My book, The Craft by Thomas Talbot, is now available for purchase on the iUniverse web site. Right now the book is available in hardcover and softcover. The ebook will be ready in the near future. The book is also available on Amazon (see link at the left), Barnes & Noble, Borders and Books A Million.
I am in the process of having a web site developed so I can keep everyone up to date on how the book is doing and obtain feedback from readers. I'll let you know when that is ready.
Thanks you for following my blog and reading the book.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Page 31: The Craft (A Preview)
Yes, I have written a book that will be published in the very near future. I don't have a definite date yet, but will let you know when it is available. I just finished approving the final edits. The book is historical fiction in genre and is entitled The Craft. The story takes place in 1826 and features secret government agents working for President John Quincy Adams. They are trying to find William Morgan. Remember him, the scoundrel who wrote a book revealing the secrets of Freemasonry? His disappearance at the hands of Freemasons in upstate New York touched off a national scandal that year.
The premise of The Craft is that Morgan was a spy for the British during the War of 1812. The president's agents have found most of the spies from that era, but the one who has eluded them is William Morgan. A man who knew Morgan during the War of 1812, Matthew Prescott, is recruited to assist the presidential agents in their search for Morgan. Their charge from the president is to find Morgan, and bring him back to Washington for trial and punishment. Of course, the task turns out to be not quite so simple.
The action begins in Washington and moves to New York City, Albany, and various locations upstate such as Lewiston, Fort Niagara, Rochester and Batavia. A few others are included, but read the book to find out. Several historical personages find themselves caught in a very dangerous and far reaching plot hatched by rogue British agents. The book even provides my own version of what may have happened to Morgan.
Stay tuned. More information will be forthcoming. Leave me your contact information in the comments section if you would like to know where to purchase the book. It will be available in hardcover, paperback, and in ebook format.
The premise of The Craft is that Morgan was a spy for the British during the War of 1812. The president's agents have found most of the spies from that era, but the one who has eluded them is William Morgan. A man who knew Morgan during the War of 1812, Matthew Prescott, is recruited to assist the presidential agents in their search for Morgan. Their charge from the president is to find Morgan, and bring him back to Washington for trial and punishment. Of course, the task turns out to be not quite so simple.
The action begins in Washington and moves to New York City, Albany, and various locations upstate such as Lewiston, Fort Niagara, Rochester and Batavia. A few others are included, but read the book to find out. Several historical personages find themselves caught in a very dangerous and far reaching plot hatched by rogue British agents. The book even provides my own version of what may have happened to Morgan.
Stay tuned. More information will be forthcoming. Leave me your contact information in the comments section if you would like to know where to purchase the book. It will be available in hardcover, paperback, and in ebook format.
Page 30: True Blue
OK, this is the second book in a row I have 'read' in audio format. However, my Kindle is not languishing unused. I am reading another book on the device and even have a real hardcover book waiting in line. I must confess, though, I like listening to books from Audible.com while I am doing other things around the house that don't require any concentration. My favorite device is my very portable iPod Touch that now has a great Audible app.
True Blue by David Baldacci is the first book in a new series that features the Perry sisters. Beth is the DC Chief of Police and her sister Mace has just been released from prison after being framed for crimes she did not commit. The book is typical Baldacci. There is plenty of action, a fast-paced plot, good characters and government conspiracy aplenty.
Mace is trying to get her old job back on the DC police force, but as a convicted felon it is a stretch that it will every happen. Her sister has been watching Mace's back while in prison and finds a job for her as a research assistant to a professor at Georgetown. It is an understatement to say that Mace is a loose cannon, and does not like people telling her what to do including her sister. This adds to the story line and makes it much more interesting. Mace teams up with a lawyer from a Georgetown law firm to help solve a murder. Roy, the lawyer, is the one who finds a colleague in the break room fridge. So much for Roy's motivation. Mace just wants to solve a high profile crime in order to get her old job back.
