Category: books

The Whistler by John Grisham

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The Whistler (2016) is a legal thriller with a female protagonist, investigator Lacy Stoltz.

The plot centers on the legal and moral problems involved in Native American gaming. …

Lacy’s a lawyer working for the 7 person Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. They investigate complaints about judges.

The story is interesting.

Grisham is always good. But this book I found slightly too complicated. And a little slow.

NY Times review: “… Without exactly being repetitious, he makes this story longer than it has to be …”

Amazon

The Confession by John Grisham

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, government, human rightsLeave a comment

John Grisham is an activist and board member for the Innocence Project, an organization that fights to exonerate prisoners it deems wrongfully convicted.

This 2010 book looks at the issues of the death penalty through the wrongful conviction of  17-year-old Donté Drumm. He is a star on the high school football team and loved by the girls.

Donté’s is accused of murdering Nicole  Yarber, a cheerleader.

It’s set in football mad Slone, Texas.

It’s a very good book. Well told. Some might find it a bit preachy. Repetitive in places.

Travis Boyette is the real killer. The most memorable of the characters, for me. Seems Grisham is skilled at writing complex, weird and evil bad guys.

Amazon

I agree with Grisham on the death penalty. I’m against it. And still recall the day I made that decision. It was in a High School class in the 1970s where we were discussing the topic.

I’ll consider the USA a backwards nation until they ban it.

The USA will be backwards until the Republican Party finally starts to evolve their platform in the area of human rights.

United States, Japan, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Belarus, Oman, and Taiwan are some of the most prosperous nations that still have it.

Much of the fictional case presented in the novel is taken from some real-life cases involving defendants on death row.

A memoir by one of Obama’s speech writers

On By Rick McIn books, governmentLeave a comment

I don’t read many of these political memoirs. But this one I enjoyed. And learned a lot.

I like Obama better. And appreciate more the difficult decisions he had to make over the 8 years.

His legacy is bigger than I gave him credit for.

As they point out frequently on his team, progress is rarely a straight line. Some of the things Obama pushed COULD yet be achieved by future American governments. Once that idiot Trump is gone, of course.

“Ben Rhodes, who served Barack Obama as a foreign policy adviser and speechwriter from beginning to end, has written a book that reflects the president he served—intelligent, amiable, compelling and principled.

And there is something more: The World as It Is is a classic coming-of-age story, about the journey from idealism to realism, told with candor and immediacy.

It is not a heavy policy book. There are anecdotes galore, but they illuminate rather than scandalize.

Even Donald Trump—a politician who seems the omega to Obama’s alpha—is treated with horrified amazement rather than vitriol. . . . Ben Rhodes is a charming and humble guide through an unprecedented presidency. . . . He never quite loses his idealism; in a crass political era, he impressively avoids becoming a cynic. . . . His achievement is rare for a political memoir: He has written a humane and honorable book.”

—Joe Klein, The New York Times Book Review

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye

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By David Lagercrantz.

This is the 5th novel in Steig Larsson’s Millennium series. Lagercrantz took over at book 4 after Larsson’s death.

Lagercrantz is a better writer than Larsson, who was an amateur. And the new books are superior.

However … book 5 didn’t work for me nearly as well as did book 4.

I’m sure the complicated plot outline about twins separated at birth for scientific research looked good in outline. But I didn’t buy the story.

What people love about this series is Lisbeth Salander. And there’s not enough Salander in it for me. I did enjoy how she handled 2 months in prison, however.

Amazon

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

I did read Gone Girl. And saw the movie.

Both quite good.

Her earlier (2009) novel is even better.

It centres around a farm family massacred in Kinnakee, Kansas.

The 15-year-old son is locked up as the killer. Only the youngest girl  — Libby Day — survives.

Twenty-five years after the massacre, Libby, in need of money, meets with a group of amateur investigators who believe that her brother is innocent. She starts to believe her brother might actually be innocent.

They made a film of Dark Places (2015) too but from the trailer it looks to me they’ve changed the story quite a bit. It tanked. And has only 24% approval on Rotten Tomatoes.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

So skip the movie. Read the book.

The author was born in Kansas City, Missouri. And this book is set just outside of Kansas City, Missouri.

Grisham – The Firm

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Though the story seemed VERY familiar, I don’t believe I ever read The Firm. Until now.

It holds up.

