Bear Island Review

Bear Island by Alistair MacLean

(from the back of the book)

October is no time to be aboard ship in the Barents Sea, three hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle. But that's where the cast and crew of Olympus Productions find themselves. And even before they reach their destination, the ship's doctor has his hands full. Three men are violently murdered, and the company's unspoken fears are confirmed: a pathological killer awaits them on the loneliest, most desolate island in the world.

Does Bear Island guard a secret more valuable than five lives? Why is there no shooting script for the movie-and why has no one except the director been allowed to see the screenplay? Is the entire company marked for death? Does a mass murderer lurk in its midst, a pathological killer?

A film crew is trapped on a ship, with no way off and people dropping dead all over the place.  There is suspense and surprises and people who are not always what they seem.  And the narrator is interesting, and it’s fun to listen to him as he works through his suspicion of everyone and goes over the evidence for and against everyone, trying to figure out what is going on.  There is a lot of dialogue, most of the book is dialogue, and it becomes what drives the story more than anything else.  So, even though it brings out the tension between the characters, there are times when there doesn’t seem to be much going on.  It is a mystery but there is really no way that you could possibly figure it out because there is too much you just don’t know.  Until the moment when two characters get together and discuss it all.  There is really no other way to get the information to the readers but to me it seemed like a rather long conversation while the story is put on hold.  It’s not bad, I’m not sorry I read it, but I don’t think I would recommend it.  There are a lot of others books out there that are probably more worthy of your time.

Win Your Books a Whole Box at a Time!

The Hollow Cupboard is giving away a box of YA books.  You get some ARCs, some paperbacks and some hardcovers.  And a couple of them are signed.

It is open to the US and Canada.



There is also a giveaway for the international readers.

There is a list of 2013 releases and the winner will be able to pick two.


You have to be or become a follower to enter either of these.

Both end January 15th.

The Elements Review

The Elements by Theodore Gray

(from the back of the book) 

The Elements in the most complete and visually stunning catalog of the periodic table ever assembled.  Each element has been culled from Theodore Gray’s coveted collection of thousands of samples, lovingly photographed, and illuminated by his wonderfully entertaining and erudite text.  The ultimate marriage of science and art, The Elements will dazzle and enlighten every sentient creature.

I love this book.  I have always been interested in the elements and have read several books about them but this one is different from the rest.  It gives you a lot of technical information like the emission spectrum, atomic weight, and lots of other numbers and diagrams that will satisfy any science geek.  The information on what it is used for, where to find it, who first discovered it, how they got their names and other tidbits is interesting and written by someone who clearly loves his topic and tells it with humor.  The photos are wonderful and you actually get to see the pure elements and compounds and products they are in.  I think that’s what sets this book apart from the others, being able to see the elements.  Ok, so a good portion of them are greyish metals, and others are clear gases and some don’t stick around long enough to have pictures, but it’s still cool. And I liked seeing all the ways the elements, even the ones people have never heard of, show up in everyday life.  It is easy access chemistry for non-science nerds and even if you have read about the elements before this one is well worth a look

Want to win books?

I Am a Reader, Not a Writer is having a bunch of giveaways.  You should go check them out.

For Escape From the Forbidden Planet by Julie Anne Grasso go here.  Ends November 29th.  Open internationally.

For Rosemary Opens Her Heart by Naomi King go here.  Ends November 30th.  Open to the US only.

For an ebook copy of After Dark by Emi Gayle go here.  Ends December 2nd.

For a copy of The Christmas Star by Ace Collins go here.  Ends December 3rd.  Open to the US only.

For Texting Through Time: John Taylor and the Mystery Puzzle by Christy Monson go here.  Ends December 3rd.  Open to the US only.

For a $50 Amazon gift card and ebook copy of Lethal Circuit by Lars Guignard go here.  Ends December 12th.  Open to anyone who can receive and use Amazon gift cards.


There are a lot more so be sure to check out the whole list in the right sidebar.

