Quick Book Reviews Blog

Good morning, day, afternoon, or evening (I really cannot predict what’s the time where you’re living), and I would just like to send out my thanks and appreciation to all of you who have been coming to this website and reading what I have to say. If it wasn't for you, I probably would have stopped this a long time ago. Once again, thank you for helping to make me what I am today, have a Happy New Year and enjoy your holidays, whatever they may be!

Harold Fry is a man who lives life as a routine; every day, he goes through the exact same procedures, having become somewhat of a robot, at least physically. What’s worse, his wife simply cannot stand him, hating the way he does literally everything, from talking to tying his shoe laces. On a day which was supposed to be exactly like every other one, Harold receives a very surprising letter from a woman he has last encountered over twenty years ago. That woman is lying close to death, and the letter is her final goodbye. Inexplicably unfazed by this turn of events, Harold hastily writes a reply and goes to deposit it into his mailbox. However, as novels like this usually have it, Harold makes an encounter on his short journey to the mailbox, one which convinces him that he has to deliver this letter in person, and so he sets out on a pilgrimage across the countryside, a trip during which he makes many strange encounters which remind him of the meaning of being alive.

When most of us think of warfare, we probably imagine ourselves dozens, hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of soldiers going head to head with each other, whether it’s with clubs and swords or tanks and machineguns. Over the past few decades though, warfare has changed tremendously to the point where technology and intelligence dictate who the winner will be without question. As it happens, relatively little is written about this kind of warfare, the one fought behind closed doors at headquarters, and that’s exactly what we get with Tom Clancy's and Mark Greaney 's  Threat Vector , a novel with Jack Ryan as the main protagonist.

Most of us know Abraham Lincoln as the president who abolished slavery and then got shot by a then-famous actor while attending a play at the opera. The more you look into his life, the more it seems that he was above ordinary men, and the secret journal discovered by Seth Grahame-Smith only confirms that suspicion.  In that journal, Lincoln discusses a part of his life no one knew about, the one where he learned his mother was slain by a vampire. With the help of his height, his unparalleled strength and his mighty axes, Lincoln sets out on a bloody and gruesome adventure to rid the world of the vampire menace, and most importantly, to avenge his mother’s death.

I think it wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that the concept of death is one which has captivated the minds of humans unlike any other subject out there. It comes for everyone at one point or another, yet not a single person truly knows beyond all doubt what happens when one dies.  There are many attempts to provide an explanation for what happens beyond the realms of death, but they are all conjectures; until someone finds a way to come back from the beyond and tell us what’s up on the other side, we’re relegated to mere hypotheses. 

Bring Up the Bodies by Hillary Mantel is the anticipated sequel to Wolf Hall , and if you haven’t read it yet I suggest you do. You can check it out in my Wolf Hall review. In any case, for those who have read it, this time around Henry has become disillusioned with the woman whose hand he so desperately fought for years earlier, mostly because she bore him no son. Things get even worse when Anne Boleyn becomes the center of gossip as Katherine, who was exiled from the court, passes away. Thomas Cromwell stands ready to bring the Anne down as soon as Henry commands it, and so begins one of the most convoluted trials, that of the Queen herself. 

In case you aren't familiar with how England worked during the 16th century (and the Middle Ages , for that matter), the king and queen would basically rule over a bunch of lower classes, and as long as there is a clear successor to the throne, things work more or less normally.  However, in Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel we are being shown the life of Henry VIII , who is fresh out of luck as he cannot seem to give Britain what it wants: a male heir. A lack of a heir would mean that all sorts of crazy people would be able to make a claim for the throne, inevitably plunging the country into a civil war.

Wormhole is the final part of the Rho Agenda trilogy written by Richard Phillips, and if you haven’t had the pleasure of reading the first two books yet, then I highly recommend you do so before reading this review, unless of course you like to spoil books for yourself. You can read about the first book in The Second Ship review , and about the second one in my Immune review .

If you haven’t read the first book of The Rho Agenda trilogy trilogy, then I strongly suggest that you do, because I’m probably going to spoil something about its ending... however, I guess such things are inevitable when writing about a trilogy. In any case, here is my review of the The Second Ship . Now on with the review. The second book in the trilogy takes off pretty much where the first one ended: the NSA director failed to contain the Rho Project, which has led to it being infiltrated into the government. What’s worse, the alien Nano-serum (notorious for causing death) is being administered to the people under the pretense of it being a magical cure for all of their problems.

Regardless of whether or not you believe in UFOs and extraterrestrial beings, you have to admit that pondering the question is quite interesting, especially considering the promptly covered and classified possible encounters we have had with them or their technology. In the Rho Agenda Trilogy written by Richard Phillips, the story begins in the book titled The Second Ship , where for sixty years a UFO which crashed mysteriously has been kept secret behind the walls of an underground laboratory.

