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BOOK REVIEWS
BOOK: RACK - REVIEWS - SERIES - 2 FILM
FEATURED AUTHOR -
Elmore Leonard – Out of Sight (1996)
"THE oldest unsolved mystery on the books, human love, is the case to crack in ''Out of Sight,'' Elmore Leonard's new novel,
in which the cop is a lady with a gift for meeting Mr. Wrong and the robber is a guy who just might have been, in a
different life, Mr. Right. It begins auspiciously with a prison break, a group of convicts tunneling out of the medium-security
Florida pen where Jack Foley, a career bank robber, is doing time after his third major fall....
And here, for this reader at least, ''Out of Sight'' slides off the road into an Everglades of incredibility.
For in order to accept the main action of the rest of the novel, we must now accept that both kidnapped and kidnapper --
a female Federal law-enforcement officer and the man who has robbed more banks than anyone in the F.B.I.'s computer --
experience in the trunk of a moving car a conversational intimacy that leaves them helplessly infatuated with each other,
even as Karen Sisco conceals a .38-caliber pistol between her legs. It's a bizarrely relocated movie ''cute meet,'' and the
busy scribes of Hollywood should be stealing pages from Elmore Leonard's book, not the other way around. "
~ Ralph Lombreglia - New York Times. Link:
KOBO Books and
Elmore Leonard [Wikipedia]
OTHER BOOK REVIEWS -
Percival Everett - James (2024)
"This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific
Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that
of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim,
the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat
of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while
figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive
father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I
think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” "
Kirkus Review and
Kobo Books
Sinclair Lewis – It Can't Happen Here (1935)
"The Vermont doctor, successful and respected, is with friends, listening to the radio as Senator Buzz Windrip
is nominated by the Democratic Party to become President of the United States. Windrip is a shoo-in in the 1936
election, and some of the friends around that radio fear that, given his proposals and the sorts of people he has
gathered around himself, Windrip will become an American dictator. Bosh, the doctor says... Yet, it does. And the
doctor is one of the first to be marched out behind the courthouse and summarily executed by a firing squad."
~ PatrickReardon.com and
KOBO.com
Tomihiko Morimi - The Tatami Galaxy (2004) [Translated by Emily Balistrieri]
"Tomihiko Morimi’s “The Tatami Galaxy,” first published in Japan in 2004, is a frolicking novel packed with slacker
hijinks and escapades. At its core lies pithy wisdom about choice and destiny. Many anime fans are already familiar
with the “Tatami Galaxy” world, thanks to the TV series adaptation helmed by Masaaki Yuasa in 2010. In novel form,
Morimi’s sci-fi fusion of fun and the unfathomable offers a light touch that makes a lasting impression... What unfolds
is an adventure to read. The frenetic pace of the narrative is anchored by its repetition. The clever and subtle ways
in which each chapter informs the others reverberates across the storylines and “The Tatami Galaxy” as a whole becomes
a lightly philosophical look at the human condition."
~ Read Review: japantimes.co.jp,
KOBO Books and
The Tatami Galaxy - Wikipedia
Roberto Bolaño - 2666 [Translated by Natasha Wimmer] (2004)
"Roberto Bolaño's 2666 is a difficult experience to shake off; it lingers in the unconscious
like a sizzling psychotropic for days or weeks after reading. It is a novel both prodigious in scope
and profound in implication, but a book ablaze with the furious passion of its own composition. At
times, it reads like a race against death. At others, you can only wonder at the reach and raw
intelligence of the writing. Having received adulatory reviews in Spain four years ago, 2666 is
now, in Natasha Wimmer's impressive translation, receiving the same kind of response in the
English-speaking world. Bolaño himself is sadly not around to enjoy the celebrations. He died
in 2003, awaiting a liver transplant, at the age of 50. He had only recently been acclaimed as
the pre-eminent figure of new Latin American writing, after years of obscurity.."
and
Kobo Books
David A. Kaplan - The Most Dangerous Branch (2020)
"In the words of Alexander Hamilton, the Supreme Court is “the least dangerous branch…having neither
force nor will, but merely judgment.” And yet events of 2018 — especially the resignation of “swing vote”
Justice Anthony Kennedy, and the ugly and contentious Brett Kavanaugh hearings — were only the latest
manifestations of the court’s transformation into a political circus. David A. Kaplan’s new book, The
Most Dangerous Branch, which was published between Kavanaugh’s nomination and confirmation, asserts that
the Supreme Court has gone seriously off the rails: pushing itself into increasingly incendiary cases,
attempting to remake U.S. social order, and overturning acts of Congress at will (and, in the process,
weakening that branch of government). He mostly makes his case, although it will take a hardy reader to
stick with him until the end."
~ Elizabeth J. Moore - Washington Post,
KOBO Books
Roderick Thorp – Nothing Lasts Forever (1979)
"High atop a Los Angeles skyscraper, an office Christmas party turns into a deadly cage-match between a lone New York City
cop and a gang of international terrorists. Every action fan knows it could only be the explosive big-screen blockbuster Die
Hard. But before Bruce Willis blew away audiences as unstoppable hero John McClane, author Roderick Thorp knocked out thriller
readers with the bestseller that started it all." ~ BookReporter.com, ~ Wikipedia.com,
and KOBO Books Author: Roderick Mayne Thorp Jr. (September 1, 1936 – April 28, 1999) was an American novelist specializing mainly in police procedural/crime novels. His novel The Detective was adapted into a film of the same name in 1968. Thorp is also better known for its sequel, the bestselling novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, which later served as the basis for the film Die Hard, thus Thorp became a creator of the entire media franchise of the same name. Two other Thorp novels, Rainbow Drive and Devlin, were also adapted into TV movies. Source: Wikipedia Watch movie: Die Hard (1988) - Buy/Rent Watch online
Matt Singer - OPPOSABLE THUMBS... How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever
"The author’s fulsome praise aside, there’s no questioning that Siskel and Ebert were a cultural phenomenon,
and while it’s debatable that they “invented an entirely new kind of film criticism,” they certainly had an impact. Since
both critics were dead at the writing of this book, Singer relies on copious previously published accounts—and YouTube–archived
episodes of their shows—for their voices. Interviews with both men’s widows and with former production staff help flesh out the
history. Readers who recall Siskel and Ebert will be delighted by this opportunity to reminisce. "
~ Kirkus Reviews,
KOBO Books
Glen O. Gabbard – Psychoanalysis and Film (2001)
"The connections between film and psychoanalysis exist at many levels of the imagination and mind as well as image and are. Even without
knowing it, film and psychoanalysis are allies in the exploration of how to see the human being. Here is a book that takes us into these
connections - a journey into both mysteries and light. It is as compelling as it is important.' - Hugh Brody, Film Director, Anthropologist,
Author. 'This exciting gathering of psychoanalytic studies of film represents a major breakthrough in applied psychoanalysis. a group of
leading international psychoanalysts explore film as a dominant expression of contemporary culture, its reflection of both universal myths
and contemporary anxiety. As Glen Gabbard rightly proposes, film serves as the cultural function that classical theatre played in ancient
Greece. The psychoanalytic exploration in this volume opens original views on the artistic expression of the anxieties and conflicts that
affect not only our patients but all of us.' - Otto Kernberg, Training and Supervising Analyst, Columbia University for Psychoanalytic
Training and Research."
