A Quick Update

So, it's been a few weeks since my last post - and I've definitely been reading (it pretty much never ends). However, I haven't had time, what with the end of semester frenzy, plus the holidays and all the vacationing/shopping that's required - not to mention the fact that I have a "real job" that I have to spend at least a little time at! In any case, a quick glance at what I've read in the past few months:

Jeffrey Archer is one of my favorite authors. I've read everything he's written. This latest is the first in a series of books about a single family. He's best known for writing about British families, tracing them through years at a time. One of his best books is "Kane and Abel" - I've read that one thrice. This latest is along those same lines. Highly recommended.



OK - I have to preface this one with the comment that I don't really like, or understand, the recent craze for vampire books. I'm comfortable enough as a man to freely admit that I read the whole "Twilight" series (right alongside my Craftsman and John Deere catalogs and Sports Illustrated magazines) - but I don't really get the frenzy for teenage vampire fiction that stemmed from it. I chose this book because it was on the Amazon 2010 list - I didn't really know much about it. Basically, the US Government develops a new "weapon" consisting of humans infected with a certain virus that makes them "inhuman". In essence - they become vampires. The first part of the book introduces the main characters (i.e., the folks who become the vampires), and the young girl who ends up being able to conquer them. The remainder of the book jumps ahead about 100 years after the vampires escape, and tells the story of one small group of survivors, and their quest to continue surviving. Once I got past the fact that I was reading a vampire book, it actually was pretty good. Recommended, even for those who don't get the vampire-book fever.

Lee Child writes a series of mystery/detective books starring a guy named Jack Reacher. Reacher is a retired army investigator, who now lives "off the grid". In each book, he turns up to save the day. They're your basic detective novel - I like reading them when I'm looking for just a straightforward detective novel (i.e., something that I can read in bed, and don't feel bad falling asleep before I finish the chapter). In the spirit of full disclosure - I'm reading another of his right now (hoping to get it done before Christmas - see below for the reason why). I probably won't post about that other book. Most of his can all be described like this one was.

This one is a short little Christmas story I read just to get into the season of Christmas. There's a set of 12 Eastern European "Christmas Glass" ornaments that get passed down in an Italian family. During WWII, the Christmas Glass makes it's way to America, where it gets split up with the feisty Italian lady who's the matriarch in this family. Fast-forward to present day. The family is split up, and each piece of Christmas Glass is now with a different family member or friend. The matriarch, who's now in her '80's, issues an ultimatum to her children, which leads to the Christmas Glass being reunited. Each chapter is the story of each of the friends and family members. A fun little book that I really enjoyed. If you want a quick little Christmas read - this one will do it!

Lastly, I re-read The Lost Hero. I have a sneaking suspicion that Santa is bringing me "Son of Neptune" for Christmas, and wanted to make sure I was remembering what had last happened in the story. For those who don't know, these are the first two books in the "sequel series" to the Percy Jackson books that came out a few years ago. The author, Rick Riordan, does a wonderful job at mixing the old Greek/Roman stories of the gods/goddesses/heroes with modern-day heroes. Not only are they fun to read (my oldest daughter has really gotten into them as well), but I like how they're educational as well (helping "the kids" to learn about that history). Hopefully Santa has his delivery right, so I can continue the series.

I've got the new Amazon 2011 list all ready and sorted, so I'll probably start posting about some of those newer books on their list. I already sorted about 30 or so off their Top 100 list that I probably won't read - but I have plenty more to look forward to this coming year!

The War for Late Night

So, if you can't tell from this latest rash of books - I've always enjoyed the "behind the scenes" of tv shows or movies. I'm one who always likes to watch the "Making of the Movie" features on DVD's (my wife always makes fun of me for that - or usually falls asleep in the middle of it). It's just always been a fascination.

A few years back, there was a big brew-ha-ha (did I even spell that right?!), about the shake-up in late-night television. For those in the know, it dealt with Jay Leno vs. Conan O'brien vs. David Letterman (sort of). All of a sudden (for those who didn't watch the shows religiously), Conan was taking over The Tonight Show, and Jay Leno moved to a 9 o'clock (MST) slot. "Interesting..." was my first reaction. I'd always enjoyed watching the late night shows (when I could stay awake long enough). I'd already noticed that Jay's opening monologue was much better than David Letterman's - but that Letterman had lots more funny skits on his show (mostly outside his theater - I loved when he would drop stuff off the roof of his building!). I had watched Conan a few times, and got his humor as well. So, I was interested to see how this new experiment with Jay at 9 was going to work. Yeah - it didn't. Colossal failure. Then, all of a sudden, Jay was back with The Tonight Show, and Conan was out of the picture (only to reappear later on TBS). I remember some news coverage at the time, with Conan being indignant that he was forced out, and never really given a chance.