This may not be the best book David Baldacci has written, but it is good just the same. If you like thrillers, plot surprises, non-stop action, and believable characters this is the book for you. As usual here are a couple of reviews.
The first is from Publisher's Weekly
"This promising first in a new series from bestseller Baldacci (First Family) introduces Beth Perry, chief of the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police, and Beth's younger sister, Mace Perry, a former police officer dubbed the Patty Hearst of the twenty-first century after she was seized by bandits, drugged and taken along on a series of armed robberies around Washington. Mace, who's just getting out of prison after serving a two-year sentence, is willing to risk everything to clear her name and reclaim her life as a cop by cracking a big case on her own. The rape-murder of a powerful lawyer as well as the killing of a prominent U.S. attorney provide Mace an opportunity to vindicate herself. While Baldacci draws his characters in bright primary colors, and some of the action reaches comic book proportions, he delivers his usual intricate plotting and sets the stage nicely for highly competent Beth and impulsive, streetwise Mace to take on more bad guys. (Oct. 27)"
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This review is from Amazon
"Mason "Mace" Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything-her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she's back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: A vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life.
Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation's capital.
Soon, what began as a fairly routine homicide takes a terrifying and unexpected turn-into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal."
If you like thrillers and have never read David Baldacci, try this book. I think you will be checking out the web for more of his work. Enjoy.
True Blue by David Baldacci is the first book in a new series that features the Perry sisters. Beth is the DC Chief of Police and her sister Mace has just been released from prison after being framed for crimes she did not commit. The book is typical Baldacci. There is plenty of action, a fast-paced plot, good characters and government conspiracy aplenty.
Mace is trying to get her old job back on the DC police force, but as a convicted felon it is a stretch that it will every happen. Her sister has been watching Mace's back while in prison and finds a job for her as a research assistant to a professor at Georgetown. It is an understatement to say that Mace is a loose cannon, and does not like people telling her what to do including her sister. This adds to the story line and makes it much more interesting. Mace teams up with a lawyer from a Georgetown law firm to help solve a murder. Roy, the lawyer, is the one who finds a colleague in the break room fridge. So much for Roy's motivation. Mace just wants to solve a high profile crime in order to get her old job back.
This may not be the best book David Baldacci has written, but it is good just the same. If you like thrillers, plot surprises, non-stop action, and believable characters this is the book for you. As usual here are a couple of reviews.
The first is from Publisher's Weekly
"This promising first in a new series from bestseller Baldacci (First Family) introduces Beth Perry, chief of the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police, and Beth's younger sister, Mace Perry, a former police officer dubbed the Patty Hearst of the twenty-first century after she was seized by bandits, drugged and taken along on a series of armed robberies around Washington. Mace, who's just getting out of prison after serving a two-year sentence, is willing to risk everything to clear her name and reclaim her life as a cop by cracking a big case on her own. The rape-murder of a powerful lawyer as well as the killing of a prominent U.S. attorney provide Mace an opportunity to vindicate herself. While Baldacci draws his characters in bright primary colors, and some of the action reaches comic book proportions, he delivers his usual intricate plotting and sets the stage nicely for highly competent Beth and impulsive, streetwise Mace to take on more bad guys. (Oct. 27)"
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
This review is from Amazon
"Mason "Mace" Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything-her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she's back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: A vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life.
Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation's capital.
Soon, what began as a fairly routine homicide takes a terrifying and unexpected turn-into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal."
If you like thrillers and have never read David Baldacci, try this book. I think you will be checking out the web for more of his work. Enjoy.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Page 29: The Rembrandt Affair
Daniel Silva has done it again in The Rembrandt Affair just released July 20th. Gabriel Allon is back with his wife Chiara and a cast of supporting characters including the wonderful Julian Isherwood. This time Gabriel is not after a terrorist or assassin, but a painting. I listened to the audio version of this book and found it to be a very unique experience. The reader was very good at accents and made the characters come alive. I don't get this when I read a print book, although reading a print version is still my number one choice for a book.
