Hold Still , A Memoir with Photographs, by Sally Mann

Sally Mann brings us her memoir through the viewfinder and lens of her camera, handwritten journals, the sequential events of ancestors and things found in old boxes. The views are from different perspectives but coming together they bring a unique approach of narrative and image to memoir.

Mann’s focus is on family, race, mortality, and the landscape of the American South. She retells the stories of her ancestors presenting personalities and events of interest but also searching for DNA explanations for her own characteristics.

The yellowed photographs she finds by sorting through boxes of family papers seem to be made to be presented with her own black and white photos that she developed herself. Pictures of a variety of drawings and report cards blend into the photo theme that she has woven into her personal history.

The chapters seem like mini books. Several were about the lives of her children growing up portraying their domestic routines and showing how those routines changed their lives. The pictures in these chapters were ones where she recorded much of those lives in scenes where no clothing was present and which Sally Mann, as a well known photographer, has had much written and said about them over the years. The memoir in these chapters gave her a platform to discuss her perspective on art.

The comment on the back cover that “In this extraordinary memoir, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Sally Mann’s abiding concerns………..are revealed”, is not just a introduction but sums up how you may feel when you finish this different and interesting memoir.

Quotes

“I believe that photographs actually rob all of us of our memory.” 

“You lost the remembrance of pain through inflicting it.” 

“The proverbial hospitality of the South may be selectively extended but it is not a myth.” 

“Part of the artist's job is to make the commonplace singular, to project a different interpretation onto the conventional.”

  “But like a high-strung racehorse who needs extra weight in her saddle pad, I like a handicap and relish the aesthetic challenge posed by the limitations of the ordinary.” 

Total Control, by David Baldacci

Triton Global, already the world's leading technology conglomerate, wants to acquire CyberCom in a deal that will change the internet and the world for the future. Nathan Gamble is the very wealthy powerful head of this company. Jason Archer is a rising star in Triton, but he has been working on the side to uncover something important. It was assumed he was on a plane that went down where everyone was killed including the head of the Federal Reserve.

Sidney Archer works for the law firm that represents Triton and is deeply involved in the attempted purchase of Triton. Sidney and Jason love each other, and they have a young daughter they adore, but everything changes when it seems Jason has gone down in the plane crash.

An air-crash investigation team wants to know why the plane Jason was booked on suddenly fell from the sky. Lee Sawyer, a veteran FBI agent, joins the case and soon finds that Sidney is a potential key to finding the answers.  Other forces are also pulling Sidney deep into a violent twisting plot.

Jason Archer is found to be alive but missing and the search for him is complicated by the world he lived in of powerful computers, a multimillion-dollar takeover deal, artificial intelligence, and the Internet.

TOTAL CONTROL demonstrates Baldacci’s unique approach in weaving plots, parallel and sub plots. His skills as a master storyteller will drawn you in and you so will find yourself not wanting to put this book down.     

Quotes

“few governmental institutions are more misunderstood and feared out of ignorance than the Federal Reserve Board.” 

“When the Fed raises or lowers interest rates, for instance, then that affects the entire economy. Contracts or expands it.” 

“Give an economist a result you want, and he’ll find the numbers to justify it.” 

See Review of Saving Faith click here

The Silent Patient, by Alex Michadelides

THE SILENT PATIENT is a psychological mystery about Alicia Berenson, a famous painter, her husband Gabriel, a famous photographer, and their seemingly perfect life. The story is told by psychotherapist Theo Faber, who first shows up in the story six years after the gruesome murder of Gabriel, when he purposely applies and then is hired at the Grove where Alicia is committed. THE SILENT PATIENT looks deeply into the psyches of the woman convicted of murdering her husband and the therapist determined to treat her.

With both David Baldacci and Lee Child giving high praise for THE SILENT PATIENT a high standard is set for the strength of the books plot and characters. That high praise seems well deserved.

Alicia lives in a nice house in one of the better parts of London. She has a studio in the back yard and from inside the house a view of the park across the street. She had been found in their home where Gabriel was tied to a chair, shot at close range several time in the face. There was also one bullet hole in the ceiling. Alicia’s fingerprints were all over the gun that fired the bullets. Since the day of her arrest, Alicia has never spoken a word. No denial or defense was offered by her. Her silence and troubled paintings left the judge believing she had deep mental problems.

