Book Reviews, Book Recommendations, Book News, and more

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Review

January 7th, 2007 by admin

My local library has a program each year that encourage everyone to read and discuss the same book. They make a bunch of the selected book available so several people can check it out at the same time. This year’s book is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It’s the 50^th anniversary edition of the book which was first published in 1953.

I didn’t know what to expect when I read it. I picked it up just because it was part of this year’s reading program. I figured it had to be a decent book because it’s the winner of a National Book Award.

Guy Montag is the main character of the book. He is employed as a fireman, but a fireman in this book that is set sometime in the future is not a person who puts out fires but a person who starts fires. All houses have been fireproofed so there is no need for people to put out fires.

Books have been banned because it causes people to think too much. Instead people learn from their televisions. Watching TV is a highly interactive process that, in many cases, has taken the place of friendships with people. People save to purchase wall-tv’s for their living rooms. Guy and his wife Mildred have three walls and Mildred really wants the fourth one. But each one costs $2,000 which is one-third of Guy’s yearly income.

The book starts with Guy at a fire and describes the pleasure he gets from burning books. He enjoys spraying kerosene (the fire hoses spray kerosene to start the fires instead of water to put them out) and watching the pages of the books crackle, sizzle, and burn up.

After leaving work that night, he meets one of his new neighbors, Clarisse. She’s only seventeen but seems to know much of a world that allowed people choices and allowed them to read books. Clarisse asks Guy if it was true that firemen once put out fires rather than start them. Guy laughed and said no, that houses have always been fireproof.

Clarisse goes on talking to Guy and tells him a story about her uncle. She said her uncle was once jailed for two days for going too slow on the highway. He had been going 40 miles per hour.

It’s a strange world that Guy lives in. Houses no longer have porches because that encouraged people to sit around and relax and talk. Instead people are now encouraged to go to fun parks and always on the go and doing something because then they aren’t thinking about things. Billboards are now 200 feet long because cars drive so fast it’s the only way to be able to read them.

Guy and Clarisse soon don’t talk any longer because Clarisse has disappeared. Guy realizes she is dead. He starts thinking about his life, his job as a fireman whose duty it is to burn books and the houses they were hidden in, and about books themselves. He suddenly finds himself wanting to look inside one. Major events unfold from that defining moment in Guy’s life.

The book is disturbing to read because it describes as world where the lawmakers have enforced a high level of censorship and control over people’s lives because books are no longer a part of them. It’s a world of unrest and unhappy people who think nothing of killing themselves to escape it. But, while the book is disturbing it is also thought provoking. How much censorship should there be? Should people be allowed to read and see whatever they wish?

The edition of the book I read, the 50^th anniversary edition, includes an afterword by the author where he describes how he wrote the book. He said he realized he was writing an actual dime novel when he wrote it in 1950 because he typed the book on a typewriter in the basement typing room at the University of California in Los Angeles where 30 minutes of typewriter usage cost 10 cents. It is where the author raced against 30 minute increments getting his novel typed out. It cost him nine dollars and eighty cents in dimes to finish the first draft which was originally called The Fire Man but was later changed to Fahrenheit 451.

If you’re looking for some light reading while sitting in front the fireplace or while on the beach, don’t take this book along. But do read it sometime. While you may agree or disagree with many things in the book, it will likely get you thinking. While reading the book you will be engaged in Guy’s struggle with himself to figure out what is right, what is wrong, and what he should do – the right things or the wrong things.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 8 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺

Posted in Authors | No Comments »

Memories of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon Review

January 7th, 2007 by admin

As part of my ongoing tribute to Sidney Sheldon, who passed away recently, I’m re-reading his novels and reviewing them. He was a wonderful writer. I came to know his writing through reading his fiction books. If you haven’t read his books, I suggest you do. If you have read them, this might be a good time to go back and read them again.

Memories of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon

This book is a sequel to “The Other Side of Midnight.” Read that book before reading “Memories of Midnight;” otherwise the surprise ending of “The Other Side of Midnight will be ruined. I’ll try to give you an idea of was this book, the sequel is about, without giving away the storyline of “The Other Side of Midnight.”

“Memories of Midnight” was released in hardcover in 1990 and is Sidney Sheldon’s 10^th novel. This book highlights two of the main characters from “The Other Side of Midnight,” Catherine Alexander Douglas and Constantine Demiris. In this book we find out that Catherine survived the attempt made on her life by her husband Larry Douglas, and Larry’s girlfriend Noelle Page (Noelle was also the mistress of Constantine Demiris).

Catherine had lost her memory, but it’s starting to come back to her. Constantine is worried that Catherine’s memory is going to start remembering things he’d rather keep a secret so he sends her to London to work for him and assigns people to keep an eye on her and report back to him. Meanwhile he starts to order the murder of people who know Catherine’s true identity and that she is still alive.