So - this book gives you the background behind the whole deal - why Conan took over for Jay, why it didn't work, how the other late-show hosts (Letterman, Kimmel, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Craig Ferguson, and Jimmy Fallon) all dealt with the whole thing, and how they played small roles in the whole process as well. There's a lot in here about the negotiations that went on between Jay and NBC, Conan and NBC, and a little about Dave and CBS. As a lawyer, I found the negotiations interesting.

Overall, the entire book was good. There wasn't any part where I felt like it was "plodding", or including information solely for the sake of expanding the length (as sometimes I feel). It was a good "behind the scenes" look at the various players. If anything, it could have used a little bit more - maybe in the form of an update on how the new time slots have really worked out for everyone. But, a good read, nonetheless.

No Rest for the Dead

This one was hyped pretty highly. Even the book itself has a whole bunch of awesome reviews. Basically, the premise is they got 26 different famous mystery or thriller writers to come together and write a book together. The story takes place in San Francisco, and revolves around the death of a museum curator and his wife's later execution after being found guilty of the murder.

The introduction of the book makes it seem like there was going to be a big surprise ending at the end of the book, that you wouldn't be able to figure out until the end. The introducer even comments on the fact that a good mystery keeps you guessing until the end - without letting you figure out the plot resolution before you get there. However, they failed to do it here. Without letting you know too much, I still had at least 100 pages to go when I'd figured out what happened (or, at least, had a pretty good idea, that later proved to be right). While a few of the writers who were involved are good writers, that I've read alot (John Lescroart and Jeffrey Deaver particularly - almost anything from those two is very good!), there were many others that I'd heard of, but not really read much from. While the book itself didn't necessarily impress me - there were individual chapters from these individual authors that I did find very well-done. I may look up other books by those authors to see how their entire writing is.

Anyway - the story here is a good one, and the book was an interesting concept. I just figured out the conclusion to early to make it a 5-star for me. Probably more like 3.5.

Those Guys Have All the Fun

For those sports nuts out there (there has to be at least one somewhere who reads this blog!), this is the book for you, sort of. If you spend any time watching ESPN, and have for awhile, you'll find portions of this book interesting. Along the same lines of the "Live from New York" book detailed below, this book is almost entirely a mish-mash of interview quotes from folks who've been intimately involved with ESPN from the beginning of the network.

There's some really funny moments in the interviews - you can tell the folks really knew each other. At times, the author was good at juxtaposing the different views together - for instance you'd get a quote from someone saying "So and So would almost always do this whenever they were working with me." And then, immediately afterwards, the other guy saying something like "I would never have dreamed of doing that when I was working with him." Shows how people can have different views of their history - even if it's shared together.

Reading the book, sometimes you get bogged down in the negotiations over certain "big events" - i.e., NFL contracts, NASCAR contracts, affiliate cable station contracts, etc. As an attorney, I found those parts interesting. However, the average sports nut probably wouldn't care for those parts of the book. There are some other interesting parts about very specific stories that happened during the development of the channel. Overall, it was a good interesting read - helps put some of what they all do in perspective, and makes me want to watch it more now - just to see if I recognize more names.

Live from New York

OK, before I write about this latest book, a little disclaimer. I realize it's been a few weeks since I posted anything on here. There's two reasons for that. First off, for those who don't know, I teach two courses at Boise State University - American Government (101 level) and International Law (400 level). Since the semester started, I've been a little busy getting back into the teaching groove, and spending time making sure my lessons are ready to go. Secondly, some of the books I've been reading are the "back stories" from new authors I've discovered. Specifically, Michael Koryta. I've read about 3 of his last books in the past weeks. I haven't posted comments on all of them - the genre is the same for most (detective novels - some of my favorite, especially when they have the same recurring characters, so you get to know them a little better). Anyway, if anyone wants regular reviews of the detective novels, I'll put some on here. Otherwise, I'm sticking with just reviewing the incredibly original and well-written ones.

That said, this book here was the latest one I read that wasn't a detective novel. Here's the story of how I stumbled upon this one. I actually was looking for the new book about ESPN so I could put it on my library list. (That one will be reviewed sometime after I get it from the library - still waiting for that to happen.) The ESPN book is largely a compilation of a bunch of interviews that the authors did with folks who've been involved with the development of that enterprise. In looking over the ESPN book, I found out one of the authors had done much the same thing with the Saturday Night Live concept - interviewing a bunch of the actors and stars and producers who've been involved with that show since it began, and telling the story of it's development.

