Miss Peregrine's...

Okay, this book was a little interesting.  Definitely not as scary as the cover makes it seem...The author uses a bunch of real-life, weird pictures of kids, and writes a story around them.  The story is that the kids all have different kinds of "magical powers" (i.e., Peculiar Children).  As another reader wrote, it's like X-men for 10 year olds.  Not as much scary action.  There's some good background on the "Home" and how it came to be, and you get to know a few of the kids pretty well.  The beginning and end of the book were both good - the middle seemed to drag a little bit. 

It appears as though this is going to be the first in a series - the story doesn't actually end with the finale in the book, so you know there's going to be more.  As much as I like the Rick Riordan series, I imagine this one turning into something like that, only with a lot more fantasy, and less Greek/Egyptian gods.  And, written more for a pre-teen audience than a teen audience.  However, if you're looking for a quick read, with an interesting premise, this one is great.  Not to mention the pictures - some of which are enough to give you the heebie-jeebie's themselves...

Onward...

Howard Shultz was the Founder of Starbucks and Chairman/CEO until the early 2000's, when he stepped down as CEO (but stayed as Chairman).  After about 5 years (in 2007), he saw that Starbucks culture was changing and it was no longer profitable or really a fun place to work.  He stepped back in as President/CEO, and effected a large turnaround of the company.  This book is his chronicle of that process.  It's sort of an insider's tale of what makes Starbucks tick, and they were able to turn around the company in 2008 and 2009.

As far as business books go, it's very readable.  Lots of good stories, as well as good leadership principles for business leaders.  I found myself wanting to go into a Starbucks, just to see if the things he was saying they changed really were true at my local store.  Lots of the book focused on the guiding principle of Starbucks - to have the best-tasting, boldest coffee on the market.  Again, if I was a coffee drinker, I'd want to experiment and try it out.  Alas, I'll just have to take his word for it...

Yes, yes it has been quite awhile since my last post.  I went a few weeks without posting anything (but not without reading).  Then, it got to where I had too many books to post about, and it was daunting.  Then, the books just keep piling up, and the daunti-ness just worse and worse, to where I didn't even want to think about having to review all of the various books (plus, there's a few that I don't even remember reading!).  Finally, I've decided just to do a quick update on a few of the books I've read in the past few months, with just a sentence or two about each one.  So, here goes...:

This was the second book from the author of "Sisters" (which I wrote about below).  This one wasn't quite as good, but I did finish it.

This one is written by an English guy, who decides to investigate what makes up a "psychopath."  It's fairly easy to read, and interesting information about the sort of people who could be classified as such.

I've been working on this one for awhile, and finally finished it.  It's historical, looking at the rise of the FBI through the chase of bank robbers - John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, the Barker Gang and Pretty-Boy Floyd (as well as host of other character's who associated with them).  It was very interesting - now I'm going to watch the movie (recorded off TV, of course) and see how close it is to the book.

I've loved all of Rick Riordan's "heroes" books.  This one is the third in the Egyptian Gods series (known as the Kane Chronicles).  I re-read the first two in the series along with this one.

Stephen King's later books have proven very interesting.  (Some of his earlier ones were very weird.)  In this one, he uses time travel to imagine if JFK's assassination could have been prevented.  The characters are very well-written, and you end up really caring for the main character by the end, and wondering how his life is going to change, or whether he'll be able to keep the new things he's found.

Michael Koryta is one of the best authors I've come across recently.  He has a series of detective novels set in Cleveland (which I think I've blogged about in the past).  In addition, he has a series of free-standing novels, with some very interesting plots.  (I blogged about one of his previous books, So Cold the River, earlier.)  This one is basically a ghost/murder story based in a rural town.  Very interesting, though!

Erik Larson is another one that I've written about before.  He writes a wonderful series of books, where he takes two historically-contemporary events, and weaves the stories together.  This one is about a murder in England and the invention of the wireless telegraph by Marconi.  Another great read by Larson. 

