READING 2020
Beginning March
I'm OK with Eclectic
Or is it just random Goodwill luck?!
Or is it just random Goodwill luck?!
SPOTLIGHTS
SATURDAY
Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970 and later received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia.
McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites; the Whitbread Novel Award (1987)
McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites; the Whitbread Novel Award (1987)
Saturday (2005) is a novel by Ian McEwan. It is set in Fitzrovia, London, on Saturday, 15 February 2003, as a large demonstration is taking place against the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq. The protagonist, Henry Perowne, a 48-year-old neurosurgeon, has planned a series of chores and pleasures culminating in a family dinner in the evening. As he goes about his day, he ponders the meaning of the protest and the problems that inspired it; however, the day is disrupted by an encounter with a violent, troubled man.
To understand his character's world-view, McEwan spent time with a neurosurgeon. The novel explores one's engagement with the modern world and the meaning of existence in it. The main character, though outwardly successful, still struggles to understand meaning in his life, exploring personal satisfaction in the post-modern, developed world. Though intelligent and well read, Perowne feels he has little influence over political events.
To understand his character's world-view, McEwan spent time with a neurosurgeon. The novel explores one's engagement with the modern world and the meaning of existence in it. The main character, though outwardly successful, still struggles to understand meaning in his life, exploring personal satisfaction in the post-modern, developed world. Though intelligent and well read, Perowne feels he has little influence over political events.
TRAIN DREAMS
Denis Johnson
May 17, 2020
“National Book Award-winner Johnson, ever the literary shape-shifter, looks back to America's 1900's expansionist fever dream in a haunting frontier ballad about a loner named Robert Granier. Johnson draws on history and tall tales to adroitly infuse one contemplative man's solitary life with the boundless mysteries of nature and the havoc of humankind's breakneck technological insurgency, creating a concentrated, reverberating tale of ravishing solemnity and molten lyricism.” ―Donna Seaman, Booklist
“Readers eager for a fat follow-up to Tree of Smoke could be forgiven a modicum of skepticism at this tidy volume . . . but it would be a shame to pass up a chance to encounter the synthesis of Johnson's epic sensibilities rendered in miniature in the clipped tone of Jesus' Son . . . An ode to the vanished West that captures the splendor of the Rockies as much as the small human mysteries that pass through them, this svelte stand-alone has the virtue of being a gem in itself, and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to Johnson.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred)
“Readers eager for a fat follow-up to Tree of Smoke could be forgiven a modicum of skepticism at this tidy volume . . . but it would be a shame to pass up a chance to encounter the synthesis of Johnson's epic sensibilities rendered in miniature in the clipped tone of Jesus' Son . . . An ode to the vanished West that captures the splendor of the Rockies as much as the small human mysteries that pass through them, this svelte stand-alone has the virtue of being a gem in itself, and, for the uninitiated, a perfect introduction to Johnson.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred)
MARCH
Geraldine Brooks
From the author of the acclaimed Year of Wonders, a historical novel and love story set during a time of catastrophe, on the front lines of the American Civil War. Acclaimed author Geraldine Brooks gives us the story of the absent father from Louisa May Alcott's Little Womenand conjures a world of brutality, stubborn courage
PAVEL & I
Dan Vyleta
Set during the winter of 1946–47, one of the coldest on record, Pavel & I unfolds against the tattered social fabric of postwar Berlin. Pavel Richter, a decommissioned GI, finds himself at odds with a rogue colonel in the British Armed Forces and a Soviet general when an American friend deposits a dead Russian spy in his frozen apartment. The race to take possession of the dead spy’s quarry soon begins threatening Pavel’s friendship with a street orphan named Anders and his budding love for his upstairs neighbor, Sonia.
TEXASVILLE TRILOGY
Larry McMurtry
KATE ATKINSON DUO
July 1, 2019
Powell's World of Books - 2019
It's the largest independent chain of bookstores in the world, and when you visit the aptly named flagship shop,Powell's World of Books you'll need a map to find your way around (the store provides one). For a long time, Powell's enormity was a measure of how much Portlander's loved books. But now, with even big-box bookstores flailing, Powell's continued success points to Portland's wily, geeky business acumen: the store does a brisk online business, holds money-making book events and still utterly beguiles everyone else in the world who loves books. Cruise the aisles, grab some coffee and enjoy the lost art of thumbing through bound paper stamped with words.
While wandering through seemingly millions of books, I realized that I have read every book on display on their Used Book Stand! Oh my..