Black Count Review

The Black Count by Tom Reiss

(from the back of the book)

The hero of The Black Count is a man almost unknown today, yet his swashbuckling exploits appear in The Three Musketeers, and his triumphs and ultimate tragic fate inspired The Count of Monte Cristo.  His name is Alex Dumas.  Father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas, Alex has become, through his son’s books, the model for a captivating modern protagonist: the wronged man in search of justice.

Born to a black slave mother and a fugitive white French nobleman in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), Alex Dumas was briefly sold into bondage but then made his way to Paris where he was schooled as a sword-fighting member of the French aristocracy and, after a meteoric rise through the army of the French Republic, given command of 53,000 men.  It was after his subsequent heroic service as Napoleon’s cavalry commander that Dumas was captured and cast into a dungeon – and a harrowing ordeal commenced that inspired one of the world’s classic works of fiction.

The Black Count is simultaneously a riveting adventure, a lushly textured evocation of eighteenth-century France, a window into the modern world’s first multiracial society, and a heartbreaking story of the enduring bonds of love between a father and son.

It turns out that Alexandre Dumas used his own father as inspiration for his stories.  And it also turns out that his father was a very interesting person.  This very carefully researched book actually starts out with the novelist’s grandfather, who happened to be a French count.  So you get to see the entire life of Alex Dumas from being sold by his own father, to becoming a renowned solider fighting with Napoleon, to dropping into obscurity.  He lived through a very interesting time in French history and had many adventures along the way so his life truly reads like one of his son’s novels without needing any embellishment.  Because of his mixed heritage, race relations in France are an important part of the book and they take an interesting course though time.  I didn’t know anything about Alex Dumas before I read this book so I obviously learned a lot about him but I also learned things about French history in general that I didn’t know before.  Quite apart from the role he played in history you would think that his story would be better known simply because it is such a good story, with action, courage, duels, romance and so much more.  This is a good book for you if you are interested in French history or if you are just interested in Dumas’ novels, because you can truly see his father in his works.  

Teaser Tuesdays (November 13th)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!



I felt her presence behind me like a pillar of stone. I didn’t need to hear her voice to know who it was.


Nefertiti by Michelle Moran

Do You Love YA Books?

I like YA books.  Why?  Great stories.  There are some really great YA writers out there that tell some amazing stories.  Also (sometimes at least) they are cleaner and simpler stories.  Not as much swearing or sex or gore and about things like growing up and first love instead of some of the nastier stuff you read about.  And to be honest I'm less likely to run into words that I don't know the meaning of.  And sometimes I like a book that challenges me but other times an escape is what I'm looking for and I can find one in YA books.

For all these reasons I like to read YA books and love to win them.  So what could be better than winning 50 signed YA books?  Not much.  If you feel the same way then you should take a look at this.

Beth Revis is giving away nearly 50 signed YA books.  That's right.  Almost 50 of them. And they are all signed.  That's awesome, right?  So pop on over there and enter to win this fantastic prize.

It runs all month but is open to the US only.  You have to be 18 or older to enter.

The Friday 56 (November 9th)

Rules:



*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your ereader.
*Find any sentence (or a few) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it to Freda's Voice.
*Add your (url) post to Linky on Freda’s post



The book this week if Nefertiti by Michelle Moran. I like the book. As I have liked other books by Moran. But I do not like Nefertiti in the book. She is a bit of a witch.


He was taller than any Pharaoh that had come before him, and there was more gold on his arms than in my parents’ entire treasury in Akhmim. The priests of Amun filed through the crowd, taking their places on the dais next to me, their bald heads like newly polished brass in the sun.

The Reformed Vampire Support Group Review

The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

(from the book jacket)

Contrary to popular opinion, vampires are not sexy, romantic, or powerful.  In case you hadn’t noticed, vampires are dead.  And the only ones who don’t get staked are the ones who avoid attacking people, admit they have a problem, and join a support group.

