The Bane Chronicles

The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare,  Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson              Audio Book: 13 Hours, 8 minutes     Hardback Book:   507 pages         

I read once that reincarnation could explain why people are attracted to whom they are, why people sometimes feel trapped in the body they are because they feel the call of a different person inside them.     Magnus Bane has lived for centuries and had various lovers over the course of his life both male and female.    Immortals tend to have that ethereal quality to their personalities they are not limited by mere mortal constraints as to who they bestow their love upon.  Immortality seems to loosen the inhibitions.    Magnus Bane, a warlock is also a fixer.    Magnus can magically alleviate problems, be they historical and epic (think French Revolution) or more mundane (think black outs, bar fights).    He is a true connoisseur  of the good things in life and how to truly give pleasure and love another person.     Magnus is witty and funny sometimes you will laugh out loud while enjoying his tales and believe me in his long life there are many stories and views of historical events that the author will take you right there to the moment where you will feel you are an actual observer and at times almost a voyeur!  J    A fun read and a brilliant introduction to a many faceted character.    After sharing his experiences during Prohibition you will want a Mimosa to toast him with or at the very least a nice fizzy phosphate.    Great character development of all the folks you will meet in this story, lovely history lessons giving you a peek at what it must have been like to be there.    Good stories, great fun and hilarious dialogue whenever Magnus is involved.

Never Split the Difference

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss           Audio Book:  8 hours   Paperback: 288 pages        

Good read written by a former FBI hostage negotiatior out of Kansas City, MO, who now runs the Black Swan Group a consulting group that offers negotiating advice to groups world wide.    Chris Voss is also a sought after speaker and is a professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business and Georgetown U’s McDonough School of Business.    The cases this man has been a hostage negotiator on are straight out of the news, he has been involved in some aspect of pretty much every major negotiating situation the FBI has dealt with during his career with them.    He discusses these events and gives the reader a clear view of both the hostage taker’s point of view and the tactic used to speak to each of the perpetrators in ways that has led to amicable release of hostages and lives saved.   He teaches you what verbal cues to listen for and how best to respond to make the other person come to your side of reasoning.    Once you learn the strategies involved in working out where the other person is coming from, if they are telling the truth or lying, even in dire circumstances amicable ends can be reached and the other person may even believe they reached the conclusion on their own without your swaying them in any way.   Now that is some trick to bring another person to your way of thinking and leave them thinking it was all their idea in the first place and you were the one that went along with them.    Not too shabby, Chris Voss.    He keeps things really interesting all the way through, whether citing cases he worked or helping the reader to understand the logic behind another person’s actions, words and/or reactions.   I bet his classes are fascinating.    This book will teach you a lot and will make you look at negotiating all things in a new light.

Wordbirds

Wordbirds by Liesl Schillinger   224 pages.

"If you’ve escaped binary confinement and find yourself rushing cell-mell to a clusterfete— slurpwalking as you commutikaze—then who are you?

You are a typical citizen of the young millennium, caught up in the fast-paced megatasking socio-professional whirl of our ever-evolving digitally-enhanced lives.

If you’ve ever wondered what to call it when you answer the TV remote instead of the phone, or wished you had a phrase to capture your supervisor’s stealth campaign to stall your career, here is your guide. Now you can say “Oops, droidian slip!” with ease, and call out your boss for the impedimentor that he is. Armed with Wordbirds, you will be able to skillfully talk your way into, or out of, any situation the twenty-first century throws at you."

I couldn't have come up with a better summary.  In this beautifully illustrated book, the author takes us, term by term, through chapters such as "fashion and style," "friends, frenemies and fellow students," "domestic life," and more. The terms are stated, shown in a sentence and accompanied by a beautiful bird illustration.  I found many of these that would be fun to use in my everyday conversations, and some where the picture was pretty enough to frame.  Some of them definitely made me laugh, like this one, for "rotter."

Rotter (n.) 'rah-tur  The plastic drawer in a refrigerator where fresh vegetables are put away to keep "crisp," but where, hidden away, they typically decay until they become foul sludge.

This is an example of an illustration.  Nice, yes?

Back in the Saddle

Back in the Saddle by Ruth Logan Herne      304 pages

Years ago, Colt, the oldest of the Strafford brothers, left the Double S Ranch for Wall Street. He exchanged his boots for wingtips and became successful. But one bad investment, and his world came crashing down around his ears. Readers aren’t privy to Colt’s demise, but Herne provides enough information that readers can’t help but know if they’ve read a newspaper or heard a news report. He has come to the Double S. Not only due to his setback, but the family patriarch, Sam, is ailing.

The Double S’s housekeeper is the beautiful Angelina Morales. She not only cooks and cleans, but helps with Sam. She has secrets of her own that she’s trying to hide. She is well-respected by the Strafford clan and those who live in Gray’s Glen, Washington. It’s a tiny town, made up of ranchers and small business people.

There is no love lost between the town and Sam Strafford, who had always been more interested in creating an empire than paying attention to his boys or other people. 

Spark start to fly the moment Colt and Angelina meet…and they both feel them. I loved that Back in the Saddle is not your typical romance where boy meets girl, they hate each, boy and girl fall in love. There isn’t much conflict in the first half of the novel. It’s not all bad considering that this is the first book in a series. Herne does an excellent job in allowing readers to get to know who the characters are, so I’m sure that they’ll be popping up in other novels. Still, that slow, slow beginning is why Back in the Saddle receives 4 stars out of 5 in Julie’s world.

This is Book One in the Double S Ranch Series.

 I received the book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

Out of the Ashes

Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture by Anthony Esolen, 193 pages

Anthony Esolen's examination of our current cultural collapse casts it as the consequence of a wholesale flight from reality - a preoccupation with what we can make of things which blinds us to the nature of things as they are.  The only cure, then, is a renewed commitment to truth - truth about good and evil, beauty and ugliness, human nature and the nature of the world around us.  That means confronting what he calls the "higher cant", the slogans, propagated with unprecedented power by the modern media and educational establishments, which serve to replace thinking.

