Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God by Will Durant

What should we expect from a last book from Will Durant, the author of the 11-volume Story of Civilization? He hinted at his work on the Fallen Leaves before his death, but it wasn’t found until 32 years after his death when his granddaughter by chance found the manuscript in a box when she decided to move.

“The Story of Civilization”, was a biography that considered the living conditions of everyday people. Durant said that curious readers had challenged him to speak his mind on the timeless questions of human life and fate having spent so much of his life focusing on just that.

Durant wrote the preface to Fallen Leaves when he was 95 years old and in answer to those curious readers he said: “Please do not expect any new system of philosophy, nor any world-shaking cogitations; these will be human confessions, not divine revelations; they are micro- or mini-essays whose only dignity lies in their subjects rather than in their profundity or their size.”

Even though he says that he isn’t going to bring to us deep insight and great depth of knowledge or thought, the book still leaves us waiting for it. The 22 chapters might be considered Durant’s most important work, condensing his thoughts of sixty-plus years of his work, researching the philosophes, religions, arts, sciences and civilizations of the world.

The first eight chapters are insightful when taken together and Durant's voice seems especially clear in them: Our life begins, On Youth, On Middle Age, On Old Age, On Death, Our Souls, Our Gods, and On Religion.

With all that Durant wrote in his life, about human beings and the human condition, this final book is certainly less of a definitive conclusion about life than some may expected and wanted. He said that he was fond of his own unique soul *, but he left some question as to what comes next. He expressed fond memories and gratitude for his Catholic faith.   

                           *See "Is the Soul Eternal" in Essays

He confirmed his love of, and insight into the value of history, saying: “you are what you are because of what you have been: because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations: because of every element of environment that has affected you, every man or woman that you have had: all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul.”

In closing Durant’s said “A wise man can learn from other men’s experience; a fool cannot even learn from his own.”   

Quotes

“The fear of death is strangely mingled with the longing for repose.” 

"I found it impossible to continue my pretenses to orthodoxy” "

Knowledge is power but only wisdom is liberty.”

“Education is the transmission of civilization.”

“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.”

 “Truth will make us free.” 

Lisey's Story, by Stephen King

Stephen King has often used authors as characters in his stories and that is what he did in “Lisey’s Story”. Lisey Landon is the wife of Scott Landon, an award-winning author who died two years ago.

King said he was inspired to write this book by his own thoughts of death after his accident when he was hit by a car walking on the side of the road near his home in Maine. The accident was so brutal that it almost killed him, and as you read his account of what happened it seems like a violent story from one of his novels. He said when he returned home from the hospital to find his wife had rearranged his study the thoughts for this story came to him:  what becomes of his wife after he dies.

When Scott Landon dies, Lisey is pressed, even threatened, to find any unpublished manuscripts and as she searches and cleans out his writing area, she remembers much about his life that had been buried in her memory.

Scott had come from a family that had a history of mental illness and he often had to find a place where he could go to deal with his demons. He had shared this with Lisey telling her that he transported himself to another world called “Boo’ya Moon” which was a place that terrified and healed him, that it could eat him alive or give him the ideas he needed to write and live.

With these memories coming back to her, Lisey’s found her own demons to deal with when she begins to be stalked, terrorized and eventually mutilated by an insane fan of her husband.

The story brings the past and present together for both Lisey and the reader to deal with.

see section on Literary Influence of Stephen King

Quotes

“There was a lot they didn’t tell you about death, she had discovered, and one of the biggies was how long it took the ones you loved most to die in your heart.”  

“She nods. You're good for the ones you love. You want to be good for the ones you love, because you know that your time with them will end up being too short, no matter how long it is.” 

“Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing." 

“The harder you had to work to open a package, the less you ended up caring about what was inside.” 

“Time apparently did nothing but blunt grief’s sharpest edge so that it hacked rather than sliced.” 

“I loved you then and I love you now and I have loved you every second in between.” 

"Boo Ya' Moon" up ahead

Turtles All The Way Down, by Gordon Atkinson

Turtles All The Way Down, by Gordon Atkinson is the book I got when I sent out to get the book, Turtles All The Way Down a Novel by John Green.

