The Nightingale
By Kirstin Hannah
Copyright 2015
440 pages
Kindle Edition
The Nightingale is a best seller, deservedly so. I have read some of Hannah's other books (Magic Hour and Summer Island) and not necessarily been overly impressed, but she did a great job with this one.
In a rather timely piece, Hannah takes us to Vichy France, giving us a quick glimpse of the nation prior to Germany's invasion and then taking us on a heady journey following two sisters as they struggle to endure the hell that war brings. They have suffered rough childhoods - the early death of their mother and the abandonment of a father crippled by World War I.
Sister Isabelle, the younger, is in and out of boarding schools, and always searching for her father's love. Vianne, married and mother of one, lives in the family's older home in a more rural area. When war comes, each is impacted in different ways. Isabelle initially is sent from Paris to live with Vianne, and along the way sees the atrocities to come as a German plane guns down a legion of women and children before her eyes.
Vianne, more sheltered, thinks that things will only get so bad even though her husband leaves for war. After her sister disappears and heads back to Paris, though, things slowly become worse for Vianne as a soldier billets with her and she finds food and resources difficult. Then she must watch as her Jewish friend is herded into a cattle car on a train, and she knows her time has come to find her moral ground.
Isabelle, meanwhile, is keen to fight, and becomes part of the French underground. She leads downed Allied soldiers across the great mountain range that separates France from Spain, saving 127 flyers.
The book reads with historical accuracy - hopefully as well-researched as it seems to be - and the author manages an interesting trick of having the story told in "present day" (1995) by one of the sisters - only we don't know which one until the end.
It's a fast read even at 440 pages, and the intrigue and detail gives one much to ponder, especially if compared to the political climate of America today. Are we too doomed to determine our morality by the blood of our neighbors?
Certainly something to think about.
Showing posts with label Books: Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books: Fiction. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2016
Friday, July 15, 2016
Books: At the Water's Edge
At the Water's Edge
By Sara Gruen
Copyright 2015
378 pages (plus author's notes & stuff at the back)
I have also read Gruen's first book, Water for Elephants, which readers may recall was made into a not-so-successful movie. (The book was better.)
This book, At the Water's Edge, starts off slow but gathered momentum after the first laborious chapters. For a while, the narrator was not someone I could relate to - a spoiled, wealthy woman who had never ironed a shirt in her life, who had married an insipid husband who could not be called a man. He was more like a boy-child.
The story was set during World War II and focused on Scotland. Madeline and her husband, Ellis, set off in the midst of a war to pursue the Loch Ness Monster because Ellis's father had once found fame with photos of the monster, though those photos were later proven false. So Ellis wanted to clear his father's name. Ellis was not fighting in the war because he was color blind, and his father, a Colonel, was ashamed of his son.
The duo take along Ellis's best friend, Hank, and they end up at a hotel/inn. Ellis and Hank essentially desert Madeline, and she makes friends with the staff and with the inn owner, a former captain in the army who is missing a finger and has a scarred body from early on in the war.
Madeline begins to find herself and learn more about life and the real world while her husband and his friend are off being playboys or something. Along the way, Madeline learns that her husband didn't really want to be married to her and that his color blind excuse was just that - an excuse.
I would not call this story compelling, gripping, or a page turner. I read it while I was eating dinner and finished it up over the weekend when the lights were out and I had nothing else to do but read by flashlight. I enjoyed the historical aspect of the novel - Gruen does period pieces well - but in general I do not find her characters to be people I like. Even though Madeline grows and turns into a better human being at the end, she still has a lot to learn about life.
The story does have interesting metaphors about monsters - the monsters in the lake, the monster in her husband, the monster of drug use, the monsters inside all of us who peek out from time to time. What we do with those monsters depends on a variety of things, I suppose.
If you can get past the first few chapters, the story picks up and becomes a better read. So if you decide to read this New York Times bestseller, hang in there.
3 stars
By Sara Gruen
Copyright 2015
378 pages (plus author's notes & stuff at the back)
I have also read Gruen's first book, Water for Elephants, which readers may recall was made into a not-so-successful movie. (The book was better.)
This book, At the Water's Edge, starts off slow but gathered momentum after the first laborious chapters. For a while, the narrator was not someone I could relate to - a spoiled, wealthy woman who had never ironed a shirt in her life, who had married an insipid husband who could not be called a man. He was more like a boy-child.
The story was set during World War II and focused on Scotland. Madeline and her husband, Ellis, set off in the midst of a war to pursue the Loch Ness Monster because Ellis's father had once found fame with photos of the monster, though those photos were later proven false. So Ellis wanted to clear his father's name. Ellis was not fighting in the war because he was color blind, and his father, a Colonel, was ashamed of his son.
The duo take along Ellis's best friend, Hank, and they end up at a hotel/inn. Ellis and Hank essentially desert Madeline, and she makes friends with the staff and with the inn owner, a former captain in the army who is missing a finger and has a scarred body from early on in the war.
Madeline begins to find herself and learn more about life and the real world while her husband and his friend are off being playboys or something. Along the way, Madeline learns that her husband didn't really want to be married to her and that his color blind excuse was just that - an excuse.
I would not call this story compelling, gripping, or a page turner. I read it while I was eating dinner and finished it up over the weekend when the lights were out and I had nothing else to do but read by flashlight. I enjoyed the historical aspect of the novel - Gruen does period pieces well - but in general I do not find her characters to be people I like. Even though Madeline grows and turns into a better human being at the end, she still has a lot to learn about life.
The story does have interesting metaphors about monsters - the monsters in the lake, the monster in her husband, the monster of drug use, the monsters inside all of us who peek out from time to time. What we do with those monsters depends on a variety of things, I suppose.
If you can get past the first few chapters, the story picks up and becomes a better read. So if you decide to read this New York Times bestseller, hang in there.
3 stars
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Book Review: The Mulberry Tree
The Mulberry Tree
By Jude Deveraux
Read by Karen Ziemba
Copyright 2002
5 hours abridged
Far be it for me to knock an author who is widely published and apparently much-loved, but I was not overly impressed with my first Judge Deveraux book. Perhaps it was the abridgement that made it seem like a shallow story with a contrived ending.
Bailey James (formerly Lillian Manville) sets out to make a new life for herself after spending two decades as the fat wife of a billionaire who wanted her to be, well, his fat wife. The story made it clear that every time Lillian went on a diet, husband Jimmy sent her boxes of chocolates. Apparently he wanted to ensure nobody looked at her. Fat people are, after all, invisible to the rest of the world.
But then poor Jimmy died in a plane crash, and Lillian, hiding out from the multitudes of reporters who wanted glimpses of the fat widow, lost lots of weight. Turns out she also lost out on the billions, too - because Jimmy left her only an old farm in Virginia. His billions went to his two siblings.
Or did it?
At any rate, Lillian takes on a new identity and moves to Virginia, to find herself with an old broken down farmhouse with a mulberry tree. Later she learns there is some mystery that has to do with six young men, known as "The Golden Six." Somehow this ties into her husband and his mysterious childhood. Eventually she begins to try to figure out the connection.
Meanwhile, a handsome architect conveniently moves in with her and she and several other women take a forsaken Virginia backwater and put it on the map with a single commercial during a football game.
The ending was about as contrived as one could get, with the heroine doing very little work to resolve the "mystery" surrounding her husband and The Golden Six. Bailey had a little character growth during the book, but not enough to be satisfactory.
I do not, as a rule, read romance novels (though I like gothic suspense) so it is not surprise that I did not find this overly engaging. It was well-written though I think with a little thought the author could have come up with a more satisfactory ending.
3 stars (mostly for the decent writing and some character development).
By Jude Deveraux
Read by Karen Ziemba
Copyright 2002
5 hours abridged
Far be it for me to knock an author who is widely published and apparently much-loved, but I was not overly impressed with my first Judge Deveraux book. Perhaps it was the abridgement that made it seem like a shallow story with a contrived ending.
Bailey James (formerly Lillian Manville) sets out to make a new life for herself after spending two decades as the fat wife of a billionaire who wanted her to be, well, his fat wife. The story made it clear that every time Lillian went on a diet, husband Jimmy sent her boxes of chocolates. Apparently he wanted to ensure nobody looked at her. Fat people are, after all, invisible to the rest of the world.
