The Guardians, by John Grisham
The Guardians, Grisham’s new legal thriller takes place in Seabrook Florida where a young lawyer, Keith Russo, is shot while working late one night. There are no clues or witnesses but the police eventually tie Quincy Miller, a young black man and former Russo client, to the murder. He spends 22 years of a life sentence with no help from anyone and then he writes a letter to the Guardian Ministries. This lawyer-minister firm is staffed by Cullen Post and a small support group. They take pride in getting innocence people out of prison and take an interest in Quincy’s case. One lawyer was already killed in this case so it will be challenging.
It doesn’t take much work to see that Quincy was framed. It turns out that a Mexican cartel is involved. Grisham has his usual well-tuned plot and some strong scenes. The book seems to be one of his better recent one.
Quotes
Don't compromise yourself - you're all you have.” ...
“In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. ...
“You live your life today, ...
“Some people have more guts than brains.” ...
“If you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.” ...
“I'm alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I'm right.”
More Thoughts on John Grisham
John Grisham writes with authority and it shows. He practiced law in Mississippi and has written 33 novels, and the closer they resonate with the law the more interesting they are.
A story of an innocent man who winds up in prison is one that Grisham would do best and this is a good story, well written.
The Racketeer, by John Grishman
African American, Virginia lawyer, Malcolm Bannister starts out this story saying: “ I am a lawyer, and I am in a federal prison camp near Frostburg, Maryland. It’s a long story. I’m forty-three years old and halfway through a ten -year sentence handed down by a weak and sanctimonious federal judge in Washington D.C.”
Both federal judge Raymond Fawcett and his secretary were recently found shot in the head in his cabin in southwest Virginia. Near the bodies was an empty open safe.
Bannister tells the feds that he can identify the killer for them in exchange for a release from jail and the means to start a new life. An agreement and plan is set up and acting on information from Bannister, the FBI arrests Quinn Rucker. Bannister is released and given a new face and identity as Max Reed Baldwin and put in the witness protection program. . After the FBI discovers that Rucker's gang knows Bannister's whereabouts and is seeking revenge, he leaves the program and goes off the radar. He then meets another man he had met in prison, Nathan Cooley who is pulled into the scheme that Bannister has put together.
Another can’t put it down story full of twists and some real insight into the penal system.
More thoughts on this book by Brent M. Jones
This book was released in October 2012. It has more of a John Grishman feel to it. His newer books sometimes don’t feel the same. His newest book, “The Guardians” will be reviewed very soon and it seems to be a bit of the old and newer books in feel.
A lot of folks have come to this blog for the reviews and I want to thank you for that. I have recently published a book and commented on it on this site before and will be publishing a second one in December. I am putting together a mailing list to just offer some updates no more than twice a month, if that. Some of the comments there will be on the process of putting the books out. I hope you will sign up. See the Newsletter sign up tab.
Why Life Stories Change, by Brent M. Jones
We have a choice in putting together the narrative of who we are, and who we become. We can pick which of the events we connect with, what we conclude about them, and then weave and reweave them into our story. As my story changes with the retelling, I find that it changes me. I become different because of how I see the story.
In Why Life Stories Change, author Brent M. Jones offers some thoughtful reflections on how the events of our lives can be reshaped over time, resulting in positive changes in our self-identity.
If our Life Story creates our identity, then we must include all the lives we have experienced, besides those that we have personally lived. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, but even so all we have is “right now” and it is our own life that seems to be the clearest to us.
Books and authors influence us. Art, music, poetry, literature, service, our heritage and even food can influence us even to the point of being part of the life story.
“The most powerful words in the English language are tell me a story” according to author Pat Conroy. There is no one whose story I am as familiar with as my own. The same is true for you. This seems so obvious, but then what surprises me a little is how I see that story differently almost every time I tell it.”