After reading much of the book I found on the very first page some recommendations for the book. Gordon’s mother said, “A literary masterpiece. Truly a hallmark of American literature, and he’s such a nice boy.” Mom’s are great. Nathan Pruett said, “Its almost like a real book.”

I don’t find myself leaning towards either of these reviews.

Gordon Atkinson is the pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in San Antonio and a blogger known as Real Live Preacher. He explains in the book that “Back of everything is some kind of faith. No matter where you look, whether in science, philosophy, religion, or real estate, if you dig deep enough, you will always find turtles, all the way down.”

The phrase “turtles all the way down” is an expression of infinite regress which means that a truth is dependent on another truth and that truth likewise is dependent on a 3rd truth. This has been historically illustrated by three turtles of varying sizes stacked on top of each other with the largest on the bottom, or all the way down.

Expecting a book by a preacher to be about beliefs, Atkinson seems to miss the mark. He said “faith is about humility, acceptance and being at home in your skin and in your place in the scheme of things. It is not our burden to know absolute truth, which is further good news since we are not able to know it.” He tells us of the many things that we will never know exactly, and it really does seem that this is a man who is comfortable, not only in his own skin, but in a rambling writing style that we are expected to appreciate.

Atkinson says that he has written over a million words, having been a blogger for many years. The book is 50++ short blog entries presented as chapters.  Sometimes what seems to be inconsistent dialog can be explained by knowing the personality and subtle inferences of the writer. That wasn’t the case with this book.

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise, written sometime during the time between 771 to 476 BC. Sun Tzu is credited with writing the book, but some scholars are not sure if he even existed. The book certainly existed, and it first appeared written on sets of sewn-together bamboo slats with 13 chapters, each of which focus on different approaches to warfare, military strategy and tactics. The book was used for over 1500 years before it was brought together in what was called the “Seven Military Classics” by Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1080 AD.

Rulers throughout Asia used The Art of War to plan their military moves. The oldest Japanese translation dates back to the 8th century AD and was a text to study for the Japanese Samurai.

The book first reached the Western World when it was translated into French in 1772, which allowed Napoleon to study it. In 1805 it was translated into English and is now consulted for advice and direction on business tactics, legal strategy as well as for war purposes.

Chinese communist revolutionary Mao Zedong, Japanese daimyo Takeda Shingen, and American military general Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. have claimed inspiration from the book.

The book presents the basic principles of warfare, giving advice on when and how to fight. Chapters include: how to move armies through inhospitable terrain, how to use and respond to different types of weapons, and advice on rules of engagement. Methods of war are the core of many of the chapters presented as rules, titled; “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight; He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces; He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks; Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men; and Know the enemy and know yourself.”

The rules and examples the present can be used not just in battle but also in disagreements and approaching a variety of conflicts.

Quotes

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” 

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” 

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” 

“Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.” 

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win” 

The Spell Of New Mexico Edited by Tony Hillerman

“The Spell Of New Mexico by Tony Hillerman” must be a “rich gathering of essays”, since every review you read about this book says just that.  I liked what was said in the preface: Pretentious as it sounds, and tough as it is to prove, there does seem to be something about New Mexico which not only attracts creative people but stimulates their creativity. There seems to be a larger proportion of writers and artists in this special place, and the book is a collection of their stories.

Tony Hillerman was born in Oklahoma and moved to Santa Fe in 1952, where he worked as a journalist. In 1966 he moved his family to Albuquerque where he earned a master's degree from the University of New Mexico, taught journalism from 1966 to 1987, and began writing novels. Hillerman died on October 26, 2008, of pulmonary failure in Albuquerque at the age of 83.

Mary Austin, playwright, poet, essayist, and novelist wrote: “To say that the Southwest has had a significant past, and will have a magnificent future, because it is a superb wealth-breeder, is to miss the fact that several generations of men wasted themselves upon it happily.”

