Finished Su 6/16/19
I got this book from Amazon in hardback after watching Sarah Polley's documentary film, 'STORIES WE TELL'. She was going to make a film of this book, but the project fell through. I also learned that although this book is a fantastic 'Coming of Age/ Young Adult Novel', it has been banned in many places.
John Green attended Indian Springs School outside of Birmingham, Alabama, graduating in 1995. He used Indian Springs as the inspiration for the main setting of his first book, 'Looking for Alaska'.
The book is divided into two sections: Before the death of Alaska Ward, and then After her passing. The days are 'counted down', before and after.
Link to the documentary on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_We_Tell
I loved the book and it's one of my favorite 'coming of age' tales.
There is a lot of cigarette smoking in the book, but it was not anything that would shock even a young teenager. And the sex scenes (there really is only one) is quite believable and would hardly raise a youngster's eyebrow. Have 'these old people' checked out some of the sex on, 'The Worldwide Charlotte's Web'?
The book's page on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_for_Alaska
Monday, June 17, 2019
Thursday, June 13, 2019
PLAYING FOR PIZZA John Grisham
Finished We 6/12/19
This was a paperback that I got at the library book sale on Fr 6/7/19. I was unaware that John Grisham wrote comedic novels or any novels that did not involve legal matters.
This novel reminded me of the John Dortmunder series by Donald E. Westlake.
From Amazon Books:
"Rick Dockery is the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC Championship game, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually gets into the game. With a seventeen-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provides what is arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he becomes a national laughingstock—and is immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.
But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Rick finally gets a job—as the starting quarterback for the Mighty Panthers . . . of Parma, Italy. The Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player—any former NFL player—at their helm. And now they’ve got Rick, who knows nothing about Parma (not even where it is) and doesn’t speak a word of Italian. To say that Italy—the land of fine wines, extremely small cars, and football americano—holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement."
Lots of details about the Italian food of Parma and general information about Italy. This would be a nice book to read before visiting northern Italy. Parma is 80 miles southeast of Milan.
Part of aA customer review on Amazon:
"Grisham describes each province that Rick is dragged through by the energetic girl, Livvy, who has become Rick's lovely companion with agendas as a forceful tour guide, in such a way that you feel like you are on the same train, bus or car with them viewing ancient cathedrals, dining it al fresco with wine from the region and plenty of tasty treats that will have your mouth watering before you move on to the next province from which Rick would love to escape. Rick is more of a pizza and beer guy who would much rather spend time with his team and his bed with Livvy."
This was a paperback that I got at the library book sale on Fr 6/7/19. I was unaware that John Grisham wrote comedic novels or any novels that did not involve legal matters.
This novel reminded me of the John Dortmunder series by Donald E. Westlake.
From Amazon Books:
"Rick Dockery is the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC Championship game, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually gets into the game. With a seventeen-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provides what is arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he becomes a national laughingstock—and is immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.
But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Rick finally gets a job—as the starting quarterback for the Mighty Panthers . . . of Parma, Italy. The Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player—any former NFL player—at their helm. And now they’ve got Rick, who knows nothing about Parma (not even where it is) and doesn’t speak a word of Italian. To say that Italy—the land of fine wines, extremely small cars, and football americano—holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement."
Lots of details about the Italian food of Parma and general information about Italy. This would be a nice book to read before visiting northern Italy. Parma is 80 miles southeast of Milan.
Part of aA customer review on Amazon:
"Grisham describes each province that Rick is dragged through by the energetic girl, Livvy, who has become Rick's lovely companion with agendas as a forceful tour guide, in such a way that you feel like you are on the same train, bus or car with them viewing ancient cathedrals, dining it al fresco with wine from the region and plenty of tasty treats that will have your mouth watering before you move on to the next province from which Rick would love to escape. Rick is more of a pizza and beer guy who would much rather spend time with his team and his bed with Livvy."
The book is very much an 'airport or beach' read, but enjoyable none the less.
Link to the book's page at wikipedia:
Monday, June 10, 2019
WAYFARING STRANGER by James Lee Burke
Finished Su 6/9/10
This is a paperback that I bought at the library book sale on Sa 4/13/19.