I’m guessing it was the film that stuck in my brain. Many thought the movie was better than the novel.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Firm is a 1991 legal thriller by American writer John Grisham. His second book, it was Grisham’s first which gained wide popularity; in 1993, after selling 1.5 million copies, it was made into a film starring Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman and Jeanne Tripplehorn. …

John Grisham was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel.

Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

On By Rick McIn books, movies1 Comment

I am a big fan of the Millennium series of Swedish crime novels written by Stieg Larsson.

Punk super hacker Lisbeth Salander is one of the most compelling characters in modern fiction.

I actually like Mikael Blomkvist too.

Both the Swedish and America film versions were excellent as well.

Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004.  So The Girl in the Spider’s Web (original title in Swedish: Det som inte dödar oss, literally “That which does not kill us”) is the fourth novel … written by David Lagercrantz.

Lagercrantz was given free rein by Larsson’s estate. Personally I think this book is better than the first three.

The plot is action packed: hackers, an autistic boy genius, Lisbeth’s twin sister.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer of the 2018 film version on YouTube. This film doesn’t seem to have much to do with the book, however.

And it lost money at the box office. AND it’s only 41% on Rotten Tomatoes. I’d still like to see it.

 

 

 

Welfare Ranching: Subsidized Destruction of the American West

On By Rick McIn books, ethics, food, government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

I’m definitely going to eat less beef in future. Cows are TERRIBLE for the environment.

Ranchers on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property have 94 percent of their grazing costs covered by taxpayers. …

Ranchers leasing BLM land cost taxpayers an estimated $500 million a year (and probably much more—some say a billion dollars).

According to Stephen Nash’s Grand Canyon for Sale, about 15,000 ranchers receive a $33,000 from the federal government annually.

This windfall of this bill comes in the form of radically reduced leasing fees (that some ranchers, such as Cliven Bundy, refuse to pay altogether). The cost of grazing cattle on privately owned land in the West is $21.60. BLM ranchers pay $1.41 per animal unit month (AUM), the amount of monthly forage eaten by a cow and her calf. In essence, ranchers on BLM land have 94 percent of their grazing costs covered by taxpayers. …

These subsidies apply to only 2.7 percent of livestock producers in the United States. Six percent of beneficiaries get 66 percent of the proceeds. So, rather than these subsidies leading to cheaper meat (which might, depending on one’s economic philosophy, justify them), the program tends to benefit corporate ranchers with names such as Koch, Walmart, and Hilton. …

HOW WELFARE RANCHERS TAKE TAXPAYERS FOR A RIDE

Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West tells the story of a vast region, sparsely populated by people but tragically battered by an activity many of us have mistakenly believed is benign.

In fact, the production of livestock is incompatible with the ecological health of much of the lands in the West.

Aridity is chief among the factors limiting compatible uses of western landscapes. Over decades, the placement of exotic, water-hogging, ill-adapted livestock on western lands has changed diverse native plant communities …

The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles

On By Rick McIn books, travelLeave a comment

I’d long wanted to read this book.

It’s on every list of TOP TRAVEL NOVELS.

And it gets great reviews.

I was disappointed. There are no appealing characters. No real plot. Nothing resolved.

It a Sommerset Maugham travel novel writ more poorly.

It’s as over-rated as In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, another title frequently on those lists. (I did love Chatwin’s Songlines.)

The Sheltering Sky is a 1949 novel of alienation and existential despair by American writer and composer Paul Bowles. …

Port Moresby and his wife Kit, a married couple originally from New York, travel to the North African desert accompanied by their friend Tunner.

The journey, initially an attempt by Port and Kit to resolve their marital difficulties, is quickly fraught by the travelers’ ignorance of the dangers that surround them.

The novel was adapted by Bernardo Bertolucci into a 1990 film with the same title starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich …

Sounds like it should be great. But Rotten Tomatoes only has it at 50%.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Roger Ebert compared the film to “A Passage to India” and “Picnic at Hanging Rock” – both of them stories about conventional Europeans who find themselves lost in the overwhelming mystery of ancient continents.

Airman by Colfer (2008)

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Colfer is the Artemis Fowl author. This book could be classified Young Adult.

Airman is an historical adventure novel set in the 19th century.

Connor Broekhart was born to fly. In fact he was born in a hot air balloon.

Wrongly imprisoned, he invents a (highly unlikely) way to escape a prison island. By flying.

This is a lightweight but creative novel. It did keep me going.

The villain, Bonvilain, is the most entertaining character.