Quick Book Reviews Blog

Those of you who have at least one eye open know that the United States are undergoing a period of changes, many of which seem extreme to large chunks of the population (just look at the recent fiasco surrounding the NSA). It seems only fitting that The Overton Window by Glenn Beck would be released during such a time, dealing with the topic of making radical ideas feel like common sense in order to bring change to a country.

Man has long dreamed to explore the deepest reaches of space, but before we can even think of going that far we should at least explore our own galaxy, and we are actually preparing a one-way mission to Mars that will send off some fortunate volunteers to build and live in a colony. The so-called Red Planet has fascinated us for a very long amount of time, an interest fueled by incredibly interesting discoveries, which includes a set of pyramids which, geographically-speaking, are the perfect mirror image of the ones in Giza .

Richard Dawkins is quite a famous evolutionary biologist, advancing many interesting theories, some of which served to create the landscape of his profession. In The Magic of Reality , which he co-wrote with David McKean, Dawkins sets aside all of his complex thoughts and hypotheses in favor of something simpler, and dare I say, funner.  He chose to put his knowledge to use in order to explain countless phenomenon that humans encounter on a daily basis. For instance, he provides an explanation as to why our continents look like jigsaw puzzles that would fit together, he attempts to answer the question as to who the first man or woman was, and even the real age of the entire universe.

After the tragic events of 9/11 took place, pretty much everyone became focused on the direct cause and the aftermath, and it was quite understandable as the time wasn’t right for a history lesson. However, years after when things began to calm down in the United States many people started digging as deep as possible so as to uncover the whole story behind 9/11, in terms of what actually sparked the chain of events that led to it.

Though we have seen Mitch Rapp countless times, travelling around the world leaving trails of bodies and soiled pants behind him, not much has been unveiled about his first operations, his recruitment, training program, or even his life before becoming a CIA agent.  Vince Flynn though of rectifying that, and so he wrote American Assassin , wherein Rapp is first presented as a talented college athlete without a damn to give about anything. 

Let’s admit it, when we were kids most of us only wanted to be normal and fit in with the majority and nothing else; being on the outside of social circles was considered to be the mother of all failures. However, as we grow up we start to realize that being normal is just an illusion created by a large number of people; in the end, there are more of us who don’t fit in than we realize. That’s something Jenny Lawson learned a bit later in her eccentric life, though it seems it was all for the best as her experiences gave us the delightful little book that is Let’s Pretend This Never Happened . 

If you have been living in North America for a few years, have in interest in Hollywood and/or Wild West movies, then you are undoubtedly acquainted with John Wayne , one of the greatest cowboys of his time, being right up there with Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as the fastest guns in the West .  He became such an incredible star not only for his manly and rugged in-movie antic, but also for the life he led outside the movie studios. We may already know much about him, but the truth may stretch farther than we can see, and that’s precisely why John Wayne: The Genuine Article was written by Michael Goldman, Ethan Wayne (preface) and Jimmy Carter (foreword).

As many of you know, Harry Bosch is without a doubt Michael Connelly’s most-prized creation, being a detective who cracked some of the world’s most intricate and complex plots, which makes it that much more interesting when in A Darkness More than Night , Harry finds himself under investigation by formerly-retired FBI agent, Terry McCaleb (who he operated with in Blood Work). Why exactly is Harry Bosch being investigated? According to McCaleb, who is far from being a slouch at his job, Harry is the one who best fits the psychological profile of the murderer, who by the way, already slaughtered a number of victims in a very ritualistic manner.

Though Stephen King may very well be known as the master of horror around the entire world, many forget that he has written novels that strayed from the stereotypical image we have of him. Some of those novels include The Dead Zone , Stand by Me , and more recently, Joyland . It is very different from his other works in the sense that he combines three of his favorite topics together: romance, ghost stories, and murder mysteries.

The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.

Cesare Beccaria is perhaps one of the most famous thinkers of the 18th century, writing numerous books about the law which are still referenced today; most of the principles he proposed have actually come to be considered as common sense.  For instance, he approved of the idea of victimless crimes, claiming that only actions which harm other people or their property ought to be treated as crimes (drug abuse, for instance, should instead be regarded as a medical condition). All in all, he was about bringing justice to people and letting them live their lives, and I believe he turned seven times in his grave when the trial of Amanda Knox happened in 2007.

In Silken Prey by John Sandford we are following once again Lucas Davenport on one of his tumultuous investigations, and this time around he is made to investigate the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of a Minnesota political fixer. At first, it seems as if the case is nothing extraordinary and will find a logical resolution quite soon. However, as Davenport uncovers more and more clues, he makes some unsettling discoveries.

Tropical climates and beachside paradises have always been favorite locations of Carl Hiaasen, and so it shouldn't come as a surprise that his latest chef-d’oeuvre, Bad Monkey is set in Florida and the Bahamas. As is typical with Carl Hiaasen , the story emanates of ridiculousness at an alarming rate, and I’ll try not to spoil it too much for you (pretty much anything you learn about the book could qualify as a spoiler, but more on that later).

It’s August 1974, and the summer has been very hard for the people of New York, not only melting them alive but also bringing the Watergate scandal as well as the unforgettable and senseless Vietnam War . However, on one day the entire city stood still, as Philippe Petit, a tightrope walker, performed his craft on a cable suspended between the World Trade Center towers.  In Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Philippe Petit’s apparition in trial marks the point where we are taken on a sort of odyssey through New York, looking into the lives of ten different people, including a Priest, heroin-addicted prostitutes and grieving mothers.