Authors Page at Amazon
Click Here to Link
A long way gone,, Memories of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beach
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah. The story starts while he is living with his father, stepmother and brother. The book starts with Ishmael Beah, his older brother Junior, and their friend Talloi traveling from their village of Mogbwemo to Mattru Jong in order to perform in a talent show. Ishmael, Junior, and their friend love rap music and sing and dance to it.
While away on their trip their village is attacked by rebels and at the age of 12, he is left on his own separated from his family. The think that their parents fled to a small village on the Sierra Leone coast and they try to try to go there. They don’t find their parents but are forced to join an army unit where is given plenty of drugs and brainwashing and trained to kill. Ishmael lives this life of a boy soldier until he is 16 when UNICEF gets him released from the army to be put in a rehabilitation program.
The process of making a young boy capable and able to be a ruthless killer is something this book will likely cause many to never forget. Also, the goodness and needs of the boy as he is rehabilitated and eventually finds a place that he can consider his family is also well done.
An important book, well done.
Quotes
“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.” ...
“When I was young, my father used to say, 'If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen.“
“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. ”
“...children have the resilience to outlive their sufferings, if given a chance.”
“I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end...”
The Institute by Stephen King
When they kidnap 12-year-old Luke Ellis for his minor telekinetic ability they overlook the power of his very significant intellect. Luke is brilliant and that power is something the evil Institute people had not expected.
Luke wakes up in a room that looks just like his bedroom back home. The door opens onto a hallway decorated with posters of romping children with mottos like “JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE” and “I CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY!” Of course, the Institute is not a paradise it destroys its victims. It also destroys the “moral compass” of those who work there too long.
Luke teaches a group of traumatized kids to understand and utilize their own abilities, and to turn those abilities against their captors. In creating human “weapons” of the minds of the kids to be used against perceived enemies, the Institute created a weapon to be used against itself. Luke’s intellect with the linked mental efforts of the children, and with significant help from a powerful 10-year-old psychic named Avery Dixon the balance of power shifts and Luke escapes making his way to DuPray, South Carolina, where he meets up with S.C., Tim Jamieson, a former policeman.
Is this really one of the scariest of King’s novels? I don’t think so. In some ways it seemed to be less gory and horrifying but it was well done with a plot that took some unexpected turns. It was what you would expect of Steven King and worth the read.
See More About Stephen King and the Books Reviewed on this Blog
{click here to link)
Quotes
“this life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear.”
“Back in the main corridor—what Luke now understood to be the residents’ wing—the little girls, Gerda and Greta, were standing and watching with wide, frightened eyes. They were holding hands and clutching dolls as identical as they were. They reminded Luke of twins in some old horror movie.”
“Between midnight and four, everyone should have permission to speak freely.”
“He wanted to tell Luke that he loved him. But there were no words, and maybe no need of them. Or telepathy. Sometimes a hug was telepathy.”
Nothing To Lose, A Jack Reacher Novel, by Lee Child
In Colorado the towns of Hope and Despair are separated by twelve miles of empty road. Jack Reacher arrives in Despair and all he wants is a cup of coffee but only finds trouble. The town folks just ignore him in the only diner in town and then order him to leave.
Despair is a company town owned by a powerful, wealthy, ultra-religious businessman and everyone works in this man’s scrap metal recycling plant. This only adds to Reacher’s suspicions that the town is hiding something.
After being kicked out of Despair Reacher goes back to the town o Hope. He gains the interest and help of a local police lady. He learns more about Despair finding out that each night a small plane takes off like clockwork returning 7 hours later while a small well-armed group of military cops stand guard around the scrape metal plant.
He returns to investigate and learns of two men who have disappeared and of a connection to a distant war that's killing Americans by the thousand.
The conflict quickly becomes one between the man who owns the town and Reacher and of course Reacher doesn’t lose.
Another exciting Jack Reacher story well worth the read.
Quotes
“No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't.”
“A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward.”