Just ask Nina Harrison – fanged at fifteen, and still living with her mother.  She hasn’t aged since 1973, and the hindsight of her sickly, couch-bound life is probably her Tuesday-night group meeting, which she spends with a miserable bunch of fellow sufferers, being lectured at.

But then one of the group is mysteriously turned to ashes… and suddenly they’re all under threat.  That’s when Nina decides to prove that every vampire on earth isn’t a weak, pathetic loser.  Along with her friend Dave – a former punk rocker who could be pretty cute, if he weren’t such a vampire – she travels way out of her comfort zone to track down the killer.

It could be that there is more to being a vampire than Nina realized.

This is an interesting look at vampire myth.  Lots of times the down side to being a vampire is explored – not being in the sun, no garlic and the like – but this is the first time that I’ve seen a story where it is all downside.  There is no compensation for what is lost.  And that makes for a rather angry and sad group of vampires who wish they weren’t.  Nina is forever fifteen and everything is always the same.  And every Tuesday she meets with the same group of rather sullen and depressed vampires who never change either.  Until one of them is killed and after about 50 years she finally has to grow up.  It’s a nice change from the other vampire stories I’ve read.  I think it’s interesting how it can somehow have a coming-of-age feel to it when the youngest person there is 50 years old.  And I like how it is about overcoming people’s low expectations of you and the low expectations you have of yourself.  The vampires are a group of interesting characters and the story is familiar in some ways but still new.  And  the mystery and suspense, along with the bickering of people who have been stuck with each other a long time, keep things going at a good pace.  It’s not the best young adult novel I’ve ever read, nor is it the best vampire book I’ve read but it is fun, the characters compelling, and the plot enjoyable. 

Circumference Vocabulary

Circumference by Nicholas Nicastro


Encomium: a formal expression of high praise; eulogy:

Entrepot: 1.a warehouse.
2. a commercial center where goods are received for distribution, transshipment, or repackaging.

Faience: glazed earthenware or pottery, especially a fine variety with highly colored designs

Twee: affectedly dainty or quaint:

Volutes: 1. a spiral or twisted formation or object.
2. Architecture . a spiral ornament, found especially in the capitals of the Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite orders.
3. Carpentry . a horizontal scrolled termination to the handrail of a stair.

Teleological: of or pertaining to teleology, the philosophical doctrine that final causes, design, and purpose exist in nature.

Nostrum: a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims and with no demonstrable value; quack medicine

Chthonic: of or pertaining to the deities, spirits, and other beings dwelling under the earth.

Conurbations: an extensive urban area resulting from the expansion of several cities or towns so that they coalesce but usually retain their separate identities.

Tumescent: 1. swelling; slightly tumid.
2. exhibiting or affected with many ideas or emotions; teeming.
3. pompous and pretentious, especially in the use of language; bombastic.

Verdigris: a green or bluish patina formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces exposed to the atmosphere for long periods of time,consisting principally of basic copper sulfate.

Circumference Review

Circumference by Nicholas Nicastro

(from the book jacket)

How do measure the size of the planet you’re standing on?

This is the story of what happened when one man asked himself that question.  Nicholas Nicastro brings to life one of history’s greatest experiments – how the ancient Greek named Eratosthenes accurately determined the distance around the earth for the first time.  In this fascinating narrative history, Nicastro takes a look at a deceptively simple but stunning achievement made by a single individual millennia ago, with only the simplest of materials at his disposal.  How was he able to calculate the circumference of our planet at a time when the measure of distance was more a matter of a shrug and a guess?  How could he be so confident in two key assumptions that underlay his calculations: that the earth was round and the sun so far away that its rays struck the ground in parallel lines?  Was it luck or pure scientific genius?

Nicastro brings readers on a trip into a long-vanished world that prefigured modernity in many ways, where neither Eratosthenes’ reputation, nor the validity of his method, nor his leadership of the Great Library of Alexandria were enough to convince all his contemporaries about the dimensions of the earth.  Eratosthenes’ results were debated for centuries, and only vindicated almost two thousand years after his death, during the great voyages of exploration.