~ karnacbooks.com,
Amazon Books
Elmore Leonard – Valdez Is Coming (1970)
"A man can be in different places, different times, and be different men. Everyone likes slow moving Western constable
Bob Valdez, who is allowed to patrol the Mexican part of town. He is a quiet man, a decent man who cares for the people he
serves. However, when cattle baron turned gunrunner Frank Tanner and his hardcase thugs cause Valdez to kill a black man
falsely accused of murder, another man, from another place and time, begins to stir. Seeking a lousy $100 to compensate
the dead man's pregnant Apache wife, Valdez becomes a target of Tanners disdain."
~ Read Review: sixgunjustice.com,
Amazon Books and
Website
Watch movie:
Valdez Is Coming (1971) - Buy/Rent Watch online
SusannaClarke - Piranesi (2020)
"What is the nature of magic? What is the nature of reason? Must one cancel out the other? And which is cloaked
in a greater illusion? In her new novel Piranesi, British writer Susanna Clarke limns a magic far more intrinsic than
the kind commanded through spells; a magic that is seemingly part of the fabric of the universe and as powerful as a
cosmic engine — yet fragile nonetheless. Clarke stunned readers 16 years ago with her mesmerizing tale of magic's return
to England in her debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The book became an international bestseller, and was followed
by a collection of short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu. Then those of us who fell in love with her worlds had a
desperately long wait. (Thankfully not nearly as long as those awaiting magic's return in Jonathan Strange.)"
~ NPR and
Amazon Books
Stephen Vladeck – THE SHADOW DOCKET: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic (2023)
"The term “shadow docket” was coined in 2015, by William Baude, a University of Chicago law professor. In Vladeck’s words, it was “a catch-all
for a body of the supreme court’s work that was, to that point, receiving virtually no academic or public attention”. Strictly speaking, the
shadow docket is a vehicle for addressing issues that demand urgent attention, usually injunctions and orders to preserve the status quo. But
it has morphed into a fraught topic. The court has adjudicated cases involving abortion, voting rights and Covid policy by means of the shadow
docket. The docket also became the prime location for the elevation and reordering of religious rights, under the free exercise clause of the
first amendment."
~ Lloyd Green - The Guardian,
Rakuten Kobo Books
Murakami – Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)
"Winner of the Tanizaki Literary prize (the Japanese equivalent of the Pulitzer), by acclaimed young Japanese novelist
Murakami: a stunning combination of the contemporary and brash with elegiac allegory, all topped off by a strong measure
of cyberpunk... One of those rare postmodern novels that is as intellectually profound as stylistically accomplished,
by a writer with a bold and original vision."
~ Kirkusreviews.com,
Rakuten Kobo Books
Cormac McCarthy - No Country for Old Men (2005)
"It’s a bleak chronicle of murder, revenge and implacable fate pocked with numerous echoes of McCarthy’s great Blood
Meridian (1985). Here, the story’s set in 1980 in southern Texas near the Mexican border, where aging Sheriff Bell, a
decorated WWII veteran, broods heroically over the territory he’s sworn to protect, while—in a superb, sorrowful
monologue—acknowledging the omnipresence of ineradicable evil all around him. Then the focus trains itself on Vietnam
vet Llewellyn Moss, a hunter who stumbles upon several dead bodies, a stash of Mexican heroin and more than $2 million
in cash that he absconds with."
~ kirkusreviews.com and
KOBO Books
Matt Brady - The Science of Rick and Morty: The Unofficial Guide to Earth's Stupidest Show (2019)
"Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty is one of the smartest (and most insane) shows on television. Genius
alcoholic Rick Sanchez and his hapless grandson Morty have explored everything from particle physics
to human augmentation and much more in their intergalactic adventures through the multiverse. With
biting humor and plenty of nihilism, Rick and Morty employs cutting-edge scientific theories in every
episode. But, outside of Rick’s garage laboratory, what are these theories truly about and what can
they teach us about ourselves?"
~ scribd.com and
Amazon Books
Johnston McCulley - The Curse of Capistrano
"One hundred years ago — on Aug. 9, 1919 — All-Story Weekly published the opening installment
of a serial entitled “The Curse of Capistrano.” Set in a highly idealized Southern California during
the early 19th century, when Spanish grandees ruled vast estates and Franciscan missions brought
Christianity to the indigenous population, the novel introduced a new adventure hero, the masked
avenger of the downtrodden and oppressed, the daring and debonair swordsman Zorro"
~ Michael Dirda - washingtonpost.com and
Archive.org
Percival Everett - Dr. No (2022)
"Everett is a formidably prolific author — the “Also by Percival Everett” list at the front of the book takes up an
entire page — and impossible to capture in a log line. Even if you concentrate only on the novels, leaving aside the poetry
and stories, you will be thwarted in every attempt to generalize. Everett writes parody and horror and magical realism; he
has produced an epistolary novel and a novel that was published in three variations but with the same cover."
Molly Young - New York Times,
Amazon Books
Richard K. Morgan - Altered Carbon (2003)
"In the far future universe of Richard K. Morgan's debut novel Altered Carbon, human consciousness
has been digitized. Every human being is implanted at birth with a cortical stack, which records
every second, every thought, every experience. If you have the money (or purchase the right
insurance policy), you can be brought back to life after you die by the simple expedient of
implanting your stack into a new body, a process known as sleeving. The penal system no longer
stores live criminals, but only their digital selves. Travelers beam their minds across space
via needlecast, and wake up in new sleeves. Wars are fought by troops whose minds are downloaded into
bodies on-site -- troops like the Envoy Corps, the enforcement arm of the despotic UN Protectorate,
which rules Earth and its colony worlds with an iron fist."
~ sfsite.com and
Amazon Books
Exploring Chicago Blues: Inside the Scene, Past and Present
"Have you ever felt like you knew a place, only to learn something that peels back all your knowledge
and gives you more? Such is the case with Chicago to me, with a new book by one of my favorite cultural travel
writers, Rosalind Cummings-Yeates. She's written a book that is a must-read for Chicagoans, people that love
music, historians, and anyone heading to Chicago (it'll probably change where you go, whilst there). Exploring
Chicago Blues: Inside the Scene, Past and Present is an honest, carefully crafted, genuine portrait of a city,
musicians, musical trends, culture, history, and personality. It is, hands down, the best themed travel guide
I've ever read. I wasn't knowledgeable about Chicago Blues before; now I'm a huge fan. For what Cummings-Yeates
does, while carefully sharing history and her passion about this music, is to bring people - and music - to life."
