Published in 2008, Grip of the Shadow Plague is the third book in the Fablehaven series. This time around, Fablehaven is being threatened by a plague which turns everyone into a nightmare version of themselves.
This was a great transitional book. It sets the scene for most of the things to come and didn’t quite feel as tacked on as some.
Great read. You have to keep going…
Book four of the Fablehaven series and published in 2009, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary takes our heroes gain another of the artifacts they need to oppose the Society of the Evening Star.
Another fun read. We get to learn about dragons in this book and even meet a very special dragon. The book is set up for young readers so Seth and Kendra are the main characters. They are starting to learn how special they are and people are falling like flies around them. Seriously! The author doesn’t have any problem with bumping folks off in these books. It has sort of a Disney level of disproportion here. Worse than death can happen to folks at any time and the others seem to get over it a little too quickly… But that’s just a thought.
Great books. I will likely read them again at some point.
The 3rd book in the Game of Thrones series, A Storm of Swords is the continuation of plots and characters too numerous to explain in a brief summary. However, at 973 pages, it can fit “much and more”. Published in the US in 2000, the book was only beaten out by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for the Hugo Award.
The plot continues to thicken. Surprisingly, I haven’t gotten bored of it as of yet. The narrative is convoluted but compelling. The language can be base and imagery brutal. However, I continue reading. It has sucked me into the story and I just keep listening.
This book is not for children and even I wonder if I’m old enough to read it… However, I did enjoy it.
Published in 2018, Where the Crawdads Sing is the first novel of Delia Owens about an orphaned girl raising herself and the community around her. Known as the “Marsh Girl”, she is used to life on her own but she can’t just go to where the crawdads sing…
This was a very well written book so I can understand the groundswell of support behind it. My wife was surprised I read it as most of her friends had read it as well. I guess a book with a strong female protagonist isn’t normal husband material.
I wasn’t that surprised by the ending but I didn’t want to believe it. The foreshadowing of the praying mantis tipped the scales on the hint. Again though, I didn’t want to think of her as anything but a pure well doer. It does bring up the uncomfortable truth of all people having to set up boundaries and enforcing them. As she was on her own, it was really left to her to defend herself. As the husband and father, I feel this weight and can understand where she was coming from.
I’m mixed on whether to recommend this or not. If folks are talking about it than sure. If not… Well, I wouldn’t be running out to get it.
Ash Carter has been around government since he wrote a review of Ronald Regan’s “Star Wars” program. He rose to be the Secretary of Defense for Barak Obama and has been an influential figure throughout his long career. This book was a review of his thoughts and experiences as he went through all the major events impacting our government.
This was a well written biography but it was a little daunting to get through. At just under 500 pages, it took me a bit more than my usual read. However, I have found myself quoting it at work more than a few times. I didn’t fact check the claims made but they do seem to ring true.
If you have interest in contemporary American history, I would recommend this book.
Book 2 of the Fablehaven series, published in 2007, we see a revisiting of Seth and Kendra to the world of Fablehaven. This time around, Seth is tricked to bring back a powerful demon who gets stronger and stronger until he has devoured Seth. However, this is just the start of the ploy to take down Fablehaven itself.
This book was a fun read like the book before it. The author has an easy style which is relaxing and yet keeps you engaged.
This is a great book for young readers
A relatively new book, this was published in July of 2019 by Tim Desmond who was one of the organizers of the “Walk on Wallstreet”. He currently leads a team at Google helping others with emotional support.
This book wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. As an “esteemed Buddhist”, I felt Mr. Desmond had a lot of anger still left in him. Perhaps it was simply rhetoric to connect with the younger audience but it wasn’t what I was expecting.
I would pass on this one.
Published in 2012, The Innocent is the first of 6 books featuring the hit man “Will Robie”. Will ends up saving a young girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As with the rest of the David Baldacci novels, I really enjoyed it. Everyone likes a good underdog story and this was a great one.
A good read.
The power of habit was published in 2012 and outlines habits as consisting of three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. It gives some history as to when these principalities started being used by companies and gave some ideas as to how they are being used today.
The book also spends some time discussing how someone can change their own habits.
In general, I liked the book. I think some concepts were forced into the theory put forward but on the whole, It seemed like it was well written and gave some good ideas about how to go about change in life.
Not a bad book.
This is the first of many mystery books by Sue Grafton or book 1 of the “The Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries”. These book are each titled with a letter from the alphabet. Starting from A through Y at the time of this review.
Kinsey Millhone is a private eye who is hired to help prove a woman who had already been convicted of murder was really innocent.
This was a fun read. I was refreshed that the book didn’t spend so much time on the sexuality of the main protagonist who is a woman. The book was written in 1982 so I didn’t quite know what to expect. I was concerned it would have been a throw away quasi romance novel or something else. These days I’m sure we would have had to hear a whole diatribe on her sexual preferences…
However, it was just a mystery novel about how a woman private eye went about life and solved her case. I liked it.
A good read if you like mystery novels.