Be sure to click to enlarge the attempt at a 360 Pano of all four sides of the display...made it to three!.
Be sure to click to enlarge the attempt at a 360 Pano of all four sides of the display...made it to three!.
It is not for nothing that John Le Carre noted in a front cover blurb “the best true spy story I have ever read.”
December 25, 2018
MY BOOK OF THE YEAR ~ 2018
The Spy and the Traitor
The Spy and The Traitor is touted in its subhead as "the greatest espionage story ever told." That isn't just publisher hype. The real events and the story of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB officer and diplomat reads like something from a John LeCarre or Robert Ludlum story...except it's true and marvelously documented. Raised by a father and older brother who both served devotedly and unquestioningly in the KGB (dad worked through Stalin's purges and survived in the KGB's precursor agency). Loyalty to the service then would seem to be a given--betraying the agency and its million members (you read that right) would be like sabotaging the family's business. Yet events and history continue to flummox human expectations.
First the invasion of Hungary, then the erection of the Berlin Wall (which Gordievsky was present to see) and finally the brutal crushing of the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia all drove this KGB officer further and further away from the party. Exposure to the West in Copenhagen and later in London provided a first hand taste of liberty and freedom. It served as the final push into the eager and eternally grateful arms of his M16 handlers. The double agent provided them with not merely a trove of concrete information but invaluable insight into the workings of the KGB and planning of the Soviet Leadership. It is no exaggeration to say Gordievsky was our Kim Philby
First the invasion of Hungary, then the erection of the Berlin Wall (which Gordievsky was present to see) and finally the brutal crushing of the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia all drove this KGB officer further and further away from the party. Exposure to the West in Copenhagen and later in London provided a first hand taste of liberty and freedom. It served as the final push into the eager and eternally grateful arms of his M16 handlers. The double agent provided them with not merely a trove of concrete information but invaluable insight into the workings of the KGB and planning of the Soviet Leadership. It is no exaggeration to say Gordievsky was our Kim Philby
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December 15, 2018
OVER 70 BOOKS LATE 2018 READING LIST IN PHOTO FORM I downloaded over seventy book photos but they were all of such very low quality I decided not to use them. So...you get this wall of books...they are all the books I read after July 2018. They now reside at Cocktail Cliffs- My Gorge Home, Murdock, WA! (better photo after next trip!) |
Pioneer Square July 28, 2018
August 9, 2018
Started This Gem Last Night!
Started This Gem Last Night!
July 7, 2018
Recent Reading
June 29, 2018
Hay-on-Wye, Wales c. 1991
(Me reading above)
Hay-on-Wye, Wales c. 1991
(Me reading above)
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Hay-on-Wye is the world's largest second-hand and antiquarian book centre
This small Welsh village of about 1,400, located on the border of England, nestled between the Wye River and the northern edge of Brecon Beacons National Park. Surrounding a Norman castle dating to around 1200, Hay was a sleepy market town that once boasted 34 public houses, attributable in part to its location as a crossroads for merchants and farmers. Over the last half-century, though, it was transformed into "the town of books," with as many as 40 second-hand bookstores and an annual literary, music and entertainment festival. The result has been a boon as Hay-on-Wye has become a tourist destination.
Announcing
StoryLine Captions!
Hover Cursor Over Book To View
StoryLine Captions!
Hover Cursor Over Book To View
June 24, 2018
Newest Reads
Newest Reads
These three authors are also new to me as well as those just below from the 21st. Catching up on my Reading Posts!
Stay tuned for Spotlight Insights on these very interesting and diverse stories & authors!
Stay tuned for Spotlight Insights on these very interesting and diverse stories & authors!
June 21, 2018
NEWLY DISCOVERED
David Ellis
Such a treat to discover a 'New' author! Mr. Ellis has written quite a few novels all based on courtroom dramas. I do love a good courtroom battle, the law enforcement component,including the DA and all the drama and legal complexities that make a fine read!
The three books are considered 'stand-alone' yet they share common major characters, location, and history. There is also a series based on a defense attorney's cases. I'm looking forward to enjoying more of his work!
The three books are considered 'stand-alone' yet they share common major characters, location, and history. There is also a series based on a defense attorney's cases. I'm looking forward to enjoying more of his work!