By itself, the Middle East is home to some of the most breathtaking pieces of scenery ever, ranging from cold and snowy mountains all the way to vast terrains and dunes made golden by the sun’s rays shining off grains of sand.  Unfortunately, as is made amply obvious in The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, the Middle East is home to things much deadlier than its scenery, with the whole war thing going on. In the novel we follow the journey of two recruits which have been deployed as part of the force tasked with taking over the city of Al Tafar, Iraq.

First off, I’d like to say that even though A Higher Call by Adam Makos and Larry Alexander is mostly a novel, the events depicted within it were based on real stories, at least as far as the overall path traveled by the two main characters goes.  I’m sure you are already familiar with World War II from history text books, television shows, movies and whatnot, so I’m kind of going to skip over explaining the importance of this world event; even if you aren't an expert, you probably have an idea as to how things were for and between the Allied and the Axis, which is enough to understand this novel. 

From his previously-published book The Black Swan , it is no secret that Nassim Nicholas Taleb doesn’t believe this world to be an orderly and predictable place; the events which truly dictate humanity’s fate are almost always the ones nobody sees coming. In Antifragile , Nassim digs deeper into the concept of chaos and how its existence is necessary. What does the title refer to exactly? Well, it seems that in this book Nassim coins the term "antifragile" in reference to that which flourishes under stress and disorder. For instance, when human bones are broken they grow back stronger and revolutions become more powerful as people try to suppress them. 

Ever since humans have gained the ability to form and express thoughts we have tirelessly searched for answers to questions such as "why are we here?" and "why does the world work the way it does?" Different people turned to different places for answers; some turned to religion, others to science, while many others simply came to the conclusion they will never get an answer.  While I’m not going to claim I've found the answers to those questions, it is very possible that Nassim Nicholas Taleb at least partially answered the question as to why the world works the way it does, in his bestseller The Black Swan .

Most of us would like to believe that all these thoughts and discussions about the end of the world are only speculations from curious minds... however, at the back of our heads we know everything ends at some point, and I believe it’s that fear which makes stories about survival in a post-apocalyptic setting so attractive to us. In The Jakarta Pandemic , Steven Konkoly capitalizes on that fear, following Iraq War Veteran Alex Fletcher , as he first desperately attempts to keep his family safe from the flu pandemic, and then works with the entire neighbourhood to fight off a threat far greater than a deadly virus, which says a lot about the kind of evil they are facing.

Practically every person who is living on this Earth, in first-world countries at least, has a daily routine, a world which has been carefully built; a family, friends, a career, relationships, favourite hangouts, food preferences… etc... etc...  However, the truth is that there are many dissatisfied with knowing where their life is going next, at least from time to time, and wish for nothing but the ability to disappear and reappear elsewhere with a completely clean and blank slate.

Describing The Cowboy and the Cossack as a western doesn't really do it justice… as a matter of fact, there may not really be an official genre for this type of novel. And that, in my opinion, makes it at least worth checking out.  Written by Clair Huffaker, The Cowboy and the Cossack takes place in the Far East as fifteen cowboys with a giant herd prepare to cross thousands of miles of Siberian wilderness. To help them out, a group of Cossacks , elite Russian warriors, are sent to escort them.

Most of us see the Middle Ages as being an era filled with glorious knights, honorable kings, well-meaning peasants, beautiful princesses, swords, books, fancy cups, and so on and so forth.  However, what many of us forget to imagine, when thinking of the Middle Ages, is the horror. Indeed, these were extremely violent times when teachings of faith were taken very literally, a time when justice was about as arbitrary as it could ever be. 

It seems that authors always become more appreciated after their time has passed, and unfortunately Jane Austen is no exception to this rule; her novels, Sense and Sensibility as well as Pride and Prejudice are some of the most well-known and revered works of writing today, being complex and thought-provoking on a number of different levels. I guess it’s not too far of a stretch to say that Pride and Prejudice is the better known of the two novels, perhaps because it deals with somewhat darker themes, being centered around Elizabeth Bennet, or more precisely, on what she perceives.

The first book in the Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants , introduced us to the five families, the setting, the characters themselves, the morals of that time. The second book by Ken Follett in this trilogy, Winter of the World , picks up where the first one left off, as each family is headed for some kind of war-related turmoil.  I really won’t go into detail as to which family faces what (let’s admit it, it would take a me a long time and you probably wouldn't even read it anyways), but in one way or another, each one of them finds itself entangled in some kind of significant conflict, whether it’s against actual people or ideas.