~ Dr. Jessie Voigts - wanderingeducators.com and
Amazon Books
Walter Mosley - The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (2010)
"With his 30th novel, "The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey," the fascinating Walter Mosley not only returns to top form,
but also extends once again the boundaries of the hard-boiled suspense genre in which his best work always has been rooted.
No other writer of the 58-year-old Mosley’s generation has done quite as much to keep the style of Hammett and Chandler
from lapsing into mere mannerism. His popular Easy Rawlins mysteries — probably his best books until now — extended the
genre’s affinity for social realism and added a dimension of historical recovery in portraying African Americans’ vital
but bittersweet life in postwar Los Angeles."
Tim Rutten - Los Angeles Times and
Amazon Books
Apple TV’s new limited series:
In ‘The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,’ Samuel L. Jackson and Dominique Fishback Shine in Walter Mosley’s Whodunnit: TV Review ~ Joshua Alston - Variety
Joseph Heller - CATCH-22 (1961)
"Catch-22 tells the story of one Captain John Yossarian, an Air Force bomber pilot in WWII. While lots of people might think of him as a
hero for his brave service, Yossarian sees past all the pomp and patriotism and understands war as something else entirely: sheer madness. The
book condemns both war itself and the powers that carry out this systematic carnage. It's famous for its satirical tone, fractured narrative,
and linguistic flourishes—all of which reflect the nonsensical nature of the military enterprise that has Yossarian feeling hopelessly stuck.
And that phrase—hopelessly stuck—pretty much sums up the whole novel. These boys, as the title suggests, are in a classic catch-22."
Amazon Books
Neil Gaiman – American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition (2011)
"Shadow is an ex-convict who is released from prison three days early when his wife Laura is killed in a car accident.
Shadow is devastated by her death, and is distraught to learn that she died alongside his best friend Robbie, with whom she
had been having an affair. He takes a job as a bodyguard for a mysterious con man, Mr. Wednesday, and travels with him across
the United States, visiting Wednesday's acquaintances. Shadow meets a leprechaun named Mad Sweeney, who gives Shadow a magical
gold coin after Shadow beats him in a fight. Shadow later tosses the coin into his wife's grave at her funeral, inadvertently
bringing her back from the dead as a semi-living revenant. Shadow meets Czernobog and the Zorya Sisters. One of the sisters
gives Shadow a silver coin, coming from the moon, that will protect him. Shadow learns that Wednesday is an incarnation of
Odin the All-Father, and that he is recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods, whose powers have waned as their
believers have decreased in number, to participate in a battle against the New American Gods – manifestations of modern
life and technology, such as the Internet, media, and modern means of transport. Shadow meets many of Wednesday's allies,
including Mr. Nancy (Anansi), Easter (Eostre), Whiskey Jack (Wisakedjak) and John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed). "
~ Wikipedia and
Amazon.com
Ernie Richards – Shakespeare's Women In Love: The women characters in Shakespeare’s plays (2014)
"This booklet is about the women characters in Shakespeare’s plays, and how he portrays them. He does
what no other writer has done – or could do. He presents women as the one force in society capable of saving
mankind from itself: the essential earth-mother, the nurturing force behind everything born, and the solver of
problems. He shows that women can be the main force in society for civilising men, for curbing their instincts
to fight and kill, and to replace those violent impulses with the gentler arts of tolerance, love and forgiveness."
~ Goodreads.com and
Amazon.com
Paulo Coelho - The Archer (2020)
"Paulo Coelho provides his guidelines with a simple language and with a great amount of
moral lessons. He stated a main point that sums up the whole book: “choose your target, do
your best, have a goal in your life to hit it,” and that is through going into the “way of
the bow” which Coelho describes as “the way of joy and enthusiasm, of perfection and error,
of technique and instinct. Tetsuya, who is the main character in this story, represents the
author himself. Paulo Coelho said in an interview that he learned archery, and so he wrote
about his experience, “At the end of the day, it is life. You learn by living your life fully,”
he said. And, at the end of the interview, Coelho hoped that people “use The Archer to help
them learn the basics of life."”"
Joyce Bou Charaa - The Mark Literary Review and
Amazon Books
Harry Harrison – Make Room! Make Room! (1966)
"Society has broken down. The weather’s weird. The air is foul with pollution. No one can travel anywhere.
The government is unaccountable, brutal, corrupt, criminal. The police spend their time beating up protestors
while ignoring most crimes because that uses up too many resources. People keep coming up with really crappy
vegan alternatives to meat. Everyone is exhausted. The only nice place left on Earth is Denmark...
There were even moments when I worried that the events in Make Room! Make Room! were blurring all too easily
into all the coronavirus news updates as I read. But mainly it’s been cathartic to experience this vision of
a society in peril. Harrison’s characters may be beaten down, but he also makes you feel that if they can keep
going, so can we. This book comes from a hopeful place, in spite of his portrayals of an unhappy future:
catastrophe can be averted. As Harrison once wrote, “if science fiction can teach us one thing, it is that
we have the power to change”. Let’s hope he’s at least right about that one. "
~ The Guardian and
Amazon.com
James Clavell - TAI-PAN (1966)
"A fat, gusty, commercial historical novel that will most probably sweep the bookstore windows
on the strength of its narrative, Tai-Pan is a much better book than Clavell's first, King Rat. It
describes the British occupation of Hong Kong in 1841 and an empire built upon opium smuggling. Tai-Pan
means "supreme power" and seadog Dirk Struan's Noble House is the supreme money power on the "godrotting"
island. Struan's rival is aging, one-eyed Tyler Brock, an opposition which extends nepotically through
their grown sons and daughters. Also in the power play are Russians, Americans and several Chinese factions.
Brock, the island's second richest operator, wants to be Tai-Pan himself, steal Noble House from Struan, and
set up his own sons as supreme powers. Both men smuggle opium for cash in order to buy tea. "
~ Kirkus Reviews and
Amazon Books
Richard Condon - The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
"It took some time to adjust to Condon’s prose; it is, as Louis Menand wrote in a 2003 New Yorker appraisal,
a deeply strange book with wildly shifting tones, odd word choices, and often baffling metaphors (some of that
may have been by design; one blogger found that Condon appeared to have cribbed certain phrases from Robert
Graves’s I, Claudius). The Times, in its initial review, called it “a wild, vigorous, curiously readable
melange.” But the further I got into it, the more I began to think that Condon, in his messy way, had tapped
into something bigger."