But then poor Jimmy died in a plane crash, and Lillian, hiding out from the multitudes of reporters who wanted glimpses of the fat widow, lost lots of weight. Turns out she also lost out on the billions, too - because Jimmy left her only an old farm in Virginia. His billions went to his two siblings.
Or did it?
At any rate, Lillian takes on a new identity and moves to Virginia, to find herself with an old broken down farmhouse with a mulberry tree. Later she learns there is some mystery that has to do with six young men, known as "The Golden Six." Somehow this ties into her husband and his mysterious childhood. Eventually she begins to try to figure out the connection.
Meanwhile, a handsome architect conveniently moves in with her and she and several other women take a forsaken Virginia backwater and put it on the map with a single commercial during a football game.
The ending was about as contrived as one could get, with the heroine doing very little work to resolve the "mystery" surrounding her husband and The Golden Six. Bailey had a little character growth during the book, but not enough to be satisfactory.
I do not, as a rule, read romance novels (though I like gothic suspense) so it is not surprise that I did not find this overly engaging. It was well-written though I think with a little thought the author could have come up with a more satisfactory ending.
3 stars (mostly for the decent writing and some character development).
Monday, March 14, 2016
Book Review: Them That Go
By Becky Mushko
Copyright 2016
Kindle Edition
(222 pages print edition)
Southwest Virginia author Becky Mushko* presents the reader with an intriguing coming-of-age novel that brings in folk lore, superstition, secrets, and traditions that often are overlooked by other writers in her new book, Them That Go.
Annie Caldwell, a senior in high school in 1972, lives in one of the "hollers" of Appalachian Virginia. She keeps to herself in school and has few friends. This is in part because her family is not wealthy, but also because Annie has a secret. She's one of the few members of her family line who have inherited a special gift. She can talk to animals, while her elderly aunt, whom she calls "Aint Lulie," talks to the dead.
She also has family issues. Her brother died in Viet Nam, leaving her mother depressed and her father overly caught up in his whisky. Annie retreats to Aint Lulie's house, where the elder aunt shares Appalachian lore and family history with her intelligent niece. “There’s always been them that go and them that stay in ever’ generation,” Aint Lulie says as she explains lineage to the girl.
Mushko offers a vivid account of the difficult life the hardy folks in Appalachia lived then (and for some, now). From emptying the slop jar every day to carrying in wood or planting gardens, the chores never end. Annie cares for her aunt without complaint - a good lesson for today's youth.
The quiet life of this Virginia backwater town changes when a young girl in Annie's class goes missing. Annie knows more than she can tell because the animals have spoken to her - so she has to choose between remaining unnoticed or announcing her special talents to her community.
This magical realism story is set in a believable world. Annie's magical gift sets her apart in a place already separated from the rest of the country. Her town is one of the forgotten landscapes that dot that area, filled with the characters frequently found in similar areas throughout Appalachia. Some of these characters speak in written dialect. This style of writing can be difficult for some readers, but Mushko handles it with great skill and the dialect adds to the magic of the story instead of detracting from it, as over-done dialect sometimes does.
Mushko has created an interesting character in Annie Caldwell, a young woman the reader won't soon forget. What might someone with her talent ultimately make of her life? Thankfully, the author offers us a foreshadowing of Annie's future the end of the book, giving a satisfying ending that does not leave the reader wondering.
The author is a retired English teacher who has published several other stories, including the Appalachian version of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, Ferradiddledumday (2010) and a middle-grade paranormal novel, Stuck (2011). Other books available on Kindle by this author include Patches on the Same Quilt and four collections of short stories.
She has won numerous short story contests and published extensively in regional magazines and in the Cup of Comfort series. Visit her website at http://www.beckymushko.com or her blog at http://peevishpen.blogspot.com/.
*The author is a personal friend.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Books: Salvage the Bones
Salvage the Bones
by Jesmyn Ward
Copyright 2010?
288 Pages
This winner of the 2011 National Book Award deserved the accolades it received when it came out. This book was a read for my book club, and it is one of the better books I've read this year.
This is the tale of a poor family struggling to survive in the ten days prior to Hurricane Katrina, which created havoc and devastation in southeast Louisiana in 2005. We see the story unfold through the eyes of Esch, the nickname for a 14-year old black teenager who struggles to understand her three brothers and drunken father. They live on an inherited plot of ground, apparently on their father's disability check. Their mother died giving birth to the last son.
The story is heartbreaking in its humanity, and eye-opening in that it exposes the depths of poverty and how people struggle to survive in an America that offers them few options and no way to climb out of the Pit in which they find themselves. Living in Appalachia, I know families like this - the ones who sell tomatoes for a pittance to pay for extras, those who struggle daily to keep the roof from literally falling in on their heads. I've written about them as a news reporter and tried to make those of us who have more understand how fortunate we are.
Ward did an excellent job in writing this book, creating an inner atmosphere for Esch by using her school reading of mythology as a background for her life, along with the symbolism of a pit bull dog named China that her brother Skeeter was using as a fighting dog. The story opens with China giving birth, a fitting symbol for many things, including the little fetus growing inside the young teenager. The reader knows what's coming - the hurricane and its terrible winds and floods - and the reading speeds along as we try to determine who in the family will survive the calamity about to befall them.
The book makes one question how people survive at all - and how do people who already have next to nothing recover when the little they have is taken from them? This question is answered in a very direct way at the end, but that answer is not spelled out.
So I shall spell it out for you: when all is lost, we help one another.
This is a quick read - maybe four-five hours. Pick it up and wash it down. You won't be sorry.
by Jesmyn Ward
Copyright 2010?
288 Pages
This winner of the 2011 National Book Award deserved the accolades it received when it came out. This book was a read for my book club, and it is one of the better books I've read this year.
This is the tale of a poor family struggling to survive in the ten days prior to Hurricane Katrina, which created havoc and devastation in southeast Louisiana in 2005. We see the story unfold through the eyes of Esch, the nickname for a 14-year old black teenager who struggles to understand her three brothers and drunken father. They live on an inherited plot of ground, apparently on their father's disability check. Their mother died giving birth to the last son.
The story is heartbreaking in its humanity, and eye-opening in that it exposes the depths of poverty and how people struggle to survive in an America that offers them few options and no way to climb out of the Pit in which they find themselves. Living in Appalachia, I know families like this - the ones who sell tomatoes for a pittance to pay for extras, those who struggle daily to keep the roof from literally falling in on their heads. I've written about them as a news reporter and tried to make those of us who have more understand how fortunate we are.
Ward did an excellent job in writing this book, creating an inner atmosphere for Esch by using her school reading of mythology as a background for her life, along with the symbolism of a pit bull dog named China that her brother Skeeter was using as a fighting dog. The story opens with China giving birth, a fitting symbol for many things, including the little fetus growing inside the young teenager. The reader knows what's coming - the hurricane and its terrible winds and floods - and the reading speeds along as we try to determine who in the family will survive the calamity about to befall them.
The book makes one question how people survive at all - and how do people who already have next to nothing recover when the little they have is taken from them? This question is answered in a very direct way at the end, but that answer is not spelled out.
So I shall spell it out for you: when all is lost, we help one another.
This is a quick read - maybe four-five hours. Pick it up and wash it down. You won't be sorry.
Monday, June 29, 2015
Book: The Goldfinch
The Goldfinch
By Donna Tart
Read by David Pittu
32.5 hours
Unabridged
Copyright 2013
This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April 2014. The Washington Post titled its article about this, "The Disappointing Novel That Just Won a Pulitzer."
This book is 784 pages, and it was very long to listen to. It has taken me, literally, two months to hear it in my car. In desperation I finally listened to the final three hours of it in my office, taking up yesterday afternoon to get through the final three discs.
Did it deserve a Pulitzer? I don't know. If this was the best out there for the competition, then I suppose it won as it should. But I think perhaps there were better stories available, maybe unfound or unrecognized as such. It concerns me that the things we value these days are not golden, but instead are some kind of gilded and bronzed enigma that should be something, but isn't.
The Washington Post reviewer calls the book a junk shop passed off as something unique and rare, to paraphrase. I cannot disagree.
The plot is simple: a young boy, Theo, is in a museum with his mother when a bomb goes off. His mother dies. In the confusion of the explosion, Theo, at the insistence of a dying old man, grabs up a 1600s-era painting called The Goldfinch and shoves it into a backpack. In his shock, he finds his way from the museum and home. He has a bad family life anyway, with an alcoholic and gambling father who had left the family a year earlier.
