Quick Book Reviews Blog

Paris is one of those rare cities with a reputation bigger than itself. No matter where you go in the world, Paris will always stand as a symbol of France, love, and probably croissants for some people. No matter how many years pass, what events shake it up or which people come and go from it, the city always retains a certain spirit, or an atmosphere if you will.

Judging by the amount of post-apocalyptic literature that's being published every year, I'd wager to say that we just can't wait for the end of the world to come around for the chance to prove that we are indeed important renegades who can save the world, lead humanity and all that jazz. Let's face it though: the overwhelming majority of us would be ground to dust in virtually any post-apocalyptic scenario, whether it's an alien invasion, a virus or some good old-fashioned zombies. We seldom take the time to imagine what life in this kind of society would be like and look at it from beyond the confines of our own narrow viewpoint.

Slavery is without a doubt one of the least pleasant parts of American history, forever casting a shadow of guilt and shame on future generations, one that persists to this very day. As much as we would all like to forget any of that ever happened, we owe it to all the ones who suffered as well as ourselves to remember forever the brutal and unforgivable mistakes of our ancestors... after all, if we don't keep our own history in mind, we are indeed doomed to repeat it.

Despite the fact that the country has been in existence for a rather short amount of time, the United States of America already has quite a rich history to it, one unfortunately filled with many tales of violence and oppression. Racial strife is something that has always been present in some parts of the country, and though some may not be aware of it, a whole lot of blood was spilled in the Deep South when the people resisted “integration”.

One of the many questions we are going to keep asking ourselves as we go through our lives is: what's actually important? We are surrounded by so many people and material possessions that we often lose track of what it is that truly defines our existence and makes it worthwhile. Unfortunately, some people go through a personal hell of loss to find the truly meaningful elements of their lives, as does Russell Green in Two by Two by Nicholas Sparks.

The alien invasion trope is perhaps one of the most often portrayed invasion scenarios in popular culture, and it's quite possible that it won't get stale anytime soon; as long as we haven't encountered anyone out there in the great beyond, the possibilities remain limitless. With so many books revolving around the topic, it really does take something special for an author to get themselves noticed, but debuting writer J. Patrick Black has certainly done that with his first novel, Ninth City Burning .

Paris has been known for a long time as one of the cultural capitals of the world, the place where love, art and wine thrive until the end of time. In recent years though, reality has caught up with the idealistic image as it always tends to do, with numerous heavy public crimes putting the city's people on edge. Tensions are running high, and there is no telling how far things will go before it all comes to an end. In Private Paris by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan, we are introduced to this city in a very dark hour as Private Jack Morgan's talents are needed.

While life certainly likes to throw a few curve-balls at everyone at some point, it's undeniable that most of us have what we need not only to survive, but to actually enjoy life itself. As you well know, there is always the other side of the coin, the people whose survival on this planet has been challenged from the moment they set foot in it. Whether they end well or badly, there is something special about such people who defy all odds until the very end, as is the case of the titular Moojie in The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman by Robin Gregory.

Whether you exclusively believe in the tangible and observable or allow for the existence of anything that cannot be disproved, there is a skeptic hiding within you, no matter if he's big or small... and that's perfectly normal. Skepticism is actually a handy survival tool in a world where there are more than enough shady characters trying to lie and deceive you. Of course, like most things in life, it's only beneficial when practiced with a certain moderation, and in The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp, we get to witness what happens when it's taken to the greatest extreme possible.

The job of public speaker, or orator as some would prefer to call it, is one of those things that looks much easier than it is. At the surface, it's just about reciting a speech to a bunch of people in front of you. However, digging deeper it becomes apparent that there are countless factors to take into account when speaking in front of the masses, from treading carefully on taboo subjects to using the right words to elicit the desired emotions from the audience.

Despite being only twelve years of age, Flavia de Luce is the kind of girl who would put most adults to shame with her deductive skills as well as her highly-developed common sense. Even though she is basically a genius for her age, she still finds herself rejected from Miss Bodycote's Female Academy, and so Flavia sets out on the long trip back home to England.

Different authors write for different reasons, and there certainly is no shortage of them; some want to simply tell a story they have on their mind, others want to shed light on an issue... and a select few like to use the writing medium as a tool to study life itself. I believe Herman Hesse can definitely be classified amongst them, with his novels often being a bit more reminiscent of parables where he meditates on the more profound aspects of human life.

The Middle East is a place known equally for its beauty as well as for being a hotbed of conflict for the past few decades. There are always violent tensions and volatile situations that lead to pain and suffering for one group or another, and what's worse is that there is absolutely no end in sight. The majority of us only know of what's happening there and what the future could bring thanks to short news snippets (often biased) and minutes-long documentaries that heavily generalize everything.

