is a classic for the ages."</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Praise for <i>The Guns of August</i></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">“A brilliant piece of military history which proves up to the hilt the force of Winston Churchill’s statement that the first month of World War I was ‘a drama never surpassed.’”</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">—<i>Newsweek</i></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">“More dramatic than fiction . . . a magnificent narrative—beautifully organized, elegantly phrased, skillfully paced and sustained.”</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">—<i>Chicago Tribune</i></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">“A fine demonstration that with sufficient art rather specialized history can be raised to the level of literature.”</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">—<i>The New York Times</i></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">“[</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">The Guns of August</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">] has a vitality that transcends its narrative virtues, which are considerable, and its feel for characterizations, which is excellent.”</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">—<i>The Wall Street Journal</i></b><br />
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<b>The Wright Brothers</b> by David McCullough<br />
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We all learned in school about the Wright Brothers, and their first successful flights at Kitty Hawk in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. What we never learned was the full story of their grit and determination to succeed and the amazing mechanical ability they used to build the first successful piloted airplane. This is an amazing story that fills in the gaps and reveals information that most of us never knew. Here is what you will find on Amazon when you check on this book.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">"Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">On December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright’s Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why? David McCullough tells the extraordinary and truly American story of the two brothers who changed the world.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Sons of an itinerant preacher and a mother who died young, Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up in a small side street in Dayton, Ohio, in a house that lacked indoor plumbing and electricity but was filled with books and a love of learning. The brothers ran a bicycle shop that allowed them to earn enough money to pursue their mission in life: flight. In the 1890s flying was beginning to advance beyond the glider stage, but there were major technical challenges that the Wrights were determined to solve. They traveled to North Carolina’s remote Outer Banks to test their plane because there they found three indispensable conditions: constant winds, soft surfaces for landings, and privacy.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Flying was exceedingly dangerous; the Wrights risked their lives every time they flew in the years that followed. Orville nearly died in a crash in 1908, before he was nursed back to health by his sister, Katharine, an unsung and important part of the brothers’ success and of McCullough’s book. Despite their achievement, the Wrights could not convince the US government to take an interest in their plane until after they demonstrated its success in France, where the government instantly understood the importance of their achievement. Now, in this revelatory book, master historian David McCullough draws on nearly 1,000 letters of family correspondence—plus diaries, notebooks, and family scrapbooks in the Library of Congress—to tell the full story of the Wright brothers and their heroic</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">achievement." </span><br />
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<i><b>Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania</b></i> by Erik Larson<br />
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Much like the story of the Wright Brothers, the sinking of the Lusitania as an historical event is known by most of us, but not the full story. Erik Larson has written a fascinating account of what happened. Here is what the Amazon page contains when you check on <i>Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania</i>.<br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">"From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Lusitania</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Unterseeboot</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Lusitania</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.</span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Dead Wake</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Gripping and important, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Dead Wake</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">If you haven't read these books, get busy. They will add to your knowledge of real history.</span><br />
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<br />Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-7145548371418129922015-08-16T11:25:00.000-07:002015-08-16T11:25:05.273-07:00Page 58: Some RecommndationsIt has been awhile since my last post so I thought it might be helpful to list some of the books I have read since then. Instead of the usual one book at a time with my comments, I plan to write some posts each with three to five books worth reading. Check them out and let me know if you read any of them. <br />
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Here is the first list, in no special order, with a few comments:<br />
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<ul>
<li><i>The Girl on the Train</i> by Paula Hawkins starts out slowly, but pulls you in as you go deeper into the story. The amazing twists and surprises are well worth the ride with this novel.</li>
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<li><i>Cloud Atlas</i> by David Mitchell has been made into a movie, but I am not sure if any movie could do justice to the book. This book is a series of stories or tales that begin with Adam Ewing, an American lawyer, crossing the Pacific in 1850. Then a subsequent series of stories are told, each reaching a certain point, but not concluded. The author then goes back and finishes each of the stories. His unique method of telling a story is well worth it. </li>
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<li><i>The Goldfinch</i> by Donna Tartt is a fine work of literature that begins with a mother and her son, Theo Decker, visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the way to an appointment. A terrorist explosion kills his mother and changes the course of Theo's life. His future becomes linked to a famous Dutch painting, an antiques dealer, a friend's wealthy family, and his father who abandoned Theo and his mother several years before. This novel won the Pulitzer and is being made into a movie. I believe it is one of the best novels in recent years.</li>
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Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-65159704715671343302012-12-09T17:35:00.000-08:002012-12-09T17:35:56.128-08:00Page 57: The Yellow Birds<i>The Yellow Birds</i> by Kevin Powers is a powerful novel about the Iraq War written by a soldier who has been there. Tom Wolfe considers this book "The All Quiet on the Western Front of Ameria's Arab wars." This is a story about friendship and loss involving Privates Bartle and Murphy. Private Bartle promises Murphy's mother he will protect her son and bring him home alive, a promise their hardened Sergeant Sterling never ceases berating Bartle for making.<br />
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As their war unfolds in Al Tafar, Iraq we are witnesses to their story as narrated by Private Bartle. Even though the story is primarily about the relationship between Bartle and Murphy the other themes of this war become part of the narrative. These include the proponents of going to war, the neocons and their supporters, sending young soldiers into battle when they themselves managed to avoid military service during the Vietnam War. There is the colonel who visits their unit accompanied by the media so he has a record of his war. He leaves with an apology that although he will not be able to lead them into action the next morning, he will be monitoring the battle from his position in the rear. <br />
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The war is not glorious, heroic, or even being fought for a good reason. The professional military personnel fighting the war are there to survive and protect each other while doing the job they have been trained to perform. They do it well, but many of them pay the ultimate price. The opening sentence of the book sets the tone. "The war tried to kill us in the spring." The next paragraph opens with "Then, in summer, the war tried to kill us as the heat blanched all color from the plains." In a prophetic note this paragraph began with "We hardly noticed a change when September came. But I know now that everything that will ever matter in my life began then."<br />
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This is one of the finest first novels you will read. Not only is the writing top notch, it should be award winning. Whatever our feeling about war and especially about our Arab wars in Iraq and Afganistan, this book must be read. It captures not only the horror of war and its effect on those who fight it, but also on families and loved ones back home.<br />
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Here are some comments from other writers:<br />
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"<i>The Yellow Birds</i> is harrowing, inexplicably beautiful, and utterly, urgently necessary." (Ann Patchett)<br />
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"The minute I read Kevin Powers's marvelous first sentence, I knew I was in the hands of an exceptional writer. That line is right up there with 'Call me Ishmael.' The best books transcend their time and circumstances to say something enduring and truthful about war itself. <i>The Yellow Birds</i> belongs in that category." (Philip Caputo)<br />
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"Reading <i>The Yellow Birds</i> I became certain that I was in the presence of a text that will win plaudits, become a classic, and hold future narratives of the war to a higher standard . . . a superb literary achievement." (Chris Cleave)<br />
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I can't imagine any thoughtful person reading this book and finding it lacking. This is a classic!<br />
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Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-18366315328021988692012-11-02T13:32:00.000-07:002012-11-02T13:32:21.084-07:00Page 56: Winter of the World<i>Winter of the World</i> by Ken Follett is the second book in his new Century Trilogy. The first was <i>Fall of Giants</i> that followed several families in various countries from the pre-World War I era to the aftermath of the war. Follett continues his genius of incorporating a large number of characters in an epic narrative that brings history down to the human level. His characters include upper class British, Welsh coal miners, German diplomats, Russian revolutionaries, American politicians and numerous other characters that populate both novels.<br />
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<i>Winter of the World</i> continues the narrative of the characters introduced in <i>Fall of Giants</i> including the next generation. Follett writes about the rise of the Nazis in Germany and how it affected those that opposed Hitler as well as those who welcomed the violence, anti-semitism, and paganism with open arms. The heady success of Hitler and his gang as portrayed in this book should make any normal reader angry and disgusted with the Nazis and their excesses. The brutality toward their fellow Germans and the banality of the evil embodied by Hitler and the Nazis is revealed through the experiences of the characters in this novel.<br />
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In addition to the Germans, events from the American, British, and Russian viewpoints are presented as well. Ken Follett has painted a broad and detailed landscape of this era. The characters are real, they bring the era to life, and make history more real on the human level than most textbooks or academic papers could ever manage to accomplish. So much happens in this second book, as did in the first, that you must pay attention as the plot speeds along from the 1930's to World War II and then into the post-war era. This is more than just a novel, it is a learning experience.<br />
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Here is a review from Amazon:<br />
<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Ken Follett’s <i>Fall of Giants</i>, the first novel in his extraordinary new historical epic, The Century Trilogy, was an international sensation, acclaimed as “sweeping and fascinating, a book that will consume you for days or weeks” (<i>USA Today</i>) and “grippingly told and readable to the end” (<i>The New York Times Book Review</i>). “If the next two volumes are as lively and entertaining as <i>Fall of Giants</i>,” said <i>The Washington Post</i>, “they should be well worth waiting for.”</span><br />