As is frequently the case with Esolen, his contagious enthusiasm and far-ranging interests are accompanied by a lack of organization and focus, a combination which is alternately thrilling and frustrating.  It is easy to dismiss much of what he writes as tendentious - an unrealistically bucolic vision of the past contrasted with a rhetorically denigrated present.  Yet it is only possible to do so consistently from within the same narcotic cloud of unreality he seeks to disperse - his central argument is as reflexively simple as asserting that children ought to have childhoods, educators ought to educate, art ought to be beautiful, and that we should be defined more by the homes we build than by the work we do.

Marlena

Marlena by Julie Buntin.  288

To 15 year-old Cat, everything about the rural town in Michigan that her family has moved to is lonely and strange. However, when she meets Marlena, her beautiful, manic neighbor, all of that changes. Cat, desperate for a friend, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit. As the two girls turn their small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogs a list of firsts: first drink, first pill, first cigarette. Meanwhile, Marlena's habits intensify and within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of water in the woods nearby. Now, decades later, Cat is still trying to forgive herself and move on.

I liked this book well enough, although I found both of the characters to be off-putting. However, I liked the way that the author explored the relationship between the two girls, focusing on Cat and through Cat, showing Marlena's own struggles. The story has a palpable sense of slight unease because although it's revealed early on that Marlena has died (so that's not a spoiler above), you're not sure how things get to that point. You wonder how out of control she will get, and wonder if Cat will also spin out of control. Interesting story, although I don't see picking it up for a second read.

Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney.  304 pages

This novel centers on Frances, who is a 21 year-old college student and aspiring writer.  Devoted to a life of the mind, she is also devoted to her best friend, Bobbi. The two of them perform spoken-word poetry together in Dublin, where they meet Melissa, a journalist who wants to write an article about them. Drawn into Melissa's orbit, Frances is impressed by her home and life, as well as by Melissa's husband, Nick. When her flirtation with Nick turns into something more, Frances tries to keep her life in check and her relationship with Bobbi intact.

The summary on Goodreads says, "Written with gem-like precision and probing intelligence, Conversations With Friends is wonderfully alive to the pleasures and dangers of youth."   Personally, I found this book to be kind of boring.  It was interesting enough, but I never quite liked Frances and most of the time, kept reading because I was curious to see what would happen in the story. However, I felt like it just didn't live up to my expectations. I liked the author's writing style, but I found I lacked interest in the characters and after a while, the storyline.

Pimp: the story of my life

Pimp: The Story of My Life  by Iceberg Slim           Paperback: 302 pages            

I enjoy reading biographies of people.     Learning all the ins and outs of another person’s life is fascinating.    Learning what happened, what they experienced that has made them who they are.      From his rough childhood with his father who dealt a harsh discipline (hitting him so hard he hit the wall) to a better life with the next man in his mother’s life who treated him with love and respect like a real father only who he dearly loved and cherished the memory of him for the rest of his life only for his mother to leave this good man who treated them well and paid all the bills and gave them both everything they could ever want to go back to the streets with a vile man who told Iceberg when he was a preteen he had better get out or he would kill him.     When a mother chooses her lover over her child there is only one thing that child can do and that is to be raised by the streets and that is what happened to him.     So many dark things were endured by this dear child it is a wonder he made it to become a man.   And it is no wonder that he became hardened to life and did whatever he could to make money.   He learned from the older men on the streets how to turn a woman out to prostitution and how to keep one’s stable of  prostitutes in line and bringing in a steady flow of cash.    Iceberg Slim does not mince his words nor does he make apologies for what he did to survive.    He treated woman with love and hate sometimes simultaneously.    He did stints in prison, he learned to run cons both in the streets and from some of the older cats in the joint.  He was a quick learner and observer of life and how not to let the suckers get over on him nor to let any woman Georgia him, maybe a throw back from his mother taking him out of the one home environment that was stabile and away from the one man who he loved as a father who treated him as his son, at least that is what the prison psychiatrists said.  In later years he tried to live the life of a “Square” even married, had kids, loved his family and tried to make a living for his family.   Unfortunately it wasn’t to be.   He met with adversity every where he turned.   Thinking a career in sales would be right and easy for him (since he had sold women to johns for years) he was articulate and well dressed and fit the part but couldn’t get passed all those white suits that wouldn’t give him the opportunity to show what he could do in the straight world.   So, every time, he had to turn back to hustling to make a living and keep food on the table for his kids.    This was his day to day grind until the time he began to put his life stories down on paper and a new career awaited him as a prolific author.   There were so many stories to tell that Iceberg Slim is the author of many books and has left a legacy of his writing and what the soul can endure and keep on keeping on.   Rest in peace, Iceberg Slim.  

The Undead Pool

The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison     Audio Book:  16 hours, 15 mins.        Hardback:  423 pages        

What is not to love here?   A witch day walking demon in love with an Elf posing as a Werewolf, whose best friends are a vampire and a pixie with 6 kids (also pixies) that are constantly into everything and scurrying all over the place but always want to be in the midst of what’s going on so they can help.   Throw into the mix a Gargoyle who can be bribed with cookies.   And it all takes place in Cinncinnatti!     There is an insane goddess and mystic spirits that possess the Demon heroine.   The undead are in a sleep state and can’t seem to be awakened.   There is so much magic afoot and pixie dust afloat like I said what is not to love about this story?   I think I liked the language used the best, especially the main character’s best friend Jinks – he is hilarious.   A fun read.

Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis by JD Vance, 257 pages

Hillbilly Elegy is a tour through the childhood of its author, JD Vance, a childhood set in a world of crime, poverty, violence, substance abuse, mental illness, and shattered families.  From the revolving door of father figures to the preoccupation with respect to the outspoken religiosity to the feeling of being an outsider to mainstream American society, much of Vance's upbringing would not be out of place in a memoir of growing up in the inner city, except that his home was in a "holler" in the backwoods of Kentucky.  Not that Vance is interested in comparing narratives of victimhood or arguing about privilege - his goal is to describe the function and dysfunction of hillbilly America at the dawn of the 21st century through the lens of his own experience.  