I've always been interested in the Saturday Night Live concept. Do I watch it religiously each week? No. Do I think previous years actors were better than what I've seen currently? Yes. But, have I really watched enough of the current actors to really say that the previous ones were better? Not really. I just remember the Chris Farley and Will Farrell years, and think they were hilarious. (Who can forget the Cow Bell skit?! That is one of the greatest moments on television!) So, when I saw this one, which was basically a good behind-the-scenes look through the eyes of the various people involved, I thought it would be interesting.

Overall, the book was good. The format, just snippets from the various interviews was a little hard to follow at times. Also, there were some parts that were just plain boring, that I didn't care really about (honestly, I skipped those parts, so I don't know if I can even say I read the whole thing!). However, there were some really good stories, and tons of cool background facts and information about the folks who've been on the show. Reading the book made me want to start recording the shows (I can't stay up that late, I'll fall asleep!) again, and watching to see what the current actors do, and if I still think the older ones were better. For those interested in the show, this was a good read. I'd recommend getting it from the library though, so you don't feel bad when you skip around and only read the parts that interest you!

The Red Pyramid

Rick Riordan is an incredible author that does a wonderful job introducing a host of people to ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian gods, goddesses and history. I first learned of him when I read the Percy Jackson (the Lightning Thief for those of you who only watch movies - although what are you even reading this for if you only watch movies?!). Percy Jackson and his friends were the main characters in an awesome series dealing with the old Greek gods, goddesses and heroes. It was interesting reading about them. (In fact, I went out and bought a reference book telling the old stories of those gods and goddesses after finishing the Percy Jackson series.)

A second Greek/Roman series was introduced through the Heroes of Olympus series (only the first book has been published so far - the second one comes out next month). That series has already proven to be just as interesting as the first Percy Jackson series.

Now, though, Riordan has also tackled the old Egyptian gods/goddesses/magicians. I'll admit, for a bit I wasn't interested in getting into this series as well. I had my Greeks and Romans, and was perfectly happy learning about them, and seeing the new adventures of their human heroes. The Egyptians were just too much. However, last weekend they had Book 1, the Red Pyramid, sitting on the shelf at the library, and I figured I'd try it. (It helped that my oldest daughter also really wanted to read it, so we were going to be getting it anyway.) I was pleasantly surprised. I figured it'd be alot of the same sort of Percy Jackson adventures. However, this one is different enough that it's a whole different series. While you can tell it's the same author (his humor comes out often, and is hilarious), the approach to this series seems different - and the "players" in these books have different personalities and powers. So far, I've liked them, so we'll continue with this series (although, I probably won't post about every book in the series...sorry...)

The Disappearing Spoon

This one was a very fun and interesting read. It's a non-fiction book written by a scientist about the periodic table of the elements. Basically, the author takes all of the elements, and tells the interesting stories about how they were discovered, what's made them famous, how they all fit together, etc. The only chemistry class I remember taking during my education years was a class in seventh grade taught by the biology teacher. I don't think I've had anything more than that. (Although, the periodic table is on the wall in almost every classroom I teach in at BSU!)

I'll have to admit, reading this book sometimes made my brain hurt. It'd be much easier to understand the stories if I had a litle more knowledge of the elements themselves, and how the table is organized, etc. But, the author "dumbs" it down enough for someone like me (educated, fairly smart, extremely humble) to understand. (Although, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who's not at least a little interested in science.)

The stories were usually pretty funny. I actually came out of this one thinking that I needed to find a used chemistry textbook to learn a little more about the elements that make up our world. I guess that's a sign that the author did his job!

Ender's Game

I first read this book a long time ago, when I was in high school (and it first came out). It's an interesting Science Fiction novel about future wars with earth's enemies - the Buggers. Ender is a 6 y.o. boy who gets recruited (in fact, his parents were allowed to have him specifically for this purpose) to go to Battle School, and train to be a leader in the war with the Buggers. Along the way, he makes several friends.

