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| Brighton stay up by beating Man U 1-0!!! |
Yesterday I joined the graying and balding set at the gym for an hours work out; used the rowing machine and then spent a bit of time in the weight room. Last night Jo and I finished watching the last 4 episodes of West World. Lots of neat twists and turns. I'm not sure I'm satisfied with how it ended but we'll see how Season 2 goes.
New Books
I received 3 books I've had on order, Thursday and Friday. It's like Christmas!! Two from WorldofBooks and one from WeBuyBooks, both in the UK.
"In the 10th volume of the continuing adventures of Flashman, the arch-cad is trying to behave like an officer with John Brown at Harper's Ferry. But Flashman merely contributes to igniting the American Civil War."
"Detective Jack Yu is assigned to the Chinatown precinct as the only officer of Chinese descent. He investigates a series of attacks on children and a missing mistress, shifting between the world of street thugs and gangs and the Chinatown of the rich and powerful.
Detective Jack Yu grew up in Chinatown. Some of his friends are criminals now; some are dead. Jack has just been transferred to his old neighborhood, where 99 percent of the cops are white. Unlike the others, confused by the residents who speak another language even when they’re speaking English, Jack knows what’s going on.
He is confronted with a serial rapist who preys on young Chinese girls. Then Uncle Four, an elderly and respected leader of the charitable Hip Ching Society and member of the Hong Kong-based Red Circle Triad, is gunned down. Jack learns that benevolent Uncle Four had a gorgeous young mistress imported from Hong Kong. And she is missing.
To solve these crimes, Jack turns to an elderly fortune teller, an old friend of his, in addition to employing modern police methods. This debut mystery power-fully conveys the sights, sounds, and smells of Chinatown, as well as the attitudes of its inhabitants."
"Blanche Lake is not like the other mothers who come to collect their children at the local nursery school on New York’s Upper East Side. She lives alone, has a job, and has never been married. It’s the first day of school when this story begins, and Blanche is eager to see how her daughter, Bunny, has fared away from home. But her expectant waiting becomes a mother’s most dreaded nightmare: Bunny never materializes. Neither teachers nor students recall the small girl, and soon Blanche is engaged in a frantic search for any trace of her missing daughter. And the worst part is . . . no one believes her.
In this fraught and at times freakish tale of suspense, Evelyn Piper takes us deep into the psyche of the 1950s to explore American fetishes, fallacies, and fears around motherhood and sexuality. Even the police refuse to help Blanche search for Bunny, lacking evidence of the girl’s existence. Emerging from the book’s moments of hysteria as a new kind of heroine—the hard-boiled mom—Blanche Lake turns 1950s psychology on its head. Her unbridled, red-blooded instincts win over the psychologist, Dr. Newhouse, and expose the creepiness of anti-sexual social norms. No wonder the film version of Bunny Lake Is Missing was reset in swinging 1960s London. Directed by Otto Preminger and starring Carol Lynley and Laurence Olivier (with music by the Zombies), the film reexamines motherhood and sexuality with a new plot twist that pins the problems on men."
Currently ReadingI haven't started any new books since my last entry but I'm enjoying and making good progress on the 4 books on the go.
Bill's Author A - Z
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| Bill Bryson |
"I found this to be a very interesting overview of almost every type of science, geology, archeology, physics, chemistry, zoology, etc. And yet, Mr Bryson managed to make them all interesting and readable. It's impossible not to be somewhat technical, but still, he was able to intersperse interesting stories, highlight interesting personalities to keep you reading. This was the first Bryson book that I've read and it makes me want to read others now. My wife has enjoyed his travel books, so I have a nice mixture from which to pick.
I also liked how this books coverage also reminded me of other books I'd read, The Quantum Ten, by Sheila Jones, Krakatoa, by Simon Winchester. Excellent book and highly recommended."
"A very interesting read. A book full of facts and history of everything from clothing, sex, treatment of children and the poor, discoveries and inventions. All told from the perspective of the various rooms of Bryson's house in Norfolk. Bill Bryson has a flair for story-telling; the pages flow easily and comfortably. Nice little anecdotes to keep the story fresh and just an all-over interesting historical perspective. Well-written and enjoyable to read."
"In 1995, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his home. The hilarious book he wrote about that journey, Notes from a Small Island, became one of the most loved books of recent decades.
Now, in this hotly anticipated new travel book, his first in fifteen years and sure to be greeted as the funniest book of the decade, Bryson sets out on a brand-new journey, on a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis on the south coast to Cape Wrath on the northernmost tip of Scotland.Once again, he will guide us through all that's best and worst about Britain today - while doing that incredibly rare thing of making us laugh out loud in public."
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| John Buchan |
a. The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915).
"This is a classic, an interesting, exciting story. It's similar but at the same time a fair bit different from Alfred Hitchcock's movie. Interesting story of a man caught up in extraordinary events which have the potential to dramatically change the outcome of the impending war, who uses his ingenuity and basic smarts to avoid his enemies. I'll leave it there as I don't want to spoil for anyone who hasn't read before. Excellent story."
b. Greenmantle (1916).