<h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><i>Winter of the World </i>picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: small;">Carla von Ulrich, born of German and English parents, finds her life engulfed by the Nazi tide until she commits a deed of great courage and heartbreak. . . . American brothers Woody and Chuck Dewar, each with a secret, take separate paths to momentous events, one in Washington, the other in the bloody jungles of the Pacific. . . . English student Lloyd Williams discovers in the crucible of the Spanish Civil War that he must fight Communism just as hard as Fascism. . . . Daisy Peshkov, a driven American social climber, cares only for popularity and the fast set, until the war transforms her life, not just once but twice, while her cousin Volodya carves out a position in Soviet intelligence that will affect not only this war—but the war to come.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as their experiences illuminate the cataclysms that marked the century. From the drawing rooms of the rich to the blood and smoke of battle, their lives intertwine, propelling the reader into dramas of ever-increasing complexity.</span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. With passion and the hand of a master, he brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again."</span></span></span><br />
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</h3>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">If you have never read a novel by Ken Follett you are in for a great reading experience with the first two books of the Century Trilogy.</span>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-29151641489350795292012-10-27T13:52:00.001-07:002012-10-27T13:52:17.275-07:00Page 55: The PantherNelson DeMille brings back the husband and wife team of John Corey and Kate Mayfield in another terrorist related plot. This time they are sent to Yemen to find a terrorist called the Panther. The Panther is an American Jihadist whose family originated in Yemen, emigrated to America, and settled in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. The Panther has returned to Yemen as a member of Al Qaeda to raise havoc with the Yemeni government and infidels who dare to visit the country.<br />
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This is no simple plot. John and Kate find Yemen to be quite complicated and very dangerous. Nearly every male carries an AK-47 and the women adhere to the strict Muslim tradition of not being heard or seen.. This provides some complications for Kate, but they are dealt with the best she is able. Many of the embassy staff who venture outside the protection of the embassy compound wear Kevlar vests and carry weapons. Yemen is no ordinary country. John continues to wise crack his way through the course of the book and provides much needed comic relief. If you have read any of the previous books John and Kate have appeared in such as <i>The Lion</i> you get the idea. I read/listened to the book on the Audible version narrated by Scott Brick. He does a great John Corey as well as the other characters. I think they are portrayed more realistically than may be accomplished in the printed version. Of course, this is a matter of preference for the reader and all of us have our own preferences<br />
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There is plenty of action from the arrival of John and Kate at the airport in Sana'a to the finale. One of the characters is Buck who works in intelligence for the State Department. Buck has done his research on Yemen, been there before, and provides a running travelogue that results in many unspoken thoughts and spoken words from the irreverent John Corey. John is a wise guy, but one you want on your team when going after the bad guys.<br />
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Here is a summary of the plot from Amazon Books:<br />
<h4>
"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Anti-Terrorist Task Force agent John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, have been posted overseas to Sana'a, Yemen-one of the most dangerous places in the Middle East. While there, they will be working with a small team to track down one of the masterminds behind the USS </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Cole</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> bombing: a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative known as The Panther. Ruthless and elusive, he's wanted for multiple terrorist acts and murders-and the U.S. government is determined to bring him down, no matter the cost. As latecomers to a deadly game, John and Kate don't know the rules, the players, or the score. What they do know is that there is more to their assignment than meets the eye-and that the hunters are about to become the hunted.</span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Filled with breathtaking plot turns and told in John Corey's inimitable voice, THE PANTHER is a brilliant depiction of one of the most treacherous countries in the world and raises disturbing questions about whether we can ever know who our enemies - or our allies - really are."</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I think this is one of the best John Corey and Kate Mayfield books by DeMille. Read it and let me know if you agree or not.</span></h3>
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Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-88176792981750021762012-04-15T17:55:00.000-07:002012-04-15T17:56:43.255-07:00Page 54: The House of SilkSherlock Holmes is back and as good as ever. The Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle Estate, Ltd. has authorized Anthony Horowitz to write a new Sherlock Holmes novel. <i>The House of Silk</i> returns the reader to Victorian London with all of its wealth, poverty, and crime. Sherlock and Dr. Watson are back, and as brilliant as ever. <br />
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Watson is writing this as his last Sherlock Holmes story while living in an assisted care facility after World War I. Holmes has died and Watson misses him terribly. The story he writes is of such a sensitive nature that he has given orders that it not be published until long after his death. He wants it published in a future age that will be able to deal with the depraved nature of the events that reached into the highest levels of English society and government. I guess the second decade of the twenty-first century may be seen as a most fitting time for the publication. <br />
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The setting is London in the winter of 1890. The weather is cold, foggy, and filled with the smells of Victorian London--smoke, soot, horse manure, garbage, unwashed bodies, and good old dirt. I dare say if you picked up this book and the author was listed as Conan Doyle you would not be able to tell the difference unless you were a die hard Sherlock Holmes fan. The story is that good. Holmes is in his intellectual prime as a detective and amazes everyone with his deductive ability based on clues he easily sees, but others do not. <br />
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Watson refers to both the adventures of <i>The Man in the Flat Cap</i> and <i>The House of Silk</i> in this story. In the Preface to the book he writes: "They (sic) were, in some respects, the most sensational of Sherlock Holmes's career but at the time it was impossible for me to tell them, for reasons that will become abundantly clear." After you read this you will know what he means.<br />
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The book has all the hallmarks of a Sherlock Holmes story as well as the characters. There is, of course, Holmes and Watson, 221 B Baker Street, Inspector Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Watson even recounts how he met Sherlock Holmes by chance through a mutual acquaintance.<br />
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This book is very good! If you like the Sherlock Holmes novels of Conan Doyle you must read this one. Once again "The game's afoot."Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-91130723164500342892012-04-02T18:45:00.000-07:002012-04-02T18:45:11.761-07:00Page 53: A Song of Ice and Fire ContinuedOn Page 51 I reviewed the first book in the series, <i>A Game of Thrones</i>, and promised more. I must confess I have been reading a lot since my last post, but have not written about them. I hope to catch up a bit in this one.<br />
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I have now read the first five books in the series: <i>A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords,</i> <i>A Feast for Crows</i> and <i>A Dance With Dragons</i>. This is not the end. Two more books are scheduled to complete this seven book series. The last two are: T<i>he Winds of Winter</i> and <i>A Dream of Spring </i>to be published at some future date. Those of you who have read any or all of these know they are long books, but well worth the journey. In fact, they are so long that it requires two credits to purchase them from Audible. I have not used Audible for any of the books and some of my friends tell me this is a mistake.<br />
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The mythical world of Westeros and all the other lands in this series are set in a medieval-like world that is thousands of years old. It is as if the characters are trapped in a version of the Middle Ages, but a unique one that includes magic, dragons, giants, mammoths, skin changers, and an Ice Age version of the walking dead. The plots and sub-plots continue to play out chapter by chapter and book by book using the perspective of one character for each chapter. I think this is a good technique, but sometimes it gets confusing since the author, George R. R. Martin, does not write in a linear time frame. There are so many characters and houses (families) that two books will occur within the same time period, but deal with different characters in each book.<br />
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These books are subtle in their plotting yet contain a great deal of brutality and bloodshed. Some of the best characters are multidimensional. For example, some I considered more evil than good early in the series reveal themselves to have a good side later in the series. I don't want to be a spoiler, but be prepared for some of your favorites to be killed off by the author. This is my one criticism of this series. I don't like the author's penchant for killing off characters I have come to like reading about. In spite of this, A Song of Ice and Fire is a great series. It is very broad in scope, ambitious in the number and crafting of characters, has outstanding plots and sub-plots, and is a great read. I still think it is one of the few series in this genre that compares with Tolkien. I'm still liking this series and can't wait for the next two books to come out. If you have not read any of these books, what are you waiting for? If you have started the series, keep going. George R. R. Martin is a genius and he never fails to surprise and entertain the reader in the first five books of the series.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-4320135770169522952012-01-03T17:47:00.000-08:002012-01-04T10:34:26.126-08:00Page 52: 11/22/63Stephen King's newest novel, <i>11/22/63</i>, is centered around one of those events that looms large and tragic in our history. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy traumatized a nation that was making the transition from a post World War II era to one defined by a young and vigorous President who offered hope for the future with the "New Frontier." Those of us who were alive when this happened will always remember where we were and what we were doing when the news broke from Dallas that shots had been fired at the motorcade as it passed by Dealey Plaza that fateful Friday. Walter Cronkite, our much respected broadcaster on CBS, had tears in his eyes when he told us President Kennedy had died from his wounds.<br />
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Stephen King brings us back to that period in time in his own inimitable style. The novel begins during the present as we are introduced to Jake, a divorced high school English teacher in a small town in Maine. Well, after all this is Stephen King, where else would Jake live? One of Jake's friends is Al who owns a diner that Jake frequents. Final exams are over and the summer break is just about to begin when Al shares a secret with Jake. Al's diner has a time portal in the storeroom that takes you back to 1958. The odd thing Al tells Jake is that every time he goes through the portal there is a complete reset. No matter what you may have done to change things, it all goes back to the original version when you return through the portal to 1958 again. Al has been buying his ground beef at 1958 prices and selling it cheap in 2011, and still making a good profit. In fact, it is the same ground beef he buys over and over due to the reset phenomenon. And, oh yes, no matter how long Al is back in time only a few minutes have passed when he returns to 2011.<br />
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Jake notices Al has aged quite a bit lately and looks terrible. Al tells Jake he has lung cancer and not much time left. He wants to entrust Jake with the secret and finish a task he was unable to complete. Al wants Jake to go back to 1958 and stay long enough to stop Lee Harvey Oswald from shooting President Kennedy.