Jeffery Deaver is one of (if not THE) best detective writers out there.  He writes two series of books, one centered around a guy named Lincoln Rhyme in New York City, who's an expert CSI (who's also a quadripalegic, who works out of his house).  The other series is about Kathryn Dance, who's a kinesics expert (i.e., the art of people's body and verbal language).  This is one of the Kathryn Dance novels.  Deaver is great at letting you see how the detectives work, and giving you lots of cool information about the fields, while weaving it through a good whodunit novel. 

Jeffrey Archer's latest series is called the "Clifton Chronicles."  These are the first two books in the series.  (I believe I posted about the first one before - I re-read it when the second one was published.)  Archer is a master at telling family dramas over extended periods of time.  (His book, Kane and Abel, is one of the best I've ever read!).  This one continues that same drama.  The ending is a complete cliffhanger - leaving you wanting to read the next one in the series (but, not entirely surprising - by the end of the book, you knew he was going to leave it the way he did...)

So, that's a short list of what I've been reading.  I'll try and keep up a little better.  I have two interesting ones I'm working on now (in addition to the biography of Washington, that I'm still plugging along with). 

Sister - by Rosamund Lupton

"Sister" is one of those books that you've never heard about, may never have picked up to read, but are extremely glad you did.  Beatrice is the "older sister" who lives in New York (having moved there from England), and who constantly "takes care of" her younger, artist sister who still lives in London.  Beatrice receives a phone call that her sister is missing - and returns to London to find her.  She eventually finds her - dead in a restroom at a park.  While her sister's death is ruled a suicide, Beatrice doesn't believe it, and sets out to figure out why her sister was killed, and who did it.

Thus, while at bottom the story is a murder investigation - the premise is interesting.  The story is told as if Beatrice is writing a letter to her dead sister.  Much of the story is Beatrice recounting a conversation she's having with the prosecutor in the case, after she's solved the mystery and has become their star witness.  As it's a letter to her sister, there are many parts that detail the relationship between the two sisters, as Beatrice realizes how much she didn't know about her sister - and how much she did know. 

Not many books have parts that make me actually cry.  While no tears ever escaped my eyes (I'm too manly for that - I'll admit), there was one moment, while reading on the recumbent bike at the YMCA, where I was glad my face was sweaty so if a tear did escape it wouldn't make me look less manly to the other folks lifting weights around me.  It was that good.  I heartily recommend this one to anyone.  You don't have to like detective/mystery novels to like this one.  It was good enough that I've already got her second book on hold at the library.

Before I Go to Sleep - by S.J. Watson

Another from the 2011 Amazon list.  If you've ever seen the movie "50 First Dates" with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore (and several hysterical supporting characters!), you know the back-story to this book.  Basically, the main character Christine wakes up every day thinking she's an early-twenties college student.  In real life, she's in her '50's (or so), having had severe amnesia for most of her life.  The book describes her discovery, with the help of a friendly psychiatrist (who wants to use her as the basis for an article or book about her condition), of how she became who she is, and the background of her life.

With the help of the psychiatrist, Christine starts keeping a journal of her "discoveries" every day.  As she reads the journal each morning (after the doctor calls her to remind her of it), she starts remembering more and more.  As she remembers more, she eventually discovers how she got the amnesia.  While there are a lot of good "discoveries" that she makes throughout the book, I'd suspected the ending after getting about half-way through.  In interesting book, though, full of insightful information about the relationships we may have, and what we'd do if we suddently lost them.

The Time in Between - by Maria Duenas

This is another one from the Amazon 2011 list.  Sira is a simple seamstress from Madrid, Spain, who falls in love with a man.  The book follows her life from Madrid to Morocco, where she is betrayed by the man, finds herself in a heap of trouble, starts a new life as a dress-maker, makes a ton of friends and gets her mother to Morocco as well.  This all occurs while Spain is going through a civil war (just prior to WWII - when Franco first came to power).  Some of the characters that Sira meets and befriends are real historical figures.