The book opens in Cornwall where Gabriel is trying to retire while Chiara heals from her horrible experiences in the previous novel at the hands of a Russian oligarch. Of course, Gabriel is unable to stay retired and agrees to find a lost portrait by Rembrandt that is stolen from an art restorer in Glastonbury, England. The restorer is murdered during the theft. Since Gabriel is one of the best art restorers in the world, known only to a very few, as well as an agent of Israeli intelligence, he is convinced by Chiara to find the portrait for Julian.
Gabriel starts searching for the painting by investigating its past. What he finds is a trail of greed and evil that includes the sole Holocaust survivor of a Jewish family that once owned the painting, an SS Officer who stole the painting and was taken on the underground escape route out of Europe that was run by the Catholic Church, an art thief in Paris and a very wealthy Swiss businessman.
Daniel Silva does not disappoint in this book. It is well written, has great characters, and moves at race car speed to its conclusion. For me, each book in the Gabriel Allon series is like becoming reacquainted with an old friend.
Here are some reviews of the book.
"Of those writing spy novels today, Daniel Silva is quite simply the best."
-The Kansas City Star
"The perfect book for fans of well-crafted thrillers ... the kind of page-turner that captures the reader from the opening chapter and doesn't let go."
-The Associated Press
"Filled with remarkable twists and turn of plot, and told with seductive prose, The Rembrandt Affair is more than just summer entertainment of the highest order. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money."
-Amazon
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Page 28: Matterhorn
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes should be a Pulitzer Prize book. True, I am not a literary genius or review books for a living, but I think I have read enough quality fiction in my life to recognize the great ones. This is a great one.
Another of the great novels, in my opinion, about war was The Killer Angels that dealt with the Battle of Gettysburg from the Southern point of view. Matterhorn is about a different war, but one that many of us are able to identify with since it was our generation's war. No matter how you felt about the Vietnam War, you cannot help but be moved by this book.
Karl Marlantes is a decorated veteran of the war and began this book thirty years ago. As many reviewers of the book have said, it is well worth the wait. Speaking of reviews, as usual, I want to give you two of them. The first is by Mark Bowden the author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.
"Matterhorn is a great novel. There have been some very good novels about the Vietnam War, but this is the first great one, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed. Karl Marlantes overlooks no part of the experience, large or small, from a terrified soldier pondering the nature of good and evil, to the feel and smell of wet earth against scorched skin as a man tries to press himself into the ground to escape withering fire. Here is story-telling so authentic, so moving and so intense, so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasn’t sure I could stand to turn the page. As with the best fiction, I was sad to reach the end.
The wrenching combat in Matterhorn is ultimately pointless; the marines know they are fighting a losing battle in the long run. Bravo Company carves out a fortress on the top of the hill so named, one of countless low, jungle-coated mountains near the border of Laos, only to be ordered to abandon it when they are done. After the enemy claims the hill’s deep bunkers and carefully constructed fields of fire, the company is ordered to take it back, to assault their own fortifications. They do so with devastating consequences, only to be ordered in the end to abandon Matterhorn once again.
Against this backdrop of murderous futility, Marlantes’ memorable collection of marines is pushed to its limits and beyond. As the deaths and casualties mount, the men display bravery and cowardice, ferocity and timidity, conviction and doubt, hatred and love, intelligence and stupidity. Often these opposites are contained in the same person, especially in the book’s compelling main character, Second Lt. Waino Mellas. As Mellas and his men struggle to overcome impossible barriers of landscape, they struggle to overcome similarly impossible barriers between each other, barriers of race and class and rank. Survival forces them to cling to each other and trust each other and ultimately love each other. There has never been a more realistic portrait or eloquent tribute to the nobility of men under fire, and never a more damning portrait of a war that ground them cruelly underfoot for no good reason.