Al is fading fast and sends Jake through the time portal on a test run. The story moves pretty fast from this point and just gets better chapter by chapter.<br />
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When Jake goes back to 1958 he has some preliminary business to take care of in Derry where we meet a couple of characters from a previous novel. King fans will recognize them easily. Al warned Jake that the past seems reluctant to be changed and this proves to be all too true time and again. Jake has five years to prepare to stop Oswald and spends some of his time in a small town in Texas where he meets Sadie and falls in love. King is not known best for being a romantic, but he does a quite satisfactory job with Jake and Sadie.<br />
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This book is Stephen King as the "Grand Master" of horror and the macabre, and he does not disappoint. In my opinion this is one of his "A" level novels. I won't say any more about the plot or story so as not to be a spoiler. The novel <i>11/22/63 </i>is a great King novel with plenty of fascinating historical information woven into the story. This is a must read for Stephen King fans and a great read for new ones. Let me know how you like it.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-53355188684286988982011-10-01T17:21:00.000-07:002011-10-01T17:21:25.850-07:00Page 51: Game of Thrones<i>Game of Thrones</i> by George R. R. Martin is the first book in the series entitled <i>A Song of Ice and Fire</i>. This is a broad sweeping epic with a huge cast of characters, plots and sub-plots, and a setting that becomes more real as you read further and further into the story. There are four other books published since the first was released in 1996, and I will include them later.<br />
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The setting is the Seven Kingdoms which are divided into various feudal fiefdoms very similar to England's feudal period. The map provided in the book is divided into two main sections. There is The North with the House of Winterfell as the major feudal entity ruled by Eddard Stark and his family. Their motto is "Winter is Coming." Why this is their motto soon becomes apparent when you discover this world has winters and summers that are measured in years rather than months. A structure named "The Wall" was erected centuries ago and has reached a height of 700 feet. It is constructed of stone and ice blocks and extends across a narrow section of The North to keep out wild men and other creatures that live north of The Wall. The Wall is manned by Rangers who are knights and conscripts who have sworn an oath to live out their lives at The Wall. They dress in black and are considered neutral to the rivalries and battles among the great houses to the south The Wall, although not in size, reminds me of Hadrian's Wall built by the Romans in Britain to keep the Scots, Picts, and other wild tribes at bay.<br />
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The South is obviously warmer in climate and I would guess the distance between The Wall and Casterly Rock, the castle of King Robert, to be 1500 to 2000 miles. Fortunately the system of measurement used in the book is the English System so the reader doesn't have to do some research to estimate distances, height, etc.<br />
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This book is centered around the Starks which include Eddard and his family; King Robert and his family; and the Lannisters, who are the queen's family. The Starks include Lady Catelyn, Eddard's wife; sons Robb age 14, Brandon age 7, Rickson age 3; daughters Sansa age 11 and Arya age 9. Eddard's bastard son Jon is 14 at the beginning of the book and is called Jon Snow. Each of the major houses has bastard sons and use various last names to designate their status. House Stark uses Snow for a surname. To make the story even more interesting there is another smaller group, a brother and sister, who are all that is left of the family of the former King and are now in exile in lands farther south of the Seven Kingdoms. The brother has visions of regaining the throne, but must find a way to raise an army. The author uses an interesting method for telling his story. Each chapter is named for one of the main characters and develops the plot and sub-plots around the person whose name heads the chapter. At first it may seem confusing, but soon it works and the book, all 674 pages in the paperback version, moves along very quickly.<br />
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If you are a J. R. R. Tolkien fan of <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>Lord of the Rings</i> you should like this series. It is similar, but not the same. I think this is good. No one should be able to write like Tolkien and I hope it never happens. Having said that, this is a very good story that just keeps getting better and better. Once it pulls you in it does not let go. I'm already reading the second book in the series <i>A Clash of Kings</i>. The next ones are: <i>A Storm of Swords</i>, <i>A Feast for Crows</i>, and the fifth book that recently was published, <i>A Dance With Dragons. </i>This series is not for the faint of heart. There is plenty of blood, gore, intrigue, betrayal, and surprises for the hardcore fan of this genre. Also, the author isn't afraid to kill off some of his main characters. Some of them deserve killing while others do not.<br />
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I realize this quote is long, but I think it will help establish the setting of the book for you. This appears on the back cover of the paperback version:<br />
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"As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin's stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.<br />
Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom's protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.<br />
Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots, and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts; the game of thrones."<br />
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As Robert Jordan said in his review: "Grabs hold and won't let go. It's brilliant." If you are a fan of fantasy and have not read this series, what are you waiting for? Get reading!!<br />
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<br />Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-2436641469459806812011-09-19T17:04:00.001-07:002011-09-19T17:49:09.972-07:00Page 50: Blood WorkBlood Work by Michael Connelly is a departure from the Harry Bosch novels. This time the main character is a former FBI profiler who has survived a heart transplant and is living on his boat moored at an LA marina. Terry McCaleb is still recuperating from heart transplant surgery and concentrating on taking his medications, following his doctor's orders and staying alive. <br />
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Terry has a visitor one day. Graciela Rivers wants him to find the killer of her sister. Her sister was murdered in a convenience store by a stone cold killer and the police have so far come up with no major breaks in the case. Terry is torn. He misses his FBI work as a profiler yet doesn't want to jeopardize his recovery. When he decides to help he tells his doctor. She tells him point blank that if he does anything to hurt his chances for recovery she will no longer see him as a patient. Being the stubborn and driven person he has always been, he takes his chances and starts an investigation.<br />
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Things become interesting very quickly and Terry finds himself on a roller coaster ride faced with a LA homicide cop who hates him for poaching on his turf, and a killer who is smart and devious. His only support is the guy who has a boat in the next berth. The only problem is that he wants to be a partner and not just a driver. A detective from the county helps Terry and they start developing some good leads.<br />
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Everything starts to speed up like the downhill ride on a roller coaster and one surprise after another changes everything you thought you had figured out. It just gets better and better until the plot resolution explodes in your face.<br />
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Michael Connelly writes good stuff and this is no exception. This was made into a movie starring Clint Eastwood, but please read the book first. The movie was good, but as is often the case the book was better.<br />
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No reviews this time, just my take on the book. If you aren't a Michael Connelly fan you will be after reading Blood Work.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-58311218113799547212011-05-30T18:12:00.000-07:002011-05-30T18:12:20.917-07:00Page 49: The King Killer ChroniclesPatrick Rothfuss has published the first two books of his fantasy series. The first is <i>The Name of the Wind</i> and the second is <i>The Wise Man's Fear</i>. I have been reading fantasy ever since I discovered Tolkien's <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings </i>many years ago. I have also read many of the books by Terry Brooks and David Eddings. Both have created wonderful worlds populated by great characters. Patrick Rothfuss has joined their ranks with <i>The King Killer Chronicles</i>. So, why do I think he is that good?<br />
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Patrick Rothfuss has written two books that have not only received good reviews, but have a loyal cadre of followers who are salivating for the third book. In the first book we are introduced to Kote, an innkeeper in a remote village, who is more than he appears to be to the locals. He is in fact "Kvothe the Bloodless", "The King Killer", and several other names that have made him a legend at a young age. A scribe named Chronicler discovers his whereabouts and comes to the Wayside Inn to write down his story. Kvothe agrees to tell his story much to the surprise of Bast, Kvothe's current student. Book one covers the first day of the telling of the story. There are several pauses or interludes in the story in order for Kvothe to do the kinds of things an innkeeper does. He prepares food, pours drinks, and banters with the locals. Here is what Publishers Weekly has to say about the first book.<br />
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Starred Review. The originality of Rothfuss's outstanding debut fantasy, the first of a trilogy, lies less in its unnamed imaginary world than in its precise execution. Kvothe ("pronounced nearly the same as 'Quothe' "), the hero and villain of a thousand tales who's presumed dead, lives as the simple proprietor of the Waystone Inn under an assumed name. Prompted by a biographer called Chronicler who realizes his true identity, Kvothe starts to tell his life story. From his upbringing as an actor in his family's traveling troupe of magicians, jugglers and jesters, the Edema Ruh, to feral child on the streets of the vast port city of Tarbean, then his education at "the University," Kvothe is driven by twin imperatives—his desire to learn the higher magic of naming and his need to discover as much as possible about the Chandrian, the demons of legend who murdered his family. As absorbing on a second reading as it is on the first, this is the type of assured, rich first novel most writers can only dream of producing. The fantasy world has a new star. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.<br />
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The second book continues the story as recounted by Kvothe during the second day. One of the more poignant themes of the first book is continued. It appears that Kvothe is losing his ability to practice the magic that has been the basis of much of the legend surrounding him.<br />