At one point, way back when, I believe this book was on the US Marine Corps required reading list - I tried to look around and verify this, but it doesn't appear to be on the list now. In any case, there's plenty of "battle" scenes in the book - all through games that the kids play at the Battle School. This was the first in a series of books that come later, about the development of the Universe after the last battle. It was a good book. One of my favorite moments comes after Ender leaves battle school and all of his friends. You'll have to read it to know what I'm talking about...:)

The Dirty Life

For a non-fiction book, this one was incredibly interesting. It's sort of a biography - Ms. Kimball is a writer from New York who interviews a farmer who is trying to do a CSA model farm. CSA = community supported agriculture - basically a farm that provides everything necessary for the surrounding community. While doing the interview, Kimball falls in love with the farmer ("Mark"), and they decide to start a new farm. However, for this new farm, their dream is to provide an entire subsistence for the community (not just vegetables, but meat, dairy, grains, everything.

They begin a new 500 acre farm. The book largely chronicles their decision to do so, and the first year on the farm. The author takes you through delivering a calf from a mother cow, to how to properly plow a field. The couple decided to do the farm with the least amount of machinery possible. They had a tractor, but it was for backup. They mostly operated using a pair of draft horses (think "Budweiser ads" and you'll know what sort of horses those are).

The author, being a writer, used a plethora of books to learn different parts of farming. She references several of these books, which makes it even more interesting. I finished the book, and almost immediately put most of the books she mentioned on my wishlist.

One of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Farming, I discovered, is a great and ongoing war. The farmers are
continually fighting to keep nature behind the hedgerow, and nature is
continually fighting to overtake the field. Inside the ramparts are the
sativas, the cultivated plants, soft and vulnerable, too highbred and civilized
for fighting. Aligned with nature, there are the weeds, tough foot
soldiers, evolved for battle. As we approached the solstice, both sides
were at full tilt, stoked by rain and abundance of sun. Every morning,
Mark and I would look out over the fields at first light and see a fresh haze of
green. For every one of ours, there were a hundred, a thousand, ten
thousand of theirs, wave after wave, unending."

A fun book to read.

So Cold the River

This was a new thriller off of the Amazon 2010 list. I'd never heard of this author before, but the book sounded interesting, so I started with it. The main character, Eric Shaw, is a film-maker who specializes in wedding and funeral videos. He gets hired to do a life sketch for a dying man in Chicago, by returning to the man's childhood home, and investigating his background. Along the way, Shaw meets and discovers all kinds of interesting and spooky things about the town, the history, and a certain bit of evil that he unwittingly brings with him to the valley.

What I like best in thrillers (I may have said this before - if so, sorry!), is an interesting story, and writing that keeps you engaged. I have trouble with authors who continually use the same genre and story over and over again, just tweaking the characters and the stories. If you're writing a thriller, I like it to be something unique and creative. This book is definitely that - the main instigator of the evil is a 100-year old bottle of water, and the water around the village.

Further, the book keep you going. The characters are interesting - you learn just enough about most of them to care about what happens (or enough to hope the bad guys get what's coming to them). I read this over a weekend, and recommend both it and any of the other books by this same author.

Secrets in the Fire - Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell is a Swedish author, who divides his time between Sweden and Mozambique. While on one of his trips to Africa, he met a woman named Sofia Alface, who forms the basis for this book. While this book is fiction, it is largely based on Sofia's life. Sofia was driven from her childhood home after "bandits" came and killed her father and sibling. Sofia's mother, Sofia, and her older sister and younger brother all travelled across the country, and eventually settled in a new village. After living in the new village for a few weeks (or maybe months), Sofia accidentally left the worn path between work and home, and stepped on a landmine. Sofia's older sister later died from her injuries from the blast, and Sofia lost both of her legs from the mine.

This book is about how Sofia recovered, and her enduring spirit in showing others how to treat adversity. She ultimately got two new legs, and returned to her village.

The book is written for teen audiences, so it reads exceptionally fast (I think I finished it in a day). The story, however, is compelling. There's also a post-script from a land-mine NGO, offering several facts and figures about the threat of landmines today. There is a subsequent book about Sofia, also by Mankell, that chronicles her life after her return to the village. I strongly urge anyone to read the book - if nothing more than to learn about the threat of landmines.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

A slow start ends with a bang. This is the story of a staid English Major who's wife recently died, and how he adapts to living in the English countryside. He befriends a Pakistani shop-keeper whose husband also recently died. Of course, in the old-school English village in which they live, this creates quite a scandal. Other scandal follows the Pakistani woman. A couple of hilarious scenes ensue, including a local dance-party, set to a theme of British domination of the Indian subcontinent. Needless-to-say, this theme doesn't sit well with the Indian and Pakistani folk who are helping to cater and decorate the event, and a melee ensues.