It is this experience that is the heart of the book - Vance is wise enough to understand that the problems involved are as complex as life.  His observations do not fit into sociological boxes and do not result in a 6-point public policy proposal.  In his estimation, the crisis faced by his family and culture is not so much an economic crisis as a crisis of values, itself sparked by alienation and a loss of dignity in a society where poverty is considered a personal failing.  At one point, Vance recalls attending one of his mother's court hearings and noticing that the judge and lawyers all spoke with "newscaster accents" quite unlike those of his family and friends.  The sense that "people like us" don't hold positions of influence and authority, don't attend Ivy League schools or start successful businesses, dogged him for much of his life, and although he did eventually graduate from Yale and settle into a stable marriage, one of the major themes of the book is that he couldn't have done so without a great deal of help - beginning with his grandparents and sister and including sympathetic high school teachers, college professors, and the United States Marine Corps.  The lesson is that the only cure for a vicious culture is a virtuous culture, and the first virtue (Peguy's "little one who leads them all") is theological - hope.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story by John Berendt, 386 pages



The title relates to doing Voodoo magic. In the graveyard, the Voodoo to cause good is done before midnight and the part to cause bad is done after midnight. This book is part history of Savannah, GA, part about the people of Savannah, especially the upper class, and part true crime. John Berendt was living in NYC and starting traveling. He decided to start living in Savannah part-time which turned into most of the time. Most of the events in this book happened in the 1980s.


The people of Savannah like to drink and have their parties, are ok with their relative geographical isolation and like things the way they are. Some of the eccentric people include Mr. Glover, Emma Kelly, Luther Driggers, Joe Odom, and Lady Chablis. Mr. Glover "walks" a dog that died years ago. It turns out that after the owner died he was to be paid by the estate to walk the dog. The judge continues to pay him to "walk" the dog even though the dog has died. Emma Kelly is a woman in her 60s who is known as The Lady of 6,000, a title given to her by Johnny Mercer, travels around Georgia playing piano and singing. Luther Driggers glues filaments to his pets flies, attaches the filaments to his clothes and walks around town with them. It is well known around town that he has a poison he could put in the water supply to kill everyone. Joe Odom is a lawyer of questionable character who has parties on a nightly basis. He lives in a series of historic homes that he gives tours of (sometimes illegally), He also plays piano and sings. Lady Chablis is a transgender woman who had drag shows at a local club until she has a dispute with the owner and takes her show on the road.


Most of the book is about Jim Williams. He is not one of the blue bloods. He has made his own fortune through house restorations and as an antiques dealer. He restored and lives in the famous Mercer House. One night, he shoots and kills one of his employees, Danny Hansford. Danny was a troubled young man who lived with him. Was it premeditated, did events happy as Jim said they did or did he try to cover part of it up? There have been other cases of murder in Savannah that have not been prosecuted or the perpetrator has gotten off lightly but the new District Attorney decides to prosecute Jim on the charge of murder. In the end, Jim Williams is tried four times. To help win, Jim employs a Voodoo witch named Minerva.


I liked this book but the sections on the trials were not my favorite parts. I enjoyed reading about the city of Savannah - its culture, history and people. I would recommend this to people who like true crime or are interested in finding out more about these parts of Savannah.


This book was turned into a movie starring Kevin Spacey and John Cusack. If you have to read this book for a school assignment I would not recommend watching the movie instead. Too much is different.

Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated by Rolfe Humphries, 392 pages

Ovid's Metamorphoses is a source for many of the most enduring tales and memorable characters in literature - Phaethon, Adonis, Narcissus, Orpheus, Icarus, Midas, Arachne, Pygmalion, Atalanta, and many others besides.  Even when the stories are familiar due to repetition, the manner in which they are artfully interwoven is delightful.  Some of the tales are surprisingly brief, others deliberately drawn out.  Ovid peppers his tales with humor, as when Perseus slays the wedding guests

     ...and Dorylas,

     who was very rich, and the end of all his fortune

     Was a spear jabbed through the groin...

Apollo, Venus, Bacchus, and Cupid - the gods of rapture - preside over Ovid's living tapestry of tales of transformation, but some of the most memorable passages concern more direct personifications - Famine, Sleep, Rumor.  In the closing chapters he brings the story up to his own day, and ends with a fully justified boast,

     Now I have done my work.  It will endure,

     I trust, beyond Jove's anger, fire and sword,

     Beyond Time's hunger.  The day will come, I know,

     So let it come, that day which has no power

     Save over my body, to end my span of life

     Whatever it may be.  Still, part of me,

     The better part, immortal, will be borne

     Above the stars; my name will be remembered

     Wherever Roman power rules conquered lands,

     I shall be read, and through all centuries,

     If prophecies of bards are ever truthful,

     I shall be living, always.

A Crown of Swords

A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan, Audiobook: 31 hrs, Paperback book: 684 pages

This is the seventh book in the Wheel of Time series. So that I don't provide spoilers to the ending of the sixth book I will be careful. Rand is recovering from some events that occurred at the end of the last book and trying to fix the problems that the events caused. His plans have to be changed. A legendary Aes Sedai named Cadsuane shows up and vows to teach Rand and help him. Now, his friend Perrin is the one leading the army towards Sammael.

Mat has been redirected to take Elayne to Caemlyn so she can take the throne but Nynaeve and Elayne have other plans. They have made him go to Ebou Dar so they can find the Bowl of the Winds - a magical artifact that could be used to correct the unnatural weather that the Great Lord of the Dark has caused. While searching for the Bowl, Nynaeve and Elayne discover a secret group of women, known as the Kin, who were not considered good enough for the Aes Sedai. It is not until they enlist Mat's help(and his luck) that they make progress in finding the Bowl.