Though we tend not to pay too much attention to North Korea (after all, they are decades and decades behind in their technology), we forget that it is one of the most repressed places on Earth, with one of the most violent regimes there is.  Though the government has continuously denied, satellite images have provided irrefutable proof of there being political prison camps in North Korea, and it is estimated that somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 people are held in them.

Throughout the twentieth century many breathtaking war novels saw the light of day, and I think we can all guess why (the two World Wars). Though naming one novel above all the others ones would be foolish, many people hold All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque in much higher regard than other pieces of writing on the same subject. Indeed, the novel truly does offer a very powerful and moving meditation on the utter futility of war, through the eyes of a young German by the name of Paul Baumer.

Though many of you may not be familiar with him, Colum McCann is one of the most celebrated authors on an international scale, even winning the National Book Award for Let the Great World Spin . He is known as being one of the most profound and enthralling storytellers out there, and I believe he confirms that line of thinking in his latest work, TransAtlantic .  Basically, it tells three separate stories, set in different countries and different time periods. The first one takes place in Newfoundland in 1919 as two pilots try to fly across the Atlantic Ocean without stopping, plotting their course for Ireland. 

Those of you who have heard of Marc Maron probably know him as the host of WTF with Marc Maron , his own podcast show. Though it may seem to you that he lives a plentiful life while practicing a number of hobbies and just being himself, not too long ago Marc Maron faced a very specific set of circumstances that would make most people curl up in the fetal position and cry, and Attempting Normal is his autobiography in regards to the darkest time of his life. What exactly did he have to endure? Well, on a day like any other he woke up, only to discover he had been fired from the radio job he loved so much, on top of which the woman he though loved him all this time was divorcing him and syphoning all his money away. In other words, he was devastated financially, emotionally, and psychologically.

Though America may have always portrayed itself to the world as being this free and economically-prosperous land, the truth is that the fate which befell many small towns was conveniently left out of that portrayal. There were many small towns established for the sole purpose of exploiting natural resources, such as steel, and when those ran out, the towns started to die.  The events unfolding in American Rust by Philipp Meyer take place in such a town, following the adventures of two friends bound to it by family who, nevertheless, decide to embark on a cross-country trip in hopes of finding a better life. 

Victims by Jonathan Kellerman is a detective novel starring Alex Delaware, one of the world’s foremost experts in matters relating to homicides. However, when one day he is contacted for assistance by LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, Alex finds himself stumped: an old woman without friends or relatives is found murdered in a very personal and gruesome way. Not a single clue is to be found, apart from a blank page with a huge question mark on it.

The Son by Philipp Meyer may very well be one of the most outstanding and epic Westerns written in recent years, following the story of an entire Texas family for over a hundred and fifty years, telling the stories from the points of view of three different narrators. The first one is Eli McCullough, who in 1859, at the age of 13, was captured by Comanche natives and with time assimilated himself in their culture, learning to live as they do. However, as most of the natives fell ill to disease, Eli decides to return where he belongs (Texas), diving into the industries of cattle and oil.

Khaled Hosseini has established himself as one of the most prominent writers of the decade with classics such as The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns . In these stories Hosseini spends much of his time focusing Middle Eastern families, their values, beliefs, morals, actions, decisions, and ultimately, their fate. In And the Mountains Echoed , Hosseini follows a similar theme, but needless to say, it is explored from a very different angle than in his previous works of writing. To give you a brief idea of what the story is all about, it starts off with a father telling his children a story about a young boy who, after being taken by an ogre, discovers that his fate was far from being as terrible as he imagined it. On the next day, the father gives his daughter away to a very wealthy man living in Kabul.

The year is 1815, and Nick Falcott is fighting the war of his life on an old battlefield, when suddenly he wakes up two hundred years in the future, in a hospital bed… as was promised by his guild. Though his time-traveling “caretakers” shower him with goods, Nick longs for one woman from his past, and against all rules and regulations decides to go back.  Meanwhile, still in 1815, Julia Percy is mourning the loss of her grandfather, a man capable of manipulating time. In The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway, the two meet, and much to Julia’s surprise, there is a lot going on she doesn’t understand. Together, they decide to put an end to the Guild, an organization capable of controlling the past and the future, but in order to do that they need to find a long-lost talisman, and perhaps more importantly, keep their heads straight.

I have already discussed a number of books which center around the Kennedy assassination , and in my opinion, the best one of the bunch is Crossfire . However, that is not to say there isn’t any information to be obtained from other sources, and the recent released of It’s Time for the Truth by Charles E. Hurlburt (with Laura Shinn designing the cover) has caught my eye. At first, I was just looking at it as a book I could add to my JFK collection, but as I started reading I quickly understood that it turned out to be more than that. Perhaps taking hints from Crossfire , this book is all about facts and details, containing three hundred and fifty pages which describe the event and the ensuing investigations in as much detail as possible.

The Secret History , written by Donna Tartt , starts off innocently enough as a young man by the name of Richard leaves his low-class California home to attend the Hampden College in Vermont. Shortly after arriving, Richard finds himself part of a somewhat pretentious clique of friends, who spend their time drinking, taking pills, and studying classical literature with a professor who doesn’t seem to be quite all there in the head.

If you take a look at any kind of media today, whether it be books, video games, television shows or movies, you will find that a surprising amount of them focus on the Second World War. Considering its recentness I guess it’s only appropriate, but perhaps it is a shame that it overshadows the exploits of those who fought during the First World War, which was a downright bloody conflict in its own right. Being determined of capturing the stories of those involved and rightfully immortalize them, Richard Rubin, a writer set out to find the last remaining survivors of the First World War and take interviews with, discussing the people themselves and what they remember going through. The result of his extensive probing was The Last of the Doughboys , a collection of tales coming from a lost generation.