When Theo is hired years later, he must convince Alicia’s therapists to let him try to treat her. His first step is to try to reduce the medication strength, hoping with less medication she might speak. With the reduction of the drugs the next time Alicia see’s Theo she jumps on him clawing him and trying to kill him.  Theo is committed to helping Alicia unlock her secrets, in part, because it seems clear that part of his motive has to do with his own emotional problems which he finds may have similarities to hers. 

The mystery unfolds as our perceptions of the characters unfold. We see them changing before our eyes as if they are being peeled back like an onion. The writing evolves both the plot and characters reaching a totally unexpected conclusion that you just won’t see it coming. THE SILENT PATIENT is a book you won’t want to put down until your finished.

Falling Free, Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted, by Shannan Martin.

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“Shannon Martin’s Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted” will be welcomed by some who are excited to know more about the author and leave others wondering if the overall message of the book lacked a strong enough story line.

Those that know of Shannon Martin from her blog, “Shannon Martin Writes” already know and like her.  On that blog she describes herself as a “speaker and writer who found her voice in the country and her story in the city.  She and her jail-chaplain husband, Cory, have four funny children who came to them across oceans and rivers. They live as grateful neighbors in Goshen, Indiana.”

You can see how likable she is from her blog and you have to admire a writer who puts herself, and her own family, right out there as part of her story. Her message is a positive one of Christianity and a woman who seems to care and try hard to do what she feels Jesus would want her to do. She sees the community as her mission field and found that moving closer to a real cross section of humanity with open neighborhood gave her new opportunities to serve and be served.

Her experiences are real life examples and as she ties them to scripture over and over in the book you are left uplifted but also feeling clearly how much, we all fall short in rising to her example. Some may be critical of that, but I don’t think her past readers who have already gotten to know her will.

Martin’s starts the story in a perfect little farmhouse on six acres of land in rural Indiana. Both she and her husband lost their jobs and had to downsize which resulted in moving to town into a small diverse neighborhood. She was infertile so they adopted four kids including a 19-year-old who had been in jail.

Their life changes with the move and with the help of the guidance scriptures she faces her problems and becomes a better person. It was interesting how tightly she embraced the scriptures but on the other hand had little concern for the differences in the teachings in the churches she encountered. Her message was that the real gospel was in the social connections, service and lingering with each other. She told us that the smokers hanging around out back talking as friends was part of the real gospel.

The book is a little hard to stay with all the way through because of the heavy gospel message that brings some guilt with it and maybe not enough plot. Even so it is well worth the time to read this good book.

See Shannan Martin’s Blog: http://www.shannanmartinwrites.com/

Quotes

“Living small is not about having less, but being less-- less respected in the eyes of the world, less successful, less wealthy, less esteemed, less you. Less me. And more Jesus. Here, in this abundance of less, where more of us is stripped away, we'll uncover the person we were made to be, the one created in the image of a God who sank holy feet in to our human mess.” 

“I was never meant to save a soul, and no one was purposed as a project. We were meant to be comrades, mutually passing around whatever we have to offer.” 

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

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War and Peace is one of the most famous works of literature and considered by many to be a masterpiece. Tolstoy, much like Shakespeare, seems to be searching for what it meant to be “Human” and alive on the planet.

This novel’s approach to those questions comes from examples found in history itself, of love, war, religion, family, class, economics and philosophy.

Tolstoy said of his writings in an article: “What is War and Peace? It is not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle. War and Peace is what the author wished and was able to express in the form in which it is expressed.” (it is, what it is!)

Tolstoy presents us with the daily lives and activities of a large cast of characters across long stretches of time. His point is that these ordinary people are what makes the difference in the course of history rather than the impact of the few and powerful, like Alexander and Napoleon. His point of view tells us that the essence of history lies in the “activity of the general mass of people who take part in it.”  War and Peace presents the human activities, feelings, and sufferings of 160,000 Russians and French.

The lesson of this book is understanding that history comes from examining the details. Henry James referred to this novel as “a wonderful mass of life.” The critic, Strakhov, said, “What is the meaning of War and Peace? The meaning is expressed in these words of the author more clearly than anywhere else: ‘There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.’

War and Peace by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1869 tells us of details of the events surrounding the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families.

Reading it slowly helps as your read this most impressive books.

Quotes

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.” 