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As the story moves on Kovthe is still at "the University", but takes a sabbatical after much urging from the faculty. His travels take him to another part of his world to work for the the most powerful man in Vintas. He is given the task of leading a group of mercenaries to kill a band of bandits in the forests of Vintas who are stealing from the tax collectors. While in the forest he manages to enter the realm of Fae when the group sees the legendary Felurian bathing in a forest pool. Men have not usually survived an encounter with her, but Kvothe manages quite well and returns with a special cloak made for him by Felurian. He also travels with his friend Tempi, one of the mercenaries searching for the bandits, to Adem. Adem is a warrier culture that reminds me a lot of feudal Japan. In Adem he learns both the physical and spiritual art of the warrier. While in Adem, Kvothe must overcome challenges that are quite different from those he faces at the University. The book ends with a recounting of the three silences that surround the Waystone Inn. You will find out what they are when you read the book.<br />
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Here is the review from Publishers Weekly<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Starred Review. As seamless and lyrical as a song from the lute-playing adventurer and arcanist Kvothe, this mesmerizing sequel to Rothfuss's 2007's debut, The Name of the Wind, is a towering work of fantasy. As Kvothe, now the unassuming keeper of the Waystone Inn, continues to share his astounding life story—a history that includes saving an influential lord from treachery, defeating a band of dangerous bandits, and surviving an encounter with a legendary Fae seductress—he also offers glimpses into his life's true pursuit: figuring out how to vanquish the mythical Chandrian, a group of seven godlike destroyers that brutally murdered his family and left him an orphan. But while Kvothe recalls the events of his past, his future is conspiring just outside the inn's doors. This breathtakingly epic story is heartrending in its intimacy and masterful in its narrative essence, and will leave fans waiting on tenterhooks for the final installment. (Mar.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span>I hope I have enticed you to read these books whether fantasy is your genre or not. One caveat before you begin. They are long, but read quickly. I listened to the Audible version of the second book. When I downloaded it there were five sections of approximately 8 hours each. I enjoyed every minute!!Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-59241661252163318482011-05-29T12:43:00.000-07:002011-05-29T12:43:26.157-07:00Page 48: The Harry Bosch Novels by Michael ConnellyI have been reading many books including a few audio books since my last post. Sorry for the delay. Thank you to those of you who still visit the blog and also to those of you who are new. I appreciate your interest and hope you have been encouraged to read some of the books I write about. Instead of blogging just one book in this post I thought it would be a change of pace to talk about several books by the same author with a brief description of each.<br />
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Michael Connelly has been writing great crime fiction since his first Harry Bosch novel entitled <i>The Black Echo.</i> The next three in the series are <i>The Black Ice, The Concrete Blonde</i> and <i>The Last Coyote</i>.<br />
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The Harry Bosch novels are about a homicide detective who is a loner, butts heads with the "brass", is as persistent as a dog with a bone, and is very very good solving murders. The scene for most of the books is Los Angeles. Connelly portrays the city in a straightforward way. He takes you from the towers of Universal City to the back alleys of Hollywood. I keep checking a map of LA to try to follow where his investigations take him. So far I have read the first four Harry Bosch novels and am working on a fifth novel, but more about that one in another post. The fifth is not part of the Harry Bosch series. Once I find a series I like, I prefer to read them in order. I am glad I am doing this with the Harry Bosch series since the character development has been a continuous thread throughout in these first four books. In addition, more is revealed about Harry's past that helps explain his doggedness and being a loner. This is especially true in <i>The Last Coyote</i>.<br />
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Here is a brief description of the first four books:<br />
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<i>The Black Echo</i> introduces Harry Bosch. Harry has been demoted from an elite investigative unit to the Hollywood Detective Division. A body is found in a a drainage pipe near a reservoir off Mulholland Drive. The deceased was once in Harry's platoon in Vietnam. Their job was to go down into the underground tunnels of the Viet Cong with just a flashlight and a pistol to kill as many as possible and still come out alive. Then they would blow up the tunnel in order to collapse it. Tunnels are the theme for this story and Harry ends up working with the FBI as he tries to solve the murder. The FBI is trying to solve a bank robbery that is connected to the murdered man. The robbers dug a tunnel and came up into the vault on Memorial Day weekend. This one has a lot of surprises and the plot moves along at a very good pace.<br />
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<i>The Black Ice</i> involves an investigation into the death of a narcotics agent that apparently committed suicide in a run-down motel. Harry goes against the suicide conclusion and pursues his own theory of how the agent was killed. As he follows the clues they lead him to Mexico and the discovery of a connection between a Mexican drug lord and an LA cop. The story is fast-paced with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing the outcome until the very end. Even when you think you have it figured out, forget it, you don't.<br />
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<i>The Concrete Blonde</i> has a very creative plot. It follows Harry Bosch during a trial where the city is being sued by the family of a man Harry killed prior to the timeline of the first book. This is what got him demoted to the Hollywood Division. Harry shot and killed a man he thought was "The Dollmaker", a serial killer who put makeup on his victims after they were killed. Harry followed a tip that "The Dollmaker" was in a second floor apartment. Harry went to the apartment, kicked in the door and found a man standing by a bed. The man reached under a pillow, and Harry warned him to stop, but he kept reaching. Harry shot and killed him. When Harry checked, he found the man had been reaching for his toupe. While Harry must be at the trial every day, he is also conducting an investigation when another body is found in concrete under a storage building that burned during the riots in Watts. Questions start popping up. Did Harry shoot the wrong man? Is there a second killer imitating "The Dollmaker"? All questions will be answered, but only after a plot that moves so fast you will have trouble keeping up.<br />
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<i>The Last Coyote</i> reveals the most about Harry's past and the forces that drive him. This book finds Harry suspended for striking his supervisor and pushing him through the window of his office. He is required to see the police department psychiatrist. As the book progresses we find that Harry's mother was murdered in the early 1960's and her body found in a dumpster. The murderer was never found and the case quickly ended up in the unsolved files. His mother was a prostitute and Harry spent most of his youth in institutions after he was taken away from her. After Harry visits one of his mother's old friends, he decides to try to find out what happened. Some of those involved are still living so Harry tracks them down and tries to get answers to his questions. Some are cooperative, others are not. In fact, people start dying and the plot rockets faster and faster from there. All I can say is that Michael Connelly gets better with each book. If you like crime fiction, Michael Connelly is one of the best. <br />
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.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-14342030752620027042011-03-06T17:10:00.000-08:002011-03-06T17:10:48.786-08:00Page 47: UnbrokenThe full title of this book is <i>Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption</i> written by Laura Hillenbrand who also wrote <i>Seabiscuit</i>. On the surface this is story of a very brave and courageous man who experienced the horrors of internment in various Japanese POW camps. The lesson for all of us reading about the life of Louis Zamperini is that the will to survive knows no limits if you are made of the right stuff and have a few breaks as well.<br />
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This biographical story includes his childhood, delinquent behavior, track star status and Olympic competitor in the 1936 games in Berlin, his experiences as a bombardier on a B-24 in the Pacific Theater, the shooting down of his plane, and his survival in the infamous Japanese POW camps. It is truly a story of survival, resilience, and redemption. <br />
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I can go on and on about this book, but in order to appreciate this story please read the book. Take my word for it. You will not be disappointed. I have read many books this past year, some great ones, and this is one of them.<br />
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Here is a description from the author herself:<br />
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<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Eight years ago, an old man told me a story that took my breath away. His name was Louie Zamperini, and from the day I first spoke to him, his almost incomprehensibly dramatic life was my obsession.</div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It was a horse--the subject of my first book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345465083/" style="color: #003399; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: underline;"><em>Seabiscuit: An American Legend</em></a>--who led me to Louie. As I researched the Depression-era racehorse, I kept coming across stories about Louie, a 1930s track star who endured an amazing odyssey in World War II. I knew only a little about him then, but I couldn’t shake him from my mind. After I finished <em>Seabiscuit</em>, I tracked Louie down, called him and asked about his life. For the next hour, he had me transfixed.</div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Growing up in California in the 1920s, Louie was a hellraiser, stealing everything edible that he could carry, staging elaborate pranks, getting in fistfights, and bedeviling the local police. But as a teenager, he emerged as one of the greatest runners America had ever seen, competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he put on a sensational performance, crossed paths with Hitler, and stole a German flag right off the Reich Chancellery. He was preparing for the 1940 Olympics, and closing in on the fabled four-minute mile, when World War II began. Louie joined the Army Air Corps, becoming a bombardier. Stationed on Oahu, he survived harrowing combat, including an epic air battle that ended when his plane crash-landed, some six hundred holes in its fuselage and half the crew seriously wounded.</div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On a May afternoon in 1943, Louie took off on a search mission for a lost plane. Somewhere over the Pacific, the engines on his bomber failed. The plane plummeted into the sea, leaving Louie and two other men stranded on a tiny raft. Drifting for weeks and thousands of miles, they endured starvation and desperate thirst, sharks that leapt aboard the raft, trying to drag them off, a machine-gun attack from a Japanese bomber, and a typhoon with waves some forty feet high. At last, they spotted an island. As they rowed toward it, unbeknownst to them, a Japanese military boat was lurking nearby. Louie’s journey had only just begun.</div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">That first conversation with Louie was a pivot point in my life. Fascinated by his experiences, and the mystery of how a man could overcome so much, I began a seven-year journey through his story. I found it in diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs; in the memories of his family and friends, fellow Olympians, former American airmen and Japanese veterans; in forgotten papers in archives as far-flung as Oslo and Canberra. Along the way, there were staggering surprises, and Louie’s unlikely, inspiring story came alive for me. It is a tale of daring, defiance, persistence, ingenuity, and the ferocious will of a man who refused to be broken.</div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The culmination of my journey is my new book, <em>Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption</em>. I hope you are as spellbound by Louie’s life as I am."</div><br />