Like Sidney Sheldon’s other books, there are plot twists that change things in a heartbeat. Suddenly Catherine finds out that someone is trying to kill her. You may think you know how the book is going to end, but a truly great and shocking ending awaits.

Like most sequel books, I don’t think it’s quite as good as the first one but is still very good.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 9 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺

Posted in Authors | No Comments »

Next by Michael Crichton Review

January 6th, 2007 by admin

Released November 28, 2006, this is the latest medical thriller by Crichton. The book focuses on genetics, genetic research, gene therapy, and what happens when humans try to push the limits on genetic engineering.

The book has several plot lines in it (I counted six), which can be hard to follow and keep track of because the book keeps going back and forth among them. Personally, I sometimes have a problem remembering something for five minutes, much less trying to remember where a plot line left off several chapters ago in a book. There are lots of names to remember. I was partway through the book when I stopped reading it for several days. I had to go back and re-read most of what I had already read in order to remember the particulars about all the characters and what plot line they were part of.

The book is fiction, but has many facts in it too. Gene therapy is a real but thorny issue today. Gene patents are a real thing and are something the author would like to see end, which he points out at the end of his book in his “Author’s Note” section (the section has several other things he feels strongly about in regards to genetics and issues related to it).

One of the storylines involves a researcher named Harry Kendall, who did unauthorized combining of chimp and human DNA (his own) and finds out a few years later that his experiment is alive and well. While the research institute the chimp/human is at looks the other way, Harry takes the little guy (named Dave) home because the alternative would be for Dave to be terminated. Harry cannot stomach the thought of that. Dave is human in many ways, and is quite intelligent. As you can imagine though, Harry’s wife doesn’t take the news so well when Harry tries to explain it to her.

Another storyline involves a character named Frank Burnet who finds that his own cells and rights to his body are no longer in his control. His doctor has sold his cancer fighting cells to a research facility for a staggering amount of money. When those cells are contaminated by someone trying to put them out of business, the company decides to go get more cells from Burnet. But he’s not willing to give them up. The company doesn’t care, says it owns them, and that he has no choice as to whether or not his body is violated.

Burnett then goes into hiding so the company decides to take the cells from his daughter Alison, a lawyer in her thirties, or Alison’s son. They hire bounty hunters who show up at Alison’s son’s school and try to temporarily kidnap him to retrieve the cells they need. When Alison shows up at school due to a tip from a teacher and thwarts the plans, the bounty hunters try to snatch her. She gets away and winds up going into hiding with her son in order to not be forced to give up the cells. While she’s in hiding she has other lawyers going to court for her to try and legally prevent the research company from taking those cells from her and her son.

There’s also a very intelligent African grey parrot named Gerard, who adds some levity to the book as he is taken from his home by a husband who hates the bird and winds up in the hands of several different people, most who realize they can’t wait to get rid of him.

In the book, there is a log of medical terminology to read. If you are not interested in that type of thing, it makes for some really boring reading. I also thought there were too many storylines.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 5 ☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺☺☺

Posted in Authors | No Comments »

Natural Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau Review

January 5th, 2007 by admin

After reading this book and thinking about how prescription and non prescription drugs have affected my family, I recommend this book to everyone I know. My wife has suffered from headaches for a number of years but it wasn’t until she started cutting back on her prescribed drugs that they started going away.

She would take one pill for a symptom and that pill would cause another symptom. Then she would be prescribed yet another pill to cure that, but that would cause something else. The side effects of some of the drugs she was taking to help her headaches were actually making her headaches worse. We were paying about $400 a month for drugs after our prescription insurance covered their share. So I do believe that many doctors and all the drug companies are only in it for the money, not to actually make people well enough so they don’t need any drugs.

There are natural cures out there. Kevin talks about many of them. Because of Kevin’s outspokenness, he has gotten in trouble with the FTC – a battle he continues to fight.

I do know there are natural cures out there that work. I started drinking mangosteen juice about 2 ½ years ago. After a short time, my chronic back pain that I had suffered with for years was gone. I also know there were people suffering from cancer that have had it go into remission or disappear completely due to using natural cures and not drugs, chemo, or radiation.

I also agree with Kevin’s belief that getting enough sun a day is a must. I know that where I work (there are no windows in my office) the stress level and sickness there is high. And for me, when I can get outside for just a few minutes and into the sun it is so refreshing.

In Chapter 6, Trudeau talks about things a person needs to do to feel better. There is also a chapter on a bread that can help a person lose weight.