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.” 

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.” 

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.” 

“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.” 

“The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness.

“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.” 

tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom

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Mitch Albom spent each Tuesday with Morrie, his former professor, who was very ill with ALS.  He had lost track of his mentor and saw this as a second chance. This story resonates with many of us who has in our past someone who understood us when we were searching. Maybe it was a grandparent, a teacher, or just someone older who was wiser at the time.

Albom had taken his relationship with his favorite professor for granted since his collage days and when he learned of his terminal illness, he decided to visit him. The visits that followed helped Mitch see what really mattered. He found Morrie’s “belief in Humanity” as his most powerful lesson. He said that Morrie took nothing for granted and gave those who he spoke with his undivided attention. Morrie said that “Love is the only rational answer” and that was always clear from his communication.

The book starts out with the first chapter telling us by its title, “The Curriculum”, much of what the book tells us.  The chapter starts out: “The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week in his house, by a window in the study where he could watch a small hibiscus plant shed its pink leaves. The class met on Tuesdays. It began after breakfast.  The subject was The Meaning of Life (see post on this). It was taught from experience.”

Albom said that “if Professor Morris Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as “too late” in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye.”   As the book winds up, we are told “the teaching goes on.”

Quotes

“Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.” 

“Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another” 

My Secret Life on the McJob, by Jerry Newman →

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Jerry M. Newman, Ph.D., Professor at the University at Buffalo School of Management worked undercover, over a 14-month period, in seven fast food restaurants across the country, observing operations. He felt that fast food chains were the perfect petri dishes for undercover research, having high pressure, high volume, high turnover and a pecking order that was clear from the preparation table up to the store manager.

He worked at 6 franchise owned stores, including Burger King, Wendy’s, Arby’s, and one corporate owned McDonald.  His findings may have been different in independent owned stores and small regional chains. 

Newman’s book, "My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons from Behind the Counter”, is characterized as a tell-all. The work force he studied really is different and the book opens our eyes to a different side of day to day work relationships.

Newman said: “My research strongly suggests that recognition for a job well done by the store manager was found to be a highly valued as a reward by employees, but the store managers were not authorized to give bonuses and raises were often 10 to 20 cents an hour. The most helpful reward an employee could receive from the store manager was to be given more work hours a week.  (When your only work reward is to work more then something is wrong with the basic work & pay model)

Newman said: In three of my jobs I spent the first day watching training DVD’s and he was critical of that process of training saying it was boring. The segment on hand washing was typical, showing an employee spending 10 minutes on hand washing with the heavy focus on the process rather than the why.  It would have been interesting to have feedback on whether the employees really did wash their hands.   

Newman said most of the stores had significant numbers of employees from minority groups and most stores didn’t practice racial discrimination, but they didn’t practice “inclusion” either. (Isn’t inclusion a tool of discrimination?) Individual differences just didn’t work well in stores that have a one size fits all layout and procedure manual.  

Some racial problems were the result of the managers work assignments when one group consistently got undesirable assignments. The conclusion that the fast food industry strives for diversity in its work force just assumes the motive is doing what is right and ignores the reality of why it may be driven by “what will work and what won’t.”

The book presents an employee view of a challenging work environment and can be of value in finding ways to motivate and create a positive work environment. The overall conclusion was that morale and motivation in these types of stores was mostly the result of the store manager. Small adjustments by the store manager in management style resulted in positive changes and big differences. (Doesn’t this suggest too much on the store managers shoulders ?) Some stores were great, and they had great managers. Some were not great at all.

(The book left me wondering how a white collage professor in these type of stores really got the real feel of the environment, but he seems to believe he did?)

Running Blind, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child →

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Reacher starts out helping a restaurant owner in New York avoid the extortion tactics of a local gangs. What he did comes to the attention to the FBI, but they have another important crime to solve

Retired from the Army and living alone, Amy Callan and Lieutenant Caroline Cook are found dead in their own home, in baths filled with Army-issue camouflage paint and with their bodies completely unmarked.

The FBI’s psychological profile expert is convinced, and has convinced her coworkers, that Jack Reacher had motive and was guilty of killing Amy and Caroline. It seems like an astounding conclusion at first, but she has facts that the FBI help her make work. When it is finally clear that he didn’t do it, the FBI frames and threatens him into helping them.

