A Book a Week

 Finished December 30, 2022

  Date Finished: December 6, 2022 One of the most powerful and life-changing books I've ever written.

Finished: December 29, 2022 I can't believe I've never read this book, since the movie is among my top 5 favorites of all time. Although graphic, it's highly readable, with dimensional characters, 

 Finished 11/29/22

 Date finished 11/22/22 The events of this novel take place in the near future, when the socialist Left takes control of the American Southwest, using race politics to implement the "Reconquista."

 Finished October 29, 2022 The subtitle of this book is, "The Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II" and the book does not disappoint.  Painstakingly recreated by author Adam Makos, this story is lovingly told, introducing new generations to the miraculous story of an American pilot and his German savior.  A Higher Call   tells the story about  Franz Stigler , a German  fighter ace  of the  Luftwaffe  who flew a  Messerschmitt Bf 109 , and  Charlie Brown , a 21-year-old American pilot of a  Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress  named 'Ye Old Pub'.  Five days before Christmas in 1943, the Ye Old Pub was involve in a bombing mission over Germany. It was a mission that experienced severe casualties, and the Ye Old Pub took on extensive damage. One engine was out. The tail was missing parts which made navigation very difficult. The nose cone was obliterated, which brought the frigid win...

 Finished November 22, 2022 The subtitle of this book is, "Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World" and it's a great idea for a book. It's basically a pub-crawl through socialist countries and their capitalist counterparts, showing the difference between free-market economies and planned economies.  This is the missing part of the whole discussion of socialism by people who live comfortably in a capitalist culture. What does life look like once the government makes all the decisions about the economy? The answer? Miserable. The day-to-day living in a socialist country gets mighty impoverished mighty fast.  Yet there's an interesting trend that emerges, as well, and that is that capitalism cannot ever be completely eradicated. There's always a black market. When hyperinflation takes away the value of money, people begin to trade again. People find ways to sneak across borders, re-sell goods they get as a result of being part of the privileged ru...

Finished November 19, 2022 This classic tale is often used to point out how hypocritical society is, and how societal standards for conduct and acceptance are outdated. I found it to be so much more. I loved the heroine's stubborn dignity amid a humiliating situation. She submitted to the law of the town, but she wan't broken. She had to stitch a letter "A" to wear every day, so she stitched a magnificent piece of embroidery. She raised her daughter, who at times was portrayed as willful at best, spoiled at worst. She found a way to coexist with the townspeople all those years, rather than leave the town. The preacher, Dimmsdale, was a tortured soul precisely because he was genuine and authentic. He believed what he preached, which is why he was so wracked with guilt that he flogged himself and eventually wasted away and died,  I loved the twist thrown in the Hester's husband from Europe, presumed to be dead, reappeared and figured out who the father of Hester...

  Charles Dickens' favorite book that he wrote. I expected this book to be about a child, but it takes the reader through the title character's entire life. It is surprisingly humorous (I never realized that Charles Dickens was so funny!) and deeply touching.  One has to settle in and enjoy the meandering style of authors of a previous age, but if you do, you really get drawn meticulously into the story.  The ending (when I finally got to it) was deeply satisfying. There I was, sitting in bed in a hotel room (my husband was taking a shower) bawling as I read the last chapter, dabbing my eyes so I could read.  This is the kind of story that stays with you for a lifetime. 

 This book is an answer to the culture's messages of self-worship.

Finished September 29, 2022 I have developed an intolerance for writing that's stiff, obvious, lazy, woke, pandering, or self-conscious. It's not difficult for me to find a book I enjoy, but I don't run in to modern fiction that impresses me very often.  I think I've found a new favorite author.   I saw this book sitting on a towering table of books at Costco. At the time, our family was in a belt-tightening mode, and I wasn't going to shell out $25 for a novel, especially considering the state of novels nowadays. But I couldn't get the story line out of my mind, and eventually bought the 9-hour audiobook.  Centered around a blended family, the story unfolds as they bribe a couple of dudes in rural coastal Australia to allow them to spend a brief, under-the-radar visit to the family's small private island a short ferry-ride away. Things take a turn for the worse as the husband, a widower and newlywed with his second wife and two teen kids along for a ride, u...

