Category: books

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

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Quite good. And a big step up from the Baldacci books I’d been reading recently.

The Lincoln Lawyer is a 2005 novel, the sixteenth by American crime writer Michael Connelly. It introduces Los Angeles attorney Mickey Haller, half-brother of Connelly’s mainstay detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. …

Moderately successful criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller operates around Los Angeles County out of a Lincoln Town Car(hence the title) driven by a former client working off his legal fees. While most clients are drug dealers and gangsters, the story focuses on an unusually important case of wealthy Los Angeles realtor Louis Roulet accused of assault and attempted murder.  …

Click PLAY or watch the film trailer on YouTube.

Michael Connelly, author, thought the film loyal to the story and the character of Mickey Haller. It’s 83% on Fresh Tomatoes though I haven’t seen it yet.

Divergent – the novel

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Divergent (2011) is the debut novel of Veronica Roth …

The … first of the Divergent trilogy, a series of young adult dystopian novels …

The novel has been compared to other young adult books such as The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner because of its similar themes and target audience. …

I’d say Divergent is not as good as either of the other two super popular books. I won’t continue on to book 2.

Divergent the film (2014) made hundreds of millions, but is also not considered as good as the other two adaptations. I’ve not seen it.

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

 

 

 

 

David Baldacci books

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David Baldacci is an American novelist who has a net worth of $45 million dollars.

Though I’m not normally a big fan of thrillers, I tried three of his easy-to-read books:

Memory Man (2015)
Camel Club (2005)
Split Second (2003)

Two of those the author considers amongst his 5 best.

I simply couldn’t get into them. Too many characters. Impossibly unlikely plots. All action, no interesting details on the lives of the protagonists.

Memory Man was best of the three. Perhaps he’s getting better.

Count me out. No more Baldacci.

downloading audiobooks from the library

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I’m using the IOS Libby app from OverDrive.

It’s similar to the old IOS Overdrive app, but is somewhat newer. Perhaps better.

And it works well. Overdrive was horrible, terrible, hilariously bad for many years … but they finally figured out a good interface.

The selection of Audio books available is in 2018 quite good. Better than in the past. I have no problem finding things I want to read.

I wait anywhere from 2 – 12 weeks for a book to arrive. The library sends email notification when it’s available.

Death of the Demon by Anne Holt

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Anne Holt  is a Norwegian author, lawyer and former Minister of Justice.

Not super impressed with book 1 in her Hanne Wilhelmsen murder mystery series, I — none the less — tried a second book.

Who stabbed Agnes Vestavik, fortysomething director of one of Norway’s few residential facilities for children, the Spring Sunshine Foster Home? Among the murder suspects is 12 year old Olav Håkonsen.

Holt’s a good writer but again I found the pacing of the very interesting plot too slow.

I started with Holt wanting to learn more about Norway. Through two books I learned nothing about her nation. It’s as if she deliberately keeps the setting generic.

It’s not Nordic noir.

I won’t read Holt again.

I’m the Messenger by Markus Zusak

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Impressed with his wordsmithery in The Book Thief, I downloaded another Zusak.

The Messenger (2002) … was released in the United States under the name I Am the Messenger.

Four 20-year-old slacker friends in small town Australia spend their nights playing cards and days slacking … or working menial jobs.

Bewilderingly, the protagonist — Ed Kennedy — is drawn into a mystery where he must solve riddles and change the lives of other people in town.

Like Book Thief, it’s original and creative.

Most people enjoy this book.

Some are turned off by the silly plot.

It did keep me going.

Surprisingly Zusak has not published since Book Thief 2005. He plans to release Bridge of Clay in Oct 2018.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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The Book Thief is a 2005 historical novel by Australian author Markus Zusak and is his most popular work. …

I finally got around to reading this acclaimed novel.

Zusak intended it for the young adult market, yet the language is sophisticated. Almost poetic. He’s an excellent writer.

Quite original. The narrator is death.

Most people love the book but I wasn’t totally won over.

It’s about a young girl living in a small town near Munich with her adoptive German family during the Nazi era.