D.H. Lawerence wrote: “There is no mystery left, we’ve been there, we’ve seen it, we know all about it. We’ve done the globe, and the globe is done.” Having said that this statement stands out: “I think New Mexico was the greatest experience from the outside world that I have ever had.”

Additional essays by Oliver La Farge, Conrad Richter, C.G. Jung, Winfield Townley Scott, John DeWitt McKee, Ernie Pyle, Harvey Fergusson and Lawrence Clark Powell all contributed with essays that discuss the appeal of New Mexico.

Mary Austin wrote that “Man is not himself only………..He is all that he sees.”  Seeing New Mexico through these authors eyes is worth the time.

Points of Interest

• Santa Fe is the highest capital city in the United States at 7,000 feet above sea level.

• The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe was built in 1610, making it the oldest government building in the U.S.

• Each October Albuquerque hosts the world's largest international hot air balloon fiesta.

• The world's first Atomic Bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945 on the White Sands Testing Range near Alamogordo.

• White Sands National Monument is a desert but instead of sand it has gleaming white gypsum crystals.

• New Mexico is one of the four corner states. Bordering at the same point with Colorado, Utah and Arizona.

84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff is a freelance writer who loved obscure classics and British literature, much of which, she couldn’t find living in New York.  The story, “84 Charing Cross Road”, takes place in 1949 with Helene noticing an ad for books in the Saturday Review of Literature, by a used bookseller in London named Marks and Company. 

She sends a note and request to the shop manager, Frank Doel, and he replies with a note of his own and the books she requests.  More requests and letters follow, and they are returned with the books requested, and more letters, building a warm friendship between Helene and the store staff that lasts over 20 years.

Helene learns from Nora Doel about the impact of rationing on London in the 1950's, so she sends parcels of food as often as she can of difficult items to find in post war London, along with her letters and birthday cards, all much-appreciated items.

Over the years of correspondence, they discuss politics, sports, religion, and local foods.  The comments about the books requested were interesting, just as you would expect from a book about a bookstore. One letter Helene sent had the poem "Miniver Cheevy by Edwin Arlington Roberinson included  in it. (See poetry section)

A visit to the bookstore was planned and anticipated for years by Helene, but she just kept putting it off. Frank Doel died in 1968 before she was able to make the trip, but she did finally visit in 1971 but the shop was then empty.  The five-story building where Marks & Co. was located during the time the book covers still exists.

Quotes

“If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much.”

“But I don't know, maybe it's just as well I never got there. I dreamed about it for so many years. I used to go to English movies just to look at the streets. I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English Literature, and he nodded and said: "It's there.”  

"Why is it that people who wouldn't dream of stealing anything else think it's perfectly all right to steal books?” 

“I do love secondhand books that open to the page some previous owner read oftenest. The day Hazlitt came he opened to "I hate to read new books," and I hollered "Comrade!" to whoever owned it before me.” 

“I love inscriptions on flyleaves and notes in margins, I like the comradely sense of turning pages someone else turned, and reading passages someone long gone has called my attention to.”

The Deal Of A Lifetime, by Fredrik Bachman →

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This small book begins with a father looking back over his life on Christmas Eve, wanting to tell his own son what he has concluded.  The story starts with him saying he has taken a life, but he doesn’t admit, at this point, whose life he has taken.

This man recently spent a lot of time in a hospital and while there he met a five-year-old girl who had cancer. The girl knows she won’t beat the cancer she has, but she just tries to help the adults in her life deal with it.  As he considers the little girl, he realizes how meaningless his own life has been. He had left his wife and son 20 years before seeking success and financial gain.

He would like to help the little girl with cancer and he would like to see if he can begin a relationship with his son, but it will require “The Deal of a Lifetime”.

As he stands by his son’s bed he says: “Hi. It’s your dad. You’ll be waking up soon, it’s Christmas Eve morning in Helsingborg, and I’ve killed a person. That’s not how fairy tales usually begin, I know. But I took a life. Does it make a difference if you know whose it was?”

Backman introduces this story telling us that it was originally a story in his local paper, written around Christmas of 2016, and that it meant a great deal to him. It may mean a lot to you when you ponder the decision that was made. The book is short but effective in making you ponder the value of a life.

