Category: books

Moonglow by Chabon

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Moonglow is a 2016 novel by Michael Chabon.

The book chronicles the life of Chabon’s grandfather, a WW2 soldier, engineer and rocket enthusiast who marries a troubled Jewish survivor from France and lives a challenging, wandering life in postwar America.

Chabon is a great writer. A great story teller.

But the device he used here — a memoir based on interviews with his Grandfather and others — didn’t work for me. The story was too rambling. It jumps around too much in time.

I had trouble paying attention.

Woman of God – the book

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Woman of God, written by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro …

What to say?

I’ve got a love / hate relationship with James Patterson already and I barely know him as an author.

The PLOT of this book is compelling and interesting.

Brigid Fitzgerald, a physician volunteering in desperate south Sudan, is a religious Catholic woman from Boston. Whom God seems to hate. She faces more challenges than Job. Her faith is tested over and over.

I enjoyed seeing a female priest. A priest married. A priest welcoming his flock to all.

It seemed fresh to me to see a priest falsely accused of child molestation.

The book is fast paced. That’s for sure.

In one chapter Brigid might get married, have a baby then lose both to an astonishing tragedy. And there are over 100 chapters like that!

Read this book at your own risk. There’s much to criticize too.

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson (2014)

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Yet another great Isaacson book. I recommend it to one and all.

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Isaacson begins the adventure with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s.

He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page.

One of his key themes is that innovation comes from collaboration, not just the few great names we know.

He tries to provide background on how people like Turing made their breakthroughs.

It’s dense. I might just read it again in order to better follow the flow of technology.

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

On By Rick McIn Art and beauty, booksLeave a comment

I’m not sure I can recommend this 2010 novel.

It’s well written, but something is odd. It doesn’t reflect any kind of Steve Martin humour.

The book by follows the New York art world climb of Lacey Yeager, a beautiful and dislikable young woman.

Too ambitious. Too much an opportunist.

The only reason to read this book would be to learn about the NY art scene.

NY Times review 

Justified – season 1

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Love it.

A Western set in modern times.

It reminds me a bit of Firefly.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The series … based on Elmore Leonard‘s novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and his short story “Fire in the Hole”.

Its main character is Raylan Givens, a deputy U.S. Marshal. Timothy Olyphant portrays Givens, a tough federal lawman, enforcing his own brand of justice in his Kentucky hometown. … 

TV Guide critic Matt Roush:

“The show is grounded in Olyphant’s low-key but high-impact star-making performance, the work of a confident and cunning leading man who’s always good company …”

The rest of the cast is consistently good too.

It’s 91% on Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s set in rural Kentucky and takes every opportunity to make fun of white, trailer trash rednecks.

All that said, I’m quitting now. Too much glorification of gun violence.

Bosch season 4

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I watched season 4 on Amazon Prime Canada.

As good as any of the first 3 seasons, this one is 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

… when an attorney is murdered on the eve of his civil rights trial against the LAPD, Bosch is assigned to lead a Task Force to solve the crime before the city erupts in a riot.

Bosch must pursue every lead, even if it turns the spotlight back on his own department. One murder intertwines with another, and Bosch must reconcile his past to find a justice that has long eluded him.

Season 5 is in the works. This is Amazon’s longest running series so far.

Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton

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Michael Crichton died in 2008 at age-66.

I’d read most of his books.

Dragon Teeth was written beginning in 1974 and published posthumously in 2017.

I enjoyed it. And a National Geographic TV version is planned.

… set in the American West in 1876 during the Bone Wars, a period of fervent competition for fossil hunting between two real-life paleontologists noted for their intense rivalry, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope.

The plot follows the protagonist William Johnson, a Yale student who works during the summer alternately for the two paleontologists. …

Don Oldenburg of USA Today gave the novel four stars, describing the book as “Plain and simple, it’s Crichton fiction — a fun, suspenseful, entertaining, well-told tale filled with plot twists, false leads and lurking danger in every cliffhanging chapter.

 

 

 

The Closers by Michael Connelly

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The Closers (2006) is the 11th book in the series.

Harry Bosch comes out of retirement to join the Open/Unsolved Unit. He’s reunited with his former partner Kiz Rider.

As Bosch books go, this is one of the best.

City of Bones by Michael Connelly

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City of Bones is the twelfth novel by American crime author Michael Connelly, and the eighth featuring the Los Angeles detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. …

On New Year’s Day, a dog digs up a bone in Laurel Canyon outside of Los Angeles. The dog’s owner, a doctor, recognizes the bone as human and calls it in to the police.  …

Good story, as usual for Connelly.

Harry’s partner in this early book is Jerry Edgar. This time frame used in the Bosch TV series.

Julia Brasher is Harry’s love interest in this one. In the book she accidentally shoots herself. In the TV series she survives.

Bosch – season 3

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Gripping. This is the closest I’ve yet come to binge watching.

Great story. Excellent acting. Best season, so far. 

Bosch is written by Eric Overmyer, the guy who did the final two years of The Wire, my favourite TV series. Two actors from the Wire appear in Bosch, as well.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Bosch is an American police procedural web television series based on Michael Connelly’s novels.

I’m pretty much binge reading the books, as well.

Running out of book, I was happy to hear Bosch TV has already been green lit through season 6.