David Ellis is a lawyer and the Edgar Allan Poe Award winner for Best First Novel for Line of Vision. Ellis attended Northwestern Law School and began his legal career in private practice in Chicago in 1993. He served as the House Prosecutor who tried and convicted Illinois Governor Blagojevich in the Impeachment Trial before the Illinois Senate.
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He was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court in 2014 and took office December 1, 2014. Ellis currently lives outside Chicago with his wife and three children.
Check out Davis'a website for all his books davidellis.com |
June 21, 2018
THE ROSY CRUCIFIXION ~ Henry Miller
Coming Soon!
June 1, 2018
CALYPSO ~ DAVID SADARIS
This book allows us to observe not just the nimble-mouthed elf of his previous work, but a man in his seventh decade expunging his darker secrets and contemplating mortality. “Calypso” chronicles his latest attempts to come to terms with the slings and arrows of truly outrageous fortune that life has flung at him.
The brilliance of David Sedaris’s writing is that his very essence, his aura, seeps through the pages of his books like an intoxicating cloud, mesmerizing us so that his logic becomes ours
Death and family are what this book is all about. Maybe what all David Sedaris’s work is about? Maybe what all good writing has to be about for they are really the only constants in all our lives? We can avoid neither and the existence of both reminds us that we are no different from one another.
The brilliance of David Sedaris’s writing is that his very essence, his aura, seeps through the pages of his books like an intoxicating cloud, mesmerizing us so that his logic becomes ours
Death and family are what this book is all about. Maybe what all David Sedaris’s work is about? Maybe what all good writing has to be about for they are really the only constants in all our lives? We can avoid neither and the existence of both reminds us that we are no different from one another.
KIM ~ RUDYARD KIPLING
Kim is set in an imperialistic world; a world strikingly masculine, dominated by travel, trade and adventure, a world in which there is no question of the division between white and non-white. Two men - a boy who grows into early manhood and an old ascetic priest, the lama - are at the center of the novel. A quest faces them both. Born in India, Kim is nevertheless white, a sahib. While he wants to play the Great Game of Imperialism, he is also spiritually bound to the lama. |
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His aim, as he moves chameleon-like through the two cultures, is to reconcile these opposing strands, while the lama searches for redemption from the Wheel of Life.
A celebration of their friendship in a beautiful but often hostile environment, 'Kim' captures the opulence of India's exotic landscape, overlaid by the uneasy presence of the British Raj. |
THE KEY TO REBECCA ~ KEN FOLLETT
Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca took readers and critics by storm when first published more than fifteen years ago. Today, it remains one of the best espionage novels ever written.
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A brilliant and ruthless Nazi master agent is on the loose in Cairo. His mission is to send Rommel’s advancing army the secrets that will unlock the city’s doors.
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In all of Cairo, only two people can stop him. One is a down-on-his-luck English officer no one will listen to.
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HOUSE OF THIEVES ~ CHARLES BELFOUR
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In 1886 New York, a respectable architect shouldn’t have any connection to the notorious gang of thieves and killers that rules the underbelly of the city. But when John Cross’s son racks up an unfathomable gambling debt to Kent’s Gents, Cross must pay it back himself. All he has to do is use his inside knowledge of high society mansions and museums to craft a robbery even the smartest detectives won’t solve. The take better include some cash too —the bigger the payout, the faster this will be over.With a newfound talent for sniffing out vulnerable and lucrative targets, Cross becomes invaluable to the gang. But Cross’s entire life has become a balancing act, and it will only take one mistake for it all to come crashing down —and for his family to go down too.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS ~ CONRAD WILLIAMS
Mike de Vere is a literary agent with high standards and a passion for great writing. He is equally discriminating in matters of the heart and ready to fall in love. But when his best client sacks him and his hopes of marriage are dashed, Mike begins to fall apart. Emotionally reeling, he seeks respite in the beautiful wilderness of the Black Mountains, only to discover that his old flame Madelin now lives there with her husband.
Drawn into their marital crisis, Mike's humiliation as the superfluous middleman is neatly perfected. But when a top agent suggests a plot to restore his fortunes, Mike begins to come alive again. It looks like love and achievement might be his at last – if he is prepared to do the wrong thing, and do it ruthlessly.
Drawn into their marital crisis, Mike's humiliation as the superfluous middleman is neatly perfected. But when a top agent suggests a plot to restore his fortunes, Mike begins to come alive again. It looks like love and achievement might be his at last – if he is prepared to do the wrong thing, and do it ruthlessly.