There are many review of this book. Here is one of them.<br />
<br />
<h3 class="productDescriptionSource" style="clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0.375em; margin-left: -15px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.75em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 1.23em; font-weight: normal;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> </span>From Publisher's Weekly:</span></h3><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Starred Review. From the 1936 Olympics to WWII Japan's most brutal POW camps, Hillenbrand's heart-wrenching new book is thousands of miles and a world away from the racing circuit of her bestselling Seabiscuit. But it's just as much a page-turner, and its hero, Louie Zamperini, is just as loveable: a disciplined champion racer who ran in the Berlin Olympics, he's a wit, a prankster, and a reformed juvenile delinquent who put his thieving skills to good use in the POW camps, In other words, Louie is a total charmer, a lover of life--whose will to live is cruelly tested when he becomes an Army Air Corps bombardier in 1941. The young Italian-American from Torrance, Calif., was expected to be the first to run a four-minute mile. After an astonishing but losing race at the 1936 Olympics, Louie was hoping for gold in the 1940 games. But war ended those dreams forever. In May 1943 his B-24 crashed into the Pacific. After a record-breaking 47 days adrift on a shark-encircled life raft with his pal and pilot, Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips, they were captured by the Japanese. In the "theater of cruelty" that was the Japanese POW camp network, Louie landed in the cruelest theaters of all: Omori and Naoetsu, under the control of Corp. Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a pathologically brutal sadist (called the Bird by camp inmates) who never killed his victims outright--his pleasure came from their slow, unending torment. After one beating, as Watanabe left Louie's cell, Louie saw on his face a "soft languor.... It was an expression of sexual rapture." And Louie, with his defiant and unbreakable spirit, was Watanabe's victim of choice. By war's end, Louie was near death. When Naoetsu was liberated in mid-August 1945, a depleted Louie's only thought was "I'm free! I'm free! I'm free!" But as Hillenbrand shows, Louie was not yet free. Even as, returning stateside, he impulsively married the beautiful Cynthia Applewhite and tried to build a life, Louie remained in the Bird's clutches, haunted in his dreams, drinking to forget, and obsessed with vengeance. In one of several sections where Hillenbrand steps back for a larger view, she writes movingly of the thousands of postwar Pacific PTSD sufferers. With no help for their as yet unrecognized illness, Hillenbrand says, "there was no one right way to peace; each man had to find his own path...." The book's final section is the story of how, with Cynthia's help, Louie found his path. It is impossible to condense the rich, granular detail of Hillenbrand's narrative of the atrocities committed (one man was exhibited naked in a Tokyo zoo for the Japanese to "gawk at his filthy, sore-encrusted body") against American POWs in Japan, and the courage of Louie and his fellow POWs, who made attempts on Watanabe's life, committed sabotage, and risked their own lives to save others. Hillenbrand's triumph is that in telling Louie's story (he's now in his 90s), she tells the stories of thousands whose suffering has been mostly forgotten. She restores to our collective memory this tale of heroism, cruelty, life, death, joy, suffering, remorselessness, and redemption. (Nov.) -Reviewed by Sarah F. Gold"</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>--This text refers to the <a class="product" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400064163/ref=dp_proddesc_2?ie=UTF8&n=283155" style="color: #003399; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Hardcover</a> edition.</em></span><br />
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I have a pretty good back log of books I plan to blog about. Keep checking in for more.<br />
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Keep on reading!!Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-5485164962528283352011-01-08T14:29:00.000-08:002011-01-08T14:29:36.190-08:00Page 46: Three StationsMartin Cruz Smith, in his seventh Arkady Renko novel <i>Three Stations</i>, brings us another look at the seamy side of Moscow and the criminals that flourish there. This time Senior Investigator Arkady Renko is in danger of once again being fired for doing his job. He steps on a lot of toes and searches for truth where those higher in the food chain don't want the truth to be discovered. <br />
<br />
This time Arkady is involed in the investigation of the death of a prostitute. His boss insists it was an overdose, but Arkady stubbornly pursues his instincts that tell him she was murdered. His investigation leads him to a member of the Russian capitalist oligarchy that helps provide clues to the killing. Arkady battles his boss as steps are taken to relieve him of his position. To make matters more interesting, a young mother has her baby stolen about the same time as the death of the young prostitute, and the parallel plots play out as we are introduced to the characters who hang out at "Three Stations" also known as Komsomol Square in Moscow.<br />
<br />
Several critics feel this is one the weaker novels in the series, but I think it is good enough since it provides a look at a side of Moscow you won't find in any of the travel brochures. The writing is still excellent and the tenacity of Arkady is like a dog with a bone. He hangs on for dear life when he believes he is right even if it means the end of his career. All in all this is still a good Martin Cruz Smith novel.<br />
<br />
Here is a review from Bookmarks Magazine:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Taken together, notes the <em>Cleveland Plain Dealer</em>, <em>"</em>Cruz's novels chart the political and social changes that have transformed the former Soviet Union over these last 30 years--and the banes of indolence, indifference and corruption that seem to survive every Russian regime." The capable Renko, of course, has followed right along, and he is still as adept as ever at exposing dishonesty and corruption. Critics agree that if <em>Three Stations </em>is not the best entry in the seven-part series, Cruz brings to harrowing life the world of prostitution rings, runaway children, street gangs, and corruption, and his writing dazzles. A few opine that <em>Three Stations </em>feels a little thin and rushed, but that is a minor complaint in a series that continues to follow, warily and intelligently, Russia's evolution."</span>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-77194435187649820312011-01-07T16:23:00.000-08:002011-01-07T16:23:42.029-08:00Page 45: Dead or AliveThe last two months have been very busy. I have been promoting my book, <i>The Craft</i>, but still trying to read more books. My apologies to all of you who came to this site for the two month hiatus and found not a single new blog post. With a new year just beginning I will once again be doing regular posts, at least until it's time to do my taxes. Here is the first with more to follow.<br />
<br />
I just finished <i>Dead or Alive</i> by Tom Clancy along with Grant Blackwood. The top secret private organization, the Campus, is back. The search for the elusive terrorist, the Emir, is the main focus of the plot. Jack Ryan Jr. is featured along with the other members of the Campus. President Jack Ryan is also in this book, and the problem of his finding out what Jack Jr. is really doing is finally resolved.<br />
<br />
John Clark and Ding Chavez participate in one last mission for Rainbow Six in Libya before they retire and return to CIA headquarters at Langley for further instructions. The Agency has changed with the election of a new president. The two warriors find it being run by bureaucrats who are more interested in politics than national security. They are summarily retired by the Agency. However, both John and Ding are recruited by the Campus and jump right into the search for the Emir. The plot is classic Tom Clancy and moves along at a very rapid pace. The Emir is in the midst of planning several operations that, if successful, will create very major problems for the United States. He is number one on the most wanted terrorist list and the staff at the Campus start unraveling threads they hope will lead to his capture or death. Jack Ryan Jr's. cousins, Dominic and Brian Caruso, round out the cast of main characters involved in the search for the Emir and his fellow terrorists.<br />
<br />
This is a chilling and all too possibly real story about terror attacks here at home and abroad. If you are a Tom Clancy fan this is must reading. He is back on his game!!<br />
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Here is one review of the book:<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3 style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 12px;">Los Angeles Times</h3><div style="color: #333333; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Clancy fans may regard "Dead or Alive" as rather like one of those NBA "dream teams" they throw together for the Olympics; win, lose or draw it's fun to see them all on the court. This time, the best characters from all Clancy's previous novels are on the case, including Jack Ryan and his son, Jack Ryan Jr.; the deadly John Clark (Jack senior's darker half); the Caruso brothers, Dominic and Brian; the ace intelligence analyst Mary Pat Foley; and even Clark's protégé, Ding Chavez. Their quarry is the "Emir," a Bin Laden-like terrorist in hiding after a series of horrific attacks on the United States by his Al Qaeda-like network...For fans of the genre, "Dead or Alive" is likely to provide a long weekend's pleasure..."--(Rutten, Tim)</span></div>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-74561650607019003522010-11-09T17:58:00.000-08:002010-11-09T17:58:08.246-08:00Page 44: A Most Wanted ManJohn le Carre continues his great writing with this novel about a Chechnyan terrorist who shows up in Hamburg seeking help from a lawyer who works for an agency specializing in assisting paperless immigrants. She feels sorry for Issa who appears to be an underfed and demoralized young man who says his only goal in life is to become a doctor. The story moves somewhat slowly at first, but then becomes more complex when Turkish immigrants, a mother and son, the lawyer, and a banker try to help Issa. As the security forces of Germany, England, and the United States pursue Issa the plot moves quickly to a most surprising and unsettling conclusion.<br />