The book is part of Lee's, 'Holland Series'. James Lee Burke is known for the Dave Robicheaux character and this book deals with Weldon Avery Holland who is a cousin of Texas lawman Hackberry Holland.
It begins with a terrific scene where Weldon is sixteen years old and is at home in Texas with his aged grandfather. As a young man his grandfather went up against Bill Dalton and John Wesley Hardin. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and another couple camp on their land. Weldon and his grandfather figure out who they are (bullet holes in the car and an awareness of the news) and at the end of the chapter, Weldon fires a handgun at the car because one of the outlaws spits at his grandfather.
The the next big scene finds Weldon as a young man during WWII. He's caught behind enemy lines on the Western Front after the Battle of The Bulge with his friend, Herschel Pine. They find there way to a recently abandoned Nazi death camp where Weldon finds his future wife, Rosita Lowenstein. They get married and come back to the US.
“You’re an honorable and brave man,” “You’re my sister and lover and wife and mother and daughter and all good things that women are,” “You fill me with light when you’re inside me.”
Hershel comes up with a welding technique based on how the Nazi Tiger tanks were assembled. He applies this to pipelines and this is a fantastic improvement to move oil from the wells to where it's needed. Weldon and Hershel form, 'The Dixie Belle Pipeline Company'.
Hershel marries a young naive woman named Linda Gail. This is a very beautiful girl who runs into a Hollywood producer and goes to Hollywood and becomes a star.
"....Linda Gail, a pretty, gaptoothed Bogalusa girl with ungovernable worldly ambitions. She yearns for the country club comforts of River Oaks, Houston’s wealthiest neighborhood, a place whose appeal is lost on her humble, hapless husband. River Oaks, in Weldon’s reckoning, is dangerous territory, the habitat of people like Roy Wiseheart, the charismatic but messed-up son of a nefarious H. L. Hunt-style oil baron, and of Roy’s scary wife, Clara, a snobby and anti-Semitic “human tarantula.”
This opens up the novel to the wicked film industry and exposes the noble and good character of Weldon to this sleaze.
I loved the book and I found another novel of the Holland Series on my shelf and I will read it soon.
This is a paperback that I bought at the library book sale on Sa 4/13/19.
The book is part of Lee's, 'Holland Series'. James Lee Burke is known for the Dave Robicheaux character and this book deals with Weldon Avery Holland who is a cousin of Texas lawman Hackberry Holland.
It begins with a terrific scene where Weldon is sixteen years old and is at home in Texas with his aged grandfather. As a young man his grandfather went up against Bill Dalton and John Wesley Hardin. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and another couple camp on their land. Weldon and his grandfather figure out who they are (bullet holes in the car and an awareness of the news) and at the end of the chapter, Weldon fires a handgun at the car because one of the outlaws spits at his grandfather.
The the next big scene finds Weldon as a young man during WWII. He's caught behind enemy lines on the Western Front after the Battle of The Bulge with his friend, Herschel Pine. They find there way to a recently abandoned Nazi death camp where Weldon finds his future wife, Rosita Lowenstein. They get married and come back to the US.
“You’re an honorable and brave man,” “You’re my sister and lover and wife and mother and daughter and all good things that women are,” “You fill me with light when you’re inside me.”
Hershel comes up with a welding technique based on how the Nazi Tiger tanks were assembled. He applies this to pipelines and this is a fantastic improvement to move oil from the wells to where it's needed. Weldon and Hershel form, 'The Dixie Belle Pipeline Company'.
Hershel marries a young naive woman named Linda Gail. This is a very beautiful girl who runs into a Hollywood producer and goes to Hollywood and becomes a star.
"....Linda Gail, a pretty, gaptoothed Bogalusa girl with ungovernable worldly ambitions. She yearns for the country club comforts of River Oaks, Houston’s wealthiest neighborhood, a place whose appeal is lost on her humble, hapless husband. River Oaks, in Weldon’s reckoning, is dangerous territory, the habitat of people like Roy Wiseheart, the charismatic but messed-up son of a nefarious H. L. Hunt-style oil baron, and of Roy’s scary wife, Clara, a snobby and anti-Semitic “human tarantula.”
This opens up the novel to the wicked film industry and exposes the noble and good character of Weldon to this sleaze.
I loved the book and I found another novel of the Holland Series on my shelf and I will read it soon.