This is a very readable account of the times of Eratosthenes.  It is filled with a lot of information, not just about Eratosthenes but about the times and the state of science.  I sometimes don’t read the preface but this time I’m glad I did.  It gave me some insight into how the author approached the topic that I thought it was useful to have.  Even though I did find all the information I was reading interesting I did start to wonder when Eratosthenes was going to show up in this book but when he did it became apparent why all the information that came before was necessary.  It sets the stage for the feat that Eratosthenes accomplishes.  And understanding the world around him and having him firmly placed in a well-defined setting helps you to understand Eratosthenes better.  You get to see how Eratosthenes went against convention and popular thought in his pursuit of science and how he was an original thinker in a lot of ways.  And you see the impact of his work on those that came after him.  Not much in known about Eratosthenes but Nicastro manages to give the reader a wonderful idea of who the man was and why he has been remembered through history.

Alice Adams Movie Review

Alice Adams

With Katherine Hepburn

(from the DVD case) Clutching her corsage of violets and in a dress she hopes no one will notice she wore to last year’s dance, Alice Adams is ready for South Renford’s biggest evening of the year – and to pose as something she longs to be: one of the town’s social elite.  In this adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s novel, Katherine Hepburn hit a career peak with her moving performance as social climber Alice, trying to push her clodhopper family to the background and assuming airs to win the love of amiable, wealthy young man.

It’s a common enough story, a young woman tries to fit into a society where she doesn’t really belong and pretends to be something she is not.  You do feel for Alice as she tries really hard and still does not fit in.  But unfortunately her act is too much for me and she starts to get annoying instead of endearing.  And I had a hard time seeing what Fred MacMurray saw in her as the person she was pretending to be so I had trouble liking him too.  It was okay, cute in a way and I like the way the family sort of comes together in the end and the truth is what makes everything right but this is not one of my favorites.

Moby Dick Review

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Moby Dick is the legendary whale that many whalers have seen and heard about but none have been able to kill.  When a run-in with the whale causes the loss of Captain Ahab’s leg he becomes obsessed with meeting the whale again to get his revenge.

A lot of people are familiar with this story but fewer people have ever read it.  Until now I was one of those people.  And I could see why people would be put off by this book.  It’s a good story, even a great story.  But it is long.  And Ismael, our narrator, is verbose to say the least.  You have to be patient with him.  You are a hundred pages into the book before you even get on the ship.  It is a long time after that before you see any whales and a lot longer after that that you get to see Moby Dick himself.  It’s not that nothing happens in the meantime.  You get to know the crew and Ahab and you get to see the effect that the captain’s obsession with the famous whale has on him and his crew.  Which is all good stuff.  But Ismael goes on and on about everything.  He gives you a catalog of all the whales he has seen represented in art and tells you how close they are to the real thing; he gives you a catalog of all the known whales; he discourses on the greatness of man.  And there is a lot of sailing going on.  I’ve never read anything else by Melville so I don’t know if it is author or the narrator that tends to be so wordy and tangential but for me there were long passages where I was at a loss as to what they added to the story and, quite frankly, I could have done without.  Even with all of those things I really liked it but I’m glad I was reading another book at the same time or it might have become monotonous.  

The Friday 56 (October 12th)

Rules:


*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence (or a few) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it to Freda's Voice.
*Add your (url) post to Linky on Freda’s post

The book this week is Criminal by Karin Slaughter. I’m actually not reading this book. Don’t even plan to. But it was sitting near me at the library while I was doing this and I liked the sentences. So now you know as much about the book as I do.


Most of the time when Amanda got into work, she’d run into a couple of suspects sporting black eyes or bloody bandages on their heads. They were generally handcuffed to the benches by the front door and no one could say exactly how they’d gotten there or with what they’d been charged.

Daughter of the Sword Giveaway

All Things Urban Fantasy is giving away a copy of Daughter of the Sword by Steven Bein.

If you would like a copy of this book think of an answer to this question:

What magical weapon would you want by your side in a fight?