Tart spells this out painfully, giving us a blow-by-blow of young Theo's heartache, his inability to understand all that is going on about him, his surprise when his father turns back up, though the reader knows (nudge nudge) that the boozer has come back only for the estate money, whatever there may be. The boy goes with his father to Vegas. He makes a friend, he learns to do drugs.
The painting comes to symbolize hope, fear, sorrow, greatness, love - all of life - for this young boy, who grows into manhood keeping this great secret.
The joke's on him, though, for all is not as it seems. I won't give away any more plot in case someone actually wants to read this book. But the story meanders greatly, going into much detail and depth about things that may or may not matter. Nothing is permanent in Theo's life and the story of the ephemeral quality of life is thematic throughout, but never satisfactorily explained by the author, not even in the dramatic musings at the end of the book. In the end, it's a nihilistic point of view, that we're all just here to pass through airports.
The first part of the book was engaging, and I suppose that was what kept me involved. The book read more like three books, and it was really one long character study about a damaged person. Perhaps it should have been some sort of series.
Tart's work has more than 21,000 reviews on Amazon. Forty-one percent of readers give it 5 stars. Ten percent give it 1 star.
I give it 3 stars. It was interesting enough, obviously, or I would have stopped listening to it a long time ago, but it seemed overly drawn out. The ending came rushing at the reader without any real sense of deservedness. Much of what happened to the character seemed to have no impact on him or whatever message the author was trying to impart.
Because of that, I have problems not so much with the book as I do with the fact that this is the book that won the Pulitzer. I think I expected better, and expectations sometimes can color what we read or hear.
By Donna Tart
Read by David Pittu
32.5 hours
Unabridged
Copyright 2013
This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April 2014. The Washington Post titled its article about this, "The Disappointing Novel That Just Won a Pulitzer."
This book is 784 pages, and it was very long to listen to. It has taken me, literally, two months to hear it in my car. In desperation I finally listened to the final three hours of it in my office, taking up yesterday afternoon to get through the final three discs.
Did it deserve a Pulitzer? I don't know. If this was the best out there for the competition, then I suppose it won as it should. But I think perhaps there were better stories available, maybe unfound or unrecognized as such. It concerns me that the things we value these days are not golden, but instead are some kind of gilded and bronzed enigma that should be something, but isn't.
The Washington Post reviewer calls the book a junk shop passed off as something unique and rare, to paraphrase. I cannot disagree.
The plot is simple: a young boy, Theo, is in a museum with his mother when a bomb goes off. His mother dies. In the confusion of the explosion, Theo, at the insistence of a dying old man, grabs up a 1600s-era painting called The Goldfinch and shoves it into a backpack. In his shock, he finds his way from the museum and home. He has a bad family life anyway, with an alcoholic and gambling father who had left the family a year earlier.
Tart spells this out painfully, giving us a blow-by-blow of young Theo's heartache, his inability to understand all that is going on about him, his surprise when his father turns back up, though the reader knows (nudge nudge) that the boozer has come back only for the estate money, whatever there may be. The boy goes with his father to Vegas. He makes a friend, he learns to do drugs.
The painting comes to symbolize hope, fear, sorrow, greatness, love - all of life - for this young boy, who grows into manhood keeping this great secret.
The joke's on him, though, for all is not as it seems. I won't give away any more plot in case someone actually wants to read this book. But the story meanders greatly, going into much detail and depth about things that may or may not matter. Nothing is permanent in Theo's life and the story of the ephemeral quality of life is thematic throughout, but never satisfactorily explained by the author, not even in the dramatic musings at the end of the book. In the end, it's a nihilistic point of view, that we're all just here to pass through airports.
The first part of the book was engaging, and I suppose that was what kept me involved. The book read more like three books, and it was really one long character study about a damaged person. Perhaps it should have been some sort of series.
Tart's work has more than 21,000 reviews on Amazon. Forty-one percent of readers give it 5 stars. Ten percent give it 1 star.
I give it 3 stars. It was interesting enough, obviously, or I would have stopped listening to it a long time ago, but it seemed overly drawn out. The ending came rushing at the reader without any real sense of deservedness. Much of what happened to the character seemed to have no impact on him or whatever message the author was trying to impart.
Because of that, I have problems not so much with the book as I do with the fact that this is the book that won the Pulitzer. I think I expected better, and expectations sometimes can color what we read or hear.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Books: The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters
The Paying Guests
by Sarah Waters
Copyright 2014
Kindle Edition Version 1
(560 pages)
Looking at the nearly 1,500 reviews on Amazon, I see a mix of reviews about this book.
If I must give it stars, I give it three stars. This is not a five star book. It was on the New York Times bestseller list and it has received rave reviews, but I am not quite sure why.
To be sure, it's well written. At the end the author lists a pile of resources she checked for historical accuracy. The book is set after the War (although to be honest, I don't know if it was WWI or WWII, because ultimately it didn't really seem to matter that much). If the research is in this book, I am not sure where it is.
I felt manipulated almost from the beginning as I read. The author wanted me to think and feel a certain way, I'm sure, but using third-person limited omniscient to do that seems deceitful on the part of the author. The narrator was not the most reliable and I have never been one to like unreliable narrator books. I could not relate to the main character much, though I think the author wanted us to really like and feel sorry for Frances.
Generally, though, I found her tiresome, and when the book ended with a dull thud, I wished the woman had jumped off the bridge upon which she sat at the end.
Frances and her mother must take in borders because her father frittered away their money, something they learn after his passing. She also lost several brothers to the war, and has forgone a relationship to care for her mother.
The new borders, Lillian and Leonard (note to author - names really should not be so alike, unless you really want readers to mix them up. Couldn't one of them been called something that didn't start with an "L"?), are carefree and different. They are the "clerk class" and as such a lower breed than the upper crust from which Frances and her mother have fallen.
I found it difficult to like any of these characters from the start, and never really warmed up to them. Had my book club not been reading this book, I am not sure I would have finished it. I like internal monologue as much as the next person, but there was too much of it in this long book. I would have like to have seen more of London in the time period, but what little was there was not drawn well and I really had no sense of place as I read. I might have well have been reading about a Martian family after some war on the Red Planet, so little sense of place did I feel after I read this.
Waters is a new author to me, and she is much acclaimed. I must have missed something or perhaps this story came to me at a bad time and I am not able to appreciate its depth and quality. I am sure if that is the case, my book club members will set me straight in a few weeks.
by Sarah Waters
Copyright 2014
Kindle Edition Version 1
(560 pages)
Looking at the nearly 1,500 reviews on Amazon, I see a mix of reviews about this book.
If I must give it stars, I give it three stars. This is not a five star book. It was on the New York Times bestseller list and it has received rave reviews, but I am not quite sure why.
To be sure, it's well written. At the end the author lists a pile of resources she checked for historical accuracy. The book is set after the War (although to be honest, I don't know if it was WWI or WWII, because ultimately it didn't really seem to matter that much). If the research is in this book, I am not sure where it is.
I felt manipulated almost from the beginning as I read. The author wanted me to think and feel a certain way, I'm sure, but using third-person limited omniscient to do that seems deceitful on the part of the author. The narrator was not the most reliable and I have never been one to like unreliable narrator books. I could not relate to the main character much, though I think the author wanted us to really like and feel sorry for Frances.
Generally, though, I found her tiresome, and when the book ended with a dull thud, I wished the woman had jumped off the bridge upon which she sat at the end.
Frances and her mother must take in borders because her father frittered away their money, something they learn after his passing. She also lost several brothers to the war, and has forgone a relationship to care for her mother.
The new borders, Lillian and Leonard (note to author - names really should not be so alike, unless you really want readers to mix them up. Couldn't one of them been called something that didn't start with an "L"?), are carefree and different. They are the "clerk class" and as such a lower breed than the upper crust from which Frances and her mother have fallen.
I found it difficult to like any of these characters from the start, and never really warmed up to them. Had my book club not been reading this book, I am not sure I would have finished it. I like internal monologue as much as the next person, but there was too much of it in this long book. I would have like to have seen more of London in the time period, but what little was there was not drawn well and I really had no sense of place as I read. I might have well have been reading about a Martian family after some war on the Red Planet, so little sense of place did I feel after I read this.
Waters is a new author to me, and she is much acclaimed. I must have missed something or perhaps this story came to me at a bad time and I am not able to appreciate its depth and quality. I am sure if that is the case, my book club members will set me straight in a few weeks.