"A perfectly admirable sequel to The Thirty-Nine Steps. Richard Hannay appears again, now a Major in the British Army during WWI. He and three companions are asked to go behind German lines and to follow a route to Turkey to find out what the Germans are plotting there. It's a well-paced, well-written adventure thriller. Most enjoyable, entertaining story. I look forward to reading the other stories in the series."
c. Mr. Standfast (1919).
"Mr Standfast is the third book in the John Hannay thriller/ spy series written by John Buchan. The first two, The 39 Steps and Greenmantle, were both excellent and this third story follows easily with another excellent, well-paced, thriller. In this story, John Hannay, now a General in the British Army is called back from the front (WWI) to help find an old adversary. The Germans are infiltrating pacifist factions and using these people to help achieve their plans, as a conduit for passing information, and other activities. Hannay follows a trail to northern Scotland and back to the front in this wartime adventure. There are excellent characters in this story, Buchan writes thoughtfully and the story, especially the ending is all excellent. An excellent follow-up to the first two books."
d. The Three Hostages (1924). I haven't read this one yet.
"After the war and newly knighted, Hannay is living peacefully in the Cotswolds with his wife Mary and son Peter John. Unfortunately, a day arrives when three separate visitors tell him of three children being held hostage by a secret kidnapper. All three seem to lead back to a man named Dominick Medina, a popular Member of Parliament. Hannay uncovers a dastardly plot involving hypnotism and the black arts, as well as the more earthly crimes of blackmail and profiteering."
e. The Island of Sheep (1936).
"The Island of Sheep is the fifth of five books by John Buchan featuring intrepid Richard Hannay. The most well-known book is the first, The 39 Steps, which was also made into at least two movies. I've read the first three and jumped book 4, The Three Hostages, for one of my reading challenges. I will get back to the 4th book in the near future.
With all that preamble, The Island of Sheep brings a retired Hannay and some friends back into adventure to follow up on a promise they made to an old friend many years ago. That promise was to help this man's son should he ever be endangered by the friend's enemies. Hannay is enjoying retirement, living at Fosse with wife and son but still feels that he's getting rusty. Brief meetings with other old friends, Lombard, and Sandy, lord of Clanroyden, bring back the events in Africa that lead to the promise to help their old friend, Haraldsen, a Norlander and adventurer. A group of old and new enemies are threatening the son of Haraldsen to get his wealth. Hannay and his friends decide to help him against them.
The adventure moves to Scotland, home of Sandy and then to the Island of Sheep, somewhere near Denmark / Norway, the home of Haraldsen and his clan, for the final confrontation. The story moves along nicely, with sufficient action to keep you involved and also develops the characters in a manner where you can see them shaking off the rust of their retirements and inactivity to become more resolute in their efforts to help their friend. Buchan has an excellent descriptive writing style and you can see and feel the land he describes and his characters. In many ways it's probably a man's story, the women, wives of Hannay and his friends, are strong and resolute and supportive of the men but also play minor roles. I also liked Hannay's son, Peter John, who plays a nicely major role in the events."
"Begins in the pleasant atmosphere of a country house in the Scottish borders, where Richard Hannay is the guest of his old friend, Sandy Arbuthnot. The drama shifts to a small South American republic in the grip of a dictator"
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| Linda Buckley-Archer |
"Gideon Seymour, cut-purse and gentleman, hides from the villainous Tar Man. Suddenly the sky peels away like fabric and from the gaping hole fall two curious-looking children. Peter Schock and Kate Dyer have fallen straight from the twenty-first century, thanks to an experiment with an anti-gravity machine. Before Gideon and the children have a chance to gather their wits, the Tar Man takes off with the machine -- and Kate and Peter's only chance of getting home. Soon Gideon, Kate, and Peter are swept into a journey through eighteenth-century London and form a bond that, they hope, will stand strong in the face of unfathomable treachery."
b. The Time Thief (2007).
"Peter Schock has been left behind in 1763. Kate Dyer is beginning to suffer some disturbing side effects from time traveling. And the Tar Man, who was terrifying even in the eighteenth century, is loose and wreaking havoc in twenty-first-century London with twenty-first-century technology at his disposal! Can Kate find a way to bring Peter back and stop the Tar Man for good?"
c. The Time Quake (2008).
"Time itself is splintering. If the catastrophic consequences of time travel are now impossible to ignore, Lord Luxon only has eyes for its awesome possibilities. He has his sights set on no lesser prize than America. Abducted to 1763, Peter and Kate begin to understand that history has arrived at its tipping point. Adrift in time, Kate transforms into an oracle, able to see the future as easily as the past. While Gideon does all he can to help, he is tormented by the knowledge that The Tar Man, his nemesis, is also his own brother. As they pursue him through the dark streets of eighteenth-century London, and the time quakes begin, Peter realises that this monster may hold the fate of all of us in his hands."
Well, there you go. Have a great weekend.
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