Since my first 2022 Reading Update, I've finished 5 more books. I've been out supporting our local book stores, both new and used. I'll provide my reviews of the completed books, the synopses of the next books I've started and also those of the new books I've purchased.
Just Finished
"I've enjoyed the Midsomer Murders TV series for years and I've enjoyed the books by Caroline Graham on which the series was based. Could You Survive Midsomer?: Can you avoid a bizarre death in England's most dangerous county? by Simon Brew provides an interactive take on the series.
It was a fun read and in a style that is new to me. Basically after each chapter or sequence of the investigation, you, the reader, are given an option to follow one or another path. Depending on which path you take, you end up in a different section of the book. The story continues in that vein until you come to your solution. Obviously, if you choose other paths, you will come to a different solution to the case. When you've reached your personal solution, the Chief Inspector provides a rating on whether you've solved the case satisfactorily and how you are rated as a police inspector.
.
So that's it. The crime is the murder of one of the contestants in a Village in Bloom competition, where the various towns in Midsomer are competing to have the best blooms in the county. The murder is assigned to a new Detective in the Midsomer police force.. You! There you go, that's it and all it's about.
As I said, it's a fun read, nothing really deep, but entertaining in that it puts you in the middle of the case. The mystery is ok as mysteries go, but that doesn't really matter. You could read this book a few times and choose different options and come up with different solutions. All a great premise. Most enjoyable, because it puts you in the middle of one of the favorite British mystery series, actually helping solve the case. (3.5 stars)"
"I am having difficulty of thinking about what to say about The Stars My Destination, a SciFi novel by Alfred Bester. I'd previously read The Dark Side of the Earth, a collection of short stories by Bester (some very interesting) and more recently, The Demolished Man, which was strange and unique. I think I can safely say the same about The Stars My Destination.
Gully Foyle was a sailor on a space freighter that has been attacked and left for destroyed, with Gully the only survivor. After months alone in the wrecked cruiser, he discovers another ship coming his direction. When he hails the ship to be rescued, the ship, the Vorga, speeds off, abandoning Gully. Gully manages to jury rig the ship, it's the Nomad by the way, and finds himself in the asteroid belt and rescued by a group of survivors living in the belt. They have welded ship wrecks together and have created a weird community. Gully is saved, his face is tattooed with a tiger mask. Ultimately, Gully escapes and heads to earth. His aim is to find out who gave the order to leave him on the Nomad so he can enact revenge.
So here is where the story gets weird. LOL. The Nomad carried a cargo that is wanted by many people. People don't need to travel by vehicle (although they still do) because the can teleport themselves, 'jaunte', around the world. There are limitations, distance limits basically, so there is still some requirement for vehicular travel. Gully remakes himself, gets the tattoos removed (sort of), becomes Geoffrey Formyle, prince of Ceres, and travels around Earth with a circus of freaks, trying to find out more about Vorga. There is a war going on between the Outer Planets and the Inner ones.. There is so much and it's a story that is constantly on the move, jumping, er... jaunting from place to place and believe me, it's a weird world!
Fascinating story, that you do want to see the ending, there are writing techniques that add to the interest (hard to describe). It's kind of a cross between a normal SciFi story and one of Philip K. Dick's stranger efforts. It's worth trying to check out one of the more unique SciFi writers you might ever experience. (3.5 stars)"
"Over the past 20 years or so, I've enjoyed so many of English author C.S. Forester's works; his Horatio Hornblower series, his works of fiction, like The African Queen, his early mysteries and others, 15+ books. Hunting the Bismarck is a work of non-fiction (in a dramatized fashion) an is a perfect little book.
The title tells all. The Bismark, a German battleship, the pride of the fleet, leaves harbor and heads for the Atlantic to harass British convoys trying to keep Britain alive during WWII. British spies see it leave, the Admiralty is advised and the British fleet and Air Arm are activated to try and find and track and ultimately destroy the Bismark.