INTO THE WATER ~ PAULA HAWKINS
In the last days before her death, Nel called her sister. Jules didn’t pick up the phone, ignoring her plea for help. Now Nel is dead. They say she jumped. And Jules has been dragged back to the one place she hoped she had escaped for good, to care for the teenage girl her sister left behind. But Jules is afraid. So afraid. Of her long-buried memories, of the old Mill House, of knowing that Nel would never have jumped. And most of all she’s afraid of the water, and the place they call the Drowning Pool . . .
THE LINE OF BEAUTY ~ ALAN HOLLINGHURST
As a novelist, Alan Hollinghurst has set himself an intimidating standard. There haven't been many English debuts more exquisitely executed or scorchingly candid than "The Swimming-Pool Library" (1988), nor follow-ups that could outdazzle it as brilliantly as did "The Folding Star" (1994). Thereafter "The Spell" (1999) conjured a lighter tone, though still sprung with the enchantments of Hollinghurst's sly, feline wit. To say, then, that his latest novel, the Booker Prize-winning "Line of Beauty," is also his finest should give some idea of its accomplishment, not just in the breadth of its ambition but in its felicities of observation and expression.
PLEASE SEE 'REVIEWS'
For
John Le Carre
'Absolute Friends'
May 15, 2018
Why Not Read...Paints Gotta Dry!
(see Chronicles for painting details)
Why Not Read...Paints Gotta Dry!
(see Chronicles for painting details)
May 10, 2018
The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi Series Book
This is one of my all time favorite 'Court Drama' series; There are 20 more where these four came from!
The Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi Series Book
This is one of my all time favorite 'Court Drama' series; There are 20 more where these four came from!
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Robert K. Tanenbaum is one of the country's most successful trial lawyers -- he has never lost a felony case. He has been Bureau Chief of the New York Criminal Courts, ran the Homicide Bureau for the New York District Attorney's Office, and served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the Congressional Committee investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
May 8, 2018
Avenue of Mysteries
May 8, 2018
A Piece Of The World ~ Christine Kline
To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family’s remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine. Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life. Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and became the subject of one of the best known American paintings of the twentieth century.
Reading In The
Valley of the Gods Utah
How did I ever survive Before Nook?
And...Spill-Proof Camp Wine Glass
Valley of the Gods Utah
How did I ever survive Before Nook?
And...Spill-Proof Camp Wine Glass
April 17, 2018
Elmore Leonard
Just finished Saber River.
Get Shorty is one of Leonard's Urban tales that I read ages ago, along with the 4-part Rylan series
(No cursor review for these books)
One of the great storytellers of our time, Elmore Leonard perfected his craft writing Westerns, a genre he loved. These tales--some adapted into such outstanding films as Hombre, Valdez Is Coming, and 3:10 to Yuma--are unexcelled for their wiry tautness, sharp characterizations, and jolts of unexpected humor. For sheer stripped-down narrative tension Leonard never did anything better, and the fresh twists he finds in resolving the genre's classic confrontations reveal a master at work. Whether describing a Civil War veteran coming back to find his homestead stolen (Last Stand at Saber River), a man raised by Apaches treated with contempt by the white settlers who will ultimately depend on him for their survival (Hombre), a local constable, tricked into killing an innocent man, fighting back against the powerful man who duped him (Valdez Is Coming), or two convicts in a desert prison--one African American and the other half-Apache--plotting a near-impossible escape (Forty Lashes Less One), Leonard's westerns are tough, suspenseful, convincing, and beautifully spare in style.
Leonard has topped my reading list for years! Here are just a few more if his hits that I have read.
Many have become well adapted movies, featuring major stars.
Many have become well adapted movies, featuring major stars.
April 17, 2018
Persephone
is number 18 in the series You can rest assured I will be reading all 23! The Kydd Series, closely based on real events from history, There are a projected 21 titles in the series. Although they form a series, each book can be read alone as a complete story |
“A sensitive and insightful portrayal of a common man’s rise to fame and distinction in the age of fighting sail. From the fo’c’sle as a pressed man to prime seaman to command of a crack frigate and more. Reeks of authenticity and understanding with tales to engross landlubber and sailor alike” |
April 17, 2018
LIGHTNING ON THE SUN
Robert Bingham IV died of a heroin overdose at age 33 six months after marrying Vanessa Scharven Chase, a Harvard graduate art historian, and five months before the publication of his novel.
LIGHTNING ON THE SUN
Robert Bingham IV died of a heroin overdose at age 33 six months after marrying Vanessa Scharven Chase, a Harvard graduate art historian, and five months before the publication of his novel.