Add to the mix the local "Lord" and his yearly duck-hunt behind the local schoolyard (and the fact that the children ran onto the shooting ground to save "their" ducks), and the Major's son who is more interested in his own career advancement than familial relations, and the book have some very hilarious moments. It takes a little while to get into it, and really start caring for the Major (as opposed to being off-put by his English traditionalism), but once you do, you really get into the story.

The love story element here between the Major and Mrs. Ali gives the book something for just about everyone. Anyone would be good to give it a try.

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

(Sorry about the small picture)

This book was excellent! I approached it with a little trepidation (I was trying to read Skippy Dies! and just not getting into it, so I thought I'd try something else. Since this one is also about teenagers at a private school, I wasn't sure what to expect.) This book is about a girl who's a senior at an exclusive private school in New York, but who's in danger of not graduating. Her "absentee" father takes her to Paris to work on her school project. While there, she discovers an old diary from around the time of the French Revolution. The story jumps between the modern girl, and the girl in the diary.

Lots of French Revolution history, as well as musical background (specifically classical guitar - the girl is doing her senior project on the "musical DNA" passed down by past guitarists). I really liked the way the author interwove the history with the modern story. Also, you learn early on in the book that the girl suffered the loss of her little brother, and blames herself. However, it's not until almost the end of the book that you learn the full story of her brother's death.

There's a little bit of romance in Paris that livens things up a bit. There's a lot of humor on the New York end, specifically with her other friends and the projects they are working on. I read the whole book in about 2 days - that's how much it draws you in. All in all, a good read. I've added Donnelly's other book ("A Northern Light") to my reading list, and may post on it soon as well.

Buy vs. Rent

For those who don't know, I used to buy almost every book I read. In the last few years however, we've become a lot more discriminatory in the books that we'll actually buy. (By "we", I actually mean "I" or "Me". It's not like my wife spends a lot of money on books!). Each week, we take our kids to the local library. Our library is set up with a bunch of other libraries around, where they have an extensive interlibrary loan system. Just about any book you could want can be found in at least one of these libraries, which makes it available at our library, if you put it on the wait list.

So, our kids love the place. The boys really enjoy the kid books about dinosaurs, trucks, planes, etc. Our six-year-old has recently gotten into the "drawing" books, where he can learn to draw new things. Our oldest has discovered that they have a "teen" section - and she spends a lot of her time there.

Anyway, because we are at the library so often, if there's a book that my wife or I want to read, we'll check it out from the library, rather than buy it. We've gotten to where we buy the books that we think are really good (or ones that we want to have in our own home library. Of course, most of my home library is in boxes in the garage, but that's a whole 'nother story!) So, if you see on here that I actually bought the book, then you know it has to be good!

Unbroken - by Laura Hillenbrand

Laura Hillenbrand is the author of "Seabiscuit" - the book from which the movie was made. (For those of you who don't read - yes, Seabiscuit was based on a book!). This newest book, Unbroken, is about a World War II vet named Louie Zamperini. Zamperini was a world-class runner, thought by many to potentially be the first person in the world to break a 4-minute mile. He ran in college and the Olympics before WW II started. The first part of the book covers this portion of his life.

After WW II started, Louie joined the Army Air Corps, where he ended up as a bombardier in a B-24. (For those who don't know, the bombardier is the person charged with aiming and dropping the bombs - a B-24 was a bomber used extensively in WW II, especially in the Pacific.) After a while, and several "successful" trips, his plane was shot down (or crashed - can't remember if it was actually shot down), while on a rescue trip for another plane that had been shot down. Louie, the pilot, and one other member of their crew survived the crash. Louie and the pilot survived about 2000 miles of ocean crossing on their life raft (covering about 45 days), and were then captured and put into various Japanese POW camps.

The book tells the story of Louie's life. The author had extensive interviews with both him, and lots of others. There was plenty of news coverage of the events, due to Louie's past running prowess. Hillenbrand's writing style is enough to draw you into the story, and make you wonder what ever happens to the guy. (I wouldn't necessarily say it's "captivating" - but, after all, the book's not a novel, it's a historical biography. I don't know if that genre is supposed to be captivating.)

Lots of other folks have reviewed this book, it's been fairly popular. My wife and I checked it out from the library often enough, we just weren't able to ever get more than a few pages in before we had to return it (the wait list was long - so we couldn't just renew it). From what we'd seen, it was good enough that we ended up just buying it.