Marlantes brilliantly captures the way combat morphs into clean abstraction as fateful decisions move up the chain of command, further and further away from the actual killing and dying. But he is too good a novelist to paint easy villains. His commanders make brave decisions and stupid ones. High and low there is the same mix of cowardice and bravery, ambition and selflessness, ineptitude and competence.
There are passages in this book that are as good as anything I have ever read. This one comes late in the story, when the main character, Mellas, has endured much, has killed and also confronted the immediate likelihood of his own death, and has digested the absurdity of his mission: "He asked for nothing now, nor did he wonder if he had been good or bad. Such concepts were all part of the joke he’d just discovered. He cursed God directly for the savage joke that had been played on him. And in that cursing Mellas for the first time really talked with his God. Then he cried, tears and snot mixing together as they streamed down his face, but his cries were the rage and hurt of a newborn child, at last, however roughly, being taken from the womb."
Vladimir Nabokov once said that the greatest books are those you read not just with your heart or your mind, but with your spine. This is one for the spine." --Mark Bowden
Here is the review from Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. "Thirty years in the making, Marlantes's epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf. Marine lieutenant and platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13-month tour in Quang-Tri province, where he is assigned to a fire-support base and befriends Hawke, older at 22; both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war. Jungle rot, leeches dropping from tree branches, malnourishment, drenching monsoons, mudslides, exposure to Agent Orange, and wild animals wreak havoc as brigade members face punishing combat and grapple with bitterness, rage, disease, alcoholism, and hubris. A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field (including military jargon that can get lost in translation), and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences. Marlantes's debut may be daunting in length, but it remains a grand, distinctive accomplishment." (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
My goal in writing this blog is to put some books out there I hope people will like. I could write several paragraphs about why I think this book is so great, but I think the two reviews I have included above do the job quite well. Don't miss out on this book. It is a great one.
Another of the great novels, in my opinion, about war was The Killer Angels that dealt with the Battle of Gettysburg from the Southern point of view. Matterhorn is about a different war, but one that many of us are able to identify with since it was our generation's war. No matter how you felt about the Vietnam War, you cannot help but be moved by this book.
Karl Marlantes is a decorated veteran of the war and began this book thirty years ago. As many reviewers of the book have said, it is well worth the wait. Speaking of reviews, as usual, I want to give you two of them. The first is by Mark Bowden the author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War.
"Matterhorn is a great novel. There have been some very good novels about the Vietnam War, but this is the first great one, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed. Karl Marlantes overlooks no part of the experience, large or small, from a terrified soldier pondering the nature of good and evil, to the feel and smell of wet earth against scorched skin as a man tries to press himself into the ground to escape withering fire. Here is story-telling so authentic, so moving and so intense, so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasn’t sure I could stand to turn the page. As with the best fiction, I was sad to reach the end.
The wrenching combat in Matterhorn is ultimately pointless; the marines know they are fighting a losing battle in the long run. Bravo Company carves out a fortress on the top of the hill so named, one of countless low, jungle-coated mountains near the border of Laos, only to be ordered to abandon it when they are done. After the enemy claims the hill’s deep bunkers and carefully constructed fields of fire, the company is ordered to take it back, to assault their own fortifications. They do so with devastating consequences, only to be ordered in the end to abandon Matterhorn once again.
Against this backdrop of murderous futility, Marlantes’ memorable collection of marines is pushed to its limits and beyond. As the deaths and casualties mount, the men display bravery and cowardice, ferocity and timidity, conviction and doubt, hatred and love, intelligence and stupidity. Often these opposites are contained in the same person, especially in the book’s compelling main character, Second Lt. Waino Mellas. As Mellas and his men struggle to overcome impossible barriers of landscape, they struggle to overcome similarly impossible barriers between each other, barriers of race and class and rank. Survival forces them to cling to each other and trust each other and ultimately love each other. There has never been a more realistic portrait or eloquent tribute to the nobility of men under fire, and never a more damning portrait of a war that ground them cruelly underfoot for no good reason.