At this point, Sira is persuaded to return to Madrid as a spy for the British intelligence - in an effort to "keep an eye" on the spanish leadership and Nazi's who were working on gaining Spain as an ally.  Some of the later parts of the book seemed a little far-fetched.  However, overall I really liked it.  It took a little bit of time to get into the book.  However, the author does an excellent job describing her characters, and making you really care about what happens to them.  She also does a good job of interweaving the historical events and characters with what happens to Sira.  I didn't know if I was going to like the book going into it (a historical novel about a seamstress?!) - but I was pleasantly surprised.  If anything, you learn a good bit of culture about Morocco and Spain during the pre-WWII era.

Devil in the White City - Erik Larson

This was the second book I've read by Erik Larson.  The first was "In the Garden of Beasts" (which I wrote about earlier).  This one was actually written previously by Larson, and is immensely better than the Beasts.  Larson's M.O. is to take a historical event/invention and merge the that story with a historical crime that intersected with the event/invention.  Here, the event is the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  The crime is a series of murders that occurred in conjunction with the Fair.

The "White City" was the series of buildings built specifically for the fair.  Having not heard much at the Chicago fair, but always enjoying any time I spend in Chicago, it was an interesting read just for the historical aspect.  Larson really brings to life the various architects/builders that put the fair together, showing the struggles they went through, as well as the innovative things they did for the fair.  (They were trying to "out-fair" Paris, who had previously done a World's Fair, where they introduced the Eiffel Tower.)  That part of the story was engrossing.

At the same time, the "Devil" was a shyster who had moved to Chicago to take advantage of the single ladies who were moving there in droves to get away from the country named Holmes.  Holmes purchases some land near the fairgrounds, and constructs a hotel on the property.  He installs a kiln in the basement, as well as a sound-proof torture/gassing room.  Without going into graphic detail of the killings (which there wasn't a ton of evidence of, anyway), Larson lets you come to your own conclusions of what Holmes used the property for.  Some estimates say he may have lured and killed nearly 200 people with the hotel.

Well-written, well-paced and informative; this was a very good book.

Art of Fielding - by Chad Harbach

I first read an excerpt of this book in Sports Illustrated. Then, it showed up on Amazon's Top 100 of 2011 list. It's one of those books that has all kinds of people writing things like "Best First Novel Ever!" - or "A Terrific Start" - or "Couldn't put it down." All of those sorts of things always make me a little suspicious; if too many reviewers think the book was that good, I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't the publisher's marketing campaign that made it good, rather than the writing.

While I don't necessarily agree with all of the hyperbole that preceded my reading of the book, I will say it was a pretty good book. Knowing it was the author's first published novel probably adds to a little more to that assessment. Basically, the book talks about relationships (family, friends, lovers) and goals/dreams. There are 5 main characters - 2 that you meet right at the start of the book. The relationships and goals/dreams revolve around baseball (hence the title, and the excerpt in Sports Illustrated). The five main characters consist of Henry Skrimshander (shortstop) and Mike Schwartz (catcher); Owen Dunne (Henry's intellectual, gay roommate, also a player on the baseball team); Guert Affenlight (the University President) and Pella Affenlight (Guert's "prodigal" daughter; later girlfriend to Mike Schwartz).

There are plenty of baseball scenes for the sport nerd - plus plenty of reference to literature (Guert was an English professor before becoming the university President). There are some slow parts (about 2/3 of the way through), and the ending turns out to be better than you were anticipating (not that you were anticipating anything bad - just as events unfolded you started to wonder whether it'd be one of those ending-that-totally-sucked-for-the-characters-but-surprised-you-as-the-reader type books (like John Grisham's "The Chamber"!)). There are some scenes that may be offensive to some (Guert and Owen develop a relationship), but they're easily skippable. Overall, I found it an interesting book - recommended to anyone who knows at least a little bit about baseball (if you don't, you'll have to get used to the multitude of baseball - especially shortstop - references).

In the Garden of Beasts - by Erik Larson

Erik Larson is most famous for writing "non-fiction novels." What I mean by this is that he's writing non-fiction, the stories are true. But, the books read like novels. In each book, he takes a historical event, and tells the story of that event through the eyes, or story, of some of the specific players. This is the first book of his that I've read - it was recommended to me by a friend.