Egwene and the "rebel" Aes Sedai are marching towards the other Aes Sedai in the White Tower to take it over and reunite the order. Rand goes to visit the Sea Folk who have been waiting for him. His ta'veren(it means he can effect the pattern of the world) effect is strong that day so after leaving he decides on a whim to visit a group of rebel lords incognito. Events are going well until a bubble of evil shows up and things turn sour. Having barely healed from the attack that occured, he decides that since Sammael will not expect him to be coming it is the perfect time to go after him.

As with the last book in the series, there is not a lot of action but the plot is moved along. There are several action sequences near the end that will cause changes in the plot. I liked this one more than the last one because some of the developments are more significant. I like most of the characters but my one quibble is the way some of the female characters are written. Sometimes they are people who act like they know it all.

Edmund Campion

Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription by Gerard Kilroy, 241 pages

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth,

     Relligion thear was treason to the Queene,

     preaching of peanaunce, war agaynst the lande,

     preestes were such dawngerous men as had not beene,

     prayeres and beads weare fyghte and force of hand,

          Cases of conscience bane unto the state,

          Soe blynde ys error, so false a witnes hate.

As was proven by the fate of St Edmund Campion, it was a time when holding the wrong faith or speaking the wrong words could lead to torture - forbidden under Edward and Mary but allowed under Elizabeth - and execution, when even copying a forbidden manuscript could result in having one's ears chopped off or nailed to a pillory.  In such times even the written word becomes subject to equivocation, and, as Gerard Kilroy explains, equivocation can become a language of its own.

     Yee thought perhapps when learned Campion dyes,

     his pen must cease, his sugred townge be still;

     But yow forgot how lowd his death yt cryes,

     how farre beyond the sownd of tounge or quill.

          yow did not know how rare and great a good

          yt was to write hys precious guiftes in bloode.

In this expansion of his masterly biography, Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life, Kilroy transcribes and elucidates a series of texts - the saint's own "Virgilian epic" retelling the story of the apostolic age, Henry Walpole's hagiographic eulogy "Why doe I use my paper, ynke and pen", and a selection of Sir John Harington's "All my ydle Epigrams".  He also discusses a different sort of text in the form of the symbolic architecture of Thomas Tresham.  Throughout, Kilroy is not only interested in the meaning of the texts themselves, but in what their history and manner of transmission can tell us about the time in which they were written down.  While this may not be the most exciting subject, it is a fascinating glimpse into life and faith in a time of persecution and martyrdom.

Lovemurder

Lovemurder by Saul Black.  345 pages

San Francisco homicide detective Valerie Hart is planning a rare weekend away from the job when she gets the call: a woman has been found brutally murdered. If that's not enough, there's also a note on the body addressed to Valerie.

And thus begins Valerie's quest to discover who is murdering women and leaving her clues with each body, taking her back to a woman named Katherine Glass who is awaiting execution for a series of gruesome murders, and who is in prison because Valerie put her there. While the last thing Valerie wants to do is talk to Katherine, it's necessary because the clues on the bodies give her no choice. Katherine holds the key to the killings and Valerie needs to find out what she knows before more women die . . . and before the murders come even closer to home.

This is the second book from this author that features homicide detective Valerie Hart. I picked up this book as a galley (it comes out in July, 2017) and had not read the first book. However, I didn't have any trouble getting in to the book or really understanding the characters. This story starts with a crime and then the tension just keeps ramping up. I found the main characters to be interesting, although at times, the sexual violence was a bit much. I don't know if I'd want to go back and read the first book with Valerie Hart or not, but this was a good read and definitely held my interest.

The Luster of Lost Things

The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller.  304 pages (coming out in August, 2017)  

Walter Lavender, Jr. feels most at home in his mother's unusual West Village dessert shop, where vol-au-vents scamper and marzipan dragons breathe real fire. When the magical and mysterious Book at the heart of the shop vanishes (right when their new landlord is threatening to stop their lease), it's up to Walter and his unusual talents to find it. Although Walter has a communication disorder that renders him speechless (and friendless), he has a special ability to find things that no one else can. Accompanied by Milton, his golden retriever, Walter's quest for the Book takes him around and under New York City, introducing him to some extraordinary people along the way.

This is the kind of story that has some sweet and sad elements together, combined with unforgettable characters and, as I'm sure you've guessed, a touch of magical realism. I enjoyed getting Walter's perspective and found him endearing and fascinating. His unusual way of looking at the world makes him insightful and he's apt to notice things that many people just gloss over. Admittedly, I did worry for him several times when he's on his quest to find the book, but I chalk that up to really caring about the character (which is a good thing).

Shoe Innovations

Shoe Innovations: A visual celebration of 60 styles by Catherine Cox.  256 pages.

Let me state: I am not one of those women who feels that she can never have enough shoes. While I admit that I have shoes that I love (and some that I might not wear often, but can't bear to get rid of), I have no interest in collecting shoes, wearing heels that hurt my feet, etc etc.

However, that does not mean that I didn't find this book to be interesting.  The author divides sections down into time periods and then explores different styles of shoes that have evolved.  The chapter on sandals, for example, discusses how this is most likely the original style of shoe, from which all others have evolved.  Filled with information, along with full-color photos, this book is a fun exploration of something that's commonplace, yet still has moments of innovation.  It was interesting to learn about some of the innovations from designers who, in working to make improvements, created a new style.  And, while I thought I knew just about all of the shoe styles out there, I found a few new ones here.  For example, the Valenki, a flat, felt boot developed about 300 years ago to walk on the dry snow of the harsh Siberian winters.