~ Michael Weinreb - Vulture.com and
Amazon.com
Brent Spiner – Fan Fiction (2021)
"Brent Spiner, known to fans as Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation (and in four movies, and on season 1 of Star Trek: Picard), has written a novel that blends fact, fiction, and a fun detective story into a story that is, whether you’re there for the Trekkish moments or the whodunit, a page-turner.
Fiction and memoir crisscross throughout, and it’s up to the reader to keep guessing which is which or to just sit back and enjoy the ride. "
~ TrekMovie.com and
Amazon.com
Paul Brannigan - This Is A Call (2021)
"Among musicians, drummers are a breed apart. On the one hand, the drummer is the timekeeper, the
one who counts off the song and keeps the other band members on the beat. On the other, the drummer sits
behind everyone else and usually doesn’t write songs or sing them, so often he’s 'only the drummer.'
Actually, Dave Grohl was in the habit of smiling and saying, “I’m only the drummer,” as a way of sidestepping
conversations about the financial affairs of his most famous band, Nirvana. By all accounts, though, he’s one
of the best in the business; if you look up Grohl on YouTube, you get a sense of just how good a musician he
is. He’s also, according to Paul Brannigan, the Nicest Man in Rock."
David Kirby - New York Times and
Amazon Books
Nghi Vo – The Empress of Salt and Fortune (2020)
"This book is not a happy ending book. This is a salt and fortune book: dangerous, subtle, unexpected
and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful. Here, the truth is delicately, tenderly fished out of darkness.
Ugliness is couched in exquisite poetry and the ordinary is finely-drawn; any object, however plain in purpose
or silly in function, might be a relic of endurance and a witness to greatness. Nghi Vo's story of women and
intrigue at the end of one empire and beginning of another reveals in flashes that what you think you see isn't
all there is to see. It asks — and answers — the question: What is important? Who is important? Here, the old
aphorism "all that glitters is not gold" is particularly apt. "
~ Jessica P. Wick - NPR and
Amazon.com
Dr Licks - Standing In The Shadow of Motown (1989)
"(Guitar Book). Bassist James Jamerson was the embodiment of the Motown spirit and
groove the invisible entity whose playing inspired thousands. His tumultuous life and
musical brilliance are explored in depth through hundreds of interviews, 49 transcribed
musical scores, two hours of recorded all-star performances, and more than 50 rarely seen
photos in this stellar tribute to behind-the-scenes Motown. Features access to 120-minutes
of audio! Allan Slutsky's 2002 documentary of the same name is the winner of the New York
Film Critics "Best Documentary of the Year" award! "
~ Amazon Promo and
Amazon Prime Video
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Thomas Paine – The American Crisis (1776-1783ThomasPaine-1776-1783)
"The American Crisis was a series of pamphlets published from 1776 to 1783 during the
American Revolution by eighteenth century Enlightenment philosopher and author Thomas Paine.
The first volume begins with the famous words "These are the times that try men's souls".
There were sixteen pamphlets in total together often known as "The American Crisis" or simply
"The Crisis". Thirteen numbered pamphlets were published between 1776-1777 with three additional
pamphlets released between 1777-1783. The writings were contemporaneous with the early parts of
the American Revolution, during the times that colonists needed inspiring. They were written in a
language the common man could manage and are indicative of Paine's liberal philosophies. Paine
signed them with one of his many pseudonyms "Common Sense". The writings bolstered the morale of
the American colonists, appealed to the English people's consideration of the war with America,
clarified the issues at stake in the war and denounced the advocates of a negotiated peace. "
~ Wikipedia and
Amazon.com
Glendon Swarthout - The Shootist (1975)
"It's 1901 and an end of an era. With the dawn of the new century, we meet a lone man who has outlived his time.
And as his days grow shorter, we witness that they run in parallel with the dying of the Old West. Receiving only resentment and
greed from others, he bravely decides his own fate and punches a statement onto his own legacy and for the West of the past.
Reading "The Shootist" you quickly realize you have a great book in your hands. Famed and labeled as a "gun man,"
a"man-killer," an "assassin," or a"shootist," 51 year-old John Bernard Books rides into El Paso to get a second option from
the town doctor. Unfortunately the news is the same, he has an advanced case of prostate cancer and can expect an excruciating death in a few weeks."
Vintage Hardboiled Reads and
<Amazon Books
John Mcwhorter – Words on the Move (2016)
"A brisk look at how and why words change. In his 17th book investigating the variety, history, and idiosyncrasy of language, McWhorter (English and Comparative Literature/Columbia Univ.; The Language Hoax: Why the World Looks the Same in Any Language, 2014, etc.) enthusiastically makes the case that language is fluid. “It’s always a safe bet that a word will not be tomorrow what it is today,” he writes. Language is “something becoming rather than being” and “ever in flux; the changing is all there is.” To support this idea, repeated throughout the book, McWhorter offers myriad, and often fascinating, word histories. The word “silly,” for example, evolved from meaning “blessed” to “innocent” to “weak.” Some words narrow or broaden their meanings: “apple” once referred to all fruit, and what we call “meat” used to be “flesh.” The author devotes much discussion to “literally,” which originally meant “by the letter” but has gained “purely figurative usage” to mean something closer to “actually.” "
~ Wikipedia and
Amazon.com
Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis – '2034,' (2021)
"This crisply written and well-paced book reads like an all-caps warning for a world shackled to the machines we carry in our pockets and place on our laps, while only vaguely understanding how the information stored in and shared by those devices can be exploited... In “2034,” it’s as if Ackerman and Stavridis want to grab us by our lapels, give us a slap or two, and scream: Pay attention! George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, “Nineteen Eighty-four: A Novel” was published 35 years before 1984. Ackerman’s and Stavridis’s book takes place in the not-so-distant future when today’s high school military recruits will just be turning 30."
~ WashingtonPost.com and
Amazon Books
Jake Horsley – The Matrix Warrior (2003)
"In the Matrix movies, "reality" is just a dreamscape, a representation that six billion points of view agree to agree is "real." So if the only reality we know is a cunning and elaborate façade, what then does that signify for us? Matrix Warrior gives us the means to understand this premise and its implications on our knowledge of self and place. Combining an in-depth examination of the film with philosophical inquiry and the teachings of Castandeda, Jake Horsley has produced in Matrix Warrior a profound yet witty analysis-and all readers need to get "unplugged.""