Friday, May 08, 2015
Books: King and Maxwell
King and Maxwell
by David Baldacci
Unabridged - 13 hours
Read by Ron McLarty with Ortlagh Cassidy
Copyright 2013
This is Baldacci's sixth book in his King and Maxwell series. The guy is a prolific Virginia author with several other series as well as stand-alone books.
I've listened to all of the King and Maxwell series and enjoyed each one. The characters of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are well developed. There's always danger, political intrigue, technological savvy, and relationship complications. I don't know how the books read in print but I enjoy listening to them in the car.
In this story, King and Maxwell literally stumble into their next case. A rainy night, a young teenager running with a gun - bang, the book is off to a fast start. The young man, Tyler Wingo, learned hours earlier that his father, Sam, had been killed in action in Afghanistan. His stepmother wasn't too concerned that the young teen had run off.
Former Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell felt all of her spidey senses tingling when she and Sean came across the situation. Something was amiss. Boy, was she ever right.
The duo begin investigating and soon a plot unravels that goes straight to the Whitehouse. Add in a psycho with revenge issues and you have the making of a big story that might cost the two private investigators their lives as they work to protect the young boy and uncover the truth.
I enjoy this audio version, which come across almost more like a radio play than an audio book. Using a male and female reader for the various parts was genius. The audio also added in special effects - gun fire, crashes, and a little ramp-up noise to alert the reader that there's something up and you should listen to the next part while the car is parked. Otherwise you'll forget you are driving.
by David Baldacci
Unabridged - 13 hours
Read by Ron McLarty with Ortlagh Cassidy
Copyright 2013
This is Baldacci's sixth book in his King and Maxwell series. The guy is a prolific Virginia author with several other series as well as stand-alone books.
I've listened to all of the King and Maxwell series and enjoyed each one. The characters of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are well developed. There's always danger, political intrigue, technological savvy, and relationship complications. I don't know how the books read in print but I enjoy listening to them in the car.
In this story, King and Maxwell literally stumble into their next case. A rainy night, a young teenager running with a gun - bang, the book is off to a fast start. The young man, Tyler Wingo, learned hours earlier that his father, Sam, had been killed in action in Afghanistan. His stepmother wasn't too concerned that the young teen had run off.
Former Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell felt all of her spidey senses tingling when she and Sean came across the situation. Something was amiss. Boy, was she ever right.
The duo begin investigating and soon a plot unravels that goes straight to the Whitehouse. Add in a psycho with revenge issues and you have the making of a big story that might cost the two private investigators their lives as they work to protect the young boy and uncover the truth.
I enjoy this audio version, which come across almost more like a radio play than an audio book. Using a male and female reader for the various parts was genius. The audio also added in special effects - gun fire, crashes, and a little ramp-up noise to alert the reader that there's something up and you should listen to the next part while the car is parked. Otherwise you'll forget you are driving.
Friday, February 06, 2015
Book Review: Top Secret Twenty-One
Top Secret Twenty-One
By Janet Evanovich
Read by Lorelei King
Unabridged
Approximately 6 hours
My latest "read" of a Stephanie Plum novel did not disappoint, though this is the first time one of the books has made me gag, literally.
I like listening to these books because Lorelei King does such a good job with the voices, and the dialogue works when listening. Storytelling, after all, is our oldest form of "writing," so I do not have the aversion to audio that some have. I like being told a story, especially if the reader has a good narrative voice.
To be honest, I would not spend valuable time reading these books, so that is why I listen to them while driving. Multi-tasking, you know.
In this 21st Plum novel, Stephanie spends more time with Ranger. I think in the last book, she hung out more with Morelli, her other boyfriend. She's in love with both guys so maybe Evanovich's plan is to alternate storylines for a while as our heroine untangles her feelings.
Plum, a bounty hunter, is on the trail of Jimmy Poletti, a car dealership guy who was also trading in sex slaves and drugs. Since he skipped a court date, Stephanie has to hunt him down. Unfortunately, his path leads to a trail of dead bodies, and also brings to her Randy Briggs, a distasteful character from previous books.
She's also helping Ranger with some of his special work, and is distressed to learn someone is after her tall handsome ex-Black Ops fellow. The two plot lines are not intertwined, exactly, though I must say Stephanie would be a very poor bounty hunter indeed if Ranger's men didn't give her a hand frequently.
These books are quick listens and even though I enjoy them in the car, I must say the car bombings, the deaths, and the stress, none of which seem to phase Stephanie except for an occasional leaking of a tear, have grown a bit tiresome. I wouldn't want to live in her area of New Jersey, that's for sure.
By Janet Evanovich
Read by Lorelei King
Unabridged
Approximately 6 hours
My latest "read" of a Stephanie Plum novel did not disappoint, though this is the first time one of the books has made me gag, literally.
I like listening to these books because Lorelei King does such a good job with the voices, and the dialogue works when listening. Storytelling, after all, is our oldest form of "writing," so I do not have the aversion to audio that some have. I like being told a story, especially if the reader has a good narrative voice.
To be honest, I would not spend valuable time reading these books, so that is why I listen to them while driving. Multi-tasking, you know.
In this 21st Plum novel, Stephanie spends more time with Ranger. I think in the last book, she hung out more with Morelli, her other boyfriend. She's in love with both guys so maybe Evanovich's plan is to alternate storylines for a while as our heroine untangles her feelings.
Plum, a bounty hunter, is on the trail of Jimmy Poletti, a car dealership guy who was also trading in sex slaves and drugs. Since he skipped a court date, Stephanie has to hunt him down. Unfortunately, his path leads to a trail of dead bodies, and also brings to her Randy Briggs, a distasteful character from previous books.
She's also helping Ranger with some of his special work, and is distressed to learn someone is after her tall handsome ex-Black Ops fellow. The two plot lines are not intertwined, exactly, though I must say Stephanie would be a very poor bounty hunter indeed if Ranger's men didn't give her a hand frequently.
These books are quick listens and even though I enjoy them in the car, I must say the car bombings, the deaths, and the stress, none of which seem to phase Stephanie except for an occasional leaking of a tear, have grown a bit tiresome. I wouldn't want to live in her area of New Jersey, that's for sure.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Books: The Signature of All Things
The Signature of All Things
By Elizabeth Gilbert
Kindle Edition (513 pages)
Copyright 2013
The author of Eat, Pray, Love, a nonfiction account of Gilber's efforts to change her life, which I read, turns her attention to fiction and the 19th century in this character study and saga.
Alma Whittaker is born with a silver spoon, the only child of a self-made millionaire who found his fortune in botany and plants. Her father, Henry Whittaker, would have ended up dead or jailed had not another man of wealth, Sir Joseph Banks, who established the Kew Gardens in London, noticed the lad's keen mind. Banks sends Henry around the world to gather plant specimens for him. Henry eventually outshines his patron and sets up his own botanist world first in India and then in Philadelphia.
Along the way he chooses a wife, Beatrix, not for love but for her mind and family ties to another botanical family in the Dutch lands. She gives him Alma.
Alma is not pretty but she is brilliant. She is raised to think, to question, and to never take any answer for granted. There is little of the spiritual, the mystical, or the religious in her life, though her mother takes her to church every Sunday. The larger questions of gods and the universe are not where Alma's focus lies: instead, she is drawn to the minutia of the world, right down to the very dirt upon which we tread and take for granted.
I loved this character. I loved her inquisitive mind, her desires for constant learning, her need to make a difference in the world as she understands it. I love that she learns from her mistakes, that she realizes she is human, and that perfection is unattainable but one can live a magnificent and noble life anyway.
This story covers over 100 years, since it also tells her father's backstory, and during Alma's lifetime she experiences great minds and great wealth, and small minds and poverty. Throughout all of her trials, she is always thinking. She makes great contributions to science and in the course of her studies begins to understand the theory of evolution. While of course not as heralded as her male counterparts, she discovers that things change and mutate in order to survive the conditions placed upon them.
Her one big question, at the end, is humanity, and what she ultimately calls "the Prudence problem." Prudence, her adopted sister, gives up all wealth in order to work with abolitionists, to take in orphans, and perform other altruistic and charitable things. These actions, at the time thought to be unique to humans, are at odds with the survival of the fittest notions to which evolution lends itself.