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Asher went to Cambodia to get away from Julie, his Harvard grad ex-girlfriend currently tending bar in a topless joint in New York. But when his UNESCO work cleaning bat dung from Khmer statues is finished, and he decides on a dicey heroin scheme as his means to get home with plenty of money to spare, it's Julie whose help he solicits.
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She agrees, but plans go dangerously awry frighteningly fast. A pulsating plot and precise literary prose make Lightning on the Sun a startlingly compelling and strangely poetic tale.
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April 14, 2018
Author Focus: Philippe Georget
Phillippe Georget was born in Épinay-sur-Seine in 1962. He works as a TV news anchorman for France-3. A passionate traveler, in 2001 he travelled the entire length of the Mediterranean shoreline with his wife and their three children in an RV. He lives in Perpignan. Summertime All the Cats Are Bored, his debut novel, won the SNCF Crime Fiction Prize and the City of Lens First Crime Novel Prize
Inspector Giles Sebag Triology
I can find no explanation of the titles?
Inspector Gilles Sebag, the main character, remains consistent, as does the police procedural approach to the plots. But each novel feels distinctly different from the others. The first, Summertime, All the Cats are Bored, is very much a love story. The second, Autumn,All the Cats Return, is a less intimate but more substantial examination of displacement and the fickle verdicts of history. The third, Crimes of Winter, takes a more extreme turn as it delves into the subjective implications of jealousy, loyalty, and love; its subtitle says it all: “Variations on Adultery and Venial Sins.”
April 9, 2018
April 4, 2018
March 31, 2018
Newest Treasures From - Olympia Goodwill Library
March 28, 2018
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT
The only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels
Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust |
JOHN HART is the author of REDEMPTION ROAD and of four New York Times bestsellers, The King of Lies, Down River, The Last Child and Iron House. The only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels, Hart has also won the Barry Award, the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Award for Fiction, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and the North Carolina Award for Literature. With over two million copies in print, his novels have been translated into thirty language and can be found in over seventy countries. “My only real dream,” John declares, “has been to write well and to be published well.” |
http://www.johnhartfiction.com/ |
"People in publishing have always known that John Hart can flat-out write. His prose conjures comparisons with James Lee Burke in its sultry, melodious alchemy. With Redemption Road Hart has taken it to another level. The prologue is heart-wrenching and the chapters thereafter pull you in like matter to a black hole. Read this novel. And then go back and read all of his others. He’s that good." |
March 26, 2018
SWEET CARESS ~ William Boyd
Amory became a woman who accepted no limits to what that could mean, and, from the time she picked up her first camera, one who would record her own version of events. |
March 23,2018
March 19, 2018
SPECIAL FOCUS ON JASON MATTHEWS
From the bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author of the “terrifically good” (The New York Times) Red Sparrow Trilogy, a compulsively readable series about star-crossed Russian agent Dominika Egorova and CIA's Nate Nash in a desperate race to the finish.
FOCUS ON ADRIAN MCKINTY
His first Sean Duffy novel, The Cold Cold Ground, won the 2013 Spinetingler Award and was picked as one of the best crime novels of the year by The Times (of London). The second Sean Duffy novel, I Hear The Sirens In The Street, won the 2014 Barry Award for best paperback original crime novel of the year.
March 10, 2018
MYRIAD HAPHAZARD READING
Feb 26, 2018
Special Focus ~ Martin Cruz Smith
February 8, 2017
January 5, 2018
2017 READING LIST
Highly Recommended
'Of All The Things I Have Lost...I Miss My Mind The Most'
I suggest you turn to Finer Minds for articulate & erudite reviews!
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My Pick For 2017
'Best Read'
(not writtien in 2017)
My Pick For 2017
'Best Read'
(not writtien in 2017)
HAPPY READING HOLIDAYS!
ME? I'M OFF TO POWELL'S FOR CHRISTMAS DAY!
December 25, 2017
Latest Reads
December 28, 2017
December 28, 2017
If you have not discovered Iain Banks...Do yourself a favor...! There are plenty to chose from! He writes SciFi under the name Iain M. Banks as well! 'The Wasp Factory' started it all...sadly Mr. Banks died young and at the top of his game.
My finished list thus far!
December 6, 2017
Click A Book, Then Scroll From Each Book To The Next
Click A Book, Then Scroll From Each Book To The Next