What have these women have in common, and why is someone out to do them harm, is where Reacher starts when he agrees to help, but he indeed seems to be, as the book title suggests, “Running Blind”?  

This is book #4 in Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series and Jack is trying to decide what to do with house he inherited and a young woman he has loved since childhood from book #3. Either of these books could stand alone and hold your interest but the resolution to these questions is welcomed in this book.

The plot twists and turns with his search for the killer but this book stands out from the 15 others I have read before reading and reviewing this book. The puzzle of who the killer is and how it was done is fascinating.

 True to form for a Lee Child plot and a book you will not want to put down, of course.

The Pilgrim’s Regress, by C.S. Lewis →

The Pilgrim's Regress is a book of allegorical fiction by C. S. Lewis. This style of writing uses symbolic figures, events and actions to convey complex meanings. An allegorical figure is a character that is an important person in the story and represents abstract meanings or ideas.

The novel was Lewis’s first work published by after his conversion and is a record of his own search for meaning and spiritual satisfaction—a search that eventually led him to Christianity.

His fictional plot, much like the 17th century novel Pilgrim Progress by John Bunyan’s novel, was also searching the current days philosophical landscape through a search for the Island, or destination, of his desire. The difference in the politics, ideologies, and principles of the early 20th century as seen by Lewis showed the modern phoniness, and hypocrisy of the Christian church, Communism, Fascism, and other movements.

His search represented by pilgrim John was to an enchanting island which created in him an intense longing and desire. His search lead to meeting such people as Mr. Enlightenment, Media Halfways, Mr. Mammon, Mother Kirk, Mr. Sensible, and Mr. Humanist and through such cities as Thrill and Eschropolis as well as the Valley of Humiliation.

 Lewis's allegory enabled the author to confirm, using fantasy, his belief in Christianity.

see Literary Favorite Section for more about C.S. Lewis and also links to all the books reviewed on this site by him. click here

Quotes

“Be sure it is not for nothing that the Landlord has knit our hearts so closely to time and place – to one friend rather than another and one shire more than all the land.” 

“The great art of life is to moderate our passions. Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them, not enough to impoverish our lives when they

“What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.” 

“There is no excess of goodness. You cannot go too far in the right direction.” 

Kill Me If You Can by James Patterson & Marshall Karp →

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My own purpose in reading “Kill Me If You Can” was to have a reading experience with James Patterson since I had not read one of his books before. I didn’t pay enough attention to notice right off that the book is a Patterson-Karp collaboration which means I am not sure what I really got.

The plot holds your attention and the story is a fast read. It starts out with an attempted assassination by a hit man known as the Ghost in New York City’s Grand Central Station. The Ghost, considered the world’s best assassin, killed his target but the diamonds were stashed somewhere first and not recovered.

Matthew Bannon is a local art student and he appears to just find the diamonds in an open locker and walk away with them. He takes them home and tells his art professor girlfriend they have tickets to Paris. The extravagant getaway finds itself the focus of two different hired killers with instructions for find Bannon and kill him. The Ghost is expected to redeem himself and find Bannon but now a women assassin has been added to the chase.

Martha Krall is beautiful, intelligent and she is deadly. She resents the Ghost’s involvement and is jealous of his reputation so she was especially happy to learn that besides Bannon she would get a bonus if she also killed the Ghost.

Does Steven King, Dean Koontz or Lee Child have a lot to worry about in being ranked against James Paterson for writing? I am not saying he isn’t a great writer and he has an impressive record, but he is not in the top three on this list nor would I say he is officially number four either.

See Review of Along Came A Spider by James Patterson

https://connectedeventsmatter.com/blog/2019/4/30/along-came-a-spider-by-james-patterson

See more about James Patterson in BJ’s Favorite Author Section

Down The Long Hills, by Louis L'Amour →

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It was early in the morning and 3-year-old Betty Sue had left camp following 7-year-old Hardy, who had gone out early to look for his stallion, Big Red, who he had failed to tie up the night before and was missing.

After they had left camp Comanches came, attacked their camp and killed Betty Sue’s mother and father as well as everyone in the camp.  I was a quick raid made to take the horses and anything else of value, including food and weapons.

Hardy thought he had heard a scream and he left Betty Sue and returned to camp, but no one was left alive.  The only thing he found of value were a few cans of food and he took them back to where Betty Sue was.  They were alone and winter was coming soon, the only thing they could do was to try to find someone, somewhere, who could help and to try to go further West.