The story moves between the Captain of the Bismark and its crew, to the Admiralty as they track the progress of their ships, various crew members of British ships, even news reports from America and other countries. It's all very factual but Forester tweaks the story to make it a dramatic, fast paced, action packed war tale. I knew the basic story but there were little tidbits that I never even realized; the battleship Prince of Wales was so new that it still had civilian labor crews on board trying to correct flaws, the battleship Rodney was on its way to a refit in America under the lend lease program and had 500 injured passengers on board, going to Canada, as well as an American Navy Lt, escorting the ship. You get various actions told from the perspective of the British and then the Germans.
It's a very factual account of a major battle of WWII and such a significant event. Fascinating acts of heroism told in a matter - of - fact manner that draws you in quickly and makes you want to read until the end. Excellent story. (5 stars)"
"I first heard of Alex Wagner from her podcast with John Heilemann. She seemed intelligent and interesting. When I heard she'd just released her first book, Futureface: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging, I thought it might be worth reading.
Basically, Alex, daughter of a Burmese mother and Luxembourgian father, decided to research her family, to try and find out more about her roots. This journey will take her to Burma (now Myanmar), Luxembourg and points in between. It will also delve into the mysteries of agencies like Ancestor.com and others. Alex wants to find out the family secrets, where she fits into the world, is she Burmese, Luxembourgian, maybe Jewish? Or is she a Futureface, the mixing of genetic heritage into a future you?
It's a fascinating journey. The little I knew about Burma was from reading George Orwell's Burmese Days, H.E. Bates's The Purple Plain, and maybe finding a few other books, and also reading about Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's military coup, the treatment of the Rohinga.. Hmm, maybe I knew more than I thought. Alex heads to Burma, after trying to get information from her mother and grandmother. She, in my opinion, does jump to some conclusions based on her meetings and research into Burma's history, but they may be valid, even so. How the military junta has basically eradicated the history of the country is one of the depressing notes. She also tries to find out more about her father's family; why the left Luxembourg, about the area in which the settled; land taken from the Winnebago nation in the Midwest. She also tries to discover if there is Jewish blood in her father's side of the family, just based on conversations with members of the family, mainly, it seems, due to their predilection for drinking Mogen David wine. LOL.
The final portion of the book covers her final search, the effort to track down the genetic markers in her family, spending what seems like lots of money sending swabs and spit samples to Ancestor, 23andMe, etc. She realizes how inaccurate these processes can be and does get down into the weeds a bit in this portion.
All in all, I enjoyed Wagner's writing style, comfortable, friendly, funny, informative. The search is all very interesting and on the way she covers the (mis-)treatment of native Americans, subjugated races in Burma; thoughts on the world's future (will races in fact be blended or not?), etc. It wasn't what I expected but I enjoyed nonetheless and I hope she continues providing us with her unique, interesting perspectives. (4 stars)"
Currently Reading
"No longer willing to wait for the international community to stop its neighboring enemy, Israel brings down Iran's billion-dollar nuclear program in an ingeniously conceived operation. The attack leaves a radioactive tomb and environmental disaster in its wake, and has Iranian president Amatullah calling for blood --- American blood. Seeing opportunity where others fear reprisals, Mitch Rapp devises a brilliant plan to humiliate Iran's government and push the nation to the brink of revolution. But when a back-channel meeting between CIA director Irene Kennedy and her Iranian counterpart goes disastrously wrong, Rapp is locked in a showdown with a Hezbollah mastermind in league with Amatullah --- and he is given twenty-four hours to do whatever it takes to stop unthinkable catastrophe."
"From 1934 until his death in 1968, Cornell Woolrich wrote dozens of “tales of love and despair” that chill the heart and display his mastery of the genre he all but created. In a title for a story he never wrote, he captured the essence of his tortured world: “First you dream, then you die.”
Introducing these 13 tales, Nevins describes the dark world Woolrich so vividly creates. “The dominant reality in his world is the Depression, and Woolrich has no peers when it comes to describing a frightened little guy in a tiny apartment with no money, no job, a hungry wife and children, and anxiety eating him like a cancer. If a Woolrich protagonist is in love, the beloved is likely to vanish in such a way that he not only can’t find her but can’t convince anyone she ever existed.”"