Here, Larson wanted to look at the Germany of the 1930's. In 1933, America sent a new ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, who took his family along (wife, and adult son and daughter, Martha). Largely through the eyes of Dodd and Martha, Larson tells the story of the years immediatly after Hitler was made Chancellor. His main point seems to be that while those foreigners (such as Dodd) who were inside Germany at the time of Hitler's rise recognized him (and the Nazi party) for who they were - the folks "back home" in America (and other countries) just refused to accept that things were as bad as Dodd's letters made it seem.

Some of the book (an overly large amount, probably) focuses on Martha's various "relationships" with the variety of single (and married) men she met while in Berlin. While Larson seems to focus a bit much on the various relationships, I think the point he's trying to make is that some of the Germans, and other diplomats there at the time, were normal folks - prone to the same habits, mannerisms, and relationships as anyone else.

Anyway - I've read a lot of history books, including many on the Holocaust and World War II. The perspective of this book was new - and it was easy to get through the entire book. Just seems like a little of the relationship parts could have been removed without impacting the overall quality of the book.

My Korean Deli - by Ben Ryder Howe

This is a memoir, of sorts. Ben Ryder Howe was an American WASP who grew up in New England. While in college, he met a Korean girl who ended up as a lawyer at a big New York law firm. Ben was working (essentially part time) as an editor at the Paris Review (a journal for and about writers). They were living in her parents basement (with a bunch of other Korean relatives). At some point during this process, they decided to purchase a New York City deli.

This book is the story of the process of purchasing the deli, running it for several years, and ultimately selling it (sorry if that just gave away the ending!). It's the story of the lessons the WASP learned about running a small deli in Brooklyn; being a small-business owner; juggling two "jobs"; family relationships; and change. It was interesting seeing the "inside-look" of dealing with suppliers, city regulators and deli employees.

The book was incredibly easy to read. As a New England-educated WASP, there are some points where the author gets philosophical - looking at the deeper meaning behind some of the deli choices. All in all, though, it was a pretty interesting read.

This Burns My Heart - by Samuel Park

This book is a Korean love story. That alone should tell you it was unusual for me to read this book. I don't normally read love stories - however, this one was on the Amazon 2011 list, so I tried it out. The book tells the story of a South Korean girl who gets married shortly after the Korean war. She wants to go to Seoul to attend diplomat school, but her parents want her to get married instead. So, she finds a boy who she believes she can manipulate into letting her attend diplomat school, and chooses to marry him. Just before her marriage, though, she meets and falls in love with someone else. However, she chooses to go through with her marriage, rather than marry the other guy.

The rest of the book tells the story of her life after marrying the original boy - who turns out to have tricked her into getting married. Several times later in life she runs across the second man she met. I won't say the book wasn't predictable - it ends the way you want it to end, with several twists and turns in between. However, what was fun/interesting was to get a glimpse into Korean culture, and the way that families are made and treated. This was a pretty easy read - got through it in a couple of days. If you like love stories - this is an easy one to follow.

The Great and Terrible - by Chris Stewart

Chris Stewart is a Mormon author, who's written a series of books known as "The Great and Terrible." There's six books in the series, which starts with this one, The Brothers. The Brothers is a prologue to the rest of the series, and takes place in heaven, before the main characters come to earth. In heaven, there are 3 brothers and a sister (Sam, Ammon, Luke and Elizabeth), who are preparing to come to Earth. At the same time, Lucifer/Satan is gaining more power over those still in heaven, preparing himself to come to earth to tempt others.

The remaining books in the series take place on Earth, after the 4 kids have been born, and are a "preview" of what the end of the world may be like, and how those kids were prepared and participated in the events. I'd read all books in the series before, and recently re-read all of them. (I just included the first book's picture above - didn't want to load all six.)