Big Red had come back but without a saddle all Hardy could do was lift Betty Sue to ride and they started out on the trail going West. Hardy had a knife and the few cans of food. They had nothing else but the cloths on their backs. O yes, Hardy had what he had learned in his young life from his father who was a long way from the camp and was not coming back soon.  Hardy knew that eventually he would return and that he would look for them if they could survive.

Along the trail west they were followed by Indians who wanted Big Red, and savage outlaws who also wanted the very impressive horse. The weather and the wild animals were also threats.

L’Amour makes us feel we are inside the story, he makes us care that Hardy and Betty Sue survive. We are pulled into the their struggle and it is like we are on the trail moving across Wyoming towards the Wind River Range, the South Pass, Beaver Creek and the landmarks that are still there today.

Quotes

“Hardy had learned in a hard school, where the tests are given by savage Indians, by bitter cold, by hunger. These were tests where the result was not just a bad mark if one failed. The result was a starved or frozen body somewhere, forgotten in the wilderness.” 

See more on Louis L’Amour in Literary Favorite section Plus Links to his books reviewed

A Wanted Man, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child

“Wanted Man”, book 17 in the Jack Reacher series, starts out with Reacher standing on an eastbound interstate ramp late at night looking for a ride back to Virginia. He had been interested in a women’s voice on the phone in a prior book and wanted to go see what she looked like.

He waited exactly 93 minutes before a car stopped containing two men and a woman. It turns out that the men, Alan King and Don McQueen, are kidnappers and the women, Karen Delfuens, is actually a hostage and terrified waitress whose car they have hijacked.

The kidnappers were running from the scene where they had murdered a man at an abandoned pump station in the middle of nowhere, a crime to which several Federal agencies were quickly reacting to. Julia Sorenson, an F.B.I. special agent from Omaha was called in to investigate the potential interstate crime when the kidnapping is learned about.

The kidnapping leads Sorenson to Reacher. She is as smart and methodical, as he is, and he convinces her that whatever is unfolding, he and she should be on the same side.

The trail leads, eventually, to a secret fortified bunker and Reacher must break in to get to the real bad guys.  The plot changes direction from a simple kidnapping and again Child, the master of plot, holds our interest to the end.

See the Lee Child Page for more thoughts on this author and for links to all the books reviewed on this site.

Quotes

“I don't want to put the world to rights... I just don't like people who put the world to wrongs.” 

“Reacher said, "So here's the thing Brett. Either you take your hand off my chest, or I'll take it off your wrist.” 

“Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” 

“Never forgive, never forget. Do it once and do it right. You reap what you sow. Plans go to hell as soon as the first shot is fired. Protect and serve. Never off duty.” 

“No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't

Old Friend From Far Away, The Practice of Writing Memoir, by Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg said of her book “Old Friend From Far Away”: “The experience I’ve had with writing this book has deepened over the months. Continually accessing my own storehouse of memories, I’ve found that the things usually lost in the busyness of day to day life have instead become part of my life now, enriching me tremendously. The practice itself has become the end, the reason for doing it.”

The book offers new perspective on memoir suggesting that it doesn’t have to be confined to one place, or series of events, but can be organized around themes in your life, challenges you have faced, and recurring patterns. Rather than teaching how to write a memoir it shows how to recover your memory through the practice of writing.

Goldberg tells us that to “write memoir, we must first know how to remember. Through timed, associative, and meditative exercises, the book guides you to the attentive state of thought in which you discover and open forgotten doors of memory.”  

She uses writing to explain how we can learn to connect with our senses in order to find the detail and truth in our memories.  We not only learn to find the truth but how to free ourselves from our past and change the way we think of ourselves and our lives. Thirty plus years ago her book “Writing Down The Bones” sold over one million copies and broke ground writing about with its view of writing as a Zen practice and this book still holds that view.

This is not a how to book but a book about who we are that is well worth reading.

click here to link to review of Writing Down The Bones, by Natalie Goldberg

Quotes

“Too often we take notes on writing, we think about writing but never do it. I want you to walk into the heart of the storm, written words dripping off hair, eyelids, hanging from hands.” 

“The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners...” 

“It is our hope that writing releases us. Instead maybe it deepens the echo. We call out to our past and the call comes back. We are alone--and not alone.” 