Marlantes brilliantly captures the way combat morphs into clean abstraction as fateful decisions move up the chain of command, further and further away from the actual killing and dying. But he is too good a novelist to paint easy villains. His commanders make brave decisions and stupid ones. High and low there is the same mix of cowardice and bravery, ambition and selflessness, ineptitude and competence.
There are passages in this book that are as good as anything I have ever read. This one comes late in the story, when the main character, Mellas, has endured much, has killed and also confronted the immediate likelihood of his own death, and has digested the absurdity of his mission: "He asked for nothing now, nor did he wonder if he had been good or bad. Such concepts were all part of the joke he’d just discovered. He cursed God directly for the savage joke that had been played on him. And in that cursing Mellas for the first time really talked with his God. Then he cried, tears and snot mixing together as they streamed down his face, but his cries were the rage and hurt of a newborn child, at last, however roughly, being taken from the womb."
Vladimir Nabokov once said that the greatest books are those you read not just with your heart or your mind, but with your spine. This is one for the spine." --Mark Bowden
Here is the review from Publishers Weekly:
Starred Review. "Thirty years in the making, Marlantes's epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf. Marine lieutenant and platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13-month tour in Quang-Tri province, where he is assigned to a fire-support base and befriends Hawke, older at 22; both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war. Jungle rot, leeches dropping from tree branches, malnourishment, drenching monsoons, mudslides, exposure to Agent Orange, and wild animals wreak havoc as brigade members face punishing combat and grapple with bitterness, rage, disease, alcoholism, and hubris. A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field (including military jargon that can get lost in translation), and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences. Marlantes's debut may be daunting in length, but it remains a grand, distinctive accomplishment." (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
My goal in writing this blog is to put some books out there I hope people will like. I could write several paragraphs about why I think this book is so great, but I think the two reviews I have included above do the job quite well. Don't miss out on this book. It is a great one.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Page 27: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford takes us back in time to 1940s wartime Seattle and explores the relationship between Asian Americans and the rest of Seattle through the relationship between Henry, who is Chinese, and Keiko who is Japanese. It is primarily a story about the internment of Japanese Americans in relocation camps, but also the love story of Henry and Keiko, Henry's strained relationship with his father, and Henry's love of jazz fostered by his friendship with Sheldon who plays jazz solo on the street and with a group when he can get the gigs.
This is truly a story that is both bitter and sweet as it moves back and forth between Seattle in the 1980s and 1940s. Anyone who does not know about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II has either been living in a cave or attended a school whose books are censored by the Texas School Board.
This book was recommended to me by a very good friend for whom the internment of Japanese Americans was a reality for his family. In spite of the injustice done to loyal Japanese Americans as a result of the hysteria that gripped our country at the time, I have never heard him express any bitterness or ill will toward his country. I find this truly amazing and magnanimous.
As usual, here are some reviews to encourage you to read this book.
"Mesmerizing and evocative, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a tale of conflicted loyalties, devotion, as well as a vibrant portrait of Seattle's Nihonmachi district in its heyday."
-- Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants
“A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war--not the sweeping damage of the battlefield, but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. Especially relevant in today's world, this is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more importantly, it will make you feel."
--Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Jamie Ford's first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.”
–Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
"Fifth-grade scholarship students and best friends Henry and Keiko are the only Asians in their Seattle elementary school in 1942. Henry is Chinese, Keiko is Japanese, and Pearl Harbor has made all Asians-even those who are American born-targets for abuse. Because Henry's nationalistic father has a deep-seated hatred for Japan, Henry keeps his friendship with and eventual love for Keiko a secret. When Keiko's family is sent to an internment camp in Idaho, Henry vows to wait for her. Forty years later, Henry comes upon an old hotel where the belongings of dozens of displaced Japanese families have turned up in the basement, and his love for Keiko is reborn. In his first novel, award-winning short-story writer Ford expertly nails the sweet innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, the blindness of patriotism, the astonishing unknowns between parents and their children, and the sadness and satisfaction at the end of a life well lived. The result is a vivid picture of a confusing and critical time in American history. Recommended for all fiction collections." - Library Journal
Please read this book. It is a real gem.
