Category: books

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

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A story of date rape.

Jon Krakauer wrote a book that much influenced my thinking:

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

The book follows several case studies of women raped in Missoula, Montana, many of them linked in some way to the University of Montana. 

Many of the rapists were football players, protected from the justice system.

In Beartown, the 15-year-old daughter of a small town Swedish hockey team general manager is raped by the 17-year-old star of the Beartown junior team.

Fredrik Backman is an excellent writer. This is an important book, as is the Krakauer.

Themes of family, friendship, loyalty. Ethics.

I recommend Beartown.

I also read the sequel, Us Against You. Not nearly as good.

The book was adapted for TV and is available on HBO.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Lighthouse Land by Adrian McKinty

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I love the McKinty books.

But his stab at science fiction young adult novels somehow doesn’t work for me.

The Lighthouse Land was first in the trilogy. I got through it — but won’t continue with the next two.

They would be great for young teens.

The Mosquito Coast – season 1

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The Mosquito Coast is based on the novel of the same name by Paul Theroux published in 1981.

It also loosely adapted from the 1986 film which starred Harrison Ford. It premiered on Apple TV+ on April 30, 2021. 

The series stars Justin Theroux, nephew of Paul …

As with many of the Apple TV shows, it’s very well done.

I recommend it. But many find the plot unnecessarily confusing with too many twists and turns.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Season 2 will take the family to some place like where Harrison Ford ended up.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

In the Cart by Anton Chekhov

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One of the great short stories, “In the Cart” was published 1897.

The author was aware of the dire conditions which teachers had to live in rural Russia.

I listened to a lecture on the tale from a book by George Saunders, professor at Syracuse University — A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

Sooley by John Grisham

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John Grisham takes you to a different kind of court in his first basketball novel.

Samuel “Sooley” Sooleymon is a raw, young talent with big hoop dreams—and even bigger challenges off the court. …

In the summer of his seventeenth year, Sam­uel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basket­ball tournament. …

During the tournament, Samuel receives dev­astating news from home: A civil war is raging across South Sudan, and rebel troops have ran­sacked his village. His father is dead, his sister is missing, and his mother and two younger brothers are in a refugee camp.

Samuel desperately wants to go home, but it’s just not possible. Partly out of sympathy, the coach of North Carolina Central offers him a scholar­ship. …

But how far can Sooley take his team? And will success allow him to save his family?

JGrisham.com

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Bosch – season 7

On By Rick McIn books, TV1 Comment

The seventh and final season was released on June 25, 2021.

I’d say it was the best of all.

In this one Harry refuses to let the death of a ten-year-old girl be traded away in a plea deal.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

An as-yet-untitled spinoff series for Amazon’s IMDb TV was announced on March 3, 2021, featuring Welliver along with much of the Bosch creative team.

Madison Lintz will return as Harry’s daughter, Maddie, and Bosch recurring character defense attorney Honey “Money” Chandler, played by Mimi Rogers, will also be a main character.

In the new series, Bosch, now retired from the LAPD, will work as an investigator for Chandler. 

The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse

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I was intrigued by the setting. A scary mountain hotel during a blizzard.

OUTLINE:

Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.

An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin’s taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept. …

Then the murders began.

Super hyped, I thought this would be another intriguing psychological thriller whodunit. Surprise after surprise.

But it’s actually not well written. Heavy handed. Zero subtlety.

Also, Elin Warner must be the very worst detective on earth.

Almost everyone likes The Sanatorium, but I’d concur it’s a lousy book with a bad ending.

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

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I really liked the first Backman book I read, so started to reserve more from my library.

He’s popular. So it takes weeks to get any of his novels.

Us Against You was published 2018.

It’s set in a small Swedish town — Beartown — that is hockey crazed.

In some ways, that reminded me of small towns in the USA that care far too much about High School football.

One of the star players is convicted of rape. Other players move to a rival town team in protest.

Beartown’s team could be disbanded.

Overall I’d say Us Against You is good. Not great.

But I will continue with Backman.

The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell

On By Rick McIn books, philosophyLeave a comment

The final book in the Kurt Wallander series was published 2009.

The author dying of cancer while he wrote it, I believe.

For me the story was mostly a look at aging and dying. The meaning of life.

The plot was inspired by the submarine incursions into Swedish territorial waters between 1982 and 1983, which Mankell considered the worst scandal in Swedish political history.

Though slower and even more philosophical than the rest, I still enjoyed the book — sad that it was the end for Wallander and the end for Mankell.

Henning Mankell

The only story I haven’t heard yet is a novella — An Event in Autumn — not available in audio on my services.

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour

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In post-Reconstruction United States, Black Buck or “Black Bull” was sometimes used as a racial slur.

Black Buck is also a critically acclaimed debut novel by Mateo Askaripour. (2020)

Askaripour was a successful tech-sales guy. By age-24, he was managing a team of 30 people and earning a six-figure salary.

Had problems turning into a full-time author. No agent. No book deal.

He tried and failed for several years.

Finally he wrote this book about a successful BLACK tech-sales guy.

Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother’s home-cooked meals.

All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor. …

Amazon

Today he’s a literary star, already writing the TV screenplay.

I quite enjoyed the first half of the novel, but QUIT at 50%. Got fed up with the story when things started to go wrong.

Click PLAY or watch an interview with the author on YouTube.