Persuader - by Lee Child

My friend from work "inherited" a bunch of books from her mom. (I use quotes, cause I don't think her mom's actually passed away yet, she just gave her the books.) In the boxes was a bunch of books from Lee Child, featuring the main character Jack Reacher. She read this one first, and recommended it to me. (In reality, Persuader is probably the 6th book in the series, but you don't really have to read them in order. If there's ever a series of books, though, I like to read them in order, even if not necessary. I find it helps me get to know the characters better.)

Reacher is an ex-Army MP, who's sort of a loner/drifter. Each book in the series is a different adventure that he gets himself into. I can tell I'll like a thriller book like this when two things happen (a) I don't want to stop reading the book at night; and (b) the story the author came up with is unique. Both of these were present here. I started the book this past Sunday morning, and stayed up until 2am to finish it. (Lest you think I wasted the rest of my Sunday, I spent time at church, took a nap, and watched a few shows in the middle of all that as well. It was Father's Day, so I didn't feel to bad about just taking it easy the whole day!)

The story here is that Reacher gets "drafted" to get hired as a bodyguard/security officer for some bad guys, in order to help recover a DEA agent who tried the same thing and was caught. In the meantime, he's able to take care of someone from his past. (Any more than that would spoil the book.) An interesting, unique story, that had a few surprises that I didn't necessarily see coming before reading them in the book. I've read enough thrillers like this, that lots of times I can anticipate the plot twists and turns, and don't get as surprised as I might otherwise. This one wasn't that way. I don't think I'll do a specific post about each book. However, as I read more (after my friend is done with them), if they all are as good as this one was, I'll post something about them.

Room

An interesting little book. The whole thing is told from the perspective of a 5 year old boy, who's been locked in a room his whole life. His mother was kidnapped when she was in her early twenties, and locked in a modified shed in the kidnappers back yard. For years he's kept her there, "visiting" from time to time. Eventually the boy is born, and lives until he turns five. After his 5th birthday, his mother and him escape. About 1/2 of the book is their life pre-escape, and the rest is how they adjust back into the "real world".

I don't know what the background of the book was (i.e., why the author chose to write it). The perspective of the young boy makes for some funny moments - especially as he learns that the outside world (that he's seen on TV in the Room) is actually real. About 2/3 of the way through, it gets a little slow (when him and his mother are in the hospital recuperating), and there's probably about 50 pages that could be re-written or re-worked to make that portion a little more interesting. By the end of the book, the young boy has almost reversed roles with his mother - helping her to re-acclimate to the real world, where before it was her helping him to get along in the Room.

This was another one from the Amazon list - and again another one that I don't know if I'd have read if it wasn't on that list. Overall, though, I'd probably give it 4 stars.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

This one was recommended to my by a co-worker, who brought it in for me to read one day. (We've had some good conversations in the past about books and movies - with both of us providing good recommendations to the other one. In case she's reading this - thanks for the recommendations Ali!)

The storyteller in this one is a dog. It's a bit unclear what sort of breed he is, but he hopes there's some Terrier in him. The dog's perspective is a different one for telling the story - as you see the family relationships unfold from that perspective. The story follows the dog's life from his days as a pup, as he grows up with a man who's a part-time racecar driver. All of the life lessons the dog learns are lessons learned on the racetrack.

There were some hilarious moments in the book (mostly coming from the dogs perspective on some of our humanisms), as well as some incredibly sad moments (as the father fights for custody of his daughter). I strongly recommend this to anyone - even those Rambo types who normally don't fall for sappy books. Even you (you know who you are) will enjoy it.

The Poisoner's Handbook

Just finished this one. Incredibly interesting! It's a nonfiction book that chronicles the "birth" of forensic medicine - i.e., testing corpses for poisons. Largely follows the early careers of two individuals: Charles Norris and Alexander Gettler. Norris = the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City (the first one who really got the job because he was a doctor and because of his skill, rather than because he was related to the mayor). Gettler = the chief toxicologist under Norris.

Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a separate poison (carbon monoxide, alcohol poisoning, arsenic, etc.). However, some of the chapters overlap. For instance the various forms of alcohol poisoning recur, and sometimes were found in conjunction with the other poisons. Each of the chapters talks about a variety of cases which the doctors used to determine the poison, and tells of the various tests available to test to the poisons, and how these two doctors determined the tests. Because the time period covered by the book was during the Depression and Prohibition years, there's considerable emphasis given to alcohol poisoning, and the efforts of the federal government to make alcohol even more poisonous (in an effort to convince people to stop drinking it).

