Book Blog

d‘Artagnan puts it best- “Ah, my friends, it is not civil wars which disunite us; it is that we are all twenty years older. The loyal outbursts of youth have gone, and given place to the din of interests, the breath of ambition, and the counsels of egotism.” It”s been twenty years since the events of The Three Musketeers and time has not suited the famous friends. d’Artagnan is still a lieutenant in the musketeers. Porthos has gained a country estate but not the respect his neighbors. Aramis has taken the cloth and pines for his adventurous youth. And Athos, […]

Another guest review by my dear ol’ da. I’m stuck in the second book of the Thrones (why do I keep reading gigantic monster books?) So I’ll keep bringing in guests (and writing about old favorites) until I can get caught up. But anyway, here’s another book review for you… The first two books of a planned trilogy that covers the first half of the 20th century. This twofer follows the members of five separate families (English, Welsh, Russian, German, and American)  as they experience love, wars, depression, revolution, and all the political currents that ran through this period. I […]

Jared Diamond got a lot of flak for Collapse, and I got a Dale Carnegie pen for it. That’s the way the world works. For Guns, Germs, and Steel, he got a Pulitzer. So, the basics of the book: mankind spreads outwards from Africa. One wave goes east, along the coasts of India, up the long Russian coast, over the Bering Strait and spilling over the Americas (like Sherwin Williams covers the earth). The other wave moves north and west, settling Europe (as if religious wars, strife and a crushing feudal system can be termed “settling”). In the process, we […]

On my first day as a rocket scientist at Nasa, they jammed me into a pod with a fireball of a secretary, a wiry blonde with  a winning smile and a very sharp personality. After she marked her turf (and scared me silly), it came out that we were both writers. Lynn Perry and I have been friends ever since. So here is her take on Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s classic. I am a reader….my bulging book shelves, decades old library card and financially abused Kindle account reflect my love of books.  Most recently, I reached into history and re-read The […]

It’s easy to hate House Lannister. After all, they murdered the rightful King. They throw kids off roofs. They behead main characters. They are mercenary and cunning and bad to the bone. And now Queen Cersei has planted her slightly bastardinous (if not incestuously-created) son Joffrey on the throne. Judging from the number of self-crowned kings that spring up (four, at least, not counting Daenerys lurking off in the east with her three dragons), I’m not alone in hating them. Oh, we have battles galore, small skirmishes, sieges, and expeditions beyond the northern wall. We’ve got politics. We’ve got intrigue. […]

Another Dad-review. If you were wondering where I got my voracious appetite for books, now you know. Why he has forsaken beloved paper for that glowing screen of electrons, I can’t say. Imagine, if you will, one day the field is empty, the next the circus is there.  A cluster of black and white striped tents surrounded by a tall iron fence.  You go to the main entrance where a sign states simply “Gate opens at Nightfall, closes at Dawn.”  Over the entrance in Baroque letters is “Le Cirque des Reves. You wait impatiently for sundown when the gate opens […]

Okay, so we’ll start with the turnoff – the suspense. It’s so thick, you can cut it with a knife. Actually, you could shovel it with a snow shovel. Intelligence officer Rachel Sexton (how subliminal!) is told that there is something wonderfully amazing just beyond the next chapter. What this wonderfully amazing thing is, we don’t know. She is led by the nose, first by her boss, then the President of the United States, then by an F-14 pilot, all the way up to the Arctic Circle. All for this wonderfully amazing thing. What is it? You’ll have to go […]

I can just see how this came about: Michael Crichton sitting around one night, watching a documentary about all the insect life in a rain forest and some of the amazing ways bugs find to eat other bugs. And he’s thinking, Hmmmm. What if I introduced really small humans into this world? At least Fantastic Voyage had a bit more premise. So the thought is that an evil corporation needs to shrink work teams down to explore all the amazing lifeforms, drugs and properties of Hawaiian rain forests (which is like saying that someone develops commercial air transportation just to […]

Another guest review, again from my dad (who apparently grinds through books at a predaceous rate in his peaceful retirement). The point is, the guest review is supposed to give me a break while I get books I’m reading read. Now I’m interested in reading this myself. Perhaps I’ll read it and post my views… All of the human race lives in a concrete silo sunk 150 stories into the ground of a ruined and desolate planet. The ruined land is swept by toxic winds and corrosive dust, nothing can live on the surface. The only part of the silo […]

I’ve mentioned this book-elf before, a dynamic reader, writer, and good friend Lynn Perry. She’s penned (or is that key-boarded) another good review, this time for a Nora Roberts story. Enjoy!   Well, if you think Ms Roberts authors books aimed mostly about and for women, think again.  Whiskey Beach delves deeply into  life of Eli Landon, a Boston criminal attorney accused of killing his wife in a fit of jealous rage. Though there is not enough evidence to convict Mr. Landon, there are those that believe he committed the murder and got away with it.  Although judged innocent of […]