<br />
This book has mixed reviews, but I think it is one of his better ones. Many critics thought John le Carre's books would not have the same flavor or substance after the end of the cold war, but they have been very mistaken. I have been a fan of John le Carre's work since his early days. T<i>he Spy Who Came In from the</i> <i>Cold</i> and the classic trilogy about George Smiley and his opposite number in the Soviet Union, Carla, are some of the best of this genre. There is still a great deal of material to be mined in the post cold war world, especially with the great battle going on between radical Islam and the western nations. <br />
<br />
Here are a couple of reviews:<br />
<b>Publishers Weekly</b><br />
<br />
<div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"When boxer Melik Oktay and his mother, both Turkish Muslims living in Hamburg, take in a street person calling himself Issa at the start of this morally complex thriller from le Carré (<i>The Mission Song</i>), they set off a chain of events implicating intelligence agencies from three countries. Issa, who claims to be a Muslim medical student, is, in fact, a wanted terrorist and the son of Grigori Karpov, a Red Army colonel whose considerable assets are concealed in a mysterious portfolio at a Hamburg bank. Tommy Brue, a stereotypical flawed everyman caught up in the machinations of spies and counterspies, enters the plot when Issa's attorney seeks to claim these assets. The book works best in its depiction of the rivalries besetting even post-9/11 intelligence agencies that should be allies, but none of the characters is as memorable as George Smiley or Magnus Pym. Still, even a lesser le Carré effort is far above the common run of thrillers. <i>(Oct.)"</i><br />
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</div><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Bookmarks Magazine</b></div><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"While this novel may be le Carre's first take on espionage in Europe after the Cold War, critics could not be more divided over its quality. Alan Furst, himself one of the greats of the genre, opines that <em>A Most Wanted Man</em> might be one of the author's best, not for its content so much as for its technical brilliance. But other reviewers panned the work, arguing that le Carre's outrage over recent American intelligence practices distorts the plot and renders many of the characters as mere cliches. Perhaps the consensus is that <em>A Most Wanted Man</em> is an enjoyable le Carre novel (and therefore much better than most thrillers)—but far from his best."<br />
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC</div><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">As with any creative work, opinions may vary. Books are like movies, they receive good and bad reviews, but the ultimate decision is up to the viewer or the reader as the case may be. Use your own judgement. I highly recommend this book if you are a fan of spy novels or just like to read an author who is at the top of his game.</div><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Coming soon, another John le Carre novel, <i>Our Kind of Traitor</i>. </div><div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
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</div>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-1005606442624354362010-10-24T17:08:00.000-07:002010-10-24T17:08:18.830-07:00Page 43: Finding NoufI'm doing this in reverse. I have already read and blogged <i>City of Veils</i> by Zoe Ferraris which is her second book. <i>Finding Nouf</i> was her first. In <i>Finding Nouf</i> we are introduced to two of the characters who also appear in <i>City of Veils</i>. Nayir, the desert guide who is Palestinian, but often mistaken for a Bedouin because of his knowledge of the desert, and Katya who works in the medical examiners office. They both become involved in the investigation of the death of Nouf, a young girl who disappears from her family home.<br />
<br />
The story begins with Nayir leading a team in the desert searching for Nouf. All they know is that a pickup truck is missing from her family compound as well as one of the camels from the stable. Nouf's brother Othman asks Nayir to find out what happened to his sister. The search is fruitless at first, but eventually Nouf's body is found in the desert and taken to the medical examiners office. The surprising result is that the cause of death appears to be from drowning. The clues eventually lead Nayir to believe she was caught in a sudden rainstorm that filled the wadi she was in, and the force of the water knocked her off her feet and carried her along causing her death. This is just the beginning of the story.<br />
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Again, the author takes us inside Saudi society and family life. Nayir is a traditional man who tries not to look at a woman's face unless circumstances require him. When he first meets Katya in the medical examiners office he looks everywhere except at her. His religious beliefs are part of who he is, and become part of the story. Katya is trying to break free of the traditional repression of women, and has gone to work. Even though women do work, many of them stay home and lead very sheltered lives. <br />
<br />
Nayir eventually overcomes his reluctance to work with Katya. He discovers she is engaged to his friend Othman, but that does not present an obstacle since Othman encourages him to continue the investigation even if it means he will be working with Katya. The evidence leads them to some startling facts that will change both of them by the end of the story. <br />
<br />
<i>Finding Nouf</i> won the <i>Los Angeles Times Book Prize</i>; pretty good for a first novel. If you liked <i>City of Veil</i>s, you will find this book to be very similar in providing a fascinating look inside Saudi society. This is the back story of how Nayir and Katya first met and worked together. If you have not read either book yet, I would suggest reading <i>Finding Nouf</i> first and then <i>City of Veils</i>. Both novels stand alone and may be read in any order, but it makes sense to me to read them in order, and not in reverse like I did.<br />
<br />
Here are a couple of reviews for you:<br />
<br />
"Engrossing . . . yanks the veil off Saudi Arabian culture while unraveling a compelling murder mystery."<br />
--<i>Oregonian</i> <br />
"A literary detective novel that balances the pleasures of plot with finely milled prose."<br />
--<i>San Francisco Chronicle</i><br />
Ferraris stakes her own claim on the world map, opening Saudi Arabia up for mystery fans to reveal the true minds and hearts of its denizens."<br />
--<i>Los Angeles Times</i><br />
<i><br />
</i>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-20493390704586609032010-10-18T17:36:00.000-07:002010-10-18T17:36:21.071-07:00Page 42: Bridge of SighsI am late to discover the great writing of Richard Russo. I think <i>Bridge of Sighs</i> is one of his better novels. This very complex novel is set in a small town in upstate New York north of Albany. The story begins quite simply as an attempt by the main character to write down the events of his life before he and his wife embark on a trip to Italy. Lou became known as Lucy every since his Kindergarten teacher made the mistake of reading his name as Lou C. Lynch. You can pretty much surmise what happened after that. The name stuck with him for the rest of his days. <br />
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Thomaston, NY is the fictional setting for the novel. The other characters that play major roles are his parents, Big Lou and Teresa, Sarah Berg, Bobby Marconi, and his uncle Dec. Lou and his father are the eternal optimists even though the stream running through town is loaded with carcinogens from the local tannery. The town is divided by class (what town is not?) into four sections: The Hill (blacks), West End (poor whites), East End (middle class whites) and a separate section of new homes for wealthier whites. The blacks are stuck in The Hill with no chance to move out so they remain as segregated in their housing as those in the south at the time. Lou's parents have manage to avoid financial disaster when his father loses his job as a milkman. They buy a local corner store, very much opposed by his mother, and have to depend on the meager income from that and his mother's work as a bookkeeper.<br />
<br />
The book takes you back in forth in time, provides the perspectives of more than one character for the same event, and gives you new revelations that did not seem possible earlier in the story. Part of the book is in Venice where Bobby has become a famous artist and is preparing for a show in New York. He left Thomaston right after his senior year in high school thirty years before and has never returned. A childhood trauma at the hands of local bullies has left Lou with "spells" that cause him to lose track of time and become listless until he recovers. These last well into adulthood.<br />
<br />
It may be difficult to track the story at times since it moves from Thomaston to Venice and then back again several times. Also, the chronology is mixed so you have different characters giving their perception of the same event, but not in the same part of the novel. In spite of this, Russo carries it off by giving us a great story with real characters who are both kind and flawed while others are downright mean and nasty. The novel examines three main families: the Lynches, the Marconis, and the Bergs. Their stories are interconnected and provide the wonderful material that makes this novel so great.<br />
<br />
Here is a review by Jeffrey Frank:<br />
<b>From Publishers Weekly</b><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Signature</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Reviewed by</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> Jeffrey FrankRichard Russo's portraits of smalltown life may be read not only as fine novels but as invaluable guides to the economic decline of the American Northeast. Russo was reared in Gloversville, N.Y. (which got its name from the gloves no longer manufactured there), and a lot of mid–20th-century Gloversville can be found in his earlier fiction (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Mohawk</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">; </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The Risk Pool</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">). It reappears in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Bridge of Sighs</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">, Russo's splendid chronicle of life in the hollowed-out town of Thomaston, N.Y., where a tannery's runoff is slowly spreading carcinogenic ruin.At the novel's center is Lou C. Lynch (his middle initial wins him the unfortunate, lasting nickname Lucy), but the narrative, which covers more than a half-century, also unfolds through the eyes of Lou's somewhat distant and tormented friend, Bobby Marconi, as well as Sarah Berg, a gifted artist who Lou marries and who loves Bobby, too. The lives of the Lynches, the Bergs and the Marconis intersect in various ways, few of them happy; each family has its share of woe. Lou's father, a genial milkman, is bound for obsolescence and leads his wife into a life of shopkeeping; Bobby's family is being damaged by an abusive father. Sarah moves between two parents: a schoolteacher father with grandiose literary dreams and a scandal in his past and a mother who lives in Long Island and leads a life that is far from exemplary. Russo weaves all of this together with great sureness, expertly planting clues—and explosives, too—knowing just when and how they will be discovered or detonate at the proper time. Incidents from youth—a savage beating, a misunderstood homosexual advance, a loveless seduction—have repercussions that last far into adulthood. Thomaston itself becomes a sort of extended family, whose unhappy members include the owners of the tannery who eventually face ruin.