The Forgetful Gentleman

The Forgetful Gentleman: Thirty Ways to Turn Good Intentions Into Action by Nathan Tan.     224 pages

I had found this little book on a cart waiting for evaluation (because the book has not circulated at all) and even though it's aimed at men, I thought it would make for an interesting read.   The summary on Goodreads says: "An illustrated reference guide instructs and informs readers on the subtle art of being a contemporary gentleman by incorporating both traditional and modern practices. This book offers action-oriented guidance on a range of subjects, including advice on managing social networks, choosing the right suit silhouette, fostering the art of conversation, hosting a successful party, mixing a signature cocktail, developing creativity and much more. "

The author divides down his advice into different chapters, and that's one of the quibbles I have with this book.  It's not that they are divided into chapters, but rather that I felt the chapters didn't flow well.  For example, the chapter on how to iron a dress shirt goes to a following chapter on mentoring. Perhaps it would be better to have the chapters on clothing, shoes, ties, etc. all follow each other in a logical progression.

I did find some of the advice to be helpful, especially the information on digital and business etiquette, table manners and a chapter titled "The Courage to Encourage."  However, I felt that the book was a bit much when it came to chapters on microbrews, "The Gentlemanly Escape," and how to "Start an Honorable Gentleman's Club,"   Whether it's tongue-in-cheek or not, though, there are some interesting things to glean from this book.

Lord of Chaos

Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan, Audiobook: 43 hrs, Paperback book: 940 pages

This is the sixth book in the Wheel of Time series. "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning." So begins every book in the series (after the prologue) with the wind rising in a different place in each book. This is an epic fantasy series that involves multiple characters and multiple storylines. Most of the book is setting the stage for future events with some action at the end.

The final battle between the Dragon Reborn and the Great Lord of the Dark is approaching. Rand Al'Thor is the Dragon Reborn. He is making plans to take down Sammael - one of the Forsaken. His friend, Mat Cauthon is leading an army towards the land that Sammael is ruling. Egwene al'Vere is recovering from events in the previous book and is with the Wise Ones of the Aiel. The women who run her magic order call her to them. Is she being disciplined or is there another reason? This order is named the Aes Sedai. The order has split approximately in half and each half has sent an embassy to Rand. For now, he hasn't committed to either side and keeps them at a distance. There are too many other storylines to summarize in a concise manner.

I liked this book in the series. It moved the overall storylines along, created a foreshadowing of future events and came to an exciting conclusion. With the multiple characters and multiple storylines I would recommend it for people who like epic fantasy and can keep track of all of it. If you are interested in this series I recommend starting at the first book: The Eye of the World.

Turmoil and Truth

Turmoil and Truth: The Historical Roots of the Modern Crisis in the Catholic Church by Philip Trower, 199 pages

"Ecclesia semper reformanda est," St Augustine declared in the 4th century, "The Church is always in need of reform."  This was as true in the middle of the twentieth century as in Augustine's time, and historically the most powerful impetus to reform has been the ecumenical councils.  With the Second Vatican Council, however, the worst abuses seemed to follow rather than precede the Council, so that it seemed to many to be the cause rather than the cure.  The mission of aggiornamento entrusted to the Council by St John XXIII necessarily involved the sifting of the fruits of the modern world, keeping the wheat and disposing of the chaff.  According to Philip Trower, it was precisely this task that Church authorities and theologians proved unable - or unwilling - to perform in the wake of the Council.  

In Trower's view, the Church not only had the opportunity but also the moral responsibility to assimilate the goods of modernity, but not at the cost of the goods already entrusted to her.  The faith does not evolve, with the present replacing the past, rather it develops, with yesterday being refined and expanded upon today.  As such, modernity needs to be evaluated critically, but as Trower demonstrates, many of the reformers' reforms were outdated before they were even implemented - the idea of an immanentist Church which downplayed irrational elements of mystery and the supernatural was advanced even as the youth of the West embraced exotic mysticism and inchoate spirituality.  The modernists triumphed just as post-modernity began.

There are some problems with the book, the first being that it is really half a book - the sequel, The Catholic Church and the Counter-Faith, being the second half.  Trower concentrates on the ideas themselves rather than how they were propagated - he particularly seems to underestimate the extent to which dissenting Catholic intellectuals were bolstered by Western cultural elites, allowing them to make their case directly to the public instead of the bishops.  Still, it is precisely Trower's faith in the power of ideas that makes his history of the sowing of the wheat and tares reaped in the wake of the Council so worthwhile.

A Snicker of Magic

A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd                 Audio Book:  8 hours, 14 mins..   Hardback Book:  320 pages     

I really like the Pickle family which is why this is the second book by Natalie Lloyd that I have read.    They are magical in a folk magic kind of way and now that they have moved to Midnight Gulch, Tennessee, it seems this magical family has found a magical town, or at least what had been a magical town.    I don’t want to give too much of the story away but let’s just say it is possible for people to have magic within them without even realizing their special gift.   Family is very important and misunderstandings should never be left to grow and fester.   Tiny mustard seed sized misunderstandings can grow to gargantuan sized issues and sometimes there can be tears or severs in even the most loving of bonds.     Thank goodness for the sweet spirit of Felicity Pickle and her gift of being able to see words above people.    Her spirit and her gift are more than just charming they are miraculous.   Felictiy is surely a Fixer if ever there was one.   Wanting so much to find a home they could stay put in, finding the friend she had desperately wished for and wishing for her Mama to find happiness seem to be things that are far out of her grasp, but, when magic is afoot anything can happen.    Enjoy the story, I did.    It will make you want to dance.    The joy here is tangible. 