Glorified in books and movies since it was possible, the idea of escaping the comfort and safety of your home and put yourself at risk to aimlessly travel the country (or even the world) has become somewhat a staple of North American culture, as well as many other places on Earth. The idea behind it is to learn about how the world really works, about what it means to survive when left to your own devices, and about how far you can push yourself. Many see it as a major coming-of-age moment, as is the case in Ivan Doig's Last Bust to Wisdom .

Back in 1997 a certain author by the name of Neil Gaiman burst onto the literary scene and asserted himself as a talent to be reckoned with, publishing his first novel, Neverwhere . It rapidly became a major landmark (so to speak) in the genres of urban and young adult fantasy, to the point where numerous versions of it were produced over the years.

How much do we really know about the people close to us, the ones we call our best friends and would trust with our lives? If, like most people, you are blessed enough to live a normal life, then chances are you actually do know most of what there is to and your friend isn't hiding some dark skeletons in the closet of their past.

With his unforgettable Gothic image of Barcelona Carlos Ruiz Zafon has made many fans around the world, and thankfully it's a city he keeps on going back to in his The Cemetery of Forgotten Books series, which also includes The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game . Before delving into this third book in the series, The Prisoner of Heaven , it should be mentioned that at the start, Zafon intended to write a collection of books that were connected by their themes and characters and could be read in any order, making for an interested journey that could begin at any point the reader chose.

To start with a little disclaimer of sorts, this is the third book in a trilogy, and if you haven't read the previous ones, The Passage and The Twelve , then chances are you wont understand much or enjoy this novel nearly as much as you could. In other words, reading the other two books before this one is a bit of a necessity. Two books ago Justin Cronin started a vast, sprawling and epic trilogy called The Passage , telling the story of a few human survivors in the wake of a viral apocalypse, one that turned countless people into mindless killer vampire-like creatures.

For the most part, spy novels are always about a threat in the immediate future, about saving the country, if not the entire world, right in the nick of time. We're used to seeing spies as basically being supermen/women who travel the world and put themselves in all sorts of danger because they know it to be the right thing to do. However, Olen Steinhauer decided to take a slightly different approach with his latest novel, All the Old Knives , preferring to place his focus on the past.

While the modern man may seem to be shifting from the literary medium to the visual one, there is no doubt that books will continue to play a very powerful role in the lives of billions of people in the coming decades, if not centuries. As a matter of fact, their impact is so important and palpable that it often becomes the subject of a magnificent story, as is the case with The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

It feels counter-intuitive, but it seems to be commonly-accepted knowledge that air travel is safer than any other method, with the ratio of plane crashes to successful flights being negligibly low. As a matter of fact, when it the unthinkable does happen, we're often quicker to think of human error or some conspiracy rather than lay the blame on technical malfunctions.

A world falling apart is generally a rather complex issue, one that deserves to be explored from multiple angles... after all, world-changing events such as the apocalypse can give rise to many interesting scenarios. With the second book in The Passage trilogy, The Twelve , Justin Cronin continues to weave his ginormous web of narrative threads, both looking back at the beginning from a different angle and pursuing the stories unfinished in the first novel.

Since the days when we crawled out of our caves to create larger societies we have striven to become more and more civilized... that is, to abandon the urges considered primitive in favour of intellectual pursuits, effectively transcending the inner caveman. Of course, the world is far from being an ideal place, with practice often heavily differing from theory. Virtually all of us have to contend with the so-called inner caveman, the manifestation of base desires that often come into contradiction with what society has been teaching us.

While it is true that virtually all of us have or will at some point experience some turbulence when it comes to romantic relationships, most can rejoice for never experiencing something more emotionally-taxing than an angry break-up. However, as you might expect, there are those for whom questions regarding relationships get infinitely more complex and nuanced, as is the case with all the characters involved in Colleen Hoover's It Ends with Us.

The idea of separating society into criminals and law-abiding citizens has taken hold in virtually every country, and it certainly makes a lot of sense: either you break the law and cause harm, or you don't and stay out of trouble. Of course, in practice things often turn out to be different, with lawbreakers escaping consequences while law-abiding citizens suffer unjust harm.

In the world of post-apocalyptic novels one would be hard-pressed to find a scenario that hasn't been covered yet. It seems that throughout the centuries we've managed to come dangerously close to exhausting all the possibilities for our specie's demise, and that's forcing authors to dig deeper and deeper into their creative genius to put new twists on things. Justin Cronin is one such author, and his efforts have brought us The Passage trilogy , with the first book being appropriately-titled The Passage .