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
CATCH ME by Lisa Gardner
Finished Mo 6/3/19
I bought this paperback at the library sale on Sa 4/13/19 for fifty cents.
This is kind of a 'female empowerment' novel in that all the major characters are women- even the villains. Although you would not refer to a Mickey Spillane novel as 'male empowerment', this was so heavily slanted towards the women's perspective that I think it must be noted.
At the end of the book she informs the reader that the names of the people that are killed in the novel were raffled off for charity. Theoretically, one of the dead men could have been called, 'Ken Worden'.
The novel deals with a mentally unbalanced mother would brutally abuses her children, and one of the girls grows into a serial killer. That's the premise in a nutshell. She feeds the girls crushed light bulbs with peanut butter.
A young woman has two of her best friends murdered on the same day- one year apart. She believes that she will be next, so she approaches a Boston detective and lays out the theory.
The young woman had been working as a police dispatcher and training in martial arts and firearms for over a year.
The rather muddled plot is that one of the police detectives is actually her blood thirsty sister.
From Goodreads:
"Charlene Grant believes she is going to die. For the past few years, her childhood friends have been murdered one by one. Same day. Same time. Now she’s the last of her friends alive, and she’s counting down the final four days of her life until January 21.
Charlene doesn’t plan on going down without a fight. She has taken up boxing, shooting, and running. She also wants Boston’s top homicide detective, D. D. Warren, to handle the investigation.
But as D.D. delves deeper into the case, she starts to question the woman’s story. Instinct tells her that Charlene may not be in any danger at all. If that’s true, the woman must have a secret—one so terrifying that it alone could be the greatest threat of all."
Link to Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11720382-catch-me
I read the novel to the end and it was faintly interesting, yet the writing was pretty sub-standard. However, there are so many better novels in this genre that I wouldn't go out of my way to read another by this author. This is strictly a 'beach novel'.
I bought this paperback at the library sale on Sa 4/13/19 for fifty cents.
This is kind of a 'female empowerment' novel in that all the major characters are women- even the villains. Although you would not refer to a Mickey Spillane novel as 'male empowerment', this was so heavily slanted towards the women's perspective that I think it must be noted.
At the end of the book she informs the reader that the names of the people that are killed in the novel were raffled off for charity. Theoretically, one of the dead men could have been called, 'Ken Worden'.
The novel deals with a mentally unbalanced mother would brutally abuses her children, and one of the girls grows into a serial killer. That's the premise in a nutshell. She feeds the girls crushed light bulbs with peanut butter.
A young woman has two of her best friends murdered on the same day- one year apart. She believes that she will be next, so she approaches a Boston detective and lays out the theory.
The young woman had been working as a police dispatcher and training in martial arts and firearms for over a year.
The rather muddled plot is that one of the police detectives is actually her blood thirsty sister.
From Goodreads:
"Charlene Grant believes she is going to die. For the past few years, her childhood friends have been murdered one by one. Same day. Same time. Now she’s the last of her friends alive, and she’s counting down the final four days of her life until January 21.
Charlene doesn’t plan on going down without a fight. She has taken up boxing, shooting, and running. She also wants Boston’s top homicide detective, D. D. Warren, to handle the investigation.
But as D.D. delves deeper into the case, she starts to question the woman’s story. Instinct tells her that Charlene may not be in any danger at all. If that’s true, the woman must have a secret—one so terrifying that it alone could be the greatest threat of all."
Link to Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11720382-catch-me
I read the novel to the end and it was faintly interesting, yet the writing was pretty sub-standard. However, there are so many better novels in this genre that I wouldn't go out of my way to read another by this author. This is strictly a 'beach novel'.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
THE TAKING by Dean Koontz
Finished Sa 5/25/19
This is a paperback that I got at the library books sale on Sa 4/13/19; 50 cents
Nobody thrusts the reader into the action quicker than Dean Koontz, and this novel is no exception. Koontz is the master of the gray area between thriller and horror.
"An extraterrestrial species hundreds or thousands of years more advanced than us, would posses technology that would appear to us to be not the result of applied science but entirely supernatural, pure magic." Arthur C. Clarke
the novel's page on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking
Set in the southern California town of Black Lake.