The only thing I didn’t like about the book was the constant repeating of how the FDA and FTC are making the author’s life miserable. He should have kept his whining to himself which would have resulted in book with a loss less pages, but still informative and interesting.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 7 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺

Posted in Authors | No Comments »

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling Available July 21, 2007

January 2nd, 2007 by admin

Posted in Authors | No Comments »

Jane Austen in Scarsdale by Paula Marantz Cohen Review

January 1st, 2007 by admin

This book is Paula Marantz Cohen’s third fiction book. She’s also written several non-fiction books. The main character of this book, Anne Ehrlich, is the head guidance counselor at Fenimore High School. She’s very dedicated to her job and is willing to go over and above the normal call of duty to try and help her students get into the college of their choice.

Her life gets complicated when her old boyfriend, Ben Cutler, moves back to town with his sister and his nephew – who is enrolled as a senior at Fenimore High. To add even more stress to Anne’s life, she has to deal with a father who lives like her family still had money, which they don’t. But Anne has her beloved Granny to talk to for advice – a woman whom everyone except her son adores.

Anne realizes how much she still loves Ben. But unfortunately, Ben is engaged to someone else.

This is a cute and funny story about love, life, and the often maddening process of SAT’s, college applications, and getting into college.

It’s a good vacation or “beach” book to read because the plot is easy to follow.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 7 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺

Posted in Authors | No Comments »

Circle of Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini Review

December 14th, 2006 by admin

This is the ninth book in the Elm Creek Quilt series although this is the first one I’ve read. I will be going to my local library to look for copies of the other books in the series so I can read them too.

The concept of this book was new to me, but very interesting. Two of the teachers/artists at Elm Creek Quilts are leaving so new people have to be hired to take their place. In chapter one we learn about Maggie, one of the applicants. We find out what her life is like now, how she came to the decision to apply for a position at Elm Creek Quilts, and we get to be there with her as she has her interview.

In chapters two, three, four, and five, we meet four of the other applicants, Karen, Anna, Russell (yes, a male quilter whose story of how he started quilting is touching), and Gretchen. All five of these people who we come to learn about are interviewed for the open positions, but not everyone is hired because only two positions are open.

In chapter six of the book, the interviewers discuss the applicants they interviewed, make their decision, and extend offers to those people. You may or may not agree with who they choose to hire (I only agreed with one of their choices), but because the book brings you into the lives of all five of the final applicants, you wish they could all be hired.

I thought the chapters on each applicant and their interview was a clever concept. I really enjoyed the book. I’ll definitely read the tenth book in the series when it’s released on April 2007.

The book didn’t take me long to read. I finished it in two nights and enjoyed every page.

But because the books are in a series, I was wondering how important it was to read them in the order they were written because with some series books I’ve read reading them in chronological order was important to know what was going on and to not have plot lines spoiled; but in other series order didn’t matter.

So I checked Jennifer Chiaverini’s web site. She says she wasn’t planning on writing a series when she first started and that she wrote all the books to stand on their own. But she cautions that later books will give away plot lines in earlier books. But the order she wrote the books differs a little from their chronological order. If you want to read the series in chronological order (books 1 through 9), read them as follows:
The Sugar Camp Quilt
The Quilter’s Apprentice
The Christmas Quilt
Round Robin
The Cross-Country Quilters
The Runaway Quilt
The Quilter’s Legacy
The Master Quilter
Circle of Quilters

If you want to read the series in the order it was written then read it as follows:
The Quilter’s Apprentice
Round Robin
The Cross-Country Quilters
The Runaway Quilt
The Quilter’s Legacy
The Master Quilter
The Sugar Camp Quilt
The Christmas Quilt
Circle of Quilters

Personally, I plan to go back and read the rest of the books in chronological order. As I read each one I’ll review it and post that review on this web site.

My rating (0-10 smiley faces): 9 smiley faces ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺

Posted in Book Reviews and News, Fiction Book Reviews, Women's Fiction, Authors, Jennifer Chiaverini | No Comments »

Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani Review

December 13th, 2006 by admin

Milk Glass Moon is the third book in a series of books about Big Stone Gap. I recommend reading the books in order which means reading “Big Stone Gap,” then “Big Cherry Holler,” then “Milk Glass Moon,” and then “Home to Big Stone Gap” which as of the writing of this review is the latest book in the series. I have read all four of the books and recommend them

Milk Glass Moon once again brings us into the life of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney. Her daughter is growing up which brings new joys, disappointments, and challenges to Ave Maria’s life. Teenage years can be very difficult for a mother and daughter and Ave Maria and Etta deal with their share of conflict. Etta makes a decision that Ave Maria has a very difficult time accepting and it threatens to ruin their relationship.

