'Exclusive' by Sandra Brown

This was airport reading material and I dug it.

Not so fun as Lee Child but far better than many other 'Bestsellers' I've read.

We follow the reporter, Barrie Travis, as she uncovers (or is it that she is the puppet all along) a dangerous and ever thickening crime in the whitehouse. The male lead, Gray Bondurant, is awesome. I would like to read a book from his perspective. Cool, calculating and every man's envy, Gray keeps the book moving when it may very well have stopped in an immature pout. The characters of the president and first lady starkly contrast one another and acheive their desired effects. One is despicable and the other is pitiable, as much as she wants to be, that is.

I could do more Brown but I won't reach past an unread Lee Child to pick it up.

'Uncle Tom's Cabin' by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Took me a long time, 28 years, to pick up this novel. I can immediately grasp why this is held aloft as a time honored classic. The poignance of the characters as the plot is, in most cases, thrust upon them, is unmistakable. I loved so much about this book. I loved how much I hated Marie St. Clare. I loved how truly stalwart and steady Tom remained through it all. I loved how Stowe stopped to pull punches without truly pulling them. We may have gotten the 'decent version' of many of the atrocities associated with slavery but we certainly didn't miss the allusions to such terrific crimes that one cannot help but scoff at the morality of just over 100 years past.

Tragedy strikes quick and often and really leads the reader to believe that this was either a constant fear or a constant reality for those of the 'lower race'.

What may have started out as a series of pamphlets to raise awareness, verily conveyed the sentiments of an entire demographic during a tumultuous moral battle in our, then, fledgling country.

I would read more Stowe and I would recommend this novel to anyone.

'The Canterbury Papers' by Judith K. Healey

I read this book with excitement. I enjoyed the prose. I, myself, enjoy speaking in Ye Olde English so reading it is always an indulgence for me. The three hundred pages went quickly, ingested in little more than three days. I liked the characters, the plot seemed intriguing....and yet.....

I look back and feel that i didn't like this book.

The characterizations were elaborate but perhaps too much so. I understand that people are complex creatures with a multitude of masks and personas but there are ways of indicating this with greater subtlety. I have always enjoyed a nice twist of Fiction intertwined with reality and this particular book provided just that. I only wish it had been headed somewhere. We know how things actually ended up but, please, change it. Let our beloved characters win and take the day in grand form. Then tell us about it in the Afterword. I promise, it's a far more exciting concept that remaining restricted because of actual events.

If I'm hard up I could read Healey again but I won't pursue her.

'Running with Scissors' by Augusten Burroughs.

Hilarious!

This book was David Sedaris on crack. Filled with the same ridiculous familial antics and uncensored peeks into the lives of the strange but much naughtier. A young boy with a 33 year old boyfriend? A PHD who reads his feces for prognostication? Just awful, in a great way. If you cross bred david sedaris and tucker max with maybe a little dash of chelsea Handler, you might get this hybrid of Augusten Burroughs. Apparently this book has been turned into a film. I must look into it.

'Gone Tomorrow' by Lee Child

This is my 6th or 7th Jack Reacher novel. Just as good as always, maybe even better. I get the impression that, over the years, Mr. Child has either got better editors or developed a finer knack for writing. Not that I was ever offended by his attempts, but this book seemed like a more finely tuned piece than all the others I have read.
Reacher witnesses a 'suicide' on the train and is quickly drawn into a scandal that goes as deep as the DOD, CIA, DIA, and FBI.(shocker)

With great precision, the mind of the former MP is unspooled for the reader, giving them a capable grasp of all the multitudinous minutae that is sifted and categorized through his perceptions.

Perhaps there was a bit of predictability with the bullet count near the end of the book but, nonetheless, it was a great read. 600 pages gone in 3 days.

I hope I find another Child novel soon.

"Have a Little Faith" by Mitch Albom

I'm sure 'Tuesdays with Morrie' did the same thing to me but i sobbed through the last chapter of this book. As a whole, beautifully written and a wonderful message brilliantly conveyed. The views given by the Rabbi pretty much sum up my feelings about world religions to the Tee. Therefore it was an affirming read.

I'm happy Albom has had commercial success with his stories but I am even more happy for his sake that he was able to live through the experiences which provided these stories. His life has certainly been enriched by the wise people he has be lucky enough to spend time with. He has used the opportunities to ask tough questions and get answers from people who might be best placed to answer them.

This story follows our author as he gets to know two religious leaders. The rabbi and the preacher. The preacher is a 'lost and found again' Christian and the Rabbi is a lifelong influence in the author's life, only recently and intimate acquaintance. Through his conversations with these central characters and his reflection on the time spent with them the religious philosophies begin to fall into place.

I don't know why this book took over a year to pick up. I should not shy away from Mitch Albom next time. The book took me two days to consume and I was enthralled for the duration.

'Murder in Montparnasse' by Howard Engel

Ahhhhhh. How refreshing. It's like two months of hot, sticky heat, the occasional breezy evening, but then the heaven's open and you get caught in the cool, rejuvenating shower.

I have read some crap lately. Not to say that Halberstam was poor writing but it was rather dry and I was into it for over a year. 'Murder in Montparnasse was a huge suprise and I loved every second of it. I honestly said out loud, 'I wish this book would keep going on forever.' It was not that the story's plot was incredibly engaging. It has far more to do with how the characters were presented and their perceptions of the world translated on the page.
The story follows Mike Ward, a Canadian would-be writer, in Paris for the first time translating new stories from french for the Toronto Star. As he meets and, consequently, gets drawn into a circle of other, relatively unknown, artists, we see his life fill out. The characters in this novel are all thinly veiled versions of actual persons of the era. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and on. Reading about the behaviour of these characters fascinates the reader and draws them into a real life experience set in Montparnasse in the 1920's. These elevated artists become real to you as you see how they behave and interact and, most curiously, with whom they become romantically entwined.

The plot is secondary to the characters and 'cut through the bullshit' style of setting the mood. Paris' Jack the ripper is killing and gives one of the crew a perfect opportunity to kill an enemy while making it seem as though it was the act of the homicidal maniac.

He does not get away with it but who cares. The cool water of each page cleansed my reader's soul and I hope I can soon find another book equally as satisfying.

'Blind Side' by Catherine Coulter

I need some Alcoholic mouthwash after this read. It was infuriating to plow though this 'FBI thriller' that was written as it were intended for a 12 year old. The descriptions tried far to hard to sell the ephemeral qualities and the plot gave very little to assist in out-sleuthing the sleuths. I would rather pick up a Lee Child 'Reacher' book any day of the week.

Blind side follows Agent Savich and his wife Sherlock and they must continued characters. It's written with allusions to numerous previous plots. The story also follows Sheriff Katie, from a small town in Tennessee. Our author is clearly infatuated with fall in Tennessee. I can't count how many times I read, 'There is no place in the world as beautiful as fall in the Smokies'.
She helps a boy flee kidnappers and ends up falling for his father as the plot thickens and, spontaneously, erupts. I despise endings that explain everything in the final chapter. I want to be given hints and start figuring it out myself. Not have the story lead in one direction then give a completely lame and fabricated excuse for the bad guys actions.

I hope I never forget that I don't want to read Coulter.