Molly and Neil Sloan live in a small cabin and early one morning a fierce rain begins to fall. Molly awakens and something isn't right. She senses an evil presence and the rain smells of semen.
Wolves are on the porch and they are non-threatening. They look at her imploringly.
Neil awakens and agrees with Molly that something is amiss. They are under attack from something they do not understand.
The get in the SUV and head to town to organize some kind of a response.
They meet a neighbor who is dead, yet the corpse is animated. He quotes T.S Eliot.
On the way they see Molly's father. He had been institutionalized for the killing of several children. Molly shot him during this incident. This man is really only an animated corpse.
They find many people from the town in the local tavern- The Tail of the Wolf.
Inside the tavern the people have split into groups. Some want to stay sedated, others are on the fence, and some want to create a fort out of the town bank.
The dogs in the tavern seem supernaturally attuned to the situation. They protect the people, especially the children.
The rain has changed to fog, and pods of some kind of alien nature are taking hold all over the town.
The evil forces come from animate and inanimate objects/ plants/ flora/ fauna.
The apparitions can float through solid objects.
During several forays, Molly and Neil feel that they must protect the children from harm.
Molly meets a madman/ murderer and he says that 'the children are not for sifting'.
THE TWIST:
This is a biblical attack by god similar to Noah's flood.
The whole thing could have been found in the book of Revelation.
I thought this was a interesting take on an 'end of times' novel without becoming religious because the alien invasion theme is so pronounced.
I loved the book, and all of Dean Koontz's books are worth a look, and many are first rate. This was one of the latter.
A VALID CRITICISM FROM GOODREADS- Drebbles:
"The reason the characters are so one-dimensional is Koontz's writing. He spends too much time telling readers what is going on instead of showing them. A perfect example is what happened between Molly and her father when she was eight years old. Instead of bringing readers into the classroom with Molly and her father (which would have been a terrific way to open the book) Koontz tells readers what happened halfway through the book, in alternate paragraphs, as Molly encounters her father as an adult. The scene where Molly and Neil listen to the astronauts being attacked in space should have been especially frightening, the reader should have been able to imagine the horrors along with Molly and Neil but it just didn't work."
GOODREADS From Mary:
"All this contributed to the horror for me. But most of all was the continuous suffocating, drowning heaviness that is palpable throughout.
All in all, I would now raise to 4 stars and recommend to horror and science fiction lovers".
This is a paperback that I got at the library books sale on Sa 4/13/19; 50 cents
Nobody thrusts the reader into the action quicker than Dean Koontz, and this novel is no exception. Koontz is the master of the gray area between thriller and horror.
"An extraterrestrial species hundreds or thousands of years more advanced than us, would posses technology that would appear to us to be not the result of applied science but entirely supernatural, pure magic." Arthur C. Clarke
the novel's page on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking
Set in the southern California town of Black Lake.
Molly and Neil Sloan live in a small cabin and early one morning a fierce rain begins to fall. Molly awakens and something isn't right. She senses an evil presence and the rain smells of semen.
Wolves are on the porch and they are non-threatening. They look at her imploringly.
Neil awakens and agrees with Molly that something is amiss. They are under attack from something they do not understand.
The get in the SUV and head to town to organize some kind of a response.
They meet a neighbor who is dead, yet the corpse is animated. He quotes T.S Eliot.
On the way they see Molly's father. He had been institutionalized for the killing of several children. Molly shot him during this incident. This man is really only an animated corpse.
They find many people from the town in the local tavern- The Tail of the Wolf.
Inside the tavern the people have split into groups. Some want to stay sedated, others are on the fence, and some want to create a fort out of the town bank.
The dogs in the tavern seem supernaturally attuned to the situation. They protect the people, especially the children.
The rain has changed to fog, and pods of some kind of alien nature are taking hold all over the town.
The evil forces come from animate and inanimate objects/ plants/ flora/ fauna.
The apparitions can float through solid objects.
During several forays, Molly and Neil feel that they must protect the children from harm.
Molly meets a madman/ murderer and he says that 'the children are not for sifting'.
THE TWIST:
This is a biblical attack by god similar to Noah's flood.
The whole thing could have been found in the book of Revelation.
I thought this was a interesting take on an 'end of times' novel without becoming religious because the alien invasion theme is so pronounced.