The Medium Next Door

The Medium Next Door by Maureen Hancock                 Paperback Book: 274 pages                   

Maureen Hancock was exposed to lead based paint and ingested it as a toddler which led to her being hospitalized and spending several weeks in a coma.    Her Irish Catholic family prayed for all they were worth for her healing and enlisted every family member all the way back over to Ireland and around the globe and the same with every friend they had and all the folks in their congregation and anyone any of them knew besides to pray for Maureen’s healing.    The doctors warned her folks to prepare for the worst but miraculously Maureen pulled through and was completely cured.      Maureen was all of 3 years old.   She shared a room with her two older sisters (she is from a large family).    Not long after returning home she woke one night in the wee hours to see an old woman walking about the room.   Her sisters didn’t wake up and Maureen was scared, this woman was no one she knew, then she saw the woman walk into the closet through the door!   When she metioned the experience to her sisters and family they dismissed her talk with it being a dream or a side effect of the strong medicine she took to continue to clear her system of the toxins she had ingested.    It continued to happen every night for years to come with more and more people showing up in the wee hours of the night walking around the bedroom some acting as if they wanted to speak with Maureen or try to be close to her.    It frightened her.    Her mother and grandmother counselled her to pray and ask St. Michael to protect her and send them away.    This seemed to work.    At least she could sleep through the night.     When she told her best friend at school about the ghosts she was seeing in her house her best friend betrayed her and shouted to all the other kids in the schoolyard, “Maureen has ghosts in her house!”  and all the kids began teasing her about it and running around screaming.     Many avoided her after that.     She never mentioned her experiences again.    As she grew older she began to research what she was going through and seek all the information she could find on it.    She found out she was not alone.    Other people were experiencing the same things she was.    She also found out that the ability to communicate with spirits was not unusual in her family as her mother, her mother’s sister and her grandmother back to her great-grandmother all have had similar experiences and began to share what their stories with her.     Also, they believed her.   As Maureen became more comfortable with the spirits around her, she began to communicate with them and found they came to her because they sensed she could see them, hear them and help them to get messages to their loved ones.   And that is how Maureen got started as a medium sharing messages with families initially with those of cancer patients who had departed this plane to go on to the next level.    She also began to get messages about missing people and actually helped with many cases with her state’s police departments and the families of missing children, etc.     As word of mouth travelled she began to be asked to do interviews on radio and t.v. first locally then nationally.    More and more requests began coming in from people all over the globe for her help.     One lady in particular from Greece who asked her to help her speak to her departed husband.   She had to use an interpreter to communicate with the woman she said, “He keeps saying the same thing over and over,” and Maureen repeated to the woman what the spirit was saying to her, the interpreter shook her head and stared daggers at Maureen, but the woman getting the reading, nodded and smiled and told the interpreter to tell Maureen, now she knew it really was her husband because that is what he always said to her.    The translation was, “Shut up, Stupid and listen!”   The book is one of those once you start it you can’t put it down.    Some of the help she has given is astounding.           

The Stranger

The  Stranger by Harlan Coben                Audio Book:  10 hours    Hardback Book: 386 pages           

If you liked the story, “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, you will like this story.   I liked both books very much.    The story line of “The Stranger,”  is a person reveals various people’s dark secrets to their spouse or depending on the secret that a person is concealing, it could be to their constituents, etc.    It is a blackmail type of reveal because the stranger lets the person with the secret know they know first and the stranger tries to extort money from the person to keep their secret quiet.   If the person doesn’t pay the stranger, the stranger reveals the secret to whoever it affects in order to wreak retribution on the offending secret holder.   It gets deep when people begin to disappear.   Then strange texts arrive.   Are they real or not.    Why would these people (the ones with secrets) take off?    Fingers begin to be pointed but motives come into play that maybe things aren’t quite as they seem and maybe never were.   Small quaint towns where the population pretty much grew up together and everyone knows each other even for generations can still hold mysteries.    Not every face that is shown is real some mask a lot going on behind their eyes.    Acccusations, questionable behavior, money synonomouse for power all blend to create a good who done it and why did they do it?    Good story I enjoyed it.

A Dance with Dragons

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin    Audio Book:  49 hours 3mins   Hardback Book:  1,040 pages       

He’s back!   You can feel the love in this book that felt lost in the last one.   I was afraid the pressure to produce might have gotten to him, but, no not at all.   A great book here to be savored by all of us, George R. R. Martin’’s fans.   Excellent continuance of the story with meaty parts about all the characters and several mysteries revealed.   The reader will do a couple of, “Oh, so that’s it!” while getting juicy bits of new information on some of the things that have been going on in the seven kingdoms.    More background, more fleshing out of some things that have been mentioned but never explained – WOW!!!   I want so much to share what I have learned but I also do not want to spoil this most excellent read for anyone who is addicted to this series as I am.   Some bonds are broken some new bonds are formed.    And some characters are creatures not quite human.   Read it!   Read it!   It is glorious and awesome.   I will be so sad when this wonderful tale comes to an end.    Like a board game everyone is drawing near to facing off to be the one true winner and no one is a safe bet there is so much going on here.   Truly anything can happen and it will be so satisfying to find out when it all does occur.    Wonderful George R.R. Martin.    I am giving you a standing ovation for the sheer beauty of your work.   Great book.   Most excellent series.   More!  More!

The 1970s Decade in Photos:

The 1970s Decade in Photos:  Protest and Change by Jim Corrigan                 64 pages                   

