Category: books

World Travel by Anthony Bourdain (2021)

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

Said to be written by Bourdain — his longtime assistant Laurie Woolever actually only had one meeting about this book with her boss before he killed himself at the age of 61 in June 2018. 

A shocking end to one of our favourite travel and food gurus.

But Bourdain had long talked about writing a summing-up travel book, highlighting his favourite foods, cultures, meals and destinations. Woolever made it happen.

The book includes short summaries of 43 destinations from his many years filming Parts Unknown and No Reservations.

Profane, opinionated and often hilarious.

Bourdain was a tough guy. But travel opened his eyes. He wanted to tell the truth, to challenge the powerful, to expose wrongdoing. He’d call out racism at every opportunity.

He championed industrious Spanish-speaking immigrants—from Mexico, Ecuador, and other Central and South American countries—who are cooks and chefs in many United States restaurants,

Amazon – World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, April 20, 2021

In the Garden of Beasts (Hitler’s Berlin) by Erik Larson

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Erik Larson is one of our best non-fiction writers.

The Devil in the White City is the best of his books I’ve read, so far.

This one is excellent too. An inside early look at Berlin under the physically unimpressive Adolf Hitler and his lickspittles.

WW II would result in 70–85 million dead, or about 3% of the 1940 world population. Hitler personally responsible for many of those millions.

He committed suicide April 30, 1945. Could Hitler have been stopped earlier?

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin is the true story of American Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, particularly the years 1933 to 1937 when he and his family, including his daughter Martha, lived in Berlin. …

Martha, separated from her husband and in the process of divorce, became caught up in the glamor and excitement of Berlin’s social scene and had a series of liaisons, most of them sexual, including among them Gestapo head Rudolf Diels and Soviet attaché and secret agent Boris Vinogradov. 

In fact, daughter Martha was once presented to Hitler. One of the Führer’s henchmen hoped the dictator would be attracted. An American concubine would make his hateful regime more palatable to the USA.

Not a Happy Family by Shari Lapena

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Whodunnit?

Agatha Christie would like this book.

Shari Lapena is one of the best murder mystery writers working today.

Fred and Sheila Merton are brutally murdered the night after an Easter dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated.

Or are they?

They each stand to inherit millions. …

Readers try to eliminate suspects one at a time.

The Painter by Peter Heller

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Excellent. Art. Philosophy. Violence.

And fly fishing.

“Peter Heller is the poet laureate of the literary thriller.” —Michael Koryta

Painter is my second Heller book, I liked this one better than The Guide.

I’ll read more from this author. Original and surprising. Opposite of the formulaic and predictable books of Baldacci, for example.

Jim Stegner is a troubled, brilliant artist.

He flees the art scene of Santa Fe to start fresh in the valleys of rural Colorado.

Here he spends his days painting and fly fishing, trying to find a way to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him.

But one afternoon, on a dirt road, Jim comes across a man beating a small horse, and a brutal encounter rips his quiet life wide open. …

PeterHeller.net

The Blackhouse by Peter May

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I recommend this book published 2011.

Though Peter May is award winning and very prolific, this is the first of his many books that I’ve read.

The Blackhouse is a suspense thriller, first novel of The Lewis Trilogy, written by the Scottish writer Peter May.

The action takes place mostly on the remote and weather-beaten Isle of Lewis off the coast of northern Scotland.

Detective Inspector Finlay Macleod (known as Fin), a native of the island, is sent from his Edinburgh police station to investigate the murder …

One unique thread is the annual guga hunt. Men from Fin’s village of Ness sail end of summer to the tiny rock island of Sula Sgeir. They harvest a maximum of 2,000 gannet chicks (known as gouge) from their nests. That’s been a tradition since well before 1549.

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

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Very skillfully constructed.

Sophie is a mystery writer (like Jewell) who reluctantly moves to the country because her husband took a new job.

She finds a sign nailed to a nearby fence with an arrow and the words “Dig Here”.

She does. And it begins to unravel the mystery of a young couple that disappeared a year earlier.

Flashbacks take us back.

I would say the book could have been shorter. Jewell would be better with a more ruthless editor.

Still. Recommended.

The Way Home by Mark Boyle

On By Rick McIn books, philosophy1 Comment

GREAT book. Excellent and entertaining writing.

The audio book is even better, by my favourite reader Gerald Doyle.

Mark did not touch cash for over 3 years, writing about his experience in The Moneyless Man.

Later, he tried living with as little modern technology as possible.

It was 11pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever.

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce.

In this honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life without modern technology, Mark Boyle explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the spring, foraging and fishing.

What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire – much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

oneworld-publications

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Hit by David Baldacci

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Book 2 in the Will Robie series.

Baldacci is not nearly my favourite author. BUT this book really kept me interested from start to finish.

A highly skilled assassin, Robie is the man the U.S. government calls on to eliminate the worst of the worst–enemies of the state …

No one else can match Robie’s talents as a hitman…no one, except Jessica Reel. A fellow assassin, equally professional and dangerous, Reel is every bit as lethal as Robie. And now, she’s gone rogue, turning her gun sights on other members of their agency.

To stop one of their own, the government looks again to Will Robie. His mission: bring in Reel, dead or alive. Only a killer can catch another killer, they tell him. …

Amazon

Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

On By Rick McIn books, TVLeave a comment

I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book.

It’s not historical fiction, however. The olde English dialogue is anachronistic.

But for some reason, the story works.

Anticipate an adaptation for the screen.

Two time frames:

Late 1700s London. An apothecary who sells poisons only to kill misbehaving men. And her curious 12-year-old assistant.

Modern day London. An American woman who’s whose marriage is disintegrating — by chance — decides to investigate the apothecary.

Amazon

Lookout: Love, Solitude, and Searching for Wildfire by Trina Moyles  

On By Rick McIn books, climate change, hikingLeave a comment

Trina Moyles is a northern Alberta woman who decided to write a book about climate change and the resulting increase in forest fires.

Forest fires are one of the few outdoor “dangers” that truly worries me when hiking and cycling.

Over several 5-month summers alone in fire towers, it evolved into more of a life memoir.

And Trina has had a very interesting life.

While searching for smoke, Trina unravels under the pressure of a long-distance relationship–and a dawning awareness of the environmental crisis that climate change is producing in the boreal. Through megafires, lightning storms, and stunning encounters with wildlife, she learns to survive at the fire tower by forging deep connections with nature and with an extraordinary community of people dedicated to wildfire detection and combat. In isolation, she discovers a kind of self-awareness–and freedom–that only solitude can deliver.  …

Amazon

I learned a lot. And found the book very entertaining.

Canadian Geographic REVIEW.