Quotes

“The only thing of value on Earth is time. One second will always be a second, there’s no negotiating with that.” 

“Happy people don’t create anything, their world is one without art and music and skyscrapers, without discoveries and innovations. All leaders, all of your heroes, they’ve been obsessed. Happy people don’t get obsessed, they don’t devote their lives to curing illnesses or making planes take off. The happy leave nothing behind. They live for the sake of living, they’re only on earth as consumers. Not me.” 

“You were always someone who could be happy. You don’t know how much of a blessing that is.” 

“I, who had wanted to live a life high above everyone else, ended up with a son who would rather live deep beneath the surface.”

The Painted Word, by Tom Wolfe

If you approach Tom Wolfe’s book, The Painted Word, skeptical as to why an accomplished writer would write a critic of Modern Art, then your likely to still be asking that question when you finish.  Wolfe’s premise is that Modern Art or Abstract Expressionism, which became popular after World War 11, is incomprehensible, hard to look at, and produces anxiety.  He says the essential principal of this art is flatness and that three-dimensional effects are pre-modern having been around since the Renaissance. He says that flatness becomes a goal diluting meaning and message.

Wolfe claims his righteous indignation was the result of what was his reading in the Sunday New York Times in April 1974 when he was surprised to find this paragraph:

“Realism does not lack its partisans, but it does rather conspicuously lack persuasive theory. And given the nature of our intellectual commerce with the works of art, to lack a persuasive theory is to lack something crucial- the means by which our experience of individual works is joined to our understanding of the values they signify.”

This may be the reason he wrote the book, but it looks a lot like a bandwagon that came by and he jumped on to tell the world that the modern artists really don’t have anything to say and, of course, the best and meaningful message is from the writers.

Wolfe refers to the well-educated people who appreciate the arts, saying this smug elite group have made the decision as to what art is for everyone.  This is disturbing to him because he sees it changing a world order that he prides himself in understanding, and believes that the contemporary artists, conspiring with the elites, are changing things for no definable reason.

Tom Wolfe’s message is to critique Abstract Expressionism, which he says evolved to Minimalism and then to Conceptual Art. His real message may be just an approach to satire the social life and radical politics of the art world, and of course to tell us how smart he is.

Quotes by Tom Wolfe

“Andy Warhol. Nothing is more bourgeois than to be afraid to look bourgeois” 

“Aesthetics is for the artists as ornithology is for the birds,” 

“All of them, artists and theorists, were talking as if their conscious aim was to create a totally immediate art, lucid, stripped of all the dreadful baggage of history, an art fully revealed, honest, as honest as the flat-out integral picture plane.” 

The Midnight Line, by Lee Child

The Midnight Line, by Lee Child is a Jack Reacher novel. The Reacher character stays basically the same and the action of the story resonates with the others this author has written - currently 29.

Reacher gets off a bus at one of the first rest stops, intending to go to the end of the line, off to nowhere special, when he walks by a pawn shop and sees a small women’s West Point class ring in the window. He knows how hard they are to earn, especially for a woman, from his own years at the school. He sees that the ring has 3 initials inscribed inside: he buys it and decides to try to find the owner and return it.

He pushes the pawn shop owner for the source, and then moves up the chain of supply, which eventually mix with opioid dealers and trouble -of course. Along the way he is joined with a former FBI agent and Mackenzie, the sister of Rose, the ring ’s owner.

Arthur Scorpio’s laundromat in Rapid City, S.D. is a hub for an illegal opiate business and that contact suggests that Rose may be in Wyoming. The descriptions of the empty countryside seem to be a natural setting for what may be a sadness that is settling into the character Reacher.

We learn a lot about illegal use of opiate drugs and heroin both referred to as American products. Of course, the story has some fights with tough guys, expected in Reacher books. 

The last part of the book offers some tenderness, maybe a surprise to Reacher fans, but the book is another one that you won’t want to put down.

Quotes: The Midnight Line

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to bill you.”