Come up with an answer to that and you can be entered to win.

There are also ways to get other entries like following All Things Urban Fantasy by email, or on Twitter and sharing about the giveaway on Facebook, your blog or Twitter.  If you tweet you can go back and tweet again the next day for more entries.

It ends October 17th so hurry on over.
Open to the US only.

Euclid's Window Vocabulary

Euclid’s Window by Leonard Mlodinow


Recidivism: 1. repeated or habitual relapse, as into crime.
2. (Psychiatry) the chronic tendency toward repetition of criminal or antisocial behavior patterns


Dioptric: pertaining to dioptrics: dioptric images.
(Dioptics: the branch of geometrical optics dealing with the formation of images by lenses.)


Heterological: not corresponding in structure or evolutionary origin


Pedagogical: of or pertaining to a pedagogue or pedagogy
(Pedagogue: 1. a teacher; schoolteacher
2. a person who is pedantic, dogmatic, and formal.)


Imprimatur: an official license to print or publish a book, pamphlet, etc.,especially a license issued by a censor of the Roman Catholic Church
2. sanction or approval; support:

Jane by Robin Maxwell Giveaway

Passages to the Past is giving away a copy of Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan by Robin Maxwell in honor of Robin's virtual book tour.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment (on her site, not mine) and include your email address.  No address, no entry.

But, if you want to increase your chances you might want to get some extra entries by:

-Following the Passages to the Past Blog
-Joining the Passages to the Past Facebook Page
-Following Passages to the Past on Twitter (@abruno77)
-Or sharing the contest by blogging, putting it in your sidebar, tweeting, or posting on Facebook of Google+

The Giveaway ends October 21st.
It is open to the US and Canada.

Run over there and enter.  Or don't.  I want the book myself so I won't be too sad if you don't try to take it from me.  But you'd be crazy to pass it up.

WWW Wednesdays (October 10th)

To play along just answer the following three (3) questions…

*What are you currently reading?

*What did you recently finish reading?

*What do you think you’ll read next?

Leave a link to you post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I’m still reading this. I’m surprised. Usually when I’m this into a story I would have been done long ago. I’m reading everything slowly at the moment though. I’m sure it will pick back up soon.

The Lost Chalice by Vernon Silver

This could be interesting but I don’t think I’ve gotten far enough in to truly be involved with the story yet. We shall see.

 

What did you recently finish reading?

Black Count by Tom Reiss

This is very interesting. I didn’t know about this guy at all. For those who are interested in French history or are fans of Dumas.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Looking for Przybylski by K. C. Frederick

It’s a book I got for review so I’d like to get going on that soon.

Euclid's Window Review

Euclid’s Window by Leonard Mlodinow

(from the book jacket)

Through Euclid’s Window Leonard Mlodinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace.  Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space – in the living room or in some other galaxy – have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology.

Mlodinow reveals how geometry’s first revolution began with a “little” scheme hatched by Pythagoras: the invention of a system of abstract rules that could model the universe.  That modest idea was the basis of scientific civilization.  Nut further advance was halted when the Western mind nodded off into the Dark Ages.  Finally in the fourteenth century an obscure bishop in France invented the graph and heralded the next revolution: the marriage of geometry and number.  Then, while intrepid mariners were sailing back and forth across the Atlantic to the New World, a fifteen-year-old genius realized that, like the earth’s surface, space could be curved.  Could parallel lines really meet?  Could the angles of a triangle really add up to more – or less – than 180 degrees?  The curved-space revolution reinvented both mathematics and physics; it also set the stage for a patent office clerk named Einstein to add time to the dimensions of space.  His great geometric revolution ushered in the modern era of physics.

Today we are in the midst of a new revolution.  At Caltech, Princeton, and universities around the world, scientists are recognizing that all the varied and wondrous forces of nature can be understood through geometry – a weird new geometry.  It is a thrilling math of extra, twisted dimensions, in which space and time, matter and energy, are all intertwined and revealed as consequences of a deep underlying structure of the universe.