~ SF Library and
Amazon Books
Meagan Spooner – Sherwood (2019)
"Marian puts on Robin’s green cloak, having snuck into his old room to feel close to him one last time, and is wearing it when she sets out to find and save Will before the Sheriff’s men do. Being tall, strong, and a powerful rider–not to mention a better archer than Robin ever was–she is mistaken for a man. Not just any man–but Robin himself, back from the grave. Marian allows her legend to grow. Rob from the rich, give to the poor–and above all, never, ever let anyone guess the truth of her identity. Not even the new friends and allies–John, Alain, Will–because who would ever follow her? "
~ thebooksmugglers.com and
Amazon Books
Ian Fleming – From Russia with Love (1956)
"It is perhaps not surprising that in 1956, when Fleming wrote the book, he could imagine only two roles for
women in the intelligence services: torturer or seductress. But it is a testament to his abiding influence that even
in the '90s, his was still the popular image. The idea that women like me might be leading investigations, running
sources or even running entire intelligence services was unimaginable. But this book isn't about reality. With its
exotic scenes in Istanbul, its struggle to the death with a psychopathic killer on the Orient Express, it is sheer escapism.
And reading it again, even now, when I know so much more about how things really are, I'm with JFK in thinking this
is one of the best of the Bond books."
~ My Guilty Pleasure - NPR and
Amazon Books
Jeffrey Rosen - Conversations with RBG (2019)
"It’s not for nothing that Ginsburg and her favorite Q&A partners (of whom Rosen is second only to NPR’s Nina Totenberg) sell
out law school auditoriums, amphitheaters, even Little Rock’s Verizon basketball arena. But readers who come for RBG’s Greatest
Hits will end up getting something richer: At its best, “Conversations” makes you feel like a student in the world’s coolest law school
seminar, with Ginsburg and Rosen deftly leading you through constitutional clauses and case law to elucidate how the court works
and why it matters."
~ bddailynews.com and
Amazon Books
Agent Running in the Field (2019)
"At 288 pages, Agent Running in the Field is a miniature compared with le Carré’s great cold war novels, and it lacks the
ruthless clockwork precision of, say, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. But it is a very classy entertainment about political ideals
and deception. There is a terrific scene set in a park, in particular, in which we gradually realise that all the bystanders are part of a
huge team of “watchers” marshalled by the spies to observe a secret conversation. The author leaves the reader to draw the
disturbing inference that this – in the age of ambient corporate and state surveillance by ubiquitous technology – is simply the way we all live now. "
~ The Guardian and
Amazon Books
Larry Beinhart – The Librarian (2004)
"The key figure, and virtually the only innocent, in the game of hardball politics is David Goldberg, a college librarian
who gets eased into a second job cataloguing the papers of billionaire developer Alan Carston Stowe and then suddenly
learns that Col. Jack Morgan, of Homeland Security, is sending four underlings to kill him because he’s found out a dread
secret. The good news is that David’s alerted to the plot by Morgan’s sexy wife Niobe, somebody he’s already paying
special attention to. The bad news is that he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to know and has no obvious way to find
out in the five days before the forthcoming election ends the historic contest between hard-riding figurehead Augustus
Winfield Scott and his come-from-nowhere Democratic challenger, Sen. Anne Lynn Murphy. Both candidates field organizations
bent on decimating the opposition, but Scott’s America-first minions, David gradually realizes, have in reserve “one-one-three,”
a knockout punch as diabolical as it is legal. The man-on-the-run plot is proficient persiflage; the bonus here is another dose of
anti-Administration satire from the author of American Hero (1993), filmed with its target changed from Bush 41 to Clinton as Wag the Dog. "
~ Kirkus Reviews and
Amazon Books
Kurt Vonnegut – Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
"Drawn from both specialized science fiction magazines and the big-circulation general magazines which Vonnegut had
been one of the few science writers to sell, the collection includes some of his most accomplished work from 1950 to 1968. The
title story may be his most famous—a diabolical government asserts control through compulsory technology removing orgasm
from sex—but Vonnegut’s bitterness and wit, not in his earlier work as poisonous or unshielded as it later became, is well demonstrated. "
~ nopagegetsleftbehind.wordpress.com and
Amazon Books
Thomas Berger –Neighbors (1980)
"Neighbors is a 1980 novel by American author Thomas Berger. It is a satire of manners and suburbia, and a comment on
emotional alienation with echoes of the works of Franz Kafka. Earl Keese’s character and situation begin realistically but become
increasingly fantastic. Keese is an Everyman whose life is swiftly turned upside down. As he scrambles to reclaim his sense of
normalcy and dignity, he comes to think that everyone, including his family, is against him. "
~ Wikipedia.com and
Amazon Books
Stephen King - The Gunslinger (1982)
"The Gunslinger is a quiet, meditative novel; as inauspicious a way to start a sprawling epic fantasy series as I've ever
encountered. In Roland Deschain, the titular Gunslinger, there's a superb, violent, powerful and thoughtful protagonist –
Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name by way of Robert Browning's poem, Childe Rolande to the Dark Tower Came. He's
cold and dark, and we see him wander through dusty western towns, shooting and fucking his way towards his nemesis,
The Man in Black. This is Randall Flagg, whom you might remember from The Stand (though he is never called by that name here).
He's a Very Bad Man. It transpires that he's been a part of Roland's life, in various guises, since the Gunslinger was a child, and that's
he's responsible for some horrible things. Roland has to find him, catch him and kill him. That's what a Gunslinger does."
~ The Guardian and
Amazon Books
Daniel F. Galouye – Simulacron 3 (1964)
"Simulacron 3 is the story of a virtual city (total environment simulator) for marketing research, developed by a scientist to
reduce the need for opinion polls. The computer-generated city simulation is so well-programmed, that, although the inhabitants
have their own consciousness, they are unaware, except for one, that they are only electronic impulses in a computer. The
simulator's lead scientist, Hannon Fuller, dies mysteriously, and a co-worker, Morton Lynch, vanishes. The protagonist, Douglas
Hall, is with Lynch when he vanishes, and Hall subsequently struggles to suppress his inchoate madness. As time and events
unwind, he progressively grasps that his own world is probably not "real" and might be only a computer-generated simulation. "
~ Wikipedia and
Amazon Books
Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove (1986)
"A love story, an adventure, an American epic, Lonesome Dove embraces all the West legend and fact,
heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers in a novel that recreates the central American experience,
the most enduring of our national myths. Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive
from Texas to Montana and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even a
foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life."
~ Prize Winning Fiction and
Amazon Books
John Le Carre - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
"The Spy is the story, to put it very simply, of a complicated act of deadly triple-bluff perpetrated by the British Secret
Service against its enemies in the German Democratic Republic, as communist East Germany was then known. At its centre is
Alec Leamas, sent, he believes, on a clever under-cover mission of revenge but in fact the unwitting tool of even cleverer British
brains with other motives. So much so relatively straightforward, but one of the sheer pleasures of the grade one espionage
novel is in unravelling its multifarious complexities and Le Carré handles the unspooling web of narrative and motive with exemplary poise."
