Simon Levack’s The Shadow of the Lords is the exciting second book to his Aztec Mystery series (the first being Demon of the Air). Levack writes in an easy-to-read style with good character development. The second book picks up right where the first one left off (I have not experienced this concept with any of [...]
Well, it is my birthday (I’m thirty-seven. I’m not old.) for a few more minutes, but after a morning spent painting the house and seven hours in the car (with two dogs and a two year old frequent stops are necessary) I feel a bit wiped out. But I am in the state of my [...]
I was recently trying to describe William DeBuys’ The Walk to a friend and realized that the book wasn’t easy to categorize or summarize. Here is the book description from Amazon (which is a portion of the book flap): Set, like River of Traps, on a small farm in a New Mexican mountain valley that [...]
- The King of Methlehem by Mark Lindquist Publishers Weekly Lindquist (Carnival Desires) puts his experience combating the scourge of methamphetamines as a Washington State narcotics prosecutor to good use in his fourth novel, a gripping thriller. Tacoma detective Wyatt James is dead set on putting an end to the operations of a shadowy figure [...]
Been a while, time for another edition of In The Mail . . . – In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror by Anthony D. Romero and Dina Temple-Raston Book Description From the executive director of the ACLU, Anthony D. Romero, and award-winning journalist Dina Temple-Raston, In [...]
Evan Thomas’ Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945 is an excellent look at four naval commanders and their actions during the Battle of Leyte Gulf during the World War II. Here is a brief summary of the book from Publisher’s Weekly: Thomas, Newsweek’s assistant managing editor, turns his considerable [...]
I had a very weird feeling the other day. I realized that for one of the few times in my life I agreed with the New York Times more than with National Review Online! What brought such a weird moment to pass? Reviews of The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. In my own review I [...]
Pacific Alamo by John Wukovits highlights an area of World War II that has rarely been covered – the Battle for Wake Island and the fate of those who survived the battle. Wukovits brings his wonderful narrative style to this subject. The book covers the battle – which began on December 11, 1941 – extensively [...]
Sorry about the radio silence of late but off-line life has been intruding. I have some reviews and some opinions I would like to share but I need to find some time to get them down in pixels. There has been a lot of discussion in lit blogs about local newspaper coverage of books. Ohio [...]
One of my favorite young adult series is the Sisters Grimm Fairy Tale Detectives series by Michael Buckley. They are everything I enjoy about YA fiction: creative, funny, nicely packaged and beautifully illustrated. My wife and I read through the first three books in the series very quickly so we were eagerly anticipating the release [...]