Mlodinow tackles what some people would think would be a dry topic and manages to infuse some wit into it.  You can tell that he really loves his topic and wants the reader to as well.  He explains the math and gives you examples to help you understand.  And they are very helpful (although I must say that his examples using his sons start to get a little annoying after a while.)  He explains the beginnings of geometry and how it progressed and reasons why it was, at times, held back due to politics and religion and other things (which puts a lot of history in the book that you normally wouldn’t think of as having anything to do with math.)  It starts out with things I learned in school, like the Pythagorean Theorem and coordinates on a x/y graph and other things I recognized and then moved on to more complex things like string theory which I had no prior knowledge of.  I started out fine and could follow well enough but as the book went on and the theories got more complex I had a harder and harder time keeping up and often had to reread a passage to understand it (and sometimes never totally did.)  It is obviously a book for a particular audience and is not for everyone but if you are interested enough to pick up the book in the first place I don’t think you will be disappointed.  It is well written and Mlodinow knows his stuff and his love of the topic comes through and infects the reader.

The Narwhal Review

The Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea by Fred Bruemmer

(from the book jacket)

The narwhal is an ivory-tusked whale that lives in the High Arctic.  Unlike its popular cousin, the beluga, the narwhal is largely unknown, yet its story is one of the most fascinating in the natural world.

The fictional unicorn owes its existence to the elusive narwhal.  All the so-called unicorn horns in museums and palaces throughout the world are, in fact, narwhal tusks.  This whale’s remote habitat enabled the narwhal-unicorn connection to become one of the best-kept trade secrets of all time.  For centuries, it was in the best interests of narwhal hunters and traders to maintain the unicorn legend – the ten-foot-long “unicorn horn” was worth ten times its weight in gold.

In stunning photographs and an intriguing text, Fred Bruemmer explores the unicorn myth and natural history of the narwhal.  Interesting information about migration patterns, physiology, hunting methods, predators, breeding and young reveal the narwhal’s world for the first time in book form.  The author’s own experiences with scientists studying the narwhal and with Inuit of Greenland and Canada who hunt it add a personal note to this story of one of the world’s most mysterious creatures.

The narwhal is rare in much of its range.  It is hoped that this beautiful book will help make people aware of this marvelous whale and efforts to protect it in its High Artic home.

There is a lot of information here, and it is interesting, unfortunately most of it isn’t about narwhals.  At least not live narwhals.  There is a lot told about the myth of unicorns and why so many people wanted unicorn horns and were willing to spend so much money to get them.  And there is a lot about how the narwhal tusks were sold as unicorn horns and how they ended up all over the place.  There is a lot about the Inuit and how they hunt narwhals.  But about live swimming narwhals?  Not so much.  There are some great pictures.  (Once again many of them not of narwhals.)  I learned a lot in this book just not about what I thought I would.  So if you are not interested in the use of unicorn horn in medicine, or the history of the narwhal hunt, or the trade route of the tusks then don’t bother with this one.

The Friday 56 (October 5th)

Rules:


*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56.
*Find any sentence that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Link it to Freda's Voice.
*Add your (url) post to Linky on Freda’s post


The book is Black Count by Tom Reiss. It is about the father of the author Alexandre Dumas and it turns out he was a very interesting guy and the inspiration for many things in Dumas’ books.


Life in the French capital was complicated for a young mulatto aristocrat, and, as Thomas-Alexandre would shortly discover, he was alone neither in his unlikely fortune nor in the risks that increasingly accompanied it.

Theme Thursday (Kid)

Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event that will be open from one Thursday to the next. Hosted by Reading Between Pages.


Anyone can participate in it.

The rules are simple:

•A theme will be posted each week (on Thursday’s)
•Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
•Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
•It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word) Ex: If the theme is KISS; your sentence can have “They kissed so gently” or “Their lips touched each other” or “The smooch was so passionate”


This week’s theme is – KID (child, toddler, baby, boy etc.)