I find history fascinating and this book reminds me of a time when the world was leaving the predictable 50s and early 60s flowing through the changing late 60s to the tumultuous 70s.    The American Involvement in the Viet Nam War was hitting a crescendo,  it had begun under the Eisenhower administration and seemed to go on forever.    People were protesting wanting their soldier family members to be able to come back home, there was unrest over the number of dead and wounded and much of the nation couldn’t understand why.    Pressure began to be put on politicians and at long last the United States left Viet Nam.   Music was good back in the day.    Motown and Rock swept listeners away with their moving lyrics and intense beats,  sadly the world lost 3 wonderful singer/ musicians: Jimmy Hendrix; Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.   Women stepped up and demanded equal pay for equal work, feminists starting burning their bras in protest.    The Arab-Israeli War took a bloody turn for the worse when Arabs to make their point began hijacking planes and later taking Israeli hostages at the Olympic games and murdering them.   Arab anger turned against the United States when they showed support for Israel this led to the Arab Oli Crisis when to get back at the United States the Arabs decided to stop selling the U.S. oil triggering long lines at the gas pumps and an energy crisis.  Food prices rose substantially because it now cost more in fuel to transport it around the country which began hitting the economy hard.     The President at the time, Richard Nixon, having already took a lot of flack over the Viet Nam War was now caught in an illegal wire tapping scandal known as Watergate.   Nixon was the first president in history to resign the office.   Distrust in government was rampant.   On the positive side however, Sports were a welcome reprieve from all that was going on with Hank Aaron breaking the record for career home runs and swimmer Mark Spitz bringing home 5 gold medals from the Olympics.   1976 was a big celebration nationwide of America’s 200 years of Independence.  Like a teeter totter things would broil up in the world:  The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, hostages were taken at the American Embassy in Iran,  Jim Jones caused the deaths of his follows in Guyana with over 900 cult members adults and children dying in what has been called a mass suicide though later reports came out showing many of the people were forced under threat of gunshot, etc.    Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania nearly had a melt down due to an accident, the energy crisis continued, the deaths of 4 students at Kent State University in Ohio rocked the media when in answer to the 500 or so students throwing rocks at the National Guard gunfire was returned distrust and dissatisfaction with authority was strong.   More planes were being hijacked and terrorist groups and leaders emerged, Yassir Arafat and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) , Idi Amin dictator of Uganda in Africa, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Iran.    On the up side the voting age in America was lowered.   Previously Americans had to be 21 to vote but since the draft of 18 year olds it was decided that if a man could be drafted to go to war at age 18 he ought to be able to vote at age 18 to help choose the leaders of the country.    The Pentagon Papers were published through a decision by the Supreme Court and it brought more unrest as facts came out the public had not been aware of and that the political leaders did not believe the war could be won.   On the up side Russia and the U.S. signed a treaty limiting nuclear weapons each country could possess.   The U.S. and Russia joined forces in a joint mission with NASA and the Soviet Space Program known as the Apollo-Soyuz mission with both countries docking spacecraft together.  Then President Nixon worked to restore good relations with China.   Blockbuster films came out during the 70s, the Godfather, Star Wars and Jaws.    President Jimmy Carter aided progress in the Middle East toward peace when he brought Israeli President, Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat together on the White House lawn for a historic handshake and the peace treaty created between the two nations.    The 70s also brought out the beginning of video games with Atari’s Pong and the first personal computers came into being Apple arose as did Sony with the Walkman, the portable cassette player.    The 70s were a whirlwind as I guess all decades are in their own ways.    A very good look at a historically important decade.

Carry On

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell                     Audio Book:  13hours 30 minutes    Hardback Book:  528 pages            

My first thought of this book was, “Does J.K. Rowling know about this book?”   There are so many similarities to the Harry Potter series, young man who is an orphan or mysteriously is without parents attending him as a baby, with ultra magic in him, goes to a magical boarding school, has a head master with a long beard who takes a major interest in him, he has a sneering enemy at the school who comes from a long line of witches, he has a female friend who is brilliant in all her classes and is able to cast spells with the best of the best, the main character has hair that gets mentioned a lot, etc.  at first I was like, “Plagiarism!”   But the more I  hung in there with the story,  it went in many new directions and not everyone is who they seem to be nor do they stay who they were.   You’ll understand when you read it.    Also these characters curse quite frequently and I don’t mean in a magical incantation kind of way.    I mean in a Kings of Comedy Def Jam kind of way.    The plot and the dialogue will hold the reader’s interest, there are magical creatures a foot and a few Game of Thrones references, romance that will pop up and make you say, “Wait, what?”   Your attention will be set on alert thereafter and the book really takes off then and the writer brings the reader along for a fun adventure the rest of the way through the story.   After being skeptical at first I really enjoyed the story once it got going and once you hit the grabber part you won’t want to stop until you get to the end.   I stayed up late last night just to finish it because the story is just that good.   Imitation is afterall the sincerest form of flattery, but, Harry Potter and Simon Snow are truly two different guys.   It just goes to show there is some good in all bad guys and some bad in all good guys and that is what makes the story sweet and lively.  Very good, I truly enjoyed it.

The Breakdown

The Breakdown by B.A. Paris   336 pages

"If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?"

"Cass is having a hard time since the night she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a downpour, with the woman sitting inside―the woman who was killed. She’s been trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It’s a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm. Her husband would be furious if he knew she’d broken her promise not to take that shortcut home. And she probably would only have been hurt herself if she’d stopped.

But since then, she’s been forgetting every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn’t have a baby.

The only thing she can’t forget is that woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt.

Or the silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling that someone’s watching her… "

I didn't think I could do a better job with the summary of this book, so this is the summary from Goodreads.  This book has a slow build, with creeping dread and a steadily increasing pace --- and by the time I was in the last few chapters, I was reading at "whip" speed.  Our narrator here is potential very unreliable; after all, she can't quite seem to remember things correctly.  The fact that her memory seems to be getting worse throughout the story only adds to the confusion.  I appreciated that I was kept off balance and then really loved the big twist that came partway through the book (in addition to another twist towards the end).  Definitely a good book for readers who like psychological suspense and being kept on their toes!

How to Speak Horse

How to Speak Horse by Andrea and Markus Eschbach          Hardback:  28 pages            

Ever since I first heard about “horse whispering,”  I have thought I would like to give  it a try.     When I saw this book I had to check it out.   I noticed immediately that this book seemed to present the process of learning to communicate with horses a little differently than I would have expected.   Having caught a bit of the process on shows on Animal Planet and PBS in the past I noticed immediately that this book showed the kids learning the process using ropes as extentions of their arms and this was unfamiliar to me as the bit I had picked up from t.v. had not done that.   From what I had seen all was done through body language with the horse reading the human and the human taking cues from the horse’s behavior.     After I finished the book I noticed that the photos were taken at a farm in Switzerland and when I checked the isbn page it mentioned that the book was originally published in Germany and in the German language so this book gives the European take on horse whispering which is still good just different.   It does give some good tips, I just find the rope thing something I would tend to think the horse would be taken aback by.   But that is just me.   It does go over some of the horse behaviors to be aware of and what they mean, it also stresses being confident in dealing with the horse and making the horse know you are the boss.    It talks about herd mentality and how the human doing the horse whispering  takes on the role of the lead horse.     I thought some of the instructions were not as clear as they might be and the photos showing the work in the corral or “office” and arena as the book terms it, were not quite as informative as they could have been however, it was an admirable attempt though I don’t think it delivered as much as it professed to.   Still a worthy book for a youngster and I would recommend it before taking kids around horses especially for the first time as it does give some very  good information to know when dealing with horses  ie. don’t approach them from the back as you might scare them and possibly receive an injury from a well placed kick, always approach a horse from the front or side so they see you.,horses natural reaction is to run when scared so don’t get too close right away till the horse is sure you don’t plan to hurt it, etc.   It was a good book as far as it went.      