~ William Boyd - theguardian.com and
Amazon Books
Daniel O'Malley – The ROOK (2012)
"Daniel O'Malley's contribution to the growing field of high-octane paranormal spy thrillers is filled with smart flourishes.
The Checquy is a centuries-old institution, with a command structure modeled after chess pieces, and clever bits of its history
occasionally pop up in the background. (There's a reference to at least one British horror classic; a more astute reader might
be able to find others.) As Myfanwy regains her footing, she realizes that her previous self was shy and unassertive, but she
decides to take a much more aggressive approach as she resumes the hunt for the traitor (or traitors) within the organization.
Good thing, too: on her first day back at the office, she supervises an interrogation that reveals the return of the Grafters,
a secret society of Belgian genetic engineers who first tried to invade England back in 1677."
~ Ron Hogan - Shelf-awareness.com and
Amazon Books
Philip Roth - The Plot Against America (2004)
"It is an alternative history in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is defeated in the presidential election of 1940
by Charles Lindbergh. The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism
becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels.
The narrator and central character in the novel is the young Philip, and the care with which his confusion and terror
are rendered makes the novel as much about the mysteries of growing up as about American politics. "
~ Wikipedia.org and
Amazon Books
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Joab Stieglitz – The Old Man's Request (2018)
"The Old Man's Request is an occult mystery and work of horror. In a summoning gone awry, five men
brought forth a creature from a parallel dimension occupied by ancient beings. During the ritual,
the circle was broken and one was killed and the creature was released into the realm of men and it has
continued to kill.
The last living member of the group that botched the summoning, planned and assemble a team of gifted
individuals to tackle the job of sending the creature back to its own plane of existence. Russian
anthropologist Anna Rykov, Doctor Harry Lamb, and Father Sean O'Malley take on the dying man's request."
~ DC Bebop review and
Amazon Books
Ursula K. Le Guin – The Lathe of Heaven (1971)
"The Lathe of Heaven is one of those books for which the term mind-bending was invented. Ursula K.
Le Guin’s 1971 novel about a man whose dreams can alter the very nature of reality is a masterful
examination of the mind’s ability to shape our perception of the world around us and our powerful
need to change that to fit our desires. While it shares thematic similarities to a lot of Philip K. Dick’s
work in its discussion of alternate realities and the untrustworthy nature of our perceptions, Le Guin
makes it uniquely her own by imagining how an effort to manipulate reality (even with the best of
intentions) can have disastrous consequences. At turns contemplative, moody, exhilarating and terrifying,
The Lathe of Heaven is one of my favorite science fiction novels of all time and an absolute must-read."
~ Andrew Kaufman - top-science-fiction-novels.com and
Amazon Books
Mario Vargas Llosa - Who Killed Palomino Molero? (1998)
" In Peru during the 50's, a young Air Force cadet is found murdered and mutilated. The half-breed cadet,
Palomino Molero, was draft-exempt yet joined the military anyway. Why? For love, it seems--love for the colonel's
daughter, a love that for a number of reasons (race, class rank) cannot be. But is it reason for slaughter? It falls to two
absolutely hapless hick Civil Guards--Officer Lituma (the narrator) and Lieutenant Silva--to investigate the case,
and it's on their wheels that the fun zooms. Silva is lust-crazy for a particular local (quite hefty) married woman, and
spends most of his time thinking, talking, and dreaming of her. Meanwhile, he "interrogates" various witnesses and
suspects in the cadet's murder, getting them to answer questions he never asks, to make connections he's too
sex-woozy to have formulated. Through it all, though, Lituma is convinced that Silva is another Sherlock Holmes. "
~ kirkusreviews.com and
Amazon Books
James Barret – Our Final Invention (2013)
"Computers already perform essential tasks in our national infrastructure and daily lives, including several beyond the capacity of the
smartest individual—e.g., playing chess or competing against humans on Jeopardy. While dazzling, these accomplishments are too specialized for
the artificial intelligence the author and the many philosophers, scientists and entrepreneurs he interviews have in mind. Within decades,
computers will operate at the speed of a human brain and become rational, allowing them to learn, rewrite their own programs to learn better,
solve problems better, make decisions and perhaps create more computers like themselves. Having reached this level, they have achieved artificial
general intelligence. Inevitably, working on their own without human input, they will exceed human intelligence by factors of 100 and eventually
thousands, achieving artificial superintelligence. "
~ KirkusReviews.org and
Amazon Books
Tom Rob Smith - Agent 6 (2012)
" AGENT 6 is the final installment in the Child 44 trilogy, which features Soviet secret police agent Leo
Demidov. It is a wonderful conclusion to a series that is epic in scope. AGENT opens in 1951 in Moscow,
where the young agent Leo is assigned the prestigious duty of escorting a black American singer, Jesse
Austin, around Moscow. "
~ Goodreads and
Amazon Books
Walter M. Miller, Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
"A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller Jr.,
first published in 1960. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the Southwestern United States after a devastating
nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the fictional Albertian
Order of Leibowitz take up the mission of preserving the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the day
the outside world is again ready for it."
~ Wikipedia and
Amazon Books
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five (1966)
"Kurt Vonnegut introduces his seventh novel, “Slaughterhouse-Five” (Delacorte), apologetically, calling it a failure.
Coming from most writers, an apology like that would be inadequate; a writer can always take a vow of permanent abstinence
from writing, and there is a shortage of cabdrivers. Mr. Vonnegut’s penitential gesture is objectionable because it implies
that he might have succeeded in solving a problem that he properly represents as insoluble. In 1945, a German prisoner of
war, he lived through the American and British bombing of Dresden, in which a hundred and thirty-five thousand people died—nearly
twice as many, he notes, as were killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, whose devastation was at least officially honored by
a Presidential announcement. “Slaughterhouse-Five” is Vonnegut’s tribute to the strain imposed on his conscience by the fact that
he survived, and by his increasing awareness, since the war, of the scope and variety of death. The vibrant simplicity of the book
to which he finally surrendered his emotion makes his apology seem disingenuous, like Alexander the Great putting himself down for
not dedicating his life to untying the Gordian knot. Besides, any book that is touted as a “masterpiece,” “long-awaited,” and
“twenty years in the making” can’t be all bad if it turns out to be just a neat hundred and eighty-six pages long."