I like the series - there's plenty of political thriller in it to keep me involved. Lots of "international-ness" to it (especially involving the Middle East). Also, there's quite a few scenes where Satan's angels/followers are tempting those on Earth. It's interesting to think about the mechanics of how that would work - and what would work to tempt folks. Scary, even, how easy some of their work seems to be. It also makes you think about what the pre-mortal life was like, and how we made our choices there. You'll view your kids differently - how much they were prepared before this life to come down when they did, and face the issues they will face.

As I mentioned - I liked the series. They're not difficult to read - I think I got through all 6 books in less than 2 weeks.

Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald

I read a different book recently by this author, called The Informant. The Informant was made into a movie starring Matt Damon. I like that book well enough, that when I saw this one, it intrigued me. I've had a passing interest in the Enron disaster that happened back in the early 2000's. (One of the last books I finished, The Sellout, referenced the Enron disaster too.)

This authors M.O. is to conduct a bunch of interviews and review a bunch of documents, then attempt to reconstruct a story based on those interviews and documents. Both this one and the Informant were true stories of corporate wrong-doing. The Enron story focused on accounting "creativity", and how it led to the downfall of both Enron and Arthur Anderson (the accounting firm both advising and auditing Enron). Throughout this book, the author does a great job at trying to show who, exactly, within Enron was the culprit of the "irregularities" that led to the destruction of the company. (I put "creativity" and "irregularities" in quote for a reason - the author here tries to show that the accounting issues that Enron had were obviously wrong, and should've been obvious at many different points in the process.)

Overall, this was a great book. You come out of it cheering for some folks, and wondering how others were able to get away with what they did for so long. The author definitely paints the picture of who was most too blame, and who simply had their head in the sand. After getting about 2/3 of the way through, I Googled the main characters, to see what had ultimately happened to them after all this went down. It was interesting to see that the main instigator of the problems (at least, the one one portrayed in the book here) didn't appear to get too much punishment for what he'd done to the company (and collaterally - to Arthur Anderson).

Anyway, if you want a good summary of the Enron situation, and what caused it to collapse, this is a pretty good read!

The Sellout - by Charles Gasparino

So, being in the industry I'm in (lawyer focusing on real estate and bankruptcy), the collapse of the financial system which stemmed from the real estate collapse has been an interesting topic for me. I've read a few books that detail the "reasons" why things collapsed. Here, Charles Gasparino (who is a reporter who previously worked for CNBC during the time period covered by the book) writes about the Wall Street folks and government officials who created the "sub-prime mortgage mess." He does a great job at describing the historical background of Wall Street, explaining to a layman what a CDO is, etc. (For those that don't know what a CDO is - this would be a good time to get the book and read it to figure it out!)

Towards the end of the book, he's explaining why he picked his title - "The Sellout." His basic premise was that Wall Street executives and the government officials who were supposed to monitor them, "sold out" the long-term principles and goals that they should have had. One of his interviewees commented that his premise assumes that those individuals had any principles or long-term goals to begin with. I think Gasparino does a decent job at telling the stories of some of the individuals who retained their principles throughout the crisis - while at the same time placing blame with those who were ignoring (deliberately, inadvertently, or passively) the signs that led up to the mortgage crisis and collossal bank failure that resulted.

A very interesting book (that I finished while working out each morning at the YMCA). Also, because it's written by a reporter, the book flows pretty well. I don't know about y'all, but I've found that reporters tend to write pretty decent non-fiction.

The Hunter - by John Lescroart

I don't know if I've posted this before or not, but John Lescroart is one of my absolute favorite authors. If you like John Grisham, you'll like John Lescroart even better. Lescroart (pronounced "less-kwah") uses the same characters throughout his novels, so you really grow to care about them. He's got between 15 and 20 novels total, that all feature the same recurring characters. The original books (the first 12 or so), featured two main characters, Dismas Hardy (defense attorney), and Abe Glitzky (homocide detective). These two were best friends, which made for some interesting dynamics in the various cases they dealt with.