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Bridge of Sighs</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> is a melancholy book; the title refers to a painting that Bobby is making (he becomes a celebrated artist) and the Venetian landmark, but also to the sadness that pervades even the most contented lives. Lou, writing about himself and his dying, blue-collar town, thinks that the loss of a place isn't really so different from the loss of a person. Both disappear without permission, leaving the self diminished, in need of testimony and evidence. If there are false notes, they come with Russo's portrayal of African-Americans, who too often speak like stock characters: (Doan be given me that hairy eyeball like you doan believe, 'cause I know better, says one). But Russo has a deep and real understanding of stifled ambitions and the secrets people keep, sometimes forever. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Bridge of Sighs</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">, on every page, is largehearted, vividly populated and filled with life from America's recent, still vanishing past.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Jeffrey Frank's books include The Columnist</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> and Bad Publicity</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">. His novel, Trudy Hopedale</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">, was published in July by Simon & Schuster. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. <em>--This text refers to the <a class="product" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375414959/sr=8-8/qid=1287444067/ref=dp_proddesc_2?ie=UTF8&n=283155&qid=1287444067&sr=8-8" style="color: #003399; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Hardcover</a> edition"</em></div>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-90109689599950816452010-10-18T16:51:00.000-07:002010-10-18T16:51:43.424-07:00Page 41: That Old Cape MagicRichard Russo, author of <i>Empire Falls</i> and many others, likes to explore personal relationships. He does this in <i>That Old Cape Magic</i> by exploring the influence on Jack Griffin of his parents and their annual vacations to Cape Cod. Much of the story is contained in flashbacks yet remains very coherent throughout. Russo plays Freud at times, but manages to include enough humor to offset the angst of the main characters. The parents are both Ivy League graduates, but end up teaching in, what they consider to be, second rate colleges in the Midwest. One of their lifelong goals is to land a teaching position in the Ivy League. Of course, they never do. With two academic snobs for parents, it appears that Jack doesn't have a chance to succeed in life, but he does and becomes a screenwriter in Hollywood, and then a college professor at a New England college his parents would have died for. <br />
<br />
Jack's marriage is heading for the rocks and he is on a collision course with his own breakdown while at the same time carrying his father's ashes in the trunk of his car, and enduring phone calls from his overbearing mother. It is pretty easy to feel sorry for Jack. Jack and his wife eventually split and toward the end of the book attend their daughter's wedding, each with a date. The wedding and all the disasters that accompany it are very funny if you have a warped sense of humor. But don't we all?<br />
<br />
Others have summarized this book quite well, so here is a good summary of the book from Amazon.<br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Following <em>Bridge of Sighs</em>—a national best seller hailed by <em>The Boston Globe</em> as “an astounding achievement” and “a masterpiece”—Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.<br />
Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents’ respite from the hated Midwest. And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that’s now thirty years old and has largely come true. He’d left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain; they’d moved into an old house full of character; and they’d started a family. Check, check and check.<br />
But be careful what you pray for, especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance. And when, a year later, a far more important wedding takes place, their beloved Laura’s, on the coast of Maine, Griffin’s chauffeuring two urns of ashes as he contends once more with Joy and her large, unruly family, and both he and she have brought dates along. How in the world could this have happened?<br />
<em>That Old Cape Magic</em> is a novel of deep introspection and every family feeling imaginable, with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter’s new life and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has. The storytelling is flawless throughout, moments of great comedy and even hilarity alternating with others of rueful understanding and heart-stopping sadness, and its ending is at once surprising, uplifting and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written."<br />
<br />
This a good one, but wait until the next review. <i>Bridge of Sighs</i> coming up.<br />
<br />
</div>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-8508234277345385382010-10-05T17:53:00.000-07:002010-10-05T17:53:13.416-07:00Page 40: The Big Short<i>The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine</i> by Michael Lewis is one of those books you need to read if you want to find out what really happened two years ago when the big Wall Street banking houses fell like dominoes and the government had to bail them out to prevent a depression. A few very smart people saw it coming, told Wall Street it was going to happen, and were ignored. Happily for them, they made a ton of money shorting sub prime mortgage debt instruments, but didn't feel much joy when the entire economy nearly collapsed on itself.<br />
<br />
Some of the characters in the book involved in shorting the debt instruments and the banks include Steve Eisman, Michael Burry, Greg Lippmann, Vincent Daniel, Gene Park and Howie Hubler. Never heard of these guys? Don't feel bad. Unless you were a Wall Street insider you would not be expected. The big names you have heard: Paulson, Geitner, and Bernanke. They were involved in saving a sinking ship, the other guys were betting heavily that it would sink even before the leaks appeared and the ship's hull ruptured completely.<br />
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I don't know about most of you, but I have always been fascinated by our financial system. This is probably because I don't understand it, but continue to try. Michael Lewis, as he has in his other books, gives us a very well written story that is compelling and hard to break off from reading. In this case I should say listening to since I "read" the Audible version. Jesse Boggs was the narrator and he does an excellent job. <br />
<br />
Why don't some of us understand Wall Street, especially the whole subject of how mortgages were sliced and diced and ended up as AA rated bonds purchased by the major banks, retirement funds, and other big boys? What is so difficult to understand about collatoralized debt obligations (CDOs), AA rated tranches of CDOs, mezzanine level bonds, and credit default swaps (CDSs)? The answer is simple. We aren't supposed to understand. We are just supposed to get screwed so the bond people could make millions on selling the debt instruments created from the mortgages. Apparently giving mortgages to people who could not afford them, and would eventually lose their homes was all right as long as somebody made money on the process. Just hearing an explanation of how mortgages of average home owners in this country were magically transformed into sub prime mortgage bonds that became CDOs is mind boggling. To make this even more interesting, mortgages of different ratings were combined together in CDOs and, 'presto', came out to have an overall rating of AA. No investor questioned a AA rating by Moody's or Standard and Poors. Yes, the ratings agencies were involved up to their necks in the insanity. <br />
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In spite of the subject matter, the book has great characters, humor, and some very high paid yet clueless people who should have known better. If you still have any faith in our bond markets, it will definitely be shaken after reading this book, but read it you should. We all need to know what really happened to Wall Street that caused it to implode on itself. After all, they have been bailed out with our money and still used it to pay their big fat bonuses after the meltdown. When is the last time any of us were paid a bonus for screwing up?<br />
<br />
Here are a couple reviews of the book:<br />
<br />
From Publisher's Weekly<br />
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<div class="productDescriptionWrapper" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Although Lewis is perhaps best known for his sports-related nonfiction (including <i>The Blind Side</i>), his first book was the autobiographical <i>Liar's Poker</i>, in which he chronicled his disillusionment as a young gun on Wall Street in the greed is good 1980s. He returns to his financial roots to excavate the crisis of 2007–2008, employing his trademark technique of casting a microcosmic lens on the personal histories of several Wall Street outsiders who were betting against the grain—to shed light on the macrocosmic tale of greed and fear. Although Lewis reads the book's introduction, narration duties are assumed by Jesse Boggs, a veteran narrator of business titles (including Lewis's own 2008 book <i>Panic!</i>). Boggs's rich baritone is well suited to the task and trips lightly through a maze of financial jargon (CDOs, derivatives, mid-prime lending) and a dizzying cast of characters. Lewis returns on the final disc for a 10-minute interview about the crisis's aftermath, including a savvy assessment of the wisdom of the financial bailout and where-are-they-now updates on the book's various heroes and villains." <i>A Norton hardcover. (Mar.)</i> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><em>--This text refers to the <a class="product" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1442300051/sr=1-1/qid=1286322673/ref=dp_proddesc_1?ie=UTF8&n=283155&qid=1286322673&sr=1-1" style="color: #003399; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">Audio CD</a> edition.</em></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">From <i>Bookmarks</i> Magazine</span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><em></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Michael Lewis has written from the perspective of a financial insider for more than 20 years. His first book, Liar's Poker, was a warts-and-all account of Wall Street culture in the 1980s, when Lewis worked at the investment bank Salomon Brothers. Everything Lewis has touched since has turned to gold, and The Big Short seems to be another of those books, combining an incendiary, timely topic with the author's solid, insightful, and witty investigative reporting. Only the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette criticized what it felt was a rush job of writing and a failure to integrate the individual stories. Few readers will care for the message here (despite laugh-out-loud moments of absurdity), but Lewis is a capable guide into the world of CDOs, subprime mortgages, head-in-the-sand investments, inflated egos--and the big short. However, as Entertainment Weekly points at, if you're only going to read one book on the topic, perhaps this should not be the one."</span>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-41157287262269639862010-09-26T18:26:00.000-07:002010-09-26T18:26:42.243-07:00Page 39: The Moses Expedition<i>The Moses Expedition </i>by Juan Gomez-Jurado is a real thriller. Once you start this book, try putting it down for more than a few moments before you are back to reading more. I just finished it today and passed up a bike ride in the process. <br />