Finished 9/25/2022 

 Finished September 24, 2022 This is a tech/adventure thriller along the lines of Jurassic World, but with more mind-bending time-travel plot twists. Some of the technological explanations about how the scientists figured out how to send someone back in time (and eventually bring them back) were over my head and I had to skim. But overall, an intriguing idea for a book and the story was well-told.  Six scientists (or actually five scientists and one venture capitalist) invent a machine that will deliver packages to consumers instantaneously. But it doesn't work. The packages go to a different time instead. So how to make the technology profitable? Use it in place of the death sentence. Send prisoners on death row back to the time of dinosaurs to fend for themselves and live out their days (however many they might have) in isolation, away from society.  The problem arises when one of the six scientists is murdered and another is accused of the murder. With his teenage daug...

 Finished September 22, 2022

 Finished September 8, 2022

 Finished September 4, 2022 This thriller from the master storyteller, John Grisham, did not disappoint. Set in lovely Italian towns and cities -- as well as Washington DC -- it tells the story of a lobbyist known as The Broker who gets a little greedy and ends up running for his life.  After six years in a Federal penitentiary, Joel Backman is suddenly pardoned by a lame-duck president. The CIA relocates him to Bologna, Italy, gives him an apartment (bugged, of course), a wardrobe, a little money, and an Italian tutor, then sits back to see who will kill him. Candidates include the Israelis, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians. This will tell the CIA which of them bought a very sophisticated surveillance program that uses existing satellites in a new way, the brainchild of three Pakistanis who are all now dead. But Joel isn't stupid, and despite the fact that he's not a trained spy, he not only eludes them all, but escapes back to the U.S. to turn over the software to...

Finished August 30, 2022 This is a favorite book from my childhood. As with many books, I enjoyed it so much better as an adult. I wept openly in the car as I listened to it, both from the poignant story and from missing the time in my life when I first met the characters in this book. The actor they chose to do the reading did a wonderful job. He sounds like the best grandpa ever, and makes the listener want to settle in against one's granddad to hear a good yarn about a time and place in the past. So glad I went across the channel with the Assateague islanders on Pony Penning Day again, as I did when I was 10.   

Finished August 23, 2022 This out-of-print book is one of my most prized possessions. I got it because I realized that I fully understand Marxism, yet I opposed it. I knew I had to learn what Marx thought, what he proposed.  I did not want to read one of the many books about Marxism in which the author softens or modernizes parts of it, overlays modern interpretations, and ignores the historical outworking of Marx's ideas which have resulted in famine, terror, and death. So I decided to read a book written by a conservative, the great economist Thomas Sowell, who used to be a Marxist. He, I thought, would have a clear understanding of Marx's work as a former devotee. He would also have a reality-based assessment of the workability of Marxist ideas. I was not interested in books written about Marxism that attempt to gloss over or "fix" his philosophy in light of the realities of history whenever and wherever Marx's ideas have been tried. These books tinker with his...

Finished July 28, 2022 This is a tight, fast-paced book that combines historical narrative and supreme story telling. Somehow, Crichton manages to weave an accurate mystery from a story to which every reader knows the ending. Nevertheless, it's an edge-of-your seat telling of this robbery of gold from a train in 19th Century London. Crichton also paints a vivid picture of life in Victorian England at various socio-economic levels. This is an intriguing, tragic, lively story, told at a pace and in a depth of scene-setting that shows a level of skill few writers achieve. 

Finished 7/23/22  Another book said to be the author's favorite one authored that he wrote (I'm a sucker for these). Given that Sowell has written more than 40 books, not to mention many, many essays and decades worth of syndicated columns. Yet this is his favorite.  I can see why. Discrimination and Disparities is a masterful treatis on why activists, philosophers, politicians, and other people who do not suffer the consequences of their ideas continually try to tinker with circumstances and society to make things "fair" to their chosen victim group. From Affirmative Action to sex education, from welfare to integration, the "good intentions" (which are really actionable biases) of these tinkerers invariably 1) fail, 2) fail for the same reasons and in the same ways they have previously, and 3) hurt the very people it is said they will benefit. Yet undeterred, the tinkerers publish their research, write their books, organize their marches, and pass their le...