The latest few books focus on a different character, Wyatt Hunt. Hunt is a private detective, whose agency is known as the "Hunt Club". He frequently does work for Hardy, and has several interactions with Glitzky's investigators. So, you still see some of the old characters showing up now and then. The last couple of books focusing on Hunt were a little "off the mark" for the way Lescroart had written his previous novels. (Still good, just something seemed to be "missing"...if you knowhutamean.) However, this latest one returns to the quality of the previous books. He must have figured out what was missing.

In this one, Hunt (who was adopted as a child, after his mother died), learns that his birth-mother may not have just died, but been murdered. This sets him on a quest to solve the 30-year-old murder, which was never actually solved by the police at the time it happened. Lots of good scenes...again, if you're into attorney/detective novels, this series is a great one to try.

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

In the 1990's, an Amur tiger in Far East Russia attacked and ate several villagers. At the time, the Russian government (with the help of several international agencies) had set up an agency known as "Inspection Tiger", which had the authority to both protect the tiger population (from poachers), and the village population (from the tigers). This book is the story of the attacks, and the subsequent investigation and tracking of the tiger by the local Inspection Tiger team.

This was, by far, one of the best books I've read in awhile. The author both tells the story of the attack and subsequent hunt, and gives you tons of interesting background information. For instance, the stories of how the villagers and hunters ended up in that part of Russia (including plenty of Russian history - which I've always been interested in); the explanations and reasons why a tiger would hunt a villager; why a tiger hunts the way it does (solitary, rather than in a pack); how the village was created; why the poachers were so interested in getting the tigers. So much interesting information interwoven with the narrative itself. Plus, most of all, it's about a tiger attack! How much cooler of a story can you find?

I recommend this one to anyone. Even if it's not something you'd normally read, I think you'll find it pretty interesting.

Play their Hearts Out - by George Dohrmann

George Dohrmann is a reporter who writes for Sports Illustrated. In this book, he follows the stories of some 7th and 8th grade kids, as they compete and play in AAU basketball. (Mostly, it's the story of the coach who tried to bring them all together and win games, and the star player that he recruited for the team.) For those of you who watch college basketball (or even the NBA), this is a very interesting behind-the-scenes look at how many of the star basketball players get to the good college or NBA teams.

The author was able to trail the team for a number of years, doing interviews with the players, their parents and the coaches. He also attended a bunch of the games, practices and meetings/dinners. In other words, he had pretty good access to the people in the stories. Some of the stories he tells, and the characters that you learn about who are involved in the AAU basketball system, really make you open your eyes to what it really takes to get a good college to recruit you (or a good NBA team to do the same). Opens your eyes, and makes you sick, all at the same time. Overall, a very good book about something I didn't really know a whole lot about before.

The Litigators, by John Grisham

I've read almost all of John Grisham's books (there may be one or two nonfiction ones that I haven't read). For the most part, his books are good-quality legal fiction. The courtroom scenes are pretty close to how things really go. Sometimes the stories get a litle "slow" or "contrived". I especially enjoyed his earlier books (The Firm, The Chamber (HATED the ending of this one - which is what made it such a good book!), A Time to Kill (easily his best book ever!)). Some of his later books haven't gotten me as excited.

This one, however, was pretty well done. A small firm gets involved in some large tort claims (think large pharmaceutical cases). They bring in a new young associate who's had it with the large firm life (the scenes showing his meltdown are pretty hilarious). Unlike some of his more recent books, in this one you do actually start caring about the characters, and what happens with them. I think he spent a little more time developing their past and history, so by the end you're genuinely interested in what's going to happen to them. I won't say the ending wasn't predictable - it was. But, you still wanted to know what was happening to the folks.

On a different John Grisham note - is anyone watching the new series The Firm? It's a continuation of the Grisham novel by that same name - continuing the story ten years later. We've been recording it, but I haven't been able to watch it yet.

Son of Neptune

So - for those who follow this blog (both of you!), you already know I like Rick Riordan's heroes books (both the Olympus heroes, and the Egyptian heroes). For Christmas, Santa brought me this one, which is the second book, in the second series of Roman/Greek heroes in America. I won't mention much about the book, other than that I really liked it, and it easily lives up to the quality of all the previous books (and may be even a little bit better!).