Chapter Eighty-one

So, it's February and the weather has been anything but seasonal. Not that I'm complaining. Again, I haven't been Babysitting so I have had a lot more free time but I'm still dealing with car problems and I had my yearly cardio tests to go through. I started a few books that I wound up putting down but I did finish a couple and here they are.

Miscellaneous

 The Man In The High Castle - Philip K. Dick ($14.95/$11.50, copyright 1962, 274 pages, Trade Paperback)
I read several of PKD's books many years ago. Specifically, "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep" and the Riverworld series, all of which I enjoyed. When I saw that Amazon had started a series based on this book, I went looking for it but wound up ordering it online - although I was surprised to find that it wasn't available on many of the sites I use and wound up paying more then I usually do. It's a well-written and very convincing alternate history where Hitler and the Nazis, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan had been the victors in World War II instead of us. He creates a convincing scenario about life here in the U. S. (Germany controlling the East Coast and Japan the West) but goes a step further, he shows us how the takeover has affected the rest of the world at large and how the Nazi beliefs have developed. He even goes so far as to tell a story within a story as he imagines an author in this world speculating on what life would have been like if the Nazis hadn't won. That being said, this is a slow and highly technical novel. Also, it's not a personal story and none of the large amount of characters were particularly interested me. In my opinion, this is an example of a writer - early in his career - who has a great idea but overindulges it. It was OK.

Series

The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer ($14.99/$1.00, copyright 2011, 386 pages, Trade Paperback)

Brad Meltzer wrote several of my favorite comic book mini-series' back in the day  so, when I came across his "A Book Of Lies" years ago  (which involves one of the creators of Superman) I had to pick it up. I enjoyed it and have read a few more of his books since then. He's got a great amount of knowledge about American History and he's really into conspiracy theories. I understand that this is the first volume in a series. We start with our "hero" Beecher White who works at the National Archives. He agrees to help an old girlfriend out with some research and then things go wrong. They accidentally uncover a link between the current President and the Culper Ring  which was originally a group of spies working for George Washington. This group actually existed, but Meltzer takes it one step further, building his plot around the continuation of the ring as a conspiracy to take over the world. Meltzer can create some great scenarios and his characters are well defined but I think he got carried away here. It was OK.

That's it for this month. Next up - March. St. Patrick's Day and, maybe, some Irish authors.

Until then ....

Keep Reading.

Chapter Eighty

Well, it's a New Year and we have a new President. We'll see how that goes. I haven't been Babysitting my Granddaughter much but I did get some time in. I thought that I'd have more time to read but between exercising my leg and trouble with my car, I didn't get too far. This month's selections are a little different because one is the basis for a current movie and the other is something that popped up in my Facebook Newsfeed that piqued my interest. Of course, you can't expect to find something your looking for at a Library Sale so I ordered them from a couple of online Discount Book Sites that I have bookmarked.

Miscellaneous

Live By Night - Dennis Lehane ($16.99/$4.30, copyright 2012, 402 pages, Trade Paperback)
 I saw that Ben Affleck made this into a movie and I thought that I'd look it up. Lehane has been one of my favorite authors for years.  Here he takes  Joe Coughlin, who was a minor character in Lehane's previous book "The Given Day" (which was pretty good) and gives him a new life. He is the youngest son of a Boston Police Captain who turns his back on a life of fighting crime to become a criminal himself. The book reads like a collection of events in a gangster's life during the late '20's Jazz Age including bootlegging, violence, and racism. Lehane  has an amazing ability to adapt his tone to fit the era of which he writes and he's tried to create an homage to the Bogart anti-hero stereotype - you know, the good guy gone bad. But , in my opinion, there's no reasoning behind what Coughlin does and that ruined the story for me. It was OK.


The Autobiography of Jack The Ripper - James Carnac (?/$4.76, copyright 2012, 277 pages, Hard Cover)
This is the alleged manuscript of the “real” Jack the Ripper. Written in the 1920's by a man calling himself James Carnac, it was "discovered" recently in a lot of memorabilia purchased by a vintage toy dealer (Alan Hicken) and it's divided into 3 parts. The first deals with his childhood, which was quite brutal; the second concerns the murders in Whitechapel; and the third occurs decades later, with Carnac detailing an odd circumstance he has found himself in with his landlady. I've read a lot about Jack over the years and I found this book fascinating. I don't actually believe that it's real (considering that there's a Paul Begg, freelance writer, who wrote the Introduction) but there is a lot of information in the manuscript that would likely only be known by the killer. I don't think we'll ever know the truth. I enjoyed it.

Well, that's it for this month. Up next, February.

I'm hoping we can get through without too much angst, given the "State of the Union".

Until then ....

Keep reading.