Next Book Page: Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
This is truly a story that is both bitter and sweet as it moves back and forth between Seattle in the 1980s and 1940s. Anyone who does not know about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II has either been living in a cave or attended a school whose books are censored by the Texas School Board.
This book was recommended to me by a very good friend for whom the internment of Japanese Americans was a reality for his family. In spite of the injustice done to loyal Japanese Americans as a result of the hysteria that gripped our country at the time, I have never heard him express any bitterness or ill will toward his country. I find this truly amazing and magnanimous.
As usual, here are some reviews to encourage you to read this book.
"Mesmerizing and evocative, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a tale of conflicted loyalties, devotion, as well as a vibrant portrait of Seattle's Nihonmachi district in its heyday."
-- Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of Water for Elephants
“A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war--not the sweeping damage of the battlefield, but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. Especially relevant in today's world, this is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more importantly, it will make you feel."
--Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Jamie Ford's first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love. An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.”
–Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
"Fifth-grade scholarship students and best friends Henry and Keiko are the only Asians in their Seattle elementary school in 1942. Henry is Chinese, Keiko is Japanese, and Pearl Harbor has made all Asians-even those who are American born-targets for abuse. Because Henry's nationalistic father has a deep-seated hatred for Japan, Henry keeps his friendship with and eventual love for Keiko a secret. When Keiko's family is sent to an internment camp in Idaho, Henry vows to wait for her. Forty years later, Henry comes upon an old hotel where the belongings of dozens of displaced Japanese families have turned up in the basement, and his love for Keiko is reborn. In his first novel, award-winning short-story writer Ford expertly nails the sweet innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, the blindness of patriotism, the astonishing unknowns between parents and their children, and the sadness and satisfaction at the end of a life well lived. The result is a vivid picture of a confusing and critical time in American history. Recommended for all fiction collections." - Library Journal
Please read this book. It is a real gem.
Next Book Page: Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
Page 26: Pebble in the Sky
Isaac Asimov wrote this book in 1949 when he was in his twenties and launched an amazing string of science fiction novels. His spectacular career lasted until he died at the age of 72. Pebble in the Sky is, as they say in the music business, 'a golden oldie' that is well worth reading. I have not read any of his works in several years and decided on this particular novel after hearing a recommendation on a podcast.
The story begins with Joseph Schwartz walking down the street in Chicago. In an instant he is transported to the distant future where Earth is part of the Galactic Empire, but ruled locally by an ultra-conservative theocracy. Much of the planet is radioactive and the citizens are only allowed to live until age 60 in order to keep the food supply and population in balance. Everyone must carry identification and have a unique number. Joseph is taken to a famous scientist who is conducting brain experiments, since the people who found him don't know what else to do. The story moves quickly from that point and takes some very unusual turns. Those of you who have read the Robot Series and the Foundation books will find some some familiar themes in this novel. Check out Wikipedia for a good summary of the author's professional, scientific, and literary life.
The story begins with Joseph Schwartz walking down the street in Chicago. In an instant he is transported to the distant future where Earth is part of the Galactic Empire, but ruled locally by an ultra-conservative theocracy. Much of the planet is radioactive and the citizens are only allowed to live until age 60 in order to keep the food supply and population in balance. Everyone must carry identification and have a unique number. Joseph is taken to a famous scientist who is conducting brain experiments, since the people who found him don't know what else to do. The story moves quickly from that point and takes some very unusual turns. Those of you who have read the Robot Series and the Foundation books will find some some familiar themes in this novel. Check out Wikipedia for a good summary of the author's professional, scientific, and literary life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)