I loved the book, and all of Dean Koontz's books are worth a look, and many are first rate. This was one of the latter.
A VALID CRITICISM FROM GOODREADS- Drebbles:
"The reason the characters are so one-dimensional is Koontz's writing. He spends too much time telling readers what is going on instead of showing them. A perfect example is what happened between Molly and her father when she was eight years old. Instead of bringing readers into the classroom with Molly and her father (which would have been a terrific way to open the book) Koontz tells readers what happened halfway through the book, in alternate paragraphs, as Molly encounters her father as an adult. The scene where Molly and Neil listen to the astronauts being attacked in space should have been especially frightening, the reader should have been able to imagine the horrors along with Molly and Neil but it just didn't work."
GOODREADS From Mary:
"All this contributed to the horror for me. But most of all was the continuous suffocating, drowning heaviness that is palpable throughout.
All in all, I would now raise to 4 stars and recommend to horror and science fiction lovers".
Sunday, May 19, 2019
THE LEAVERS by Lisa Ko
Finished Sa 5/18/19
The May, 2019 selection for the Contemporary Book Club
An enlightening, yet searing examination of the immigrant experience in modern day America.
Deming Guo and his mother Polly/ Peilan
Daniel Wilkinson
A very poor woman at age nineteen has a baby with a young man she doesn't love- He's a neighbor.
She doesn't want to marry- he does. She flees China to America. She borrows $50,000 from loan sharks to finance the trip.
********On Sunday, 5/19 I could have booked a flight from NYC to Beijing for $1,048.46, and a flight from Spfd to Beijing for $1,369.70
For a few years she lives in squalor in NYC (Deming is barely a toddler), she can't take care of the kid and work sweatshop hours, so she sends the boy back to China.
When he's about six, she brings him back to NYC (He was staying with Polly's father, and he died). When the boy is eleven, she is swept up in an ICE raid at the nail salon where she works.
She disappears and none of her family know where she is. She had told them that there was work in Florida.
Her son at first is living with his mother's sister in law. But, this woman puts him up for adoption with The Wilkinsons- Peter and Kay.
He grows to college age in a white suburb five hours NW of NYC. He never fits in and is obsessed with 'What Happened To Mom'?
Plays in a punk rock band (Psychic Hearts) on guitar with his best friend Roland. They are beginning to break big, but he cannot commit.
His foster/ adoptive parents pressure him to go to their college. He is an economics professor, she is a political science professor.
He freaks and finds his mother and visits her for the first time in China. She has remarried and is teaching English and her new husband owns a factory.
He sees his birth mother's husband, Leon. His wife Vivian had paid Daniel's mother's debt.
Mike was Leon and Vivian's son and Daniel was like a brother, but they were lost since Dan's mother was swept up in the raid.
In the end Mike and Daniel live together. Daniel is trying to get his music to the public and Mike is living on a federal grant and is a professional.
From Amazon-
"Ko is the deserving recipient for the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for this socially engaged novel........ Raised in rural China, bold Peilan realizes she is pregnant and decides she does not care to be a wife. She knows the best opportunities are in the United States, so she pays a loan shark to be smuggled to New York. Years later, Peilan, now "Polly," and her son, Deming, live in a cramped apartment in the Bronx. For Deming, life is good. But the day Polly doesn't come home, 11-year-old Deming must start a new life. Adopted by a white couple from rural New York, Deming Guo becomes Daniel Wilkinson. In a predominantly white town, Daniel's coming-of-age is difficult. At a low point in his college years, he unexpectedly discovers a link to his mother and embarks on a journey to find her—and, thus, himself again. Ko adroitly moves back and forth in time and between New York and China. The two parallel and sometimes overlapping stories come full circle as Peilan becomes Polly, Deming becomes Daniel, and the two return to their original names. Mastering English becomes an important status symbol to Polly, just as reclaiming his childhood language of Fuzhounese becomes vital to Daniel's own identity. VERDICT Ko's characters and their experiences will resonate with most readers. This moving work will particularly appeal to students interested in issues such as undocumented immigrants, poverty, cross-racial adoption, and second-generation Americans."