There is a time many of us are too young to remember, while those who do see it as a distant past... but just over twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union was still alive, and a few years earlier was still prospering well enough. There was a sense of balance between the two superpowers of the world, and while their presence certainly did serve to keep the other in check, it also set the stage for an era of advanced espionage where information was the most valuable commodity.Tom Clancy often uses this setting as a backdrop for his celebrated novels, as he did for perhaps one of his more overlooked masterpieces, The Cardinal of the Kremlin .

We get small glimpses into their lives through cameras and newspapers, and what we see often furthers our belief that they really are different from us. We constantly yearn for what they have, yet at the same time we have no idea of what sacrifices that entails. Indeed, celebrities are somewhat of a mystery for many of us, almost seeming to live in an entire world apart, one reserved for a higher class of humans.

No matter which paths we choose to take through life, there comes a time when we realize that all roads to lead to Rome, a fate none of us can escape in the end. When the time comes, we all want to be able to look back on our lives with real pride and joy, pointing out both moments of great pain and happiness alike; after all, we are the sum of our experiences, both good and bad. For some, however, the moment to look back on life comes somewhere in the middle, as is the case with the relatively traumatized titular protagonist in My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.

Some would argue that our identities are essentially confined to our collection of memories, to the important decisions we've made in our lives, and shaped by the mistakes that stay with us until the end of time (or until we get old enough to start forgetting). In one way or another, we always learn something from the big errors we make and the catastrophes we cause, but not everyone is lucky enough to escape from their own misfortune unscathed, as is the case in The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian.

Allen Eskens Personal site Allen Eskens is a writer whose first novel was The Life We Bury , with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Minnesota. In 2015 he was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. His grand goal is to give readers novels that challenge their creative thinking with magnificent twists but also respect them with intellectual honesty and appreciation. The art of writing is one very few (if any) can claim to have mastered completely, with even the titans of literature looking at it as a lifelong learning process. Today, we have the fantastic opportunity of looking a bit deeper into that process with reputed author Allen Eskens. He is responsible for writing the highly-acclaimed novels The Life We Bury and The Guise of Another , and is currently getting ready to release his next effort, The Heavens May Fall .Here are the words of wisdom he had to share with the rest of the world: Q: To start at the...

Keeping a scrapbook is one of those hobbies accessible to virtually anyone on the planet, regardless of who they are or where they come from. It's a celebration of life, one where all the important moments that had an impact on someone are brought together, immortalised in its pages. For the most part, scrapbooks highlight one's joys and happiness, what ultimately made their life worth living.

When a war ends it seems customary that the light of good be shined upon the victors, while those defeated be relegated to the least pleasant pages of history. Needless to say, this happened at the end of the Second World War and allowed many of those on the Allies' side to get away war crimes, while on the other hand all who lived under the Axis rule were lumped together as murderous animals.

Humanity will most certainly one day be wiped out from existence, and whether that takes thousands, millions or billions of years isn't really all that relevant in the large scheme of things, at least when compared to the rest of the universe. It's a topic that has fuelled the imaginations of authors for centuries upon centuries as they imagined all the possible ways things could come to an end.

A little while ago A. G. Riddle started The Origin Mystery series, captivating the minds, hearts and imaginations of countless science-fiction fans around the world, establishing himself as a modern force in the genre. In the first two books in the series he took readers through an extravagant adventure involving human genetic manipulation, a race of ancient aliens, a plague to wipe out humankind by forcing its evolution... in short, never a dull moment. With the third book in the series, The Atlantis World , Riddle finally brings it all to a close as the stakes get raised higher and higher, with the light of salvation dimming ever so quickly.

We all know that life is the kind of thing that can insidiously flip all of your plans upside down, and pull the plug on your existence. However, we go on day to day without being too concerned by that fact, mainly because the probability of it all ending is one we feel we can neglect... and rightfully so, for most people actually do end up living until a relatively old age without all that many problems. On the other hand, there are those who suffer terrible misfortune, being diagnosed with incurable illnesses, making the clock tick ever faster.

With us having the tendency to divide our worlds between us and them, we seldom take the time to look at what's happening on the other side of the hill, and that is ever-more true in times of war, where the other side of the front can be populated by nothing but scum (or so both sides tell themselves). Luckily enough, we have plenty of thinkers who recognized the importance of empathizing with and trying to understand those on the bad side of history.

Genetic manipulation and bio-engineering are topics which are likely to gain quite a lot of traction in the coming years as our technology in those realms expands ever-further. As you might imagine, the ability to manipulate life on a molecular level is a rather heavy proposition, one which raises numerous moral as well as practical questions, especially what it could mean down the line for the race as a whole. A. G. Riddle is the kind of author who certainly isn't afraid to explore these grey and vague areas of modern life, as he does fantastically in the second book in The Origin Mystery  Series, The Atlantis Plague.