April's totals

This month, 7 bloggers read 77 books for a total of 23,391 pages!!   Krista was this month's Super Reader, with a total of 6,263 pages!   And if we can do this in April, I'm sure we'll top this in May . . . especially considering the rainy-day reading some of us are doing right now!!

Spies in the Vatican

Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against the Catholic Church by John Koehler, 273 pages

Virtually from the moment of its birth, the Soviet Union sought the end of religion amongst its people and throughout the world.  When mass murder failed, the Soviets began a campaign of infiltration and subversion.  Although the Catholic Church was targeted from the outset, when the Second World War left the USSR in control of puppet states throughout Eastern Europe the neutralization of the Church became an even higher priority.  The record of this shadow war waged by the Soviets and their proxies against the Church is the subject of John Koehler's Spies in the Vatican.

Although the book briefly summarizes earlier periods, the bulk concerns the pontificate of St John Paul II and his connection with the Solidarity movement, including, most explosively, possible Soviet involvement in the assassination attempt against the Pope in 1981.  Unfortunately, Spies in the Vatican lacks any kind of cohesion.  The book reads like "random moments in the history of Warsaw Pact espionage" rather than a thorough history of communist subversion of the Catholic Church.  This slipshod approach is aggravated by numerous textual errors - "seize fire", "assassimate", "Let sleeping dogs die".  At the same time, Koehler demonstrates considerable expertise concerning the history, organization, and records of various intelligence agencies, especially the East German Stasi, and he writes with unwavering moral clarity.

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans De Waal, 340 pages

The short answer is: yes we are (this is not a spoiler). The caveat is that we have to go about it the right way. We can't measure the intelligence of other animals the way we measure our intelligence. We have to take into account their physical nature and the uses they put their intelligence to.

Through anecdotes and studies, De Waal sets out to show that other animals are more intelligent than we think they are. He talks about the fight to get people to believe this including some people in academia. As humans we want to believe that there is a large separation between us and other animals. In fact, there are some tasks that other animals can do better than we can. Overall, we can be shown to be more intelligent but it seems to be harder to show that there is one significant thing that sets us apart.

I liked this book but would characterize it as somewhat dry even though it is written for laypeople. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject of animal cognition.

Storm Front

Storm Front by Jim Butcher, Audiobook: 9 hours, Hardback book: 311 pages

This is the first book in Dresden Files series. Harry Dresden lives in Chicago, is a wizard and a private detective. He is also a consultant for the Chicago P.D. on supernatural cases.

Things have been pretty slow for Harry recently. Then, he gets a call from a woman who wants him to look for her husband. He also gets called to consult on a supernatural case for the Chicago P.D.

It seems that there is another wizard in town who is using magic to do bad things. He must find the woman's husband and stop this dark wizard. Along the way, he has to deal with mobsters and demons. Can he stop the wizard before the wizard gets him?

I had listened to a book later in the series and it led me to start from the beginning. I liked this book as a start to the series. I like some of the supernatural elements in this book but what really draws me to it is Harry's personality and the humor that is included from time to time.

Buying Time

Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism by Wolfgang Streeck, translated by Patrick Camiller, 189 pages

In this short book, adapted from the author's 2012 Adorno Lectures, Wolfgang Streeck asserts that the Marxist analysis of the crisis threatening capitalist democracy in the 1970s was fundamentally correct, only the crisis was delayed by factors the analysts had not considered.  In his view, the critics correctly understood that the pending crisis involved the legitimacy of capitalism and its cultural contradictions with a democratic society, but what they had not grasped was the extent to which it would be the forces of capital which challenged democracy, eroding the postwar welfare state in favor of neoliberal free markets.  This was accompanied by an explosion of consumerism driven by easy credit, with private debt supplementing the  of public debt.  This, in turn, has lead to the rise of a globalized creditor class - what Streeck calls the Marktvolk - whose interests differ markedly from those of the ordinary citizens - the Staatsvolk.

In Streeck's view, the economic crisis which began in 2008 exposed the manifold ways in which capitalism has subverted democracy.  Insisting on the distinction between market justice and social justice, Streeck demonstrates how neoliberalism has managed to promote the former over and against the latter, primarily by the delegation of authority to international bodies, especially the European Union, which serve to shield the market from popular political pressure.  A correction, if it is to come, must therefore take the form derided by the elites as populism - an assertion of national sovereignty placing the needs of the Staatsvolk over those of the Marktvolk.

Buying Time is a short book that necessarily presents a simplified view of a complicated matter - although this simplification has the virtue of clarity.  Streeck's Marxist background causes him to treat the Marktvolk as a self-conscious body, and his analysis overestimates their commitment to laissez faire by treating it as an ideological matter rather than one of practical convenience.  He also underestimates the extent to which today's workers are themselves capitalists, especially through their pension plans.  Finally, and most obviously, there is the difficulty of the once-failed prophet assuring his listeners that this time he's right.  At the same time, whether or not the cultural contradictions of capitalism are now approaching their climax, it would be foolish to disagree with Streeck's thesis that they are more glaring now than ever before.