"The Zip Code is about the size of Chicago. With five people. But hey, welcome to Wyoming.” 

“Her eyes were green, and they were warm and liquid with some kind of deep, dreamy satisfaction. There was sparkle, muted, like winking sunlight on a woodland stream. And bitter amusement. She was mocking him, and herself, and the whole wide world.” 

“We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” 
 

Bossypants by Tina Fey

"Bossypants" is Tina Fey, the first female head writer at Saturday Night Live and producer and head writer for 30 Rock where 200 people depended on her for their jobs. The name may also describe her managementtechnique.

She presents herself as a funny half Greek girl, nerdy, self-confident, and clearly having an amazing sense of timing, but also implying that she is still who she has always been.

Her stories present a clear view of double standards that women are held to in her world saying that some people finding her impersonation of Sarah Palin as "ungracious" was, to her mind, the perfect example of that. She adds: “Palin is not fragile and she, Fey, is not mean.”

A life lesson she says she learned from improv comedy:  "Always agree"; "Make Statements"; "There are no mistakes only opportunities".

She has never been afraid to make comedy out of female vulnerability. The audience loves it but it is likely not just funny but a clear message.

The book is not a memoir, but it does tell us a lot about her life experiences and what brought her to her current success.  A memorable comment about when she interviewed for “Saturday Night Live” was “Only in comedy does and obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity.’

“Bossypaints” will be for many a book they will read in one setting.

Quotes by Tina Fey

“Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.”

 “Do your thing and don't care if they like it.” 

“It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.”

"My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.” 

“To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.” 

“Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.”

“If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?” 

“Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.” 

The Bookshop of Yesterdays, a Novel, by Amy Meyerson

Miranda Brooks is an only child, close to her mother and father and very fond of her uncle Billy.  The story starts: “THE LAST TIME I SAW MY UNCLE, HE BOUGHT ME A DOG. A GOLDEN retriever puppy with sad eyes and a heart-shaped nose. I didn’t have her long enough to give her a name. One moment she was running around my living room with the promise of many adventures together and the next she was gone. It was the same way with Uncle Billy. One moment he was waving goodbye as he reversed out of my driveway. Then I never saw him again”

Billy had an ugly fight with Miranda’s mother, and disappeared on her 12th birthday. Up to that time going to his bookstore, Prospero Books, was something she loved to do, and Billy would let her pick out any book she wanted and often arrange scavenger hunts for her using book titles as clues.

Miranda is living on the east coast, teaching middle school, and in a relationship. It has been 16 years since she has seen Billy when she receives unexpected news that he has died and left her Prospero Books, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. She returns for funeral and then decides to stay for the summer to try to decide what to do with the bookstore and to find the answers to some questions. She learns that Billy has set up one final scavenger hunt for her that she hopes will provide answers to why he left when she was 12 years old.

The clues left for her are hidden in classics like Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, and Bridge to Terabithia. Some are left in envelopes given to past friends.  The clues clearly lead to her unanswered questions and to many of the people in Billy’s past.

The author leaves us glad that we found Prospero Books and wanting to know the employees of the store, and the other characters more. Miranda finds some surprising answers to the past and for the future.

 

Amy Meyerson

Amy Meyerson teaches writing at the University of Southern California. This is her first novel.

American Wolf, A True Story Of Survival And Obsession In The West by Nate Blakeslee

A truck arrived in Yellowstone Park on Jan. 12, 1995 carrying eight gray wolves from Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. They became the first wolves to roam Yellowstone since the 1920s when the last pack was killed. By the end of 1996, 31 wolves were relocated to the park.

American Wolf, by Neil Blakeslee, brings two very different points of view into focus to see the impact of the reintroduction of wolves; always a political problem with the hunters and ranchers on one side, and those who loved the wolves on the other. 

Rick McIntyre is a biologist who spent much of his life in this part of the country recording wolf sighting, and what took place in their lives, every day for 15 years.  Many wolves had special tracking collars and McIntyre’s detailed daily notes presented an insightful look into the lives of the wolves. One female wolf, labeled as 832F, was better known to tens of thousands of people as #06 and what we learn about her comprises one side of the issues presented in this book.

