Sara Plevel

Andrew Vachss is an acquired taste. People often find him excessively graphic or unrealistic. He is neither. I find it interesting that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo can come to the international attention of readers, and have an almost similar level of graphic violence and details thereof. While Vachss has been patiently spinning his cautionary and descriptions of the undertow tales for years.
I think the main difference is that it is easier to feel sympathy for Larsson???s characters. They are for the main good people, who fight adversity. Without spoiling, even the main character in Larsson???s books ends up being a victim and one can justify her actions. Perhaps not agree with them, but understand her motives.
I read my first of Vachss??? books on a recommendation several years ago; I haven???t looked back. He does grit like a Vermeer painting.
His main character is an antihero. He is a thief, a con, a man who lives a life under the radar. He doesn???t evoke much sympathy. After the life that formed him into the man he is, he retains one redeeming quality. He saves kids. He saves the ones the cops can???t find and can???t get to. He is the embodiment of the pain every public servant feels when he or she knows the person is guilty, but can???t make it stick and has to walk away. Burke is the avenging Doberman Pincher of vengeance wish made by those public servants - turned flesh and blood.
He goes into those places that no search warrant will open and he metes out the just deserts that the pederasts deserve.
The characters return, wafting into one book and out of another. There are a few supporting characters that are a joy to encounter whenever we see them. There is one in particular that I would love to see again. I suspect Vachss will just keep her hidden for all time.
Another Life is a Burke novel. Not his best, in my opinion, but definitely a solid thriller, filled with the murky slime that isn???t seen by the streetlights and building safety cameras. His family is a team as well. They use their skills together and solve the unsolvable, by methods that most of us could not even imagine exists, let alone consider utilizing. Very intricate use of characters to solve specific problems ??? a definite strong point with Vachss??? work.
The thing I admire most about Vachss??? books is his willingness to tell some of the worst stories known to man, and make people sit up and look! He wrote about sex trafficking and the internet years before it became a popular theme on television.
If you haven???t read any Vachss, start with Shella or one of his short story collections ??? Born Bad is excellent.

Much like Six Glasses that Changed the World and other historical specific books, this one is a fun cruize through history in 15 cars.

The background story on how cars are developed.

spoiler - but it was good :)

No, it was fine to listen to back and forth to work. I enjoyed it.

Design, Engineering, Speed, Safety, Fuel and the Presidency of the United States all in one well read package.

The understanding of how French law views patents and how section on how the FDA got their fangs.

He sounded engaged.

Well researched and interesting. Very 'readable'.

Jim Colby's reading was fine. I would listen to another book he read. As for Chuck Palahniuk I am not sure I would read another of his books.

I would recommend it to certain friends, it has some interesting questions to pose.

N/A

I believe it has been. I have not seen it.

The writing was well done. The crudity, debasement and psychosis were abundant. The characters were interesting, the story had some original elements.

Equally good. The narrator does a fine job and the book takes to its audio form very nicely.

The weekend of development. An idea, a group of young men and an amalgam of dreams come to life.

Joseph Kavalier

Can't see a change for this one.

Well done story, excellent characters and very well researched. It felt very real, very lifelike and was very well written.

*a few modest pseduo-spoilers*


This is a debut novel for author Daniel O???Malley. I liked the story; it was well worth reading and had some interesting twists on ideas about our supernatural history and how we view it. The author took his degree in history so that makes sense.

I gave the author 3 rather than 2.5 stars because it is a debut and I see opportunity for interesting story lines and characters. I did not go further because I found myself grinding my teeth at a few things. I am an avid reader of fantasy and I like urban fantasy very much. I did like this book, mostly.

The Rook is a position, a title. The position is held by a young woman with singular skills. Singular, but surrounded by other talented individuals. There is of course an enemy, a rival gang as it were. There is a series of small struggles and a large struggle and then a not utterly unpredictable ending. Rather like an English X-Men with more history. Is it a case of good vs. evil or power vs. power? A good way to open a series, allowing for many interesting plot developments.

I am not sure that the reader really brought the best light of the book out, but this could be because of my issues with the language used by some characters. Not complaining about swearing but about appropriateness of vocabulary. It really stuck out to me.

My problems with the book begin with the language. When these highly trained, professional persons/beings are speaking to one another they often use ???slovenly??? language. ???yeah??? being an answer given by several characters to questions. It seemed so very odd and wrong for these people. If you are going to build a super spy MI5/CIA organization, expressly say that they have been trained to a very high standard educationally as well as being well versed in the lethal arts; in a school for gifted youngsters, well, then they should sound educated. Executive types don???t say ???yeah??? like a surly teen and their subordinates certainly would not answer questions thusly. This is an example. I felt the tone needed to be ???tonier???. I know ??? write your own book and use whatever tone you like ??? yeah yeah yeah.