Overall, the book was incredibly interesting. The author is a "wanna-be" chemist herself. (In the "author's note" at the end, she writes "A chemistry lab is a dangerous place for an absentminded daydreamer of a student - in other words, me.") She is able to explain the chemical reactions caused by the various poisons on a level that makes them understandable to the normal person. If you're into CSI, you'll definitely like this.

Travels in Siberia

This one was the other book bought with the Barnes and Noble gift card. I'd wanted this one for awhile. The author has written a couple of other "travel-ogue" type books, and they've all been done well. For this one, he spent about 10-15 years learning Russian, and studying up on Siberia. Then, about 2/3 of the book covers the various trips he took through Siberia. About half the book chronicles the "main" trip, when he went from St. Petersburg in the West, to the far tip of Siberia in the East.

Having served an LDS mission in western Russia, and minored in Russian Studies in college, I was excited to read this one. The first few chapters go pretty slow - he's talking alot about the history of Siberia, without much detail about his own trips. However, once he started talking about the trips he took - it got much more interesting and fun to read. He spent time talking about the history of the different places he stopped, and telling stories of some of the old Soviet people who had been exiled to the place.

He had a couple of companions for the main trips he took - and the descriptions of those companions are classic Russia. The way he describes the two men - it's almost like you're there with them, and I remembered exactly what sorts of things he was talking about. At one point he was finally able to stop and explore an old exile camp, still fenced and in reasonably good condition. That was a really good moment in the book, as he described the sorts of things that historically would've happened, and one of his companions reacts to the same scene.

I strongly recommend this book to just about anyone interested in learning more about Siberia. It was a fun, nostalgic read for me!

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

This was a biography I found from Barnes and Noble for $4 or so. I had gotten a gift card for Christmas, and had something else for around $22, so needed something cheap to use up the rest of the card. This book was available, and fit the bill. Plus, I'd been interested in reading something about the guy anyway, so it all worked out.

The author had access to interviews with Buffett, as well as a bunch of his friends and family. He cooperated with her biography, so it comes off really well. It's a very good writing style, and does a good job of portraying the dude. The book was published a few years ago, so it doesn't cover any of his recent transfers of his fortune to the Gates Foundation, but it does cover his life up through about 2004 or so.

The crazy thing about the fortune that Buffett created was that, even if you wanted to buy a share of his company now, the good shares are worth like $100,000.00!. But, for those who got in the thing when he first started, they've made loads and loads just by keeping their shares. Hopefully, someday I can find someone who's just starting, and who turns out as well as he did.

This one was a good read - recommended to just about anyone.

Moonlight Mile: Dennis Lehane

This is another pick from the Amazon 100 list. I might have ended up reading this series anyway, because it's private detective genre. Lehane began writing back in the early 90s, and has a series of books involving a set of private detectives in Boston, MA. He's also famous for having written two other books which were made into movies - Shutter Island and Mystic River. There's about 6 or 7 books in the series with the detectives.

Typically, if I find a book in a "series", I like to go back and read the first books first. Thus, Moonlight Mile was the last one I read, after reading all the other books about the detectives first. (I haven't gotten to Shutter Island or Mystic River yet, although I probably will at some point.)

First, a couple of warnings about the books: the main characters are private detectives who grew up, and live, in the "bad" part of town. Accordingly, there's a lot of violence, and lots of language.

Now the good parts - Lehane does a wonderful job describing the characters. One of the detectives is childhood friends with a giant of a man who is a weapons dealer and all around bad guy. Every scene, in every book, with this guy (who acts as the detectives "muscle") is hilarious. There were seriously some Laugh Out Loud (LOL for you text-maniacs) moments, some of which I even read out loud to my wife. I tend to only do that when I find it really funny (and she always thinks I'm a little weird!). The style of writing is also very good - the books flow well. You can always tell a good book (at least I think so), when you finish one chapter, and just have to continue with the next, because you want to find out what happens. All of these books are like that - you don't want to put them down.

In Moonlight Mile, the detectives (Kenzie and Gennaro) are returning to a case that appeared in one of the previous books ("Gone Baby Gone"). In Gone Baby Gone, a young girl had been kidnapped from her drug-induced and alcoholic mother. Kenzie and Gennaro are hired to find the girl, and return her to her mother. I won't give away the ending of that book (cause it was a bit of a surprise), but they did find the girl, and returning her to her mother was a hard ethical/moral decision.