To present the other side of the issues the author interviewed many of the hunter’s and also included a lot of detail on the political issues that took place into trying to stop the introduction.

It was intended that the Elk population would be reduced with wolf’s introduction, but much more happened when that happened, and many felt that the wolves saved the park.

The wolves also changed the coyote population which increased the rodent population, which increased bird population.

The streams changed with increase in beaver population, due to more feed being available , since the Elk, being more cautious, were spending less time in the low valleys.

06 was a big, barrel-chested alpha female whose home was in the Lamar Canyon Pack part of the park where she led a strong pack. Rick McIntyre’s notes and knowledge had made this wolf world famous with crowds coming to the park to just get a look at here.

The author interviewed the man that shot 06.  He was a dedicated hunter using the new open hunting season that, after political battles, had opened up near the park. He was proud of his kill and had 06 pelts hanging on the wall of his home. A few weeks earlier, 06’s pack mate, a beta male was shot and killed in Wyoming as well.

The killing of 06 set off a firestorm of controversy about the collision between wildlife management, science, and hunting that occurs at the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.  The killing led to concerns over whether hunters used the GPS signals to go after these particular wolves.

The collars cost the government $4,000 each providing valuable information over the 17-year study providing invaluable research. 06, her pack mate, and 2 other wolves with collars were shot in the Lamar area along with 10 others near the park borders of which 5 of those also wore collars.

In a story that so clearly shows how important the correct balance in nature is, and which detailed so much about the lives of the wolves, this book is well worth reading.

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island starts in the mid 1700’s where an old sailor, Billy Bones, is hiding out at the Admiral Benbow Inn on the English coast. Billy is concerned that a certain sailor will find him and take his sea chest that contains some money, a journal and a special map.

Jim Hawkins is the innkeeper’s son, an obviously good person right from the start, and the narrator for this story.  Jim is hired by Billy to watch for any sign of a sailor approaching the inn, someone comes, and a confrontation follows. Billy prevails but he soon after has a heart attack. Jim goes through Billy’s things and finds the chest and then the map that shows the way to an island where a big X marks where a treasure of gold is hidden. Jim get some locals team up to buy a ship and sail for the treasure.

As they travel to the shipyards to buy a ship, they hire Long John Silver, a Bristol tavern-keeper as ship's cook. A crew comes together, not without issues, but they set sail for the distant island on the map. Just before the island is sighted, Jim overhears Silver talking with two other crewmen and realizes that Silver and most of the other crew members are pirates who have planned a mutiny. Jim tells the captain and they calculate that they will be seven to nineteen in trying to defend against the mutineers.

When the island is reached the mutiny takes place with the crew separating behind Silver and Captain Trelawney.  Jim and the Captains group get away and set up defenses in a stockade they find. They also find Ben Gunn, a half-crazy Englishman, who tells them that he had already found the treasure and moved it, but he will help them get it if he can return with them.

The pirates had left guards on the ship and the challenge is to hold off the pirates, who out number them, regain control of the ship, and find, move and load the treasure.

A key character is Jim who in the beginning is a timid older child on the verge of manhood, but by the end has matured incredibly. He outwits the pirates, takes control of the ship and saves lives.

The plot is a challenging search for treasure exploring desires, and greed within all the characters. Jim and the captain’s crew gain procession of the treasure. For the pirates, their greed proves irrational and futile and they lose everything.  

Quotes  from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

“Sir, with no intention to take offence, I deny your right to put words into my mouth.” 

“Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” 

“Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It's the glory of the sea that has turned my head.” 

“Dead men don't bite” 

“If it comes to a swinging, swing all, say I.” 

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean." 

The Good Guy, by Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz, just like a good movie, sets the mood with the opening scene saying: “Sometimes a mayfly skates across a pond, leaving a brief wake as thin a spider silk and by staying low avoids those birds and bats that feed in flight.” Tim Carrier and Linda Paquette may have both felt they were laying low, but the author tells us in his second chapter that ‘A man’s life can pivot on the smallest hinge of time. No minute is without potential for momentous change, and each tick of the clock might be the voice of Fate whispering a promise or a warning.”