This book is a great story of a strong woman, and I hope it serves an inspiration everywhere to women who find their lots in lives are not as they had hoped. Passion, it seems, however one finds it, can make a difference and help with happiness, regardless of circumstance.
5 stars
By Elizabeth Gilbert
Kindle Edition (513 pages)
Copyright 2013
The author of Eat, Pray, Love, a nonfiction account of Gilber's efforts to change her life, which I read, turns her attention to fiction and the 19th century in this character study and saga.
Alma Whittaker is born with a silver spoon, the only child of a self-made millionaire who found his fortune in botany and plants. Her father, Henry Whittaker, would have ended up dead or jailed had not another man of wealth, Sir Joseph Banks, who established the Kew Gardens in London, noticed the lad's keen mind. Banks sends Henry around the world to gather plant specimens for him. Henry eventually outshines his patron and sets up his own botanist world first in India and then in Philadelphia.
Along the way he chooses a wife, Beatrix, not for love but for her mind and family ties to another botanical family in the Dutch lands. She gives him Alma.
Alma is not pretty but she is brilliant. She is raised to think, to question, and to never take any answer for granted. There is little of the spiritual, the mystical, or the religious in her life, though her mother takes her to church every Sunday. The larger questions of gods and the universe are not where Alma's focus lies: instead, she is drawn to the minutia of the world, right down to the very dirt upon which we tread and take for granted.
I loved this character. I loved her inquisitive mind, her desires for constant learning, her need to make a difference in the world as she understands it. I love that she learns from her mistakes, that she realizes she is human, and that perfection is unattainable but one can live a magnificent and noble life anyway.
This story covers over 100 years, since it also tells her father's backstory, and during Alma's lifetime she experiences great minds and great wealth, and small minds and poverty. Throughout all of her trials, she is always thinking. She makes great contributions to science and in the course of her studies begins to understand the theory of evolution. While of course not as heralded as her male counterparts, she discovers that things change and mutate in order to survive the conditions placed upon them.
Her one big question, at the end, is humanity, and what she ultimately calls "the Prudence problem." Prudence, her adopted sister, gives up all wealth in order to work with abolitionists, to take in orphans, and perform other altruistic and charitable things. These actions, at the time thought to be unique to humans, are at odds with the survival of the fittest notions to which evolution lends itself.
This book is a great story of a strong woman, and I hope it serves an inspiration everywhere to women who find their lots in lives are not as they had hoped. Passion, it seems, however one finds it, can make a difference and help with happiness, regardless of circumstance.
5 stars
Monday, December 22, 2014
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies
You may not want to read this if you've not see the movie, though I will try not to give away anything. This is mostly my impression of the movie and the series as a whole.
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Yesterday we ventured out to see the final movie in Peter Jackson's vision of Tolien's tale, The Hobbit. The Hobbit is a prequel to Lord of the Rings, and as prequels frequently do, the movies raised a lot of questions, including the main one: if the elves and Gandalf knew 60 years prior to Lord of the Rings that Sauron had returned, why did it take so long for them to do something about it?
That question is not answered in its entirety in the theater release, so don't expect resolution. I have been buying the extended versions of The Hobbit, which includes more film footage and a story line not even included in the theatrical release, so perhaps the query will be better answered there. But I will have to wait until next fall sometime to learn it.
In my opinion, this last movie was the weakest of the six movies, which is a pity. One should not end something so wonderful as this series of movies on the lowest note. I never thought stretching The Hobbit out into three movies was a good idea because there simply wasn't enough material there. I liked Jackson's additions, as far as they went, but he either needed to veer away more from the book or simply have two movies.
Do not think I was disappointed in the movie. I was not. But As movies go it was better than most, but I would rate it last of the six. I rank the movies (as movies) like this: The Return of the King, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Two Towers, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. They should be watched in order, though, and taken as a whole.
One of the things that bothered me was the change in CGI and computer effects. They are better in The Hobbit, of course, than they were in Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings was filmed 12 years ago, and the technology has changed. That being said, I would have preferred The Hobbit to have been filmed in the older technology. I think that certain CGI characters should have looked like they did in the older films. The nine ring wraiths, for example, should have looked the same as they did in Lord of the Rings. And the Eye should have looked as it did in the first movies, except perhaps less. If the Eye was at full strength in Lord of the Rings, then it should have been weaker-looking, not stronger-looking, in The Hobbit.
These are, of course, picky little things, things that a geek like myself would notice. I doubt most of the theater-going public pay that much attention. I daresay they don't watch The Lord of the Rings movies two or three times a year, as I do.
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies was a weak movie because of lack of character development. There was precious little of it, even though the movie moved along very quickly for 2.5 hours. Aside from Thorin and Galadriel, character development was minimal. Blood, at least, was kept to a minimum even though there are a lot of deaths. There wasn't even much plot, to be honest. It was just a big battle, so it was aptly named.
This is not a stand-alone movie. Anyone who sees this movie who has never seen the others will be completely lost. They will wonder what the draw is and why people love the story as a whole.
As with books, I am not much on stories that depend on things that preceded them to make them whole. A story that depends solely upon familiarity with preceding books or movies to move it along seems to me to be poorly told.
I cried at the end of this movie as I bid farewell to these much-loved characters and this series of movies. The Lord of the Rings has touched me in a way nothing else I've watched ever has. Though the books as a whole are irritating to me because of the lack of women in the stories, as allegory and commentary on humanity and society, they are difficult to beat. And Jackson, to his credit, did add some women into the stories to help offset the total maleness of Tolkien's books.
So I bid my farewell to Gandalf and Bilbo, to Frodo and Sam. I kiss the cheeks of Galadriel, Arwen, and Eowyn. I will revisit you on the small screen in my annual forays, and I will see you all in my dreams.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Yesterday we ventured out to see the final movie in Peter Jackson's vision of Tolien's tale, The Hobbit. The Hobbit is a prequel to Lord of the Rings, and as prequels frequently do, the movies raised a lot of questions, including the main one: if the elves and Gandalf knew 60 years prior to Lord of the Rings that Sauron had returned, why did it take so long for them to do something about it?
That question is not answered in its entirety in the theater release, so don't expect resolution. I have been buying the extended versions of The Hobbit, which includes more film footage and a story line not even included in the theatrical release, so perhaps the query will be better answered there. But I will have to wait until next fall sometime to learn it.
In my opinion, this last movie was the weakest of the six movies, which is a pity. One should not end something so wonderful as this series of movies on the lowest note. I never thought stretching The Hobbit out into three movies was a good idea because there simply wasn't enough material there. I liked Jackson's additions, as far as they went, but he either needed to veer away more from the book or simply have two movies.
Do not think I was disappointed in the movie. I was not. But As movies go it was better than most, but I would rate it last of the six. I rank the movies (as movies) like this: The Return of the King, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Two Towers, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. They should be watched in order, though, and taken as a whole.
One of the things that bothered me was the change in CGI and computer effects. They are better in The Hobbit, of course, than they were in Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings was filmed 12 years ago, and the technology has changed. That being said, I would have preferred The Hobbit to have been filmed in the older technology. I think that certain CGI characters should have looked like they did in the older films. The nine ring wraiths, for example, should have looked the same as they did in Lord of the Rings. And the Eye should have looked as it did in the first movies, except perhaps less. If the Eye was at full strength in Lord of the Rings, then it should have been weaker-looking, not stronger-looking, in The Hobbit.
These are, of course, picky little things, things that a geek like myself would notice. I doubt most of the theater-going public pay that much attention. I daresay they don't watch The Lord of the Rings movies two or three times a year, as I do.
The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies was a weak movie because of lack of character development. There was precious little of it, even though the movie moved along very quickly for 2.5 hours. Aside from Thorin and Galadriel, character development was minimal. Blood, at least, was kept to a minimum even though there are a lot of deaths. There wasn't even much plot, to be honest. It was just a big battle, so it was aptly named.
This is not a stand-alone movie. Anyone who sees this movie who has never seen the others will be completely lost. They will wonder what the draw is and why people love the story as a whole.
As with books, I am not much on stories that depend on things that preceded them to make them whole. A story that depends solely upon familiarity with preceding books or movies to move it along seems to me to be poorly told.
I cried at the end of this movie as I bid farewell to these much-loved characters and this series of movies. The Lord of the Rings has touched me in a way nothing else I've watched ever has. Though the books as a whole are irritating to me because of the lack of women in the stories, as allegory and commentary on humanity and society, they are difficult to beat. And Jackson, to his credit, did add some women into the stories to help offset the total maleness of Tolkien's books.