~ Susan Lardner - newyorker.com and
Amazon Books
Frederik Pohl - Gateway (1976)
"Gateway is without a doubt one of the most entertaining and readable books on this list. It’s a page-turner in the best
sense of the word, with an ingenious set up, a relatable main character, a dash of humor and a sustained sense of tension and
suspense that keeps you on edge throughout. Add to that Pohl’s gift for clear, concise and engaging writing (something Science
Fiction is not always known for) and you have a highly satisfying read that is able to entertain while also displaying the wonder
and imagination that Science Fiction IS known for. Frederik Pohl represents a middle ground when it comes to Sci-Fi writers. He’s
not too “Hard,” not too “Soft,” and he has just the right combination of grand ideas and compelling story lines to make his work
instantly compelling – and Gateway is one of the best examples of his gifts as a storyteller. "
~ top-science-fiction-novels.com and
Amazon Books
William Gibson – Neuromancer (1984)
"Neuromancer is not truly where it all began. Cyberpunk predates the publication of the novel by several years and was already
a growing phenomenon. The film Blade Runner, loosely based on a 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick, was released in 1982, establishing a
similar asethetic. But Neuromancer was the breakout hit. It won both the Hugo and the Nebula award (and the Philip K. Dick award, which
does not, contrary to Wikipedia, have the same cachet). Gibson coined the word "cyberpunk" earlier, but Neuromancer is the novel that
put it into the popular lexicon. "
~ Eyrie.org and
Amazon Books
Bruce Gibney - A Generation of Sociopaths (2017)
"Millennials are killing everything from the American mediocre dining experience to Donald Trump’s chosen form of exercise.
Given this propensity for destroying everything America holds dear, one might be forgiven for assuming that any work offering a
collective psychological assessment of an entire generation would focus on the one that seemingly murders American institutions
with impunity. Generation X venture capitalist-turned-author Bruce Gibney turns the tables on this millennial blaming with his work, A
Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. Gibney offers an explanation for the disintegration of the
American economic and political system that rests on the backs of the generation that raised millennials: baby boomers. "
~ Eric Morgenson - ActivistHistory.com and
Amazon Books
Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)
"Surely revolutionary at the time that it was released, and even now, still an incredibly incisive look at
how white American politics, backstabbing, greed, and genocide decimated the American Indian population,
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West is not a comfortable read. Wounded
Knee is relentless in its documentation of the betrayals and battles suffered by the United States’ indigenous
populations, from the Comanche to the Blackfeet to the Kiowa."
~ BookWanderer.com and
Amazon Books
David Fromkin - A Peace To End All Peace (1989)
"'A Peace to End All Peace'' is about the dissolution of the centuries-old Ottoman Empire at the close of
World War I and the consequences of that breakup for the Western powers, the Soviet Union and, to a lesser
extent, the peoples of the Middle East themselves. On a still larger scale, the book concerns the political origins
of the present-day Middle East. It concludes with the piecemeal territorial settlements of 1922, when political lines
were drawn that bear a striking resemblance to the boundaries of today. "
~ NYTimes.com and
Amazon Books
John Twelve Hawks - Spark (2017)
"Jacob Underwood is dead. At least, he thinks he is. Suffering the after effects of a traumatic accident, Jacob believes
he is dead, just a spark existing inside a body, but unable to fully interact with anything around him. Emotionally detached and
living in a shadowy, silent world, Jacob is the ideal assassin. When a new hit is assigned to him, Jacob must prepare himself -
and his journey will change both his self, and how he sees the world around him. John Twelve Hawks is an interesting character -
he rose to fame following the publication of his 'Fourth Realm Trilogy', and yet the real identity of the author is unknown. His fear of
publicity, fame, and putting details in the public domain, are used wonderfully in this novel, and really help to build the world. The
world itself is a dystopian future, one in which privacy is long extinct, and all thoughts are monitored for deviations against the norm.
Jacob Underwood, the main character, fits in well in the world - his lack of emotions making him able to carry out assassinations
without much fear of detection. "
~ TheBookBag.co.uk and
Amazon Books
Ryunosuke Akutagawa - Rashomon (1914)
"The author’s gifted and tortured soul is visible throughout this amazing collection of stories. It is divided into four sections:
(1) A World in Decay, (2) Under the Sword, (3) Modern Tragicomedy and (4) Akutagawa’s Own Story. These sections correspond
to four periods of Japanese history as well as four creative styles which took birth from Akutagawa’s fertile imagination. In the first
section, stories (most of them retelling of old legends) set in the Heian Period (A.C.E. 794 – 1185) are included. This was Japan’s
classical era; a time of peace, prosperity and opulence when art and culture flourished. But as is common with most ancient
kingdoms, it declined and power slipped from the hands of the aristocrats into the hands of the warlords. It is this twilight period
that Akutagawa uses as a backdrop for his stories of degeneration and decay. The title story of the collection, Rashomon,
encapsulates the entire misery of the country in the symbol of the gate of the capital city of Kyoto."
~ nandakishorevarma.wordpress.com and
Amazon Books
Jorgen Brekke - The Fifth Element (2017)
" Forgoing the historical excursions that tangled the first two cases of Trondheim’s Inspector Odd Singsaker
(Dreamless, 2015, etc.), Brekke mingles the immediate past, present, and future to produce an even more tangled,
but deeply rewarding, tale... The intricately linked plotlines will appeal to puzzle fans. But it’s Brekke’s prodigious
powers of invention, his ability to keep coming up with unforgettable characters and indelible episodes, that lift this
above his own earlier work and most of the heavy Nordic competition."
~ KirkusReviews.com and
Amazon Books
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward - All the President's Men (1973)
" In the course of a gripping narrative, rather like a good detective story, we are treated to gossipy peeks
behind the scenes of power in Washington (Ken Clawson of the White House staff hysterically upset not because
the Post was about to print a story saying he had confessed to writing the infamous "Canuck letter," but because his
confession had been given one night to Post reporter Marilyn Berger over drinks in her apartment and he was afraid
the story might reveal that, too; Clawson was a Nixonian family man, after all). More important, we are treated to a
detailed description of the process of diggin"
~ Ron Dorfman - Chicago Tribune and
Amazon Books
DashiellHammett - The Maltese Falcon (1930)
" is the Hammett novel that jumps from the pages of its genre and into literature. It's the book that
introduces Sam Spade, the private detective who seduced a generation of readers, leading directly to Philip
Marlowe. Dorothy Parker, never a pushover, confessed herself "in a daze of love" such as she had not known
in literature "since I encountered Sir Lancelot" and claimed to have read the novel some 30 or 40 times."