A terrible event had befallen their younger daughter, Louise, a toddler of thirteen months.

- Black Count by Tom Reiss

WWW Wednesdays (October 3rd)

To play along just answer the following three (3) questions…

*What are you currently reading?

*What did you recently finish reading?

*What do you think you’ll read next?

Leave a link to you post (or the answers themselves if you do not have a blog) in the comments of Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Black Count by Tom Reiss

It is about the father of Alexandre Dumas who was his inspiration for many of his stories.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

I just started this one so I can’t say much but even in the first few pages it is showing promise.

What did you recently finish reading?

The Mourner by Richard Stark

Violence, crime and the double cross. What’s not to like?

What do you think you’ll read next?

The Lost Chalice by Vernon Silver

I’m still trying to finish up my non-fiction non-memoir reading challenge so if it isn’t this one it will be another non-fiction one.

Law of Superheroes Review

The Law of Superheroes by James Daily, J.D. and Ryan Davidson, J.D.

James Daily and Ryan Davidson are attorneys and comic enthusiasts and they explain what the hypothetical legal ramifications of many comic book issues.  You’ll learn if life in prison for an immortal would be cruel and unusual punishment or if a superhero would be able to get his stuff back from the heirs if he happens to come back from the grave.

These are real attorneys citing real cases and talking about real law things.  So even though we are talking about Spider-Man and Superman and a bunch of other imaginary people you learn a lot about the law.  I’m not saying that you can pass the bar exam after reading this but you will definitely know stuff you didn’t know before you read it.  (Unless you are an attorney yourself.)  There are words like pursuant and other legal words but the book is not hard to understand.  Many times the law will be quoted which could be hard to understand but then you are given an example of what it would look like in the real world (well, kind of) to help it make sense.  There were only a couple of times when a term was used and then not explained so it takes you a minute but eventually you can work it out for yourself.  It’s fun for anyone who likes comics and you get a good overview of law from copyright to immigration from criminal procedure to rights of privacy and everything in between.  I found it all very interesting and would not have picked up a law book if it weren’t for the unique approach.

A Cup Full of Midnight Review

A Cup Full of Midnight by Jaden Terrell

(from the book jacket)

At thirty-six, private detective Jared McKean is coming to terms with his unjust dismissal from the Nashville Murder Squad and an unwanted divorce from a woman he still loves. Jared is a natural horseman and horse rescuer whose son has Down Syndrome, whose best friend is dying of AIDS, and whose teenaged nephew, Josh, has fallen under the influence of a dangerous fringe of goth subculture. When the fringe group's leader - a mind-manipulating sociopath who considers himself a vampire - is found butchered and posed across a pentagram, Josh is the number one suspect. Jared will need all his skills as a private investigator and former homicide detective to match wits with the most terrifying killer he has ever seen. When he learns that Josh is next on the killer's list, Jared will risk his reputation, his family, and his life in a desperate attempt to save the boy he loves like a son.

This is rather gory and dark.  The original murder is truly gruesome and described in some detail.  So if you don’t want to hear about entrails this is not for you.  The story is filled with suspects that all had good reason to want the murdered man dead and figuring out which one of them got to him first keeps the reader guessing.  Jared, the detective, is an interesting figure that has many things going on in his life besides the murder so you get a nice picture of who he is as a whole and not just a one dimensional cop.  You even get a good picture of the murdered man even though you never actually get to meet him.  The only character I didn’t really understand was the maybe new girlfriend.  She seemed shoved in somehow and I can only hope it is setting something up for future books because she seemed out of place here.  There are a lot of themes running through this book; love, loss, hate, loyalty, betrayal, vengeance.  It even looks at evil in men and the intricate workings of the mind and how it can be manipulated and twisted.  And they are all worked in well.  The story moves quickly but I wouldn’t call it light reading.  It is a hard edged mystery and can get pretty grim at times.  Don’t read this if you are depressed.  But if you want something more than a cozy mystery this will do the trick.