"On a summer's day in
1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles
Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice
Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill
Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London.
Simon
Winchester deftly uses the resulting image--as unsettling as it is
famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation--as the vehicle for a
brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a
classic work of English literature. Dodgson's love of photography framed
his view of the world, and was partly responsible for transforming a
shy and half-deaf mathematician into one of the world's best-loved
observers of childhood. Little wonder that there is more to "Alice
Liddell as the Beggar Maid" than meets the eye. Using Dodgson's
published writings, private diaries, and of course his photographic
portraits, Winchester gently exposes the development of Lewis Carroll
and the making of his Alice."
"This book, the 10th of 14 in the Fu Manchu series, is a direct continuation of the previous installment, "The Drums of Fu Manchu." Hence, a reading of that previous volume is fairly essential before going into this one. In the present volume, Sir Dennis Nayland Smith continues his ongoing battle against the evil doctor, aided again by narrator Bart Kerrigan and by Europe's foremost archeologist, Sir Lionel Barton, who figured so prominently in books 1, 4 and 5 ("The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu," "The Daughter of Fu Manchu" and "The Mask of Fu Manchu"). This book is the wartime entry in the Fu series, and takes place in blackout London; it then hops over the pond for action in the Big Apple, the Panama Canal Zone and in Haiti. This time around, the Fu man has completed his air and naval forces and has concentrated them in a base hidden in an extinct Haitian volcano."
New Books
"Greed pulls the archaeologist Matt Carse into the forgotten tomb of the Martian god Rhiannon and plunges the unlikely hero into the Red Planet's fantastic past, when vast oceans covered the land and the legendary Sea-Kings ruled from terraced palaces of decadence and delight."
"Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid,
flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige
posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the
ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.
Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that:
(1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces
(2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations
(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.
Not
surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on
avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew
stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his
colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives."
"Doro knows no higher authority than himself. An ancient spirit with boundless powers, he possesses humans, killing without remorse as he jumps from body to body to sustain his own life. With a lonely eternity ahead of him, Doro breeds supernaturally gifted humans into empires that obey his every desire. He fears no one -- until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is an entity like Doro and yet different. She can heal with a bite and transform her own body, mending injuries and reversing aging. She uses her powers to cure her neighbors and birth entire tribes, surrounding herself with kindred who both fear and respect her. No one poses a true threat to Anyanwu -- until she meets Doro. The moment Doro meets Anyanwu, he covets her; and from the villages of 17th-century Nigeria to 19th-century United States, their courtship becomes a power struggle that echoes through generations, irrevocably changing what it means to be human."
"Detective Mike Hoolihan
has seen it all. A fifteen-year veteran of the force, she's gone from
walking a beat, to robbery, to homicide. But one case--this case--has
gotten under her skin.
When Jennifer Rockwell, darling of the
community and daughter of a respected career cop--now top brass--takes
her own life, no one is prepared to believe it. Especially her father,
Colonel Tom. Homicide Detective Mike Hoolihan, longtime colleague and
friend of Colonel Tom, is ready to "put the case down." Suicide. Closed.
Until Colonel Tom asks her to do the one thing any grieving father
would ask: take a second look.
Not since his celebrated novel
Money has Amis turned his focus on America to such remarkable effect.
Fusing brilliant wordplay with all the elements of the classic whodunit,
Amis exposes a world where surfaces are suspect (no matter how
perfect), where paranoia is justified (no matter how pervasive), and
where power and pride are brought low by the hidden recesses of our
humanity."
"The sorcerer Alder fears sleep. The dead are pulling him to them at night. Through him they may free themselves and invade Earthsea. Alder seeks advice from Ged, once Archmage. Ged tells him to go to Tenar, Tehanu, and the young king at Havnor. They are joined by amber-eyed Irian, a fierce dragon able to assume the shape of a woman. The threat can be confronted only in the Immanent Grove on Roke, the holiest place in the world and there the king, hero, sage, wizard, and dragon make a last stand."
"You know that feeling
when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss
walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or
the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your
favorite shows? And you're a sentient murder machine programmed for
destruction? Congratulations, you're Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.