Moonlight Mile finds Kenzie and Gennaro separated after several bad cases, but the girl (now a promising teenager) has disappeared again. Kenzie and Gennaro are again asked to find her (although for different reasons than before), and ultimately they do. However, they again face a hard decision as to whether to return her to mother, or let her be. Both of the books were interesting for their discussion of the hard decisions - can a good decision also be the wrong decision? Or, can the wrong decision be the best decision?

If you can stomach the language and the violence, any of the books in this series are interesting and I'd recommend them.

The Irresistible Henry House: Lisa Grunwald

So, this was another book on the Amazon 2010 list. I probably wouldn't have even read it had it not been on the list. However, it turned out to be fairly interesting. The premise of the book is a program many universities had around World War II times known as "house babies." (See here for proof that I'm not making this up.) Basically, the home economics programs of these universities would have "house babies" taken from local orphanages during the first few months of life, and they were "raised" by a succession of students in the house. There were usually 6-7 students, who took turns each day helping with the house baby. At around age 2, the babies were then adopted by new parents. Typically, the parents viewed the babies as ideal, as they had been cared for and had "good" habits instilled in them at the practice house.

The author of the book, intrigued by the whole program after reading about it at the Cornell University website (where the link above takes you), decided to imagine what would happen if one of the house babies didn't get adopted later, but simply remained at the practice house with the house mother. The book chronicles how she imagines his life ending up. It all occurred during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, so she creates a career for him, and places him in various historical situations. (Think "Forrest Gump" - the premise behind that movie is similar to what she did here.)

Anyway, the book was interesting - just the fact that such a program existed was hard to take in at first. Imagining what would have happened to Henry was interested, but also led you to think about how all the other kids turned out. (In one part of the book, Henry finds one of the other house babies after she's all grown as well...it's fairly interesting how she turned out.)

It's imaginative, and I don't know how the kids really turned out - but it was fun to read nonetheless. :)

Dead or Alive: Tom Clancy

So, this is Tom Clancy's latest large novel (950 pages!). This was the last book that I finished - last Sunday morning. As you can see from the cover, this was written by Clancy "with Grant Blackwood". Rumor is that Clancy didn't do much of the writing, but Blackwood did most of it. (I don't know how true that is.)

The book brings back a lot of the historic Clancy characters: Jack Ryan, John Clark, Chavez, Jack Jr., the Caruso boys from Teeth of the Tiger, and even Mary Pat Foley plays a bit part. If you've read any of Clancy's previous novels, you should recognize nearly all these folks. This book takes on international terrorism, with the team from The Campus (first introduced in Teeth of the Tiger). They are tracking and seeking to find someone named "The Emir" who is supposedly the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

I've loved all of the Clancy novels that he's written himself (didn't really care much for most of his spin-off series). This one is a little different because of the co-writing, I think. There's not as much historical discussion about the background of certain things (think Sum of All Fears discussion of the nuclear weapons and such). There's a lot that goes unexplained in this one. I won't ruin it by revealing some of the things. And, there's almost too much going on - too many characters - time spent on people that don't really get involved in the end. If you've read past Clancy books, you know he always starts out with several different characters all over the world, that don't really seem to tie together. However, at the end of the book, all of those characters get tied back together and you finally figure out why he's been talking about this person. In Dead or Alive, there's several characters that are discussed, but really play no role in the end, and you're left wondering why he discussed them. (Sadly, Mary Pat Foley is one of these characters!)

Anyway, I don't mean to diss the whole book too much. There was plenty to like - just having those characters back made you a little happy inside (this is his first book with these characters in 10 years). All in all, a good fun read - just a few things that could have been improved upon.

Apparently Clancy has a new book coming out this fall - also co-written with someone else (but not Blackwood). We'll see what characters he uses, and if the new co-author can stick with the historical Tom Clancy a bit more.

:)

(I am currently reading a new book, which I'll post about when I finish. However, in the meantime, I'll try and post about some of the other books I've read so far this year!)

At the Beginning

So, this is the new blog. Taking inspiration from a friend of mine, who's got her own book blog (see here) (and who may not know I've been surreptitiously reading her blog for months now), I decided to start my own blog about the books I've read.

Many of you may know how many books I read. This year, I've been working my way through Amazon's Top 100 Books of 2010 (something they publish each year - I think it's based on sales from their site). It's introduced me to several books that I probably wouldn't have ever read, but that were interesting nonetheless. There's some on the list that I don't read (cookbooks, poetry, etc.), and others I don't read (cause they turn out to be boring - or just not something that interests me). But, others lead me to even more books that are interesting.

So, anyway, each post will be about a different book - sort of a review of sorts. Enjoy - and feel free to add lots and lots of comments!