<br />
The search for the Ark of the Covenant and the original stone tablets of the Ten Commandments is the basis of the plot, but the other components of the plot and how the author ties them all together is what makes this book so darn good. Rather than go on about this book let me share the synopsis found on the inside cover of the book jacket with you.<br />
<br />
"After fifty years in hiding, the Nazi war criminal known as the Butcher of Spielgelgrund has finally been tracked down by Father Anthony Fowler, a CIA operative and a member of the Vatican's secret service. He wants something from the Butcher--a candle covered in filigree gold that was stolen from a Jewish family many years before. But it isn't the gold Fowler is after. As Fowler holds a flame to the wax, the missing fragment of an ancient map that uncovers the location of the Ten Commandments given to Moses is revealed. Soon Fowler is involved in an expedition to Jordan set up by a reclusive billionaire. But there is a traitor in the group who has ties to terrorist organizations back in the United States, and who is patiently awaiting the moment to strike. From wartime Vienna to terrorist cells in New York and a lost valley in Jordan, The Moses Expedition is a thrilling read about a quest for power and the secrets of an ancient world."<br />
<br />
If that doesn't convince you to read this book, then just take my word for it. This is a great read.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-9023541287280130722010-09-26T18:09:00.000-07:002010-09-26T18:09:56.406-07:00Page 38: A Secret Kept<i>A Secret Kept </i>by Tatiana de Rosnay is a fascinating story about a brother and sister trying to remember their mother. Antoine and Melanie Rey return to Noirmoutier Island, the scene of many happy summer vacations more than thirty years before. On the return trip they are in a very serious auto accident. Antoine is not injured, but Melanie has life threatening injuries that require surgery and a long recovery. Just before the accident, Melanie turns to her brother to say something she has discovered about the past, but at that moment the car slams into the guard rail and turns on its side. When Melanie is recovering she cannot remember what she wanted to tell Antoine.<br />
<br />
The trip to Noirmoutier Island and Melanie's attempt to reveal something she remembers about the past concerning their mother starts a series of events that eventually lead to a family secret that has been hidden since their mother died nearly thirty years before. Antoine's strained relationship with his father, the devastating divorce when his wife left him for another man, and the difficult teenagers that are his children are enough to complicate anyone's life. While dealing with all this he continues to search for answers regarding his mother's death. His search for the truth leads him to many surprising discoveries about his mother and himself.<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><div>Praise for <i>A Secret Kept</i>:</div><div> </div><div>"The story of an emotionally distant family as it struggles to come to grips with changing dynamics and the mysterious death of a young mother many years ago[...] De Rosnay’s writing is eloquent and beautiful, and her characterizations are both honest and dead-on[...]" -<i>Kirkus</i></div><div><i><br />
</i></div></div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"A Secret Kept is a beautiful and haunting exploration of wanting - and not wanting - to understand one's past, of learning to see parents as individuals, whether the parents in question are our own or ourselves." -Erica Bauermeister, bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients</div><div style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"In A Secret Kept, Tatiana de Rosnay takes us on a journey to that haunted place where the past seeps into the present, where memory appears and disappears, and where healing seems always out of reach. With her lyrical prose and her gift for creating deeply sympathetic characters, de Rosnay has given us a hopeful story, as addictive as it is moving." -Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of Summer’s Child</span>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-67980262516372468182010-09-26T17:46:00.000-07:002010-09-26T17:46:10.899-07:00Page 37: Ape House<i>Ape House </i>by Sara Gruen (author of <i>Water for Elephants</i>) should change the way you think about bonobos or as many people refer to them, great apes. Isabel Duncan is a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab at a major university. She is studying the learning behavoir and language skills of Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena. They are able to reason, and know American Sign Language. They communicate with each other in their own language and with Isabel. A reporter, John Thigpen, does an article for his newspaper on the research lab, and is forever changed as a result of his direct interaction with the bonobos.<br />
<br />
An explosion destroys the lab and severely injures Isabel. The bonobos escape and later turn up in a reality TV show in New Mexico. The man who has the bonobos is more of a P.T. Barnum, and certainly not a Jane Goodall. He doesn't care about the research that the bonobas have been involved in, he only wants to exploit them for as much money as he possibly can. Those of you who have ready <i>Water for Elephants</i> will find this theme familiar.<br />
<br />
The rest of the story plays out as Isabel tries to rescue her bonobos. It also follows the life changes experienced by John Thigpen and his wife as they move across the country and start new jobs. John ends up playing a major role in helping Isabel, but you need to read the book to find out how.<br />
<br />
This is a good story, and will change the way you think about animals, especially the bonobos. Their intelligence, sense of humor, playfulness, and use of language are more human than we care to admit. This book is worth reading just to discover more about them. Here are a couple of reviews:<br />
<br />
"Sara Gruen knows things--she knows them in her mind and in her heart. And, out of what she knows, she has created a true thriller that is addictive from its opening sentence. Devour it to find out what happens next, but also to learn remarkable and moving things about life on this planet. Very, very few novels can change the way you look at the world around you. This one does." (Robert Goolrick, author of<i> A Reliable Wife</i>)<br />
<br />
"I read <i>Ape House</i> in one joyous breath. Ever an advocate for animals, Gruen brings the apes to life with the passion of a novelist and the accuracy of a scientist. She has already done more for bonobos than I could do in a lifetime. The novel is immaculately researched and lovingly crafted. If people fall in love with our forgotten, fascinating, endangered relative, it will be because of Ape House." (Vanessa Woods, author of <i>Bonobo Handshake</i>)Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-65046327692084512422010-09-20T17:36:00.000-07:002010-09-20T17:38:22.469-07:00Page 36: City of Veils<i>City of Veils</i> by Zoe Ferraris is a unique and insightful look inside Saudi Arabia by an author who actually lived there. This is her second novel set in this country. I have not read the first one, <i>Finding Nouf</i>, but I have it high on my list of next books to read. As usual, my wife has made another excellent recommendation of a book for me to read that I probably would have missed.<br />
<br />
This is a real thriller with plenty of action, plot twists, and good characters. It begins with a young woman's body found on the beach in Jeddah. One of the next sequences is the return of Miriam Walker to Saudi Arabia from some time off in the U.S. Her husband, also American, works for a security company and disappears soon after she returns. The story turns to the search for the killer of the girl found on the beach, and soon begins linking supposedly unrelated individuals to the search for the killer and Miriam's missing husband. <br />
<br />
The culture in Saudi Arabia is an intrinsic part of the story, both secular and religious. The role of women in Saudi society and how they are treated by men is explored as part of the story, and may be quite a shock for western readers who are not familiar with this aspect of life in Saudi Arabia. The plot moves very quickly as one clue after another is found, examined, and then followed to the next clue until the amazing conclusion during a severe windstorm in the desert.<br />
<br />
Here is a product description from the inside cover of the book:<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">"Women in Saudi Arabia are expected to lead quiet lives circumscribed by Islamic law and tradition. But Katya, one of the few women in the medical examiner's office, is determined to make her work mean something.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">When the body of a brutally beaten woman is found on the beach in Jeddah, the city's detectives are ready to dismiss the case as another unsolvable murder-chillingly common in a city where the veils of conservative Islam keep women as anonymous in life as the victim is in death. If this is another housemaid killed by her employer, finding the culprit will be all but impossible.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Only Katya is convinced that the victim can be identified and her killer found. She calls upon her friend Nayir for help, and soon discovers that the dead girl was a young filmmaker named Leila, whose controversial documentaries earned her many enemies.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">With only the woman's clandestine footage as a guide, Katya and Nayir must confront the dark side of Jeddah that Leila struggled to expose: an underworld of prostitution, violence, exploitation, and jealously guarded secrets. Along the way, they form an unlikely alliance with an American woman whose husband has disappeared. Their growing search takes them from the city's car-clogged streets to the deadly vastness of the desert beyond.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In CITY OF VEILS</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><em>,</em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">award-winning author Zoë Ferraris combines a thrilling, fast-paced mystery with a rare and intimate look into women's lives in the Middle East."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I hope you enjoy this book.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Some future reviews: <i>The Glass Rainbow</i>, <i>Ape House</i>, <i>A Most Wanted Ma</i>n, and <i>The Passage</i>.</span>Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56887916415821941.post-90265281560421837052010-09-15T19:00:00.000-07:002010-09-15T19:00:41.078-07:00Page 35: Thank YouI just wanted to thank all of you who have been checking out this blog. We have gone international. The early traffic has been mostly from the US and Canada. Over the past several weeks the visits have expanded to countries such as Australia, Brazil, China, Turkey, United Kingdom and several more. Let's see if we can keep adding more countries.<br />
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Not many of you are leaving any comments. Please don't be shy. There are a lot of readers out there and I would really like to know your opinion(s) of the books I blog about and/or the blog in general. Also your suggestions for other books we may all like to read are most welcome.<br />
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Thank you again and keep on reading.Tom Talbothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15552566341002801540noreply@blogger.com0