—
I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.
When
Murderbot's human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured
and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance,
Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
Drastic action it is, then."
"An astronaut returns to Earth after a ten-year mission and finds a society that he barely recognizes.
Stanislaw Lem's Return from the Stars
recounts the experiences of Hal Bregg, an astronaut who returns from an
exploratory mission that lasted ten years--although because of time
dilation, 127 years have passed on Earth. Bregg finds a society that he
hardly recognizes, in which danger has been eradicated. Children are
"betrizated" to remove all aggression and violence--a process that also
removes all impulse to take risks and explore. The people of Earth view
Bregg and his crew as "resuscitated Neanderthals," and pressure them to
undergo betrization. Bregg has serious difficulty in navigating the new
social mores.
While Lem's depiction of a risk-free society is
bleak, he does not portray Bregg and his fellow astronauts as heroes.
Indeed, faced with no opposition to his aggression, Bregg behaves
abominably. He is faced with a choice: leave Earth again and hope to
return to a different society in several hundred years, or stay on Earth
and learn to be content. With Return from the Stars, Lem shows the shifting boundaries between utopia and dystopia."
"Requiem for a Wren (U.S. title The Breaking Wave) is one of Nevil Shute's most poignant and psychologically suspenseful novels, set in the years just after World War II.
Sidelined
by a wartime injury, fighter pilot Alan Duncan reluctantly returns to
his parents' remote sheep station in Australia to take the place of his
brother Bill, who died a hero in the war. But his homecoming is marred
by the suicide of his parents' parlor-maid, of whom they were very fond.
Alan
soon realizes that the dead young woman is not the person she pretended
to be. Upon discovering that she had served in the Royal Navy and
participated along with his brother in the secret build-up to the
Normandy invasion, Alan sets out to piece together the tragic events and
the lonely burden of guilt that unraveled one woman's life.
In
the process of finding the answer to the mystery, he realizes how much
he had in common with this woman he never knew and how a war can go on
killing people long after it's all over."
"Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch, an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky, his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an unvarnished field report from the American post-war underground. Unafraid to portray himself in 1953 as a confirmed member of two socially-despised under classes (a narcotics addict and a homosexual), Burroughs was writing as a trained anthropologist when he unapologetically described a way of life - in New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City - that by the 1940's was already demonized by the artificial anti-drug hysteria of an opportunistic bureaucracy and a cynical, prostrate media. For this fiftieth-anniversary edition, eminent Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris has painstakingly recreated the author's original text, word by word, from archival typescripts and places the book's contents against a lively historical background in a comprehensive introduction. Here as well, for the first time, are Burroughs' own unpublished introduction and an entire omitted chapter, along with many "lost" passages, as well as auxiliary texts by Allen Ginsberg and others."
"The bad news: This is the last in Ngaio Marsh s marvelous Inspector Alleyn series. The good: It s one of her very best. The secret to Light Thickens success may lie in its combination of some of Marsh s greatest passions, including her native New Zealand in the person of, unusually, a Maori character and the theater. Indeed, the plot centers on a production of well, let s skirt disaster by calling it the Scottish play, a play that Dame Ngaio produced and directed several times. Among theater folk, the Scottish play is considered unlucky, so much so that tradition requires anyone who utters its proper name backstage to leave the building, spin around, spit, curse, and then request permission to re-enter. For Ngaio Marsh, however, it seems to have been quite the opposite: Light Thickens is a fine swansong, said England s Observer, and the Los Angeles Times agreed, saying No playwright could devise a better curtain than the one Dame Ngaio chose for her own career."
"He was a fully grown man, alone in dense forest, with no trail to show where he had come from and no memory to tell who — or what — he was.
His eyes were not the eyes of a human.
The forest people took him in and raised him almost as a child, teaching him to speak, training him in forest lore, giving him all the knowledge they had. But they could not solve the riddle of his past, and at last he had to set out on a perilous quest to Es Toch, the City of the Shining, the Liars of Earth, the Enemy of Mankind.
There he would find his true self ... and a universe of danger."
See any books you'd like to try here? Enjoy.
