November 30, 2006 – 3:11 pm
When Gods Die: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery, by C.S. Harris… is the second in a series of mysteries set in Regency England. Harris made an auspicious debut last year with What Angels Fear. – Times Picayune
In Brighton in June 1811, the Prince Regent hosts a party at the Royal Pantheon but he finds the woman he planned to make his mistress dead with a dagger in her back. The Prince falls apart, so it is up to Lord Jarvis to solve the mystery of that night. He asks the help of Viscount Sebastian St. Cyr to find out who killed Marchioness Guinevere Anglessey. St. Cry refuses to help until he sees the necklace the victim is wearing. Read More »
November 29, 2006 – 4:46 pm
“The tug of war between the President and the Chief Justice during the Civil War reverberates to our own days. James Simon tells the tale with insight and verve.”– Gabor Boritt, author of The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech That Nobody Knows, director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College
This book is only 280 pages. It did not shed much light on Lincoln or his presidency. Its more about Chief Justice Taney. I felt the book wasn’t balanced. Taney comes across as a “great” and fair Chief Justice untill the Dred Scott decision in 1857, and then he becomes blinded by his ‘State’s Rights’ philosophy. This bias affects most of his post-Dred Scott rulings, and diminishes Taney’s status as a potentially great Chief Justice. The book will be interesting to any history buff, but I felt it was not a great read. Give it a try. Read More »
November 28, 2006 – 8:08 am
Okay, Allende is a great writer and riveting style for this novel and excels at humanizing historical figures but let’s get real here. Inés Suarez was an awful person!!!!!!!!!!!! While reading this novel I found myself wanting to destroy the narrator. She goes along with the genocide and ruthless enslavement of the Mapuche. One must ask: Is this book really trying to be sympathetic to the Mapuche. It’s like I was reading a book narrated by a Nazi.
Book Description
Born into a poor family in Spain, Inés, a seamstress, finds herself condemned to a life of hard work without reward or hope for the future. It is the sixteenth century, the beginning of the Spanish Read More »
November 27, 2006 – 7:57 am
“Sensational, riveting history, plus a brilliant penetrating study of both the American and Japanese military minds. Sea of Thunder is full of psychological insight that will leave your jaw dropping.”– Bob Woodward, author of Plan of Attack
If you read history, in some ways you would feel that this is a book about the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which was fought in 1944 October. But it’s much more. It is very well balanced and thought out book. I was the most impressed by the information provided on how Halsey and most of his senior staff had fought the battle while under the influence of the flu and had also lost a lot of sleep. Even though you are not familiar with the historical facts, it’s a good suspenseful war story, and a good place to start if you want to know more about the story. I loved this book, and recommend it very much.
Book Description
Evan Thomas takes us inside the naval war of 1941-1945 in the South Pacific in a way that blends the best of military and cultural history and riveting narrative drama. He follows four men throughout: Admiral William (“Bull”) Halsey, the macho, gallant, racist American fleet commander; Admiral Takeo Kurita, the Japanese battleship commander charged with making what was, in essence, a suicidal fleet attack against the American invasion of the Philippines; Admiral Matome Ugaki, a self-styled samurai who was the commander of all kamikazes and himself the last kamikaze of the war; and Commander Ernest Evans, a Cherokee Indian and Annapolis graduate who led his destroyer on the last great charge in the last great naval battle in history. Read More »
November 24, 2006 – 8:35 am
“Brunetti’s specific interests in the classic gag cartoon and the artists included here expand the dialogue started in Chris Ware’s anthology in fruitful ways.”-Art Spiegelman
One of the reason I like this book is that I like collecting materials and this is an anthology of graphic fiction. This is a wisely selected collection of classics and some new talents that deserves to be seen. This is a perfect gift for your comic loving buddy.
Book Description
Comic artist Ivan Brunetti, the creator of Schizo, offers a best-of anthology of contemporary art comics, along with some classic comic strips and other historical materials that have retained a “modern†sensibility. As with Chris Ware’s selections for his best-selling McSweeney’s Read More »