So I bid my farewell to Gandalf and Bilbo, to Frodo and Sam. I kiss the cheeks of Galadriel, Arwen, and Eowyn. I will revisit you on the small screen in my annual forays, and I will see you all in my dreams.
Monday, December 08, 2014
Books: The Book Thief
The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak
Copyright 2005
550 pages
The Book Thief is the story of a young girl in Germany during World War II. It was my book club's read for November. I did not finish the book and instead watched the movie.
The movie in no way does the book justice. Infrequently, movies surpass a book, but that is not the case this time. If you saw the movie and have not read the book, treat yourself to the book.
This novel is listed as young adult, and I am not sure why. I certainly would not give it that classification. I suppose it is because it is about a young girl and not an adult that places it in that category. I would put this in general fiction. Or literature.
Liesel at the age of 9 becomes the foster child of a German couple. Her mother leaves her there, for unexplained reasons, though there are hints that the girl's real mother is a communist and thus on the run. Along the way, Liesel's brother dies, and at his graveside she steals a book about grave digging. That is her first theft of books.
The story uses the theft of books as a thematic device, but this is really a novel about language and the power of words. Words have strength and beauty, but they are also hateful and ugly. The words we choose to use as human beings says a lot about who we are as people. The words we use as a society, the words we condemn or uplift, also says much about us as a whole. Hitler, the book points out, was a master wordsmith, and many people fell at his feet to follow his plan of world domination, among other things.
This book saddened me because I could not help but make comparisons - how do we differ today from 1942? Today we don't have leaflets, we have fake news outlets that call themselves media, and journalists who are anything but journalists, but who are instead entertainers playing journalists on shows like Fox & Friends. It is all a numbers game and humanity is lost in the shuffle.
Humanity lost itself in World War II, as well. The book points this out subtly, but that theme is in the story line as well. Where does our humanity go, I wonder? How is it that we lose it so easily?
This story is told by Death. Death personified as a watcher and a soul-uplifter, though not in the ways of an angel. But in the ways of someone who catches the spirit as it slips from one world to the next. Death as a reporter, really - a journalist in the truest sense.
The writing in this story is beautiful, poetic, and lovely. Even when the words sting and one feels the whip of a German soldier, there is such craft and worthiness here that it is difficult not to see what is happening. These words are visual, and I applaud the author for his writing grace.
5 Stars
By Markus Zusak
Copyright 2005
550 pages
The Book Thief is the story of a young girl in Germany during World War II. It was my book club's read for November. I did not finish the book and instead watched the movie.
The movie in no way does the book justice. Infrequently, movies surpass a book, but that is not the case this time. If you saw the movie and have not read the book, treat yourself to the book.
This novel is listed as young adult, and I am not sure why. I certainly would not give it that classification. I suppose it is because it is about a young girl and not an adult that places it in that category. I would put this in general fiction. Or literature.
Liesel at the age of 9 becomes the foster child of a German couple. Her mother leaves her there, for unexplained reasons, though there are hints that the girl's real mother is a communist and thus on the run. Along the way, Liesel's brother dies, and at his graveside she steals a book about grave digging. That is her first theft of books.
The story uses the theft of books as a thematic device, but this is really a novel about language and the power of words. Words have strength and beauty, but they are also hateful and ugly. The words we choose to use as human beings says a lot about who we are as people. The words we use as a society, the words we condemn or uplift, also says much about us as a whole. Hitler, the book points out, was a master wordsmith, and many people fell at his feet to follow his plan of world domination, among other things.
This book saddened me because I could not help but make comparisons - how do we differ today from 1942? Today we don't have leaflets, we have fake news outlets that call themselves media, and journalists who are anything but journalists, but who are instead entertainers playing journalists on shows like Fox & Friends. It is all a numbers game and humanity is lost in the shuffle.
Humanity lost itself in World War II, as well. The book points this out subtly, but that theme is in the story line as well. Where does our humanity go, I wonder? How is it that we lose it so easily?
This story is told by Death. Death personified as a watcher and a soul-uplifter, though not in the ways of an angel. But in the ways of someone who catches the spirit as it slips from one world to the next. Death as a reporter, really - a journalist in the truest sense.
The writing in this story is beautiful, poetic, and lovely. Even when the words sting and one feels the whip of a German soldier, there is such craft and worthiness here that it is difficult not to see what is happening. These words are visual, and I applaud the author for his writing grace.
5 Stars
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Books: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
by Fannie Flagg
Copyright 2014
Read by Fannie Flagg
Approximately 10 hours
Fannie Flagg returned to the format she used in Fried Green Tomatoes with great results in her latest novel.
The All-Girl Filling Station is a dual story, told in the present and in the past, much like Fried Green Tomatoes. An older woman, Sookie Poole of Point Clear, Alabama, learns disturbing news that will change her life.
The story jumps back in time to explain the news and how things came to be. In the process, Flagg introduces us to some special history: the story of the WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots), a group of women military craft flyers. Their story was lost for about 35 years.
Flagg creates several memorable characters, including Fritzi, an irrepressible young woman who learns to fly airplanes and then takes over her family's Philips 66 filling station when the only son leaves for the war. She and her sisters man the station, and soon truck drivers everywhere are lining the streets to get a fill-up from the lovely young women.
Sookie, an older woman in her 60s, is also an interesting and entertaining character. Her role in the story is made clear by the time the tale finishes, and hooray for happy endings.
I enjoyed listening to this book. I loved learning about the WASPS and of course had to research and see if they were true. Flagg has her facts right in the fiction, and the story she wove around this interesting bit of history is impressive and probable.
Definitely the best Flagg has written in a while - maybe the best since Fried Green Tomatoes. (I've read all of her books). I hope somebody makes this one into a movie.
5 stars
by Fannie Flagg
Copyright 2014
Read by Fannie Flagg
Approximately 10 hours
Fannie Flagg returned to the format she used in Fried Green Tomatoes with great results in her latest novel.
The All-Girl Filling Station is a dual story, told in the present and in the past, much like Fried Green Tomatoes. An older woman, Sookie Poole of Point Clear, Alabama, learns disturbing news that will change her life.
The story jumps back in time to explain the news and how things came to be. In the process, Flagg introduces us to some special history: the story of the WASPS (Women Airforce Service Pilots), a group of women military craft flyers. Their story was lost for about 35 years.
Flagg creates several memorable characters, including Fritzi, an irrepressible young woman who learns to fly airplanes and then takes over her family's Philips 66 filling station when the only son leaves for the war. She and her sisters man the station, and soon truck drivers everywhere are lining the streets to get a fill-up from the lovely young women.
Sookie, an older woman in her 60s, is also an interesting and entertaining character. Her role in the story is made clear by the time the tale finishes, and hooray for happy endings.
I enjoyed listening to this book. I loved learning about the WASPS and of course had to research and see if they were true. Flagg has her facts right in the fiction, and the story she wove around this interesting bit of history is impressive and probable.
Definitely the best Flagg has written in a while - maybe the best since Fried Green Tomatoes. (I've read all of her books). I hope somebody makes this one into a movie.
5 stars
Friday, October 10, 2014
Books: Good Faith
Good Faith
By Jane Smiley
Performed by Richard Poe
Copyright 2003
Approximately 13 hours
As I listened to this book, I could easily imagine I was sitting in on negotiations for the demise of one of Botetourt's big farms as developers plotted a golf course and large homes surrounding it.
We have that, of course. It's called Ashley Plantation. It was built in the late 1990s-early 2000s, and construction screeched to a halt there when the economy soured in 2007.
In Good Faith, Joe Stratford is a real estate agent in New Jersey. He's 40 years old, divorced, and has a decent life. He's got $62,000 in the bank and he owns his condo, and he's content.
Then several things happen. One of his developers, Gordon Baldwin, buys up a big estate and farm. Around the same time, a fellow named Marcus Burns moves into the area. Marcus is a big talker, full of big ideas, and full of himself.
Almost everybody likes Marcus. He's a former IRS agent and people trust him. They think he knows things that they don't, because, well, he was in the government. He has big ideas and big theories.
He convinces Joe, Gordon, bankers, and others that they are thinking small in their development of this farm. Gordon's idea is to cut the place into lots, build houses, maybe 100 of them, and sell them. Typical subdivision. But Marcus talks them into setting up a big development company, and creating a golf course with $400,000 homes built around it.