Taught to read by her kind-hearted foster father, the girl begins “borrowing” books and sharing them with the Jewish refugee being sheltered by her foster parents in their home …

It was adapted into a 2013 feature film of the same name. …

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 46% …

I didn’t bother downloading.

It’s about Liesel (Sophie Nelisse), the orphaned 12-year-old daughter of German communist activists, taken in by a middle-aged couple in 1938.

She and the smitten boy next door Rudy (Nico Liersch) join the Hitler Youth and goose-step around town burning books and fetishising der Führer as little twinges of conscience and doubt slowly begin to manifest themselves.

Then her adoptive parents Hans and Rosa (Geoffrey Rush, all twinkly grandpa, and Emily Watson, super-grouchy but with a heart of gold) take in and hide the Jewish son of the man who saved Hans’s life in the Great War. …

Guardian – movie review

Memory Man by David Baldacci

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This is the first book I’ve read by Baldacci. He is a good story teller.

Memory Man is a crime novel about a man whose wife, daughter and brother in law were murdered …

… the first novel to feature new character Amos Decker …

Decker is 6′ 5″ and an obese 350 lbs.

His partner is a chain smoking anorexic.

Click PLAY or watch the author interviewed on YouTube.

After a mass shooting at a local high school, Decker is asked to assist in solving the case by the local police force he used to work for. It soon becomes apparent that the shooting is somehow related to the killing of his family 18 months before. …

I did enjoy the book. It kept me guessing.

That said, I probably won’t continue with Decker. He’s just not compelling enough for me.

Armada by Ernest Cline

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I loved the book Ready Player One (2011) by Ernest Cline.

The movie Ready Player One was … OK.

But I assumed Cline’s second book would be great as well.

Armada is a science fiction novel (2015) … is about a teenager who plays an online video game about defending against an alien invasion, only to find out that the game is a simulator to prepare him and people around the world for defending against an actual alien invasion.

Right away I wondered if it would be an inferior version of Ender’s Game.

It’s Ender’s Game with a twist.

Similar to Ready Player it’s about Gamer kids and retro Pop Culture. That part I liked.

Sci Fi technology I liked.

But the plot — set over one day — is stupid. Not believable in the way I found Ready Player believable.

GoodReads has it only 3.5 stars despite big hype on release. I agreed with Ariel:

Believe me when I say I was ready to love this book. Ready Player One was so great! And this was about video games and alien invasions! I jumped in to Armada ready to be caught by an awesome net..

.. and instead fell flat on my face. On concrete. And then a piano fell on me.

Read some Amazon reviews.

Skip this book. Wait for the movie.

I HATE WAR

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Having not had family or friends die stupidly, needlessly in war, I’ve gotten complacent about just how horrible it can be.

The true story of Louis Zamperini should be a lesson to us all.

UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand is a fantastic book.

In late May 1943, the B-24 carrying the 26-year-old Zamperini went down over the Pacific.

For nearly seven weeks — longer, Hillenbrand believes, than any other such instance in recorded history — Zamperini and his pilot managed to survive on a fragile raft. They traveled 2,000 miles, only to land in a series of Japanese prison camps, where, for the next two years, Zamperini underwent a whole new set of tortures. …

NY Times book review

Click PLAY or see the author on YouTube.

Zamperini grew up in Torrance, Calif., a juvenile delinquent saved by sport. He developed into a world-class runner who eventually competed at the 1936 Olympics where he asked Hitler for a photo.

The author believes Zamperini MIGHT have been first to break the 4 minute mile if he had had a little more time training.

The bulk of the story is two and a half years as a prisoner of war in three brutal Japanese prisoner-of-war camps.

Mutsuhiro Watanabe  – nicknamed by his prisoners as “the Bird” – was the psychopath who tortured Zamperini.

Less than 2% of Americans held in German prisoner of war camps died. It was 30-40% mortality in the Japanese camps.

Right after finishing the book I watched the film. (2014)

It was produced and directed by Angelina Jolie.

The movie made money but only has 51% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s about right. It’s OK. But don’t go out of your way to see it.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

If you read the book first, you’ll be disappointed. The story is simplified and changed because HOLLYWOOD.

I should say the actor who played The Bird — Japanese musician Miyavi — was superb. Very close to the evil devil from the book.