I thought that too many loose ends were left flapping around like the tentacles from one of the other gang???s operatives. At least a hint perhaps that we will be finding out more in the future would be nice.

Bourdain's reading of his book was outstanding. The information was a tad disjointed. I felt as if I had just gotten up from a long conversation at the table with the author, rather than read his book. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

One of the most well traveled and interesting men on the planet writes a book about what he thinks is interesting, who is good at cooking (and why) as well as seeking a modicum of respect for the service/cooking staff that work to create our dining experiences. He also has some cogent and pithy information about food itself.

I was drawn in immediately by the language. The characters were beautifully crafted and resonated as very real. Their problems were both universal and selective as defined by class.

A teensy semi-spoiler at the very end - FYI


The apartment building is a hive, with its layers of bees on each level. All know where they belong and where everyone else belongs. They are secure and in control. One change, one person, one apartment and the hive begins to lose the tensile strength that holds up the structure of who is who and where they belong.
The references to literature, philosophy, film and art were a delight. The author handles them with a delicate hand and is deft in making them a part of the character???s world.
I enjoyed the book very much until the end.




I deduct two entire stars for that worthless, trite and absolutely pi??tre qualit?? ending.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

2.5 stars The loosey goosey logical leaps and lunges made me drop a star.
With a limited respect, or really even a nod towards logic Tom Standage takes one on a fun romp through history utilizing broad generalizations and sweeping rationalization to make points about how the various drinks mankind has preferred have effected human history.
Beer, wine, coke, tea, coffee and water.
Some historical points are well made, i.e. the addition of lemon to the mixture grog for English sailors did make them healthier than their wine swilling French counterparts, as they were not riddled with scurvy (probably syphilis, the clap and other things, but not scurvy)
It was entertaining, not particularly serious. Let us say a peek at history via a very narrow tunnel.

A dusty baseball field in a podunk town and two men???s fates collide. Sound familiar? The stage may be familiar, but the story is not.
Harbach delivers a well written story with an interesting foray into some classic American literature as a backdrop. The unsuspecting Henry is noticed by Schwartz and from that turn of the head, that one minute of pause to watch something that caught the edge of his attention, lives are changed. Henry???s working class family is not impressed with Henry???s announcement that he will be playing college ball. Another encounter, this one taken with purpose in mind changes the attitude of Henry???s father. Henry is off to college in a rather unprepared whirlwind.
It is a story of many friendships, many loves, many families and how the warp and weave of their lives make the fabric of the story. The ending is not pat or easy. The characters were believable and interesting.
It is a good story. Worthy on its own as a really decent piece of literature and as a baseball story, the book delivers a good read.

I mostly liked this book, I liked that it took place in Ethiopia, a place I knew relatively nothing about. I thought the characters were well developed and the story was worth telling, original elements and a good job at creating the ???place.??? I enjoyed the language and the detailed look the author imbued with flavor, color and texture.

Cutting for Stone is a story of consequences. It comes off a bit on the preachy side, to my mind, an inordinate amount of unhappiness falls on people for singular sexual missteps.

The story takes place in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, a place that rolls off the tongue of the reader like poetry, lilting and lovely. The hospital is called Missing, because according to the author, Ethiopians have a hard time pronouncing mission. An Ethiopian filled out the paperwork to the government, and Missing it stayed.

Like most mission hospitals, it is understaffed, under funded and overly abused by the local government. They managed to do some good medicine, that being defined by the fact that they would have none otherwise.

Sister Mary Joseph Praise. A Carmelite nursing nun from India, sent by an overzealous mother superior to Ethiopia to give succor to the needy (like there aren???t enough needy people in India) and a companion nun set out. They are sent by cargo boat to save money on the passage. This is taking place just after Ghandi wrested India out of the hands of the English, so an English surgeon was on the boat, going to Ethiopia to ply his trade. They meet there initially and during a bout of some sort of illness he becomes aware of her skill.

They part, and about a year later Sister Mary turns up at Missing. No questions are asked. Matron of Missing can use a well trained nurse, and Sister Mary becomes invaluable as an operating partner to Dr. Stone. Years roll on.

Not to spoil everything. Twin sons are born, their birth is a precarious thing and they are almost crushed to death in the effort to spare the mother???s life. Dr. Stone, the father of the boys disappears.

The boys grow and thrive. Another child is introduced into the mix, a girl. The foster parents are a sub-story that is lovely and well worth reading. A schism occurs and the boys are estranged, as well as the girl. The girl does something so incredibly stupid that it endangers the life of one of the young men, now in medical school. He must flee to the United States.

He acquires his surgical training. I really want to leave it here, because anything else is an absolute spoiler.