~ Robert McCrum - TheGuardian.com and
Amazon Books
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Idiot (1868-9)
"is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published serially in the journal
The Russian Messenger in 1868-9. The title is an ironic reference to the central character of the novel, Prince (Knyaz)
Lyov Nikolaevich Myshkin, a young man whose goodness and open-hearted simplicity lead many of the more worldly characters
he encounters to mistakenly assume that he lacks intelligence and insight. In the character of Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky
set himself the task of depicting "the positively good and beautiful man".[2] The novel examines the consequences of
placing such a unique individual at the centre of the conflicts, desires, passions and egoism of worldly society, both
for the man himself and for those with whom he becomes involved. The result, according to philosopher A.C. Grayling, is
"one of the most excoriating, compelling and remarkable books ever written; and without question one of the greatest."[3]"
~ Wikipedia and
Amazon Books
Anne Fortier - The Lost Sisterhood (2014)
"Diana Morgan has focused her career as a philologist (one who engages in the study of
literary text and written records), on the Amazons, the legendary warrior women of ancient
Greece—and with good reason. They’re rooted in her own family history. Before disappearing
without a trace, Diana’s grandmother used to regale her with stories about the lost tribe
of warrior women. Her grandmother even went as far as to suggest that she was an Amazon
herself, leading the rest of the family to doubt her mental capacity. Diana’s scholarly
work at Oxford University centers on the discovery and dissection of the Amazon race;
however, other professors warn her that she is committing career suicide if she continues
to focus on a part of history that most regard as completely fantastical."
~ BookPage® Review by Elisabeth Atwood and
Amazon Books
Peter George: Red Alert (1958)
"SAC ATTACK!: Every minute of every hour of every day, there are American bombers
in the air, loaded with H-bombs, ready to fly into action at the mere spark of the right
radio signal. These are the planes and the men of the Strategic Air Command. What happens
once that signal flashes is described vividly in this tensly dramatic novel. The command
came to the men of the 843rd Wing, high in the air near the Soviet border. Asking no
questions, obeying their standing orders, they headed straight towards their assigned
targets. Had America already been attacked? Or was it the action of a single determined
general, and unauthorized by the Pentagon and the president? RED ALERT is the story of the
two tensest hours in human history. Is the basis for the Stanley Kubrick film, "Dr.
Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb." Not to be confused
with the later screenplay/novel by Peter George and Stanley Kubrick. This story is very
different from that book and the film.""
~ FantasticFiction.com and
Amazon Books
Philip K. Dick: The Minority Report (1956)
"is a 1956 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick, first published in Fantastic Universe. In a future society,
three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow the Precrime
Division to arrest suspects prior to any infliction of public harm. When the head of Precrime, John A. Anderton, is accused
of murdering Leopold Kaplan, a man whom he has never met, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot.""
~ Wikipedia.org and
Amazon Books
Anne Rice – Interview with a Vampire (1976)
"Interview with the Vampire is a debut gothic horror and vampire novel by American
author Anne Rice, published in 1976. Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the
novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the story of his life to a
reporter. Rice composed the novel shortly after the death of her young daughter Michelle,
who served as an inspiration for the child-vampire character Claudia. Though initially the
subject of mixed critical reception, the book was followed by a large number of widely
popular sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles."
~ Wikipedia.org and
Amazon Books
Harper Lee - To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
"To Kill a Mockingbird focuses on that gut instinct of right and wrong, and distinguishes
it from just following the law. Even the titular quote: "Shoot all the blue jays you want, if
you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" is in itself an allegory for
this message. Being in itself a generic message, the idea of 'doing what's right' obviously
has a different meaning depending on when and where you're reading the book."
~ independent.co.uk and
Amazon Books
Zoë Heller - What Was She Thinking? (2003)
"This is one of those disquieting novels that proffers its apparent theme then cunningly reveals itself to be
about something else altogether. As its title and first pages suggest, its surface plot concerns a tabloid-pleasing
sizzler of a scandal. Sheba Hart, a 41-year-old pottery teacher, arrives at a dreggy north London comp trailing the
kind of tarnished glamour that sets the school's sex-starved males mildly abuzz. The suitor who presses his case
first is 15-year-old Steven Connolly, a reasonably gormless lad with mild artistic proclivities, a cabbie father,
and a home on an estate."
~ TheGuardian.com and
Amazon Books
Philip K Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968)
"Philip K Dick's vision of a dystopian post-apocalyptic earth is a seminal work
of science fiction, created in 1968 it was way ahead of it's time and predicted
such technology as the video phone. There are many ideas subtly played
throughout the novel, while on the surface we've got the examination of the
human condition which asks questions about identity and altruism, we've also got
the religious theory of Mercerism - a pseudo-religion that offers many a clearly
false hope."
~ Anthony - SF Book Reviewsand
Amazon Books
Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist (1985)
"'The Accidental Tourist' combines comedy and tragedy without veering into farce or sentimentality. It's a novel
that runs deep and showcases her ability to make the everyday both entirely recognisable and extraordinary. This novel,
full of wisdom and writing that sneaks up on you with its brilliance, its insights, and its sheer humanity, gave me back
my appetite for reading - while its author became an enduring professional role-model."
~ independent.co.uk and
Amazon Books
Michael Haneke - The Piano Teacher (1983)
Delacorta - DIVA (1997)
Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness (1899)
Larry Niven - Protector (1987)
Neil Gaiman - American Gods (2001)
Rob Thomas & Jennifer Graham - Veronica Mars: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line (2014)
Harry Bates - Farewell to the Master (1940)
ROGER ZELAZNY - Nine Princes in Amber (1970)
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962)
William Goldman - Marathon Man (1974)
John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
Davis Grubb - Night of the Hunter (1953)
David Lagercrantz – The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel (2015)
Blott On The Landscape - Tom Sharpe (1975)
All You Need Is Kill - Hiroshi Sakurazaka (2004)
Dashiell Hammett – The Thin Man (1934)
Carlos Castaneda – The Teachings of Don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968)
Dashiell Hammett - The Maltese Falcon (1941)
James Grady - Six Days of the Condor (1974)
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises (1926).jpg)
Kim Harrison - UNDEAD POOL (2014)
Jim Butcher - SKIN GAME (2014)
William Goldman - The Princess Bride (1973)
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978)
Alex Skolnick - Geek to Guitar Hero (2013)
Terry Teachout – Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington ’ (2013)
Neil
Gaiman – Ocean at the End of the Lane’ (2013)
Alison Stewart – First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America's First Black Public High School (2013)
Kim Harrison – Ever After (2012)
Jim Butcher – Cold Days (2012)
Robert A Heinlein – Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
John Barth – Lost in the Funhouse (1968)
JRR
Tolkien – The Lord of the Rings (1954)
Paul de Barros – 'Shall We Play That One Together?': The life of piano jazz legend Marian McPartland (2012)
Laura Joh Rowland – Shinju (1994)
Tom
Sharpe – The Throwback (1978)
Thomas Berger – Little Big Man (1989)
Jo Nesbø – Nemesis (2002)
Kim Harrison – A Perfect Blood (2012)
George
R.R. Martin – A Dance with Dragons (2011)
Jim
Butcher – Ghost Story (2011)
Philip
K. Dick – The Philip K. Dick Reader (1997)
Richard Castle – Heat Rises (2011)
Stephen
Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow – The Grand Design (2010)
Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol (1843)
Philip Van Doren Stern - The Greatest Gift (1943)