It's a beautiful Thursday in the Valley; when I drove to physio, it was 18℃, sunny and fresh. Physio has been helping, although I'm kind of achy from today's session. He used acupuncture on my shoulder. It still gets quite sore if I sleep on it. He also started working on my lower back. Ah the wonders of getting older.
Jo is heading off to work at the Thrift shortly and I think I might relax when she's gone.
So let's see. Let's do a reading update and take a look at any new books.
Just Finished
I've finished six books since the beginning of May.
"Heat Seeker: A Gun Honey Series by Charles Ardai is the 3rd graphic novel in this Hard Case Crime series. It's one of those books I know exactly what I'm getting; entertainment, sex and action. The first two books focused on Joanna Tan, a woman who provides weapons to assassins. In these two books, she and her boyfriend, ex - FBI agent Brook Barrow managed to upset many people, including the FBI. Hits have been put out on the duo.
This story focuses on Dahlia Racers who, besides working on magic shows, specializes on helping people in trouble disappear. She is an old friend / lover of Joanna and is hired to help Joanna and Brook disappear. It's a fascinating scheme and the difficulty is compounded when the FBI hires Claride, a professional killer to find them and kill them. Dahlia and her assistant must trick the FBI, Claride and even a vengeful sister as she leads them on thrill ride to Vegas and Mexico.
Lots of action, violence, nudity, sex and twists and turns. Just mindless entertainment with a surprise ending. Neat. (3.5 stars)"
"A few years ago I decided that I would try to read all of the books by Graham Greene. To that end, I have finished 10 of his books, well, now 11 with this non-completion of The Confidential Agent: An Entertainment, originally published in 1939. I'm sure if I'd plodded through, I would have enjoyed it. Greene is a unique writer and his stories are all different.
This story seems to follow D, an agent who is sent to England to buy coal to help fuel the fight of a dissident group in an unnamed country, I think in Africa. While in England, he is beaten up by a rival agent and meets a woman who may or may not help him. That's as far as I got. I keep picking up the book, reading a couple of pages, then putting it down.
Unfair of me to try and rate as I only completed 60 pages of it. So this is a non-rated (NR) book for me. I have 3 others on my bookshelf but, well, maybe I'm just not that interested in Greene anymore. We'll see. (DNF / NR)"
"I've been enjoying my 2024 focus on the works of Ursula K. Le Guin. Tales from Earthsea is the 5th book in her Earthsea Cycle and the eight of her works I've enjoyed so far this year. 8 to go.
Tales is a collection of short stories and one novella set in the fantasy world of Earthsea. They focus on earlier times from the previous 4 books and for the most part, deal with characters other than Ged and Tenar who we meet in the first books. Both are mentioned in at least one story but other than that are not seen.
The Finder, the novella, deals with the discovery and setting up of the island of Roke, where wizards are taught how to use magic. Interestingly, the school is set up by both men and women. It's not until much later, when the first Arch mage is chosen, that women are banned from both teaching and being students at the school. Darkrose and Diamond is a poignant love story. Darkrose is basically forced by his father and a local wizard to attend Roke and to leave behind his love for Diamond, the daughter of a local witch. I won't go any further than to say it's a lovely story. The Bones of Earth is very short but deals with a disastrous earthquake that two wizards must try to stop. Fascinating. On the High Marsh does have an appearance by Ged who comes to find one of the mages from Roke and the results. And finally, the story of Dragonfly, a young girl who wants to learn how to be a wizard, to put is simply, and persuades the Door Master at Roke to let her in. Surprising, excellent ending. There is a final chapter where Le Guin talks about Earthsea, the peoples, the history, the language, etc. I skimmed that a bit but it was still interesting.
Le Guin is a skilled story teller and it doesn't matter the format. She's equally comfortable whether writing novels or short stories. With these specific short stories, she quickly gets into the characters, the setting and the story and provides satisfying endings to each and every one. The world she has created, Earthsea, is as always, fascinating and the people interesting. I love the Earthsea saga and find it a bit sad that there is only one more story to enjoy in the saga. I may read some of her others before I get to it. (4.5 stars)"
"Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust by Neal Shusterman is a collection of short stories in graphic novel format (illustrated by Andres Vera Martinez). The stories feature incidents during WWII and all deal with the Holocaust. Each story also has a spiritual / supernatural element to the story. While the events did take place, the results are guided by these spiritual elements.
The first story, for example, is set in Germany and deals with the Nazis efforts to gather up the Jews and other groups they consider as 'deviants' or enemies of the State and ship them to concentration camps. The story focuses on 3 sisters being hidden by a neighbor who relies on food deliveries from the local stores. The neighbour is killed in an accident just as she has gather travel permits for the girls from the Chinese embassy. Meanwhile, the girls have discovered a supernatural aspect to their hideaway, one of the windows seems to open into an alternate dimension, which might provide an escape. That's what I mean by the supernatural aspect. At the end of each story, Shusterman discusses the reality of the story, how many Jews and others were sent to camps and at the same time, how many people worked to try and save them, highlighting specific people.
Each story is set in a different location; freedom fighters in the forests of Poland, trying to help prisoners escape from camps (this time with the help of supernatural beings of Eastern Europe), or the story of the creation of the Golem who defeats the enemies of the Jews (In this case in Auschwitz). One story I was not aware of was the heroism of the Danes, who refused to turn their Jewish citizens, their Gypsies etc over to the Nazis and when the Nazis finally tried to force them, arranged flotillas of ships to transport these citizens to safety in Sweden.