Many of us can certainly identify a few painful and humiliating moments that marked us during our childhood, but for the most part the majority of us are indeed lucky enough not to have suffered the kinds of events that deform our lives forever. Unfortunately, there are some about whom the same can't be said, people who have suffered irrevocable changes at the hands of very real monsters. Their stories go in a number of different ways in real life, but in Have You Seen This Girl? by Carissa Ann Lynch, it goes the way of bloody vengeance.

When it come to the big picture behind humanity's evolution, science has managed to leave relatively few blanks for us to fill in, at least when we're speaking generally. However, the closer we look the more we see that certain segments of our timeline have been lost throughout the countless years we've traversed as a race... leaving ample room for imagination to take over. In the worldwide-famous The Atlantis Gene by A. G. Riddle, the author makes great use of that idea, concocting a riveting adventure that begins with a rather unusual quest: to stop mankind from evolving.

Virtually every single murder mystery that's being written today takes place in the present day, with few daring to venture further back in time when one had to rely on logical deductions rather forensic technology to move the case forward. It is rather rare to see a good murder mystery that takes us hundreds and hundreds of years into the past, as Umberto Eco did with his world-famous The Name of the Rose , which as some of you know graced the silver screen as a renowned movie starring none other than Sean Connery .

Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller are both rather well-known icons of the thriller world at this point, both operating on the same side of the law, but each one in their own respective domain. Harry Bosch is a detective while Mickey Haller is a defense attorney, the kind whose clients are rarely innocent. The two don't cooperate more than need be, but in The Crossing by Michael Connelly, they are left no choice but to pool their forces to stop an innocent life from being wasted.

The meaning of life is probably the oldest question we've been struggling with, one to which the majority of us don't expect to find an answer to, not any time soon at least. The lines of thought vary greatly why each and every one of us lives, ranging from the fulfilment of a unique destiny to complete meaninglessness and nihilism. Some of the greatest thinkers, however, never give up on the question and strive to uncover the essential element behind our reason for being... and thankfully, many of them happen to be authors, like the renowned Paulo Coelho.

Hermann Hesse was definitely a very unusual person whose life followed a rather difficult path. Amongst countless afflictions he had to deal with was the deteriorating mental health of his first wife, a variety of physical ailments as well as a non-stop criticism from German nationalists who accused him of being a pacifist during the First World War.

The Rho Agenda Inception series, though intended as a prequel, basically became a whole adventure on its own with its set of unique questions and mysteries we're dying to have answers to. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and with Dead Shift , Richard Phillips concludes this series, and with a huge bang no less. Just a quick disclaimer, though you probably could enjoy this book without having read the two previous ones, I find it doubtful. It is a continuous story, and without context many of the book's events lose meaning and impact. In any case, on with the show!

Serial killers have captured our imaginations since the times of Jack the Ripper; the idea of an unpredictable, homicidal psychopath who cannot be reasoned with really helps to bring out the fear and paranoia within us. After all, in modern society where most people learn to keep their “dark urges” covert, anyone could potentially be a serial killer, even those close to you.

When the choice between life and death fluttered before the eyes of Jack Gregory, he didn't hesitate much and opted to stay in the world of the living, no matter the cost. As it turned out, the price he paid was a rather unusual one, as an alien entity became bound to his soul, basically using Jack as a host. What's more, Jack quickly found out that this alien has rather homicidal ambitions and a tendency to cause visions.

It is said that opposites supposedly attract in life, but most of us have observed that only to be true for magnets. As it happens, people who are quite different tend to have unfulfilling friendships or relationships, if not outright being on bad terms. Nevertheless, in life as in literature, miracles do happen sometimes and the most surprising combinations can lead to the most unexpected results, as it does Jojo Moyes' One Plus One .

Though wars are quite often depicted in both movies and literature, some of them even lauded for their realism, there is simply nothing that can come close to first-hand accounts of the people who have actually survived through them. Those of us fortunate enough never to witness war can never really be certain that what we're presented with is an accurate depiction of reality... unless it comes from people like Clinton Romesha, a United States Army solider who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in the 2009 Battle of Keating .

Living life in the shoes of a person such as Jack Reacher is truly hard. A master of all trades and badass in all categories, the same rules that apply to the average person are often forgotten. In situations that most people would much prefer ignoring, Jack will be the one to intervene. Though that may make him somewhat like a hero, it also draws him onto some dark, twisted and dangerous paths that may very well prove lethal for him, as is the case in one of his newer adventures, Make Me by Lee Child.