The story is told from Joe's point of view. He sees Marcus as a friend. Joe has an affair with Gordon's daughter, and he's very involved in that family. So the reader goes along with Joe for this part of his life, in all areas. Joe is a good guy. He's you. He's me. He's every man.
The story is not a mystery, but you want to read to the end. You want to know what happens. Does this big idea work? Does it fail? And what happens either way? Whose lives change, and is that change better, or worse?
The story takes place around 1984. The book jacket calls this "a searing indictment of 1980s greed culture" and I would say that is appropriate. Except, of course, that is now our current culture, all the way to its roots, so it's an indictment of our way of life. And it should be, because we're all patsies in this big game being played upon us by the big corporations and the politicians.
Joe is generally a cautious guy but Marcus's talk of making billions - not millions - puts stars in his eyes. Looking back, I could see this kind of thing really happening all over the US as deregulation came into its own - remember the S&L crisis, anyone over the age of 30? Well, this book is a fictionalized tale of how it happened, and it rings true.
This is a tale of the beginning of the fall of the middle class, which did not start in 2007 but back in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan and the following loss of regulatory rules on banks, utilities, and other things that should be strongly regulated.
The book's message is deep, buried in character and story, but it's there nevertheless. That's one thing I've always liked about Jane Smiley. Her books always have a message, but it doesn't come up and hit you in the face. You have to think about it.
By Jane Smiley
Performed by Richard Poe
Copyright 2003
Approximately 13 hours
As I listened to this book, I could easily imagine I was sitting in on negotiations for the demise of one of Botetourt's big farms as developers plotted a golf course and large homes surrounding it.
We have that, of course. It's called Ashley Plantation. It was built in the late 1990s-early 2000s, and construction screeched to a halt there when the economy soured in 2007.
In Good Faith, Joe Stratford is a real estate agent in New Jersey. He's 40 years old, divorced, and has a decent life. He's got $62,000 in the bank and he owns his condo, and he's content.
Then several things happen. One of his developers, Gordon Baldwin, buys up a big estate and farm. Around the same time, a fellow named Marcus Burns moves into the area. Marcus is a big talker, full of big ideas, and full of himself.
Almost everybody likes Marcus. He's a former IRS agent and people trust him. They think he knows things that they don't, because, well, he was in the government. He has big ideas and big theories.
He convinces Joe, Gordon, bankers, and others that they are thinking small in their development of this farm. Gordon's idea is to cut the place into lots, build houses, maybe 100 of them, and sell them. Typical subdivision. But Marcus talks them into setting up a big development company, and creating a golf course with $400,000 homes built around it.
The story is told from Joe's point of view. He sees Marcus as a friend. Joe has an affair with Gordon's daughter, and he's very involved in that family. So the reader goes along with Joe for this part of his life, in all areas. Joe is a good guy. He's you. He's me. He's every man.
The story is not a mystery, but you want to read to the end. You want to know what happens. Does this big idea work? Does it fail? And what happens either way? Whose lives change, and is that change better, or worse?
The story takes place around 1984. The book jacket calls this "a searing indictment of 1980s greed culture" and I would say that is appropriate. Except, of course, that is now our current culture, all the way to its roots, so it's an indictment of our way of life. And it should be, because we're all patsies in this big game being played upon us by the big corporations and the politicians.
Joe is generally a cautious guy but Marcus's talk of making billions - not millions - puts stars in his eyes. Looking back, I could see this kind of thing really happening all over the US as deregulation came into its own - remember the S&L crisis, anyone over the age of 30? Well, this book is a fictionalized tale of how it happened, and it rings true.
This is a tale of the beginning of the fall of the middle class, which did not start in 2007 but back in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan and the following loss of regulatory rules on banks, utilities, and other things that should be strongly regulated.
The book's message is deep, buried in character and story, but it's there nevertheless. That's one thing I've always liked about Jane Smiley. Her books always have a message, but it doesn't come up and hit you in the face. You have to think about it.
Wednesday, July 02, 2014
Books: Search for Love
Search for Love
By Nora Roberts
Performed by Gayle Hendrix
Audio approximately 5.25 hours
Copyright 1991, audio copyright 2009
This book is a romance written nearly 25 years ago. I have been reading later Nora Roberts work and been pleased overall. This book was not disappointing but I did feel like I was reading someone else's work. It doesn't have quite the expertize and command of language of her later writings.
In this story, Serenity Smith, an artist in the DC area, is summoned to Europe by a long-lost grandmother. Upon her arrival, she meets her cousin-by-marriage, the current count of an aristocratic estate.
You know how it goes then. He wants her, she wants him, stuff intervenes, love overcomes, happily ever after.
Easy listening on long drives back and forth to physical therapy. It was also nice to realize that I was right in my earlier thinking that Roberts wrote romances. Some of her later work leaps beyond that category so I was wondering if I was misremembering.
By Nora Roberts
Performed by Gayle Hendrix
Audio approximately 5.25 hours
Copyright 1991, audio copyright 2009
This book is a romance written nearly 25 years ago. I have been reading later Nora Roberts work and been pleased overall. This book was not disappointing but I did feel like I was reading someone else's work. It doesn't have quite the expertize and command of language of her later writings.
In this story, Serenity Smith, an artist in the DC area, is summoned to Europe by a long-lost grandmother. Upon her arrival, she meets her cousin-by-marriage, the current count of an aristocratic estate.
You know how it goes then. He wants her, she wants him, stuff intervenes, love overcomes, happily ever after.
Easy listening on long drives back and forth to physical therapy. It was also nice to realize that I was right in my earlier thinking that Roberts wrote romances. Some of her later work leaps beyond that category so I was wondering if I was misremembering.
Monday, June 02, 2014
Books: Midnight Bayou
Midnight Bayou
By Nora Roberts
Audio 5 discs (6 hours)
Abridged
Read by James Daniels & Sandra Burr
Copyright 2002
Nora Robert offers up a romantic suspense - almost a gothic romance - in this interesting tale set in the New Orleans bayous.
Declan, from Boston, has been drawn to the old Manet mansion ever since he was a teenager. Now a wealthy lawyer (retiring early at the old age of 30 something), he decides to purchase the place and fix it back up.
But the mansion has a history, harboring secrets of murder and pain. The ghosts affect Declan - but thanks to Lina Simone, who has her own connection to the house - he manages to work it all out.
This was well-read by Daniels and Burr, with Burr alternating on the back story. Daniels did a nice job with different voices of characters. It always amazes me how much a good reading of a book matters with regards to how well I enjoy it.
Anyway, Roberts does not disappoint with this story. I enjoyed it very much.
By Nora Roberts
Audio 5 discs (6 hours)
Abridged
Read by James Daniels & Sandra Burr
Copyright 2002
Nora Robert offers up a romantic suspense - almost a gothic romance - in this interesting tale set in the New Orleans bayous.
Declan, from Boston, has been drawn to the old Manet mansion ever since he was a teenager. Now a wealthy lawyer (retiring early at the old age of 30 something), he decides to purchase the place and fix it back up.
But the mansion has a history, harboring secrets of murder and pain. The ghosts affect Declan - but thanks to Lina Simone, who has her own connection to the house - he manages to work it all out.
This was well-read by Daniels and Burr, with Burr alternating on the back story. Daniels did a nice job with different voices of characters. It always amazes me how much a good reading of a book matters with regards to how well I enjoy it.
Anyway, Roberts does not disappoint with this story. I enjoyed it very much.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Books: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
By Rachel Joyce
Copyright 2013
330 pages (plus interview & readers guide)
Harold Fry is an older retired gentleman in an apparently loveless marriage. One day he gets a letter from an old co-worker, who tells him she has cancer and is dying.
He writes a short reply, and then sets out to take it to the mailbox. One thing leads to another, and then next thing you know, he has it in his head that he will walk to see her, even though it is hundreds of miles away. As long as he has faith and believes in the power of his walk, she will live.
And so Fry begins his journey, meeting various characters along the way. Those folks are peripheral to the story, for it is Fry that we come to know. His memories, his feelings, his thoughts. His is an Everyman tale - we are all alone, sad, lost, and broken, aren't we? And at the same time willful, strong, happy, and capable. Such a bundle, people are.
The book does change point of view, bouncing back to Harold's wife from time to time. At the end, the book changes point of view once more to give us a few pages of the co-worker's perspective.