It's a fascinating, different set of stories, well-told and well-drawn. Worth reading and thinking about. Can it happen again? Only if we let it. (4.0 stars)"
Currently Reading
"John Mannering (aka The Baron) makes his first appearance in this volume. Lord Fauntley cannot help showing off both his daughter and the security under which his precious jewels are kept. Mannering finds himself attracted to both .... Money is tight and so he plans a burglary, but this fails and unexpected consequences result. The relationship with Lorna Fauntley flourishes, and a series of high profile thefts and adventures ensure Mannering's future, so he believes, until Lorna equates him with The Baron. One of the many further twists in this award winning novel occurs when the police appear to seek Mannering's help, only to have everything turned upside down as the plot develops . . . . ."
"In one of her most deeply felt works of fiction, Le Guin explores the dreams and sorrows of the inhabitants of Klatsand, Oregon, a beach town where ordinary people bring their dreams and sorrows for a weekend or the rest of their lives, and sometimes learn to read what the sea writes on the sand. Searoad is the story of a particular place that could be any place, and of a people so distinctly drawn they could be any of us."
"TO WALK IN THE WAY OF LIONS is the second in the powerful Original Series by H. Leighton Dickson and picks up where TO JOURNEY IN THE YEAR OF THE TIGER leaves off. This is a sweeping post-apocalyptic tale of genetically altered lions and tigers, wolves and dragons in a world that has evolved in the wake of the fall of human civilization. Half feline, half human, their culture blends those of Dynastic China, Ancient India and Feudal Japan where humans are legend and kingdoms have risen in their stead. Fans of Tolkien, GAME OF THRONES, REDWALL or Japanese anime will be entertained in these intelligent and beautifully written pages in a blend of science, fantasy and zoological speculation.
“World-building on par with Zelazny!”The conclusion to the sweeping epic that began in 'TO JOURNEY IN THE YEAR OF THE TIGER, the story picks up where Journey leaves off, in the harsh deserts of Khanisthan. The team is running under a very set of different dynamics than before, for not only will they be forced to confront enemies tracking from the North and a hostile force from the Palace following from the South, but they must face their own demons that are plaguing them from within. It's man against man, cat against cat, Seer against Alchemist, knowledge versus ‘the Way of Things’ – a Sci-Fi 'Pride and Prejudice and Lions', like you’ve never read it before.
From the ruthless wilds of Khanisthan to the wind-swept shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the beauty and savagery of the Upper Kingdom unfolds like a living thing before them as they travel and Kirin will find out what it means to follow the code of Bushido to the gates of death and beyond…
This is the journey of six individuals as they travel beyond the edges of the known Empire, into lands uncharted and wild. Theirs is a journey of magic and mystery, science and swords, romance and intrigue. It is a journey of different perspectives and unexpected kharma and love found in surprising places. It is a journey that takes place five thousand years or so in the future, naturally in the Year of the Tiger."
He’s the newest recruit at the Police Dog School, and supercharged for adventure. But can he stop the most feared duo in Bedlam, and their evil plans to ruin the city . . .?"
In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, "in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone." Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi's great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.
Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members--mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists--The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.
Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day."
Fans of pulp noir and hard-boiled detective crime fiction will love this seminal collection of classic comics.
From the minds of award-winning author Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty, comes the fifth collection of classic Ms. Tree stories, collected together for the first time!
Join Michael Tree, the 6ft, 9mm carrying private detective on her thrilling adventures. No case is too small, no violence too extreme, just as long as it gets the job done.
Fans of hard-boiled detective and crime fiction will get a thrill from these tales!"
Abandoned as a young child, Betsy is adopted into a loving family. A few short years later, at the age of 8, everything changes. Betsy is taken away to a residential school. There she is forced to endure abuse and indignity, but Betsy recalls the words her father spoke to her at Sugar Falls—words that give her the resilience, strength, and determination to survive.
Sugar Falls is based on the true story of Betty Ross, Elder from Cross Lake First Nation. We wish to acknowledge, with the utmost gratitude, Betty’s generosity in sharing her story. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Sugar Falls goes to support the bursary program for The Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation.
This 10th-anniversary edition brings David A. Robertson’s national bestseller to life in full colour, with a foreword by Hon. Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and a touching afterword from Elder Betty Ross herself."
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| Josephine Tey |
Richard III reigned for only two years, and for centuries he was vilified as the hunch-backed wicked uncle, murderer of the princes in the Tower. Josephine Tey's novel The Daughter of Time is an investigation into the real facts behind the last Plantagenet king's reign, and an attempt to right what many believe to be the terrible injustice done to him by the Tudor dynasty.
Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, recuperating from a broken leg, becomes fascinated with a contemporary portrait of Richard III that bears no resemblance to the Wicked Uncle of history. Could such a sensitive, noble face actually belong to one of the world's most heinous villains - a venomous hunchback who may have killed his brother's children to make his crown secure? Or could Richard have been the victim, turned into a monster by the the Tudors?
Grant determines to find out once and for all, with the help of the British Museum and an American scholar, what kind of man Richard III really was and who killed the Princes in the Tower."