The Iliad, by Homer

Ilion is the ancient name for the city of Troy. So literally, the Iliad means ''poem of Troy.'' The book Illiad was written by Homer in about 750BC and is the story of the Trojan war and nine years after it started the Greek army conquers Chryse, a town allied with Troy, and capture two beautiful maidens. One of the maidens is then claimed by Achilles as his own and the other is claimed by Agamemnon. The father of one of the women is the daughter of Briseis who a priest serving the god Apollo. A very large ransom is offered for the women but refused, so the Trojans pray to Apollo and ask him to send a plague on the Achaean camp.

With Zeus supporting the Trojans and Achilles refusing to fight, the Achaeans suffer great losses. Without Achilles help, the Achaeans fight on relying on Diomedes another great warrior, but they make no progress and are pushed back to their ships. Before long they are fighting the Trojans just to save their ships from fire and the end of their struggle seems close.

Patroclus convinces Achilles to let him wear his armor to fool the Trojans and to take his place in battle, wearing his armor. Patroclus presence on the battlefield in the armor helps the Achaeans push the Trojans away from the ships and back to the city walls but this ploy soon fails. Apollo knocks Patroclus’s armor to the ground, and Hector slays him.

Patroclus’s body is brought back and when Achilles learns that Hector has killed Patroclus his is filled with rage and agrees to rejoin the battle. The god Hephaestus agrees to make a new suit of armor for Achilles and he rides into the battle.

Hector has left his men outside the walls of Troy not expecting Achilles to rejoin the battle. When the Trojan army see Achilles coming toward, they run in fear back behind the city walls. Achilles kills every Trojan in his path and then confronts Hector at the walls of Troy. At first Hector runs but then with the help of the goddess Athena he is finally tricked to stop running and must fight Achilles. The battle is intense, but Hector killed and then his body is tied to Achilles chariot and dragged across the battlefield for days.

It takes an intervention from the gods to get Achilles to agree that Hector deserves a proper burial. Zeus sends the god Hermes to escort King Priam, Hector’s father and the ruler of Troy, into the Achaean camp to ask for the burial. Priam pleads with Achilles to take pity on a father and return Hector’s body. Deeply moved, Achilles finally agrees and returns Hector’s body to the Trojans. Both sides agree to a temporary truce, and Hector receives a hero’s funeral.

 The story presented in the Iliad only covers a few weeks in the final year of the Trojan war which lasted over 10 years. Homer is considered the author of"The Iliad"  but it is clearly dependent on an older oral tradition and may well have been the collective inheritance of many singer-poets over a long period of time. These singer-poets may have each brought more stories of the role of the gods in the plot?

Quotes

“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.” 

“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.” 

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.” 

“We men are wretched things.”

Personal, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child

They find Reacher by running a small ad in the Army Times and he sees it and calls. The ad was simply 5 words center page in a boxed column printed in bold type: “Reacher call Rick Shoemaker.” The very senior Army officer who thought of this approach refers to him “Sherlock Homeless.”

It is an international assassination plot involving a sniper that Reacher had sent to prison over 16 years ago that beckons his service, but it does seem like a coincidence. He is paired up with another officer named Casey Nice (“Nice by name, nice by nature”).

The plot complicates itself, of course, when it seems clear that there are 4 possible snipers involved in the assassination plot and the world leaders are at risk in a coming summit in London. This pulls in security from around the world, but Casey Nice and Reacher just strike out on their own, of course. The do talk with some of their security counterparts and the see that they are all like the CIA, or the DGSE, or MI6 in Britain. Reacher adds, “But we’re all still KGB really. Old wine, new bottles.” 

The plot may suggest a predictable read but as usual Child is the master of plot and this story is one that will capture your interest.

Quotes from this Novel

“No one talked, but they all said plenty.” 

“But we’re all still KGB really. Old wine, new bottles.”

“SVR,” he said, which meant Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, which was their foreign intelligence service. Like the CIA, or the DGSE, or MI6 in Britain. Then he said, “But we’re all still KGB really. Old wine, new bottles.” 

Reacher tells us:“Socratic, they call it in college. All kinds of back and forth, designed to elicit truths implicitly known by all rational beings.”

“We both sat there mute, as if we were in a no-talking competition and serious about winning. ”