Review written for ClubReading.com by Linda Keller is my favorite character of Lawrence Block’s. Unfortunately, I thought the first Keller book, Hit Man, was much better than this one. Block is a master of short stories, and that’s how the first book was written. While he keeps the same format for this book, it doesn’t work as well. I believe these were not published as short stories, as many (most?) of the chapters for the first book were. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Susan If you thought the Beanie Baby craze and $100 hostas in garden catalogues were a product of modern insanity, take heart-humans have always been whack-o about fads and schemes, as Mackay’s classic of crowd psychology makes plain. Originally published in 1841, now in paperback editions, Delusions is an account of grand-scale follies both amusing and not so amusing, such as the Tulipmania in 17th century Holland during which fortunes were made and lost on a single bulb; and the Crusades, which quickly devolved into an orgy of pillage and torture sanctioned by religious conviction. Other mass manias that Mackay names for deconstruction include the prophecies of Nostradamus, the traffic in relics, alchemy, the burning of witches, and “the Hero-Worship of Common Thieves” such as Robin Hood. Mackay’s writing is clearly from another time, but his merciless dissection of absurdity is engrossing and disquietingly pertinent. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Susan (With an introduction by Stephen King) Decidedly incorrect politically and banned in Dallas, Joe Bob Briggs-movie critic, newspaper columnist, one-time host of Showtime’s Friday night bad-movie funfest-infuriated right-thinking people all across this great land of ours by turning his attention to the films of drive-in theater land where action and adventure of the most disreputable sort cavort simultaneously across giant outdoor screens and in the backseats of vehicles parked in window-speaker rows. Bowing to the tastes of his readers, Joe Bob rates pictures according to kung fu, naked breast count, how many heads roll, guts and gore, and other criteria that matter to all hard-core drive-in movie patrons everywhere. Picketed and rebuked by every pressure group in existence since 1975, Joe Bob writes on, undeterred by good taste in any disguise. This first and best collection of his columns includes samples from his mail bag and Joe Bob’s annual Drive-In Movie Oscar Awards, featuring such categories as “Best Gross-Out Scene” and “Best Monster.” Reader’s tongue, if not sliced off by psycho cannibal ax-wielding puppy-killer creep, should remain firmly in cheek. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Tony Fletcher is the author of the hiker’s bible, The Complete Walker. His meticulous approach and careful planning would drive any partner to murder, but make for an authoritative written voice. This voice carried me with him on his walk through the length of the Grand Canyon, a walk which no one had done before. On the way I found I shared with him the sense that man is a part, and just a part, of the universe. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Barbara With the speed at which science advances these days, one might think a book about recent astronomical discoveries written over 20 years ago would be utterly outdated, and I suppose it would be if you’re a scientist, but for the rest of us, it’s just fine because we’re probably far behind in our knowledge of the universe. We’re also constantly bombarded with half truths from the media and utter trash from the tabloids. Sagan was an educator who considered himself an emissary, bringing the world of science to us common folk. In this book he sneaks us into scientific thinking, doing so by entertaining us with legends, pseudoscience, philosophy, and religion. Take your beliefs with you into this book, but hang onto them with all your might. Otherwise, you’re going to lose some of them. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Tony Elva Trevino Hart is the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents who lived in south Texas and worked seasonally, with their children, on farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin. This quietly passionate book is at once the recounting of rich childhhod memories, and a recognition and celebration of a heritage that had been suppressed by this talented woman in order to rise through our corporate culture. A beautiful book which will move the reader with its vivid images of childhood, and also make her question, yet again, the inequities of our society. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Susan The best collection of pieces written by the father of all modern humor columnists. Benchley was a Harvard graduate who considered himself a failure because he never became a social worker or wrote a history of England during the reign of Queen Anne. Yet in his lifetime he achieved success as an editor, actor, filmmaker, and writer of brilliant short satire on the morals and foibles of the human animal, all from a perspective of pleasant, off-center wit, non-sequitur, and parody. In fact when he died in 1945, his colleague James Thurber called him “the world’s least embittered satirist.” Modern readers who find themselves a bit sick at stomach with the current obsession over so-called “family values” will particularly enjoy his phlegmatic disinterest in canonizing children. Other collections include My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew; and No Poems: Or Around the World Backwards and Sideways. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Linda I understood that this book was written by a cynical journalist who believed as a result of his investigation. While this may be true, the book was written several years after his conversion, and is not presented in an unbiased manner. Let’s begin with the time factor. The author’s bio on the back cover indicates that the author has been a Christian since 1981, but this books is copyrighted in 1998. The last chapter of the books states that the author went to books and research materials in his quest, rather than to experts as he did in this book. I would have been more interested in a collection of those research materials than I was in the interviews with the experts. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Barbara In the 12th century, a great cathedral is conceived of, and slowly, through the course of the book, it comes into being. We follow the building of the cathedral and the lives intertwined with it, lives so vividly and skillfully described by Follett that we slip back through time to eat, to love, to fear, and to struggle through these harsh times with people we quickly grow to care about deeply. Through them we can see the crudeness of the Middle Ages, catch the odor of it; we can hear the sounds of wagons and feel the straw-filled mattresses beneath us. And, as is true with all Follett’s work, the story begins on the first page and never lets up until the last. You’ll pull all-nighters with this one. ...
Review written for ClubReading.com by Barbara While flying over Russia, Joe Mack, a Sioux Indian and major in the U.S. Air Force, makes a forced landing, ending up in a prison camp from which he manages to escape. There is only one avenue home: across Siberia to the Bering Strait. Dredging up the ancient skills of his forebears, Mack must survive both this harsh world and also Alekhin, a Yakut tracker who knows every detail of the land and who understands the skill of the Sioux. L’Amour, long associated with westerns and with writing what might be thought of as men’s novels, created in Last of the Breed a story that appeals to both sexes. It’s easy to identify with Mack; actually it’s impossible not to, and once hooked in this manner, the reader is pulled into what turns out to be a non-stop adventure. ...