When we think of times past, how people must have lived, interacted and worked, let’s admit it, most of us have a very limited and romanticized notion about that. We know bits and pieces from what we read in books and saw in movies, and from those pieces we try and put together the big picture as best we can.  Not to say Ken Follett has lived at the beginning of the twentieth century, but he seems to be a man who has done his research and knows more than most about that time period… after all, he wrote an entire trilogy following the story of five families in that world, with the first book of it being Fall of Giants .

Paulo Coelho, even though he has started to publish books relatively late in his life, has become quite known for being willing to explore heavier and more controversial themes, and in Veronika Decides to Die he does so inspiring himself from his own life. The story starts off by presenting Veronika, a woman by all measures should be happy: she is young, beautiful, popular, has a lot of friends, a loving family, boyfriends, and a job that she actually kind of likes.

Paulo Coelho is one of today’s most unique and ambitious writers, tackling on the most complex and convoluted subjects he can find. I've already reviewed his masterpiece, The Alchemist , in which a man was taken on a tremendous journey of soul-searching and self-discovery. It seems these themes are quite close to Paulo's heart, as they can once again be seen in another one of his modern classics, The Fifth Mountain .

Eleven Minutes is considered by most people as being Paulo Coelho’s most controversial piece of writing, mainly because it is centered on a rather unusual type of protagonist, a young prostitute. While many people may have unsavory opinions of them, it is important to understand that many of them haven’t gotten into their lifestyle by their own choice… many are forced into it either by circumstances, or worse, people.

Twenty years ago, back in 1992, Harry Bosch was assigned to investigate the murder of a young photographer murdered during the L.A. riots . Bosch never managed to solve the crime as it was handed off to the Riot Crimes Task Force, where it remained unsolved forever. However, twenty years later Bosch gets his hands on a ballistics report which leads him to believe the young photographer’s death wasn't just collateral damage to the riot.

It seems that every story is sparked by a seemingly routine and banal event, and in The Affair by Lee Child, that something is the murder of a woman on a train track. Elite military cop Jack Reacher is called in for the investigation, and quite quickly he manages to put together the pieces of the puzzle, and they all point to a soldier on a nearby military base. Unfortunately for Jack, said soldier has some of the country’s most powerful people on his side. Reacher decides to join forces with Elizabeth Deveraux, a local sheriff, and together they unravel a vast conspiracy.

Detective Alex Cross has survived through countless seemingly-deadly affairs using nothing but his seemingly super-human McGuyver-like intelligence; regardless of what situation he is in, he always thinks of something. It seems that such a man has earned the right to spend Christmas without having to escape certain death, but it seems crime thinks otherwise.

While these thoughts may be considered as demented and perverted, the truth is that there is some kind of freedom to be had in being past the point of return, on the run, and being able to do literally anything, knowing that it doesn’t matter how much worse things get because the end will be the same. This line of thinking is perhaps what drove Bonnie and Clyde on their rampage (amongst other things), and it seems to be driving three murderous teenagers from rural Minnesota in Mad River by John Sandford.

First of all, before talking about this book there are a few things I’d like to put out there: I do not believe in the existence of a God, at least not as described in religious texts. I don’t categorically deny it, because after all, the inexistence of God cannot be proven, yet the way I see it, the burden of proof lies in the hands of those who claim he is real, and so far not a single undisputable fact has been presented which points to his existence.  That being said, regardless of whether or not God is real, his alleged teachings deserve some attention, with the main one being that love is what needs to be shared with one another above all. Mick Mooney explores precisely this theme in his latest novel, God’s Grammar .

What today is known as America, in Agenda 21 by Glenn Beck, is known as The Republic. There are no rulers in The Republic, no congressmen, supreme courts, and most importantly, no freedom; there are only citizens and the seemingly omnipotent authorities. Citizens are only used for two tasks: creating energy and reproduction. The guards follow their every move, and needless to say, most lives simply do not have a goal. The Republic was created as a result of the universally-imposed Agenda 21 by the UN, and this is the world Emmeline was born into.

On a calm Sunday just like any other, a woman by the name of Geraldine Coutts, who lives on a reservation in North Dakota, receives a call which asks her to head over to The Round House, a place where the local people pray. As Geraldine arrives though, she is brutally assaulted and left for dead. Fortunately, she survives the ordeal, but is reluctant to reveal what happened or who did it, being in a complete state of shock. Her husband, a tribal judge, puts all of his efforts and energy into finding the ones responsible and bringing them to justice… however, all odds are stacked against him. In the middle of this turmoil is the couple’s thirteen year-old, Joe. Being unable to help his mother and at the same time frustrated by the lack of justice, he sets out with the help of his three friends, Zack, Cappy and Angus, on an quest to bring the truth to light. The Round House by Louise Erdrich isn’t a National Book Award Winner for nothing (or at least I believe it deserves it).