Link to Lisa Ko's website:
http://lisa-ko.com/about/
Guardian review:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/22/leavers-lisa-ko-review-migrants-debut-chinese-american
"The Wilkinsons’ liberal do-good impulses are not openly mocked, but they are critiqued by Ko. Their hope – well meaning but condescending – is to rehabilitate “Daniel” into middle-class life. “They wanted him to succeed in the ways that were important to them because it would mean they had succeeded, too.”
The Atlantic review:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/lisa-ko-the-leavers-book-review/526179/
The May, 2019 selection for the Contemporary Book Club
An enlightening, yet searing examination of the immigrant experience in modern day America.
Deming Guo and his mother Polly/ Peilan
Daniel Wilkinson
A very poor woman at age nineteen has a baby with a young man she doesn't love- He's a neighbor.
She doesn't want to marry- he does. She flees China to America. She borrows $50,000 from loan sharks to finance the trip.
********On Sunday, 5/19 I could have booked a flight from NYC to Beijing for $1,048.46, and a flight from Spfd to Beijing for $1,369.70
For a few years she lives in squalor in NYC (Deming is barely a toddler), she can't take care of the kid and work sweatshop hours, so she sends the boy back to China.
When he's about six, she brings him back to NYC (He was staying with Polly's father, and he died). When the boy is eleven, she is swept up in an ICE raid at the nail salon where she works.
She disappears and none of her family know where she is. She had told them that there was work in Florida.
Her son at first is living with his mother's sister in law. But, this woman puts him up for adoption with The Wilkinsons- Peter and Kay.
He grows to college age in a white suburb five hours NW of NYC. He never fits in and is obsessed with 'What Happened To Mom'?
Plays in a punk rock band (Psychic Hearts) on guitar with his best friend Roland. They are beginning to break big, but he cannot commit.
His foster/ adoptive parents pressure him to go to their college. He is an economics professor, she is a political science professor.
He freaks and finds his mother and visits her for the first time in China. She has remarried and is teaching English and her new husband owns a factory.
He sees his birth mother's husband, Leon. His wife Vivian had paid Daniel's mother's debt.
Mike was Leon and Vivian's son and Daniel was like a brother, but they were lost since Dan's mother was swept up in the raid.
In the end Mike and Daniel live together. Daniel is trying to get his music to the public and Mike is living on a federal grant and is a professional.
From Amazon-
"Ko is the deserving recipient for the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for this socially engaged novel........ Raised in rural China, bold Peilan realizes she is pregnant and decides she does not care to be a wife. She knows the best opportunities are in the United States, so she pays a loan shark to be smuggled to New York. Years later, Peilan, now "Polly," and her son, Deming, live in a cramped apartment in the Bronx. For Deming, life is good. But the day Polly doesn't come home, 11-year-old Deming must start a new life. Adopted by a white couple from rural New York, Deming Guo becomes Daniel Wilkinson. In a predominantly white town, Daniel's coming-of-age is difficult. At a low point in his college years, he unexpectedly discovers a link to his mother and embarks on a journey to find her—and, thus, himself again. Ko adroitly moves back and forth in time and between New York and China. The two parallel and sometimes overlapping stories come full circle as Peilan becomes Polly, Deming becomes Daniel, and the two return to their original names. Mastering English becomes an important status symbol to Polly, just as reclaiming his childhood language of Fuzhounese becomes vital to Daniel's own identity. VERDICT Ko's characters and their experiences will resonate with most readers. This moving work will particularly appeal to students interested in issues such as undocumented immigrants, poverty, cross-racial adoption, and second-generation Americans."
Link to Lisa Ko's website:
http://lisa-ko.com/about/
Guardian review:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/22/leavers-lisa-ko-review-migrants-debut-chinese-american
"The Wilkinsons’ liberal do-good impulses are not openly mocked, but they are critiqued by Ko. Their hope – well meaning but condescending – is to rehabilitate “Daniel” into middle-class life. “They wanted him to succeed in the ways that were important to them because it would mean they had succeeded, too.”
The Atlantic review:
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/lisa-ko-the-leavers-book-review/526179/
Friday, May 10, 2019
THE APPEAL by John Grisham
Finished Th 5/9/19
This is a paperback that I picked up at the library sale a couple of months ago.
Grisham is a fantastic sociopolitical story teller- no one does it better!