Her marriage to Jack MacChesney is going well. After a rocky patch in the marriage that was a big part of the last book, Big Cherry Holler, Ave Maria and Jack are still together and happy.

What I like about the books in the Big Stone Gap series is that they talk about real life situations and how people deal with them. At any one time a person may have several things happening to deal with and this book is written in that style. Ave Maria has to juggle her time to keep things going at her job at Mutual’s and work on her relationships there; she needs to take time to be with a dear friend when she is faced with a life threatening situation; she has to work on her marriage because a marriage takes time and hard work; she needs to find enough time to not let her other friendships go by the wayside; and she has her daughter which is the center of her life to love, guide, and help along the way as she grows up and finds her own life.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 8 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺

Posted in Book Reviews and News, Fiction Book Reviews, Women's Fiction, Authors, Adriana Trigiani | No Comments »

Rococo by Adriana Trigiani Review

December 12th, 2006 by admin

If you are looking for a light reading book, this is a decent choice. Because the plot isn’t complicated or hard to follow, it’s a good book to read while traveling or while on vacation because you can put it down, pick it back up again later to read more, and easily get back into the story.

When I was reading the book, I found myself much more intrigued by the characters than by the plot which was average and predictable. The main character is “B” or Bartolomeo di Crespi if you want to try and pronounce his whole name. He’s an interior decorator who seems to be happy living the life of a bachelor. During the course of the book he celebrates his 40^th birthday, but that’s not the main plot.

His biggest dream as an interior decorator is to renovate and redecorate his church, Our Lady of Fatima. When he hears the church is about to hire an interior decorator, he thinks the job is his since he has been the one who has made the altars look fabulous for many years and because he is devoted to his church. Plus, he’s the only local interior decorator. “B” is shocked, saddened, and angry when he finds out Father Porporino awards the job to an out of town firm.

B wants to go into hiding but his family and friends will only let him have a “pity party” for himself for a short time. In a sudden twist, Father Porporino decides he didn’t make the correct choice of interior designers and gives the job to B. Later in the book we find out why Father Porporino changed his mind.

The story got a little boring to me during the middle when B went to Italy looking to look at the beautiful architecture of churches there in order to get inspiration Our Lady of Fatima. Along the way he purchases statues of the children of Fatima which later play an important part in the story.

While dealing with planning and executing his renovation there are several other characters in the book which liven the story up. There’s his divorced sister who starts dating a married man which is funny and ironic because her divorce was caused by her husband cheating on her. She’s a funny and enjoyable character.

Then there’s his friend Capri and her mother who is holding out hope that Capri and B will get married. Is marriage and romance in the future of B and Capri? And why, halfway through his renovation project does the benefactor pull the remaining funds leaving B scrambling for money to finish it? You may or may not be surprised by the answers to those questions.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 6 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺☺

Posted in Book Reviews and News, Fiction Book Reviews, Women's Fiction, Authors, Adriana Trigiani | No Comments »

The Innocent Man by John Grisham Review

December 11th, 2006 by admin

Because John Grisham is a best selling fiction author you may not be aware this book is a non-fiction book, his first one. I didn’t realize it was non-fiction when I got it. Because I’ve enjoyed most of Mr. Grisham’s previous books I automatically assumed this one was another fiction book.

It’s the story of Ron Williamson. His dream was to play major league baseball, a dream he thought was going to be realized when he was drafted by the one of the major league teams in 1971. But he was plagued by injuries, mental problems, and substance abuse problems.

Several years after the death of a cocktail waitress, Ron and a friend of his named Dennis Fritz were arrested and charged with murder of the cocktail waitress. Both were eventually convicted and sent to prison.

This story is sad and maddening. Through errors and misguided beliefs, these two innocent men were put in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

Although the book can be a little dry at times because it covers a lot of legal information, John Grisham does a good job of telling the story and getting the reader to think about the fairness, or the possible lack of fairness in the justice system along with bringing up the issue of the death penalty. In this book you’ll read about real people’s lives and the anguish and agony they go through because of mistakes and assumptions of a few people in law enforcement.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 7 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺☺

Posted in Book Reviews and News, Non Fiction Book Reviews, John Grisham | No Comments »

Book Reviews, Book Recommendations, Book News, and more

Book Reviews & A Community For People Who Love to Read Books

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Review

Memories of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon Review

Next by Michael Crichton Review

Natural Cures They Don’t Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau Review

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) by J.K. Rowling Available July 21, 2007

Jane Austen in Scarsdale by Paula Marantz Cohen Review

Circle of Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini Review

Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani Review

Rococo by Adriana Trigiani Review

The Innocent Man by John Grisham Review

About

Archives

Tags

Pages

Links

Blogroll

Meta