Author Rachel Joyce won the Man Booker Prize for her work. She writes with an eloquence of language not found everyday. She does mislead the careless reader, and I have read a few criticisms of that, but I was not mislead and so the ending neither surprised or delighted; it was as I expected, for the most part.
I think the book touched a lot of nerves because we are in an age when we do not do self-circumspection very well. We don't look inside our selves, much less have empathy for others. Harold Fry encourages us all to be the best "us" we can be, something at which society at as a whole tends to be failing.
We need more Harold Frys, I suppose. More common folk ready and able to put their feet forward, and start a movement.
By Rachel Joyce
Copyright 2013
330 pages (plus interview & readers guide)
Harold Fry is an older retired gentleman in an apparently loveless marriage. One day he gets a letter from an old co-worker, who tells him she has cancer and is dying.
He writes a short reply, and then sets out to take it to the mailbox. One thing leads to another, and then next thing you know, he has it in his head that he will walk to see her, even though it is hundreds of miles away. As long as he has faith and believes in the power of his walk, she will live.
And so Fry begins his journey, meeting various characters along the way. Those folks are peripheral to the story, for it is Fry that we come to know. His memories, his feelings, his thoughts. His is an Everyman tale - we are all alone, sad, lost, and broken, aren't we? And at the same time willful, strong, happy, and capable. Such a bundle, people are.
The book does change point of view, bouncing back to Harold's wife from time to time. At the end, the book changes point of view once more to give us a few pages of the co-worker's perspective.
Author Rachel Joyce won the Man Booker Prize for her work. She writes with an eloquence of language not found everyday. She does mislead the careless reader, and I have read a few criticisms of that, but I was not mislead and so the ending neither surprised or delighted; it was as I expected, for the most part.
I think the book touched a lot of nerves because we are in an age when we do not do self-circumspection very well. We don't look inside our selves, much less have empathy for others. Harold Fry encourages us all to be the best "us" we can be, something at which society at as a whole tends to be failing.
We need more Harold Frys, I suppose. More common folk ready and able to put their feet forward, and start a movement.
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Books: Whiskey Beach
Whiskey Beach
By Nora Roberts
Copyright 2013
Audiobook Performed by Peter Berkrot
15 hours, 33 minutes
Nora Roberts has penned an interesting mix of mystery and love story in Whiskey Beach. Eli Landon has spent the last year of life trying to escape a murder charge. He found his estranged wife dead in their home, and everyone was sure he committed the crime.
However, the prosecutors failed to convict. So Eli fled to his wealthy family's mansion, Bluff House, in Whiskey Beach, located somewhere off the coast outside of Boston.
There he meets up with Abra Walsh, a dynamic housekeeper/yoga instructor/massage therapist who changes his life. Then there is a break-in at Bluff House, and another murder. Who is doing these dastardly deeds, and what does a family legend of a long-lost dowry of jewels have to do with it?
Roberts does a great job with her work. The more I read her the better I like her stories.
By Nora Roberts
Copyright 2013
Audiobook Performed by Peter Berkrot
15 hours, 33 minutes
Nora Roberts has penned an interesting mix of mystery and love story in Whiskey Beach. Eli Landon has spent the last year of life trying to escape a murder charge. He found his estranged wife dead in their home, and everyone was sure he committed the crime.
However, the prosecutors failed to convict. So Eli fled to his wealthy family's mansion, Bluff House, in Whiskey Beach, located somewhere off the coast outside of Boston.
There he meets up with Abra Walsh, a dynamic housekeeper/yoga instructor/massage therapist who changes his life. Then there is a break-in at Bluff House, and another murder. Who is doing these dastardly deeds, and what does a family legend of a long-lost dowry of jewels have to do with it?
Roberts does a great job with her work. The more I read her the better I like her stories.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Books: The Invention of Wings
The Invention of Wings
By Sue Monk Kidd
Copyright 2014
360 pages
This story is inspired by history and the true story of Sarah Grimke, an early abolitionist in the 1830s. In real life, Sarah, at age 11, was given a young slave girl for her handmaid. Sarah taught the young slave to read, and the slave was beaten so severely that she later died.
Kidd reimagines the story, breathing life into both Sarah and Hettie, the slave girl. She allows the slave girl to live, though, and offers the reader a look at what a life in chains - figuratively and literally - really means.
This a book about courage, hope, faith, and women. Mostly it is about women and their need to find their voices - their heartbeats that give meaning to life beyond the prescribed roles dictated by a patriarchal and unforgiving society. I fear it is a tale that still rings true for women even today, for the many who are kept bound by the dictates of economy and lack of education.
It is also a good reminder of the times this country has attempted to leave behind, and a hit upside the head to those who think we have stepped so far that periods like these are best forgotten. We are doomed to repeat what we forget, and this is something better remembered.
I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to read about virtue and who would like to understand what courage really means. If you are interested in reading how one might go about fulfilling the dreams of life, you might find your own courage in the passages of this book.
The characters portrayed here will be staying with me for a very long time.
Oprah picked this book as one of her book club picks. You can see a short interview with Sue Monk Kidd here. Oprah writes about why she chose the book here. She calls it "a conversation changer" and there is no argument from me. I hope it changes conversation in the living room of every home.
By Sue Monk Kidd
Copyright 2014
360 pages
This story is inspired by history and the true story of Sarah Grimke, an early abolitionist in the 1830s. In real life, Sarah, at age 11, was given a young slave girl for her handmaid. Sarah taught the young slave to read, and the slave was beaten so severely that she later died.
Kidd reimagines the story, breathing life into both Sarah and Hettie, the slave girl. She allows the slave girl to live, though, and offers the reader a look at what a life in chains - figuratively and literally - really means.
This a book about courage, hope, faith, and women. Mostly it is about women and their need to find their voices - their heartbeats that give meaning to life beyond the prescribed roles dictated by a patriarchal and unforgiving society. I fear it is a tale that still rings true for women even today, for the many who are kept bound by the dictates of economy and lack of education.
It is also a good reminder of the times this country has attempted to leave behind, and a hit upside the head to those who think we have stepped so far that periods like these are best forgotten. We are doomed to repeat what we forget, and this is something better remembered.
I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to read about virtue and who would like to understand what courage really means. If you are interested in reading how one might go about fulfilling the dreams of life, you might find your own courage in the passages of this book.
The characters portrayed here will be staying with me for a very long time.
Oprah picked this book as one of her book club picks. You can see a short interview with Sue Monk Kidd here. Oprah writes about why she chose the book here. She calls it "a conversation changer" and there is no argument from me. I hope it changes conversation in the living room of every home.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Books: Forests of the Night
Forests of the Night
By James W. Hall
Copyright 2005
Audiobook read by Laural Merlington
Abridged
This is a new author for me. In this story, Charlotte Monroe is a Florida police officer with an uncanny ability to read faces. The FBI wants her to teach others how to do this.
One day after work, she finds Jacob Panther, a man on the FBI's most wanted list, in her living room. Things unravel for her from there, as her daughter, Gracie (who hears voices), decides to join Panther. Charlotte and her husband, Parker, head to the Great Smokey Mountains and Cherokee country to find out what is going on.
The book is a mystery - who is doing the killing - as well as a look at how ancient history affects the present. This audio reading was an abridged version, and the story felt a little titled to me, not always flowing. Some things seemed a stretch. I couldn't decide if it was the story line or me being inattentive.
The book's amazon ratings are all over the place, though. I think this is one of those books you pick up when you don't have something else to read.
By James W. Hall
Copyright 2005
Audiobook read by Laural Merlington
Abridged
This is a new author for me. In this story, Charlotte Monroe is a Florida police officer with an uncanny ability to read faces. The FBI wants her to teach others how to do this.
One day after work, she finds Jacob Panther, a man on the FBI's most wanted list, in her living room. Things unravel for her from there, as her daughter, Gracie (who hears voices), decides to join Panther. Charlotte and her husband, Parker, head to the Great Smokey Mountains and Cherokee country to find out what is going on.
The book is a mystery - who is doing the killing - as well as a look at how ancient history affects the present. This audio reading was an abridged version, and the story felt a little titled to me, not always flowing. Some things seemed a stretch. I couldn't decide if it was the story line or me being inattentive.
The book's amazon ratings are all over the place, though. I think this is one of those books you pick up when you don't have something else to read.
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