A small town in rural Mississippi has been savaged by a major chemical manufacturer. The water is no longer drinkable, but hazardous. Bowmore is located in Carter County- now referred to as 'Cancer County'.
A husband and wife team of lawyers has just won a $41 million dollar settlement against the corporation.
The CEO of the company realizes that he must 'buy' a seat on the Mississippi supreme court. The balance is five to four- liberal bias. He needs that swing vote to be conservative and 'business friendly' and a proponent of 'tort reform'.
Conservative forces in Washington DC search the area for a candidate that they can promote. The find a man with sterling character, but only a lawyer with absolutely no experience as a judge. Ron Fisk didn't even have any aspirations toward the judicial branch.
The liberal swing vote was a woman who normally ran unopposed. The conservative forces spent over three million and use a smear campaign to get the seat for Ron Fisk.
Near the end of the novel is kind of a clunky sub-plot where Ron Fisk's son is insured in a baseball game. One of the kids is using an aluminum bat that was judged dangerous, banned, yet the company was not required to recall the faulty equipment. And when they bring the kid into the emergency room, the doctor reads the wrong x-rays. This causes much more brain damage and the hospital is clearly responsible for massive damages. Fisk realizes that he cannot come out 'for' damages because he was elected as a 'tort reform' candidate.
Fisk, as the swing vote, goes with the conservative majority on the court. However, in his summation he admits that the court has been 'purchased'.
The takeaway from the book is that 'buying' a judgeship might be a more effective way of governing that passing legislation, or even electing a president.
People will be unable to sue and receive compensation for malpractice. Lawyers won't even bother to take the cases because they know that whatever the result, if they win, they will be overturned in the supreme court.
Not mentioned in the book, but companies will slash safety features because they know that they'll never be held responsible for unsafe products.
I loved the book, and the day that I finished the book I got 'THE CAMBER' in the mail from Netflix. Another Grisham novel about a white Klansman who is on death row and his lawyer grandson tries to save him from the gas chamber. Gene Hackman as the Klansman and Faye Dunaway as his alcoholic sister.
This is a paperback that I picked up at the library sale a couple of months ago.
Grisham is a fantastic sociopolitical story teller- no one does it better!
A small town in rural Mississippi has been savaged by a major chemical manufacturer. The water is no longer drinkable, but hazardous. Bowmore is located in Carter County- now referred to as 'Cancer County'.
A husband and wife team of lawyers has just won a $41 million dollar settlement against the corporation.
The CEO of the company realizes that he must 'buy' a seat on the Mississippi supreme court. The balance is five to four- liberal bias. He needs that swing vote to be conservative and 'business friendly' and a proponent of 'tort reform'.
Conservative forces in Washington DC search the area for a candidate that they can promote. The find a man with sterling character, but only a lawyer with absolutely no experience as a judge. Ron Fisk didn't even have any aspirations toward the judicial branch.
The liberal swing vote was a woman who normally ran unopposed. The conservative forces spent over three million and use a smear campaign to get the seat for Ron Fisk.
Near the end of the novel is kind of a clunky sub-plot where Ron Fisk's son is insured in a baseball game. One of the kids is using an aluminum bat that was judged dangerous, banned, yet the company was not required to recall the faulty equipment. And when they bring the kid into the emergency room, the doctor reads the wrong x-rays. This causes much more brain damage and the hospital is clearly responsible for massive damages. Fisk realizes that he cannot come out 'for' damages because he was elected as a 'tort reform' candidate.
Fisk, as the swing vote, goes with the conservative majority on the court. However, in his summation he admits that the court has been 'purchased'.
The takeaway from the book is that 'buying' a judgeship might be a more effective way of governing that passing legislation, or even electing a president.
People will be unable to sue and receive compensation for malpractice. Lawyers won't even bother to take the cases because they know that whatever the result, if they win, they will be overturned in the supreme court.
Not mentioned in the book, but companies will slash safety features because they know that they'll never be held responsible for unsafe products.
I loved the book, and the day that I finished the book I got 'THE CAMBER' in the mail from Netflix. Another Grisham novel about a white Klansman who is on death row and his lawyer grandson tries to save him from the gas chamber. Gene Hackman as the Klansman and Faye Dunaway as his alcoholic sister.
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