Timothy, a stonemason sitting in a bar, is accidentally mistaken for a hitman by a stranger who hands him an envelope containing $10,000 and a photo of the intended victim, a writer named Linda Paquette. Krait the real killer arrives soon afterwards, and Tim manages to bluff him by pretending to be the client, saying he's had second thoughts, and is cancelling the hit while giving the killer the $10,000 as a "no-kill fee".

Krait learns what happened and comes for Linda, but Tim has tracked her down and they have run, but they barely manage to stay one step ahead of him. The killer seems to have the ability to track cell phones, financial transactions and GPS tracking; implying that he is working for someone very powerful.

Tim and Linda, who seem to have been in love from the moment they met, have many close calls narrowly escaping the killer. Trying to retrace Linda’s life they look for what prompted Linda’s death sentence? Was it a visit to a coffee shop frequented by a senator making shady deals?  Why was that coffee shop burned down and why have other past patrons been killed?

As a first-time reader of Dean Koontz, his talent for his character development can be clearly seen in the character of Krait. We see him as a psychotic vicious killer who personal habits seem to distinguish the danger he represents. He enjoys going into people’s houses and going through their belongings, trashing products and art he doesn’t approve of. He carefully cleans up after himself when he makes meals in the kitchens and puts the products he disposes into the trash cans. 

Each of the characters are convincing and add to the plot. The bar tender where everything started, Liam Rooney, and his wife Michelle, his friend and Policeman-Pete Santo , and Tim's mother all have important support roles.

The book moves from chapter to chapter leaving you wanting to know what is coming next and not wanting to put the book down.

Quotes by Dean Koontz

“Intuition is seeing with the soul.” 

 “Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation, almost as good for the soul as prayer.” 

“She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.” 

“Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid. ” 

Leaders, by Richard Nixon

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Richard Nixon wrote about the leaders he had known and those he had personal encounters with. Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Douglas MacArthur, Konrad Adenauer, Nikita Khrushchev, and Zhou Enlai are some of these…Of most interest is how Nixon sees these people and the opinions he offers about them: ones he firmly held from which we learn much about him about the leaders he discussed.  For example, he said: ''In their diplomacy, Khrushchev and Brezhnev were like Lyndon Johnson. They felt compelled to reinforce their words with some physical contact. Khrushchev's tactile diplomacy was almost always menacing.

When Brezhnev reached out to touch or grab my arm, he sought to implore me not to bully. But Brezhnev could also apply sheer muscle if these gentler means fail to persuade me. What struck me most about Brezhnev was his emotional versatility. At one moment, he would speak with what seemed to be perfect sincerity about his deep desire to leave a legacy of peace for his grandchildren. In the next, he would assert with absolute determination his right to control the destinies of other nations worldwide.''

So much is being said in today’s political climate about Nixon, and his response to Watergate, that it is interesting to reread this book and see how differently he saw the rest of the world from the one here in the United States that time. 

Nixon’s said early in the book that managers work with their goal being ‘'to do things right'', compared to leaders whose goal is ''to do the right thing''. He doesn’t tell us how to identify the “right thing,” We are left wondering if this is just a rational way to say the end justifies the mean.

Nixon also said that great leaders are those who ''so effectively wielded power on such a grand scale that they significantly changed the course of history for their nations and the world.'' He seems to admire the results of power but does not have much to say about the negative consequences that happened on a grand scale over history.

First published in 1982, this is one of Nixon’s many books worth rereading.

Quotes by Richard Nixon

 "A public man must never forget that he loses his usefulness when he as an individual, rather than his policy, becomes the issue."  

"By the time you get dressed, drive out there, play 18 holes and come home, you've blown seven hours. There are better things you can do with your time."  

"We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and one another." 

"You've got to learn to survive a defeat. That's when you develop character."  

"I wish I could give you a lot of advice based on my experience winning political debates. But I don't have that experience. My only experience is at losing them"