“I have to warn you. I promised my mother, a long time ago. She said I had to give folks a chance to walk away.”
“Where are the deputies?'
'On their way up to the first-aid post.'
'What happened to them?'
'I did.”
“That should be your town motto. It's all I ever hear. Like: New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. It should be: Despair, You Need To Leave Now.”
“Because deep down to the army a wounded soldier that can’t fight anymore is garbage. So we depend on civilians, and civilians don’t care either.”
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch →
Over 375 books reviewed on my site, connected events matter, and this book was in many ways unique. The plot premise is that some other version of the multiverse exists m is not your everyday plot. See more book reviews at www.connectedeventsmatter.com
Read moreLady In The Lake by Laura Lippman
Novelist Laura Lippman’s Inspiration for her latest crime novel, Lady in the Lake, came from two real-life disappearances in Baltimore in the 1960s when the body of Shirley Lee Wigeon Parker, a black 35-year-old divorcee, was found in a fountain in one of the city’s parks. That same year in September, Esther Lebowitz, an 11-year-old Jewish girl, was beaten to death inside a fish store, a gruesome killing that profoundly impacted Baltimore’s Jewish community.
Lippman’s main character is Maddie Schwartz a beautiful, bored, 37-year-old housewife who decides one day to leave her husband and become a crime reporter because she wanted to live a life that mattered.
Maddie Schwartz finds the body of schoolgirl young Tessie Fine. She needs a job and uses the details she learns about Tessie to get herself hired at the Baltimore Sun hoping to turn that into a reporter job.
After she is hired by the newspaper, she becomes obsessed with the disappearance and drowning of Cleo Sherwood and her focus is intense as she tries to find out what really happened.
The plot moves with a strong backdrop of the racism of the Sixties. Maddie has an affair with Ferdie, a black police officer, who isn’t allowed to use a patrol car but borrows one at night to visit her. The one-time Maddie and Ferdie goes out in public it is to a baseball game and she pretends not to know him acting like they just accidently sat by each other. The never talk of marriage but Maddie mentions that Interracial marriage was not legal in the United States. (Not until 1967)
Maddie evolves from a woman whose main skill is the ability to get men to like her to a woman who has learned she’s going to have to fight her own battle.
Lady in the Lake is a great newspaper novel and captures much of the feelings of the 1960s.
Quotes
“A woman dies young, it’s man trouble.”
“How could 1906 and 1966 be part of the same century? In 1906, there had been no world wars, most people didn’t have telephones and cars. In 1906, women couldn’t vote and black men could by law, but not in practice.”
“Kindness could be so much more painful than cruelty.”
Buy the Book on Amazon. Just click the buy button below
Picasso, by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein's was born in 1874 in Pennsylvania and raised in Oakland California. She moved to Paris in 1903. She associated with Hemingway, Picasso and other famous artists and writers. Her book tells us about Picasso and his life as a great painter.
In 1904, Picasso rented a studio in an old, dilapidated building in Paris filled with artists and poets located at 13 Rue Ravignan in Paris. Picasso painted Stein between 1905 and 1906 in a style foreshadowing of his adoption of Cubism—and portrays her face like a mask with heavy lidded eyes.
Picasso was one of the innovators of Cubist artwork where objects are analyzed by breaking them up and reassembling them in an abstracted form and Steins seems compelled to defend the art form in this book and mentions that in 1909 when Picasso had completed the Cubist paintings Horta de Ebro and Maison sur la Colline that she was shown the photographs that inspired the paintings.
We learn from Stein’s writing how much Picasso’s home in Spain shaped his approach to art which was considered ahead of its time or avant-garde. She was one of the first Americans to claim that about his work.
Stein's close relationship with Picasso provided her with a unique vantage point to the man and his approaches.
See ART REVIEW ON CUBISM click here
Quotes from Gertrude Stein
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
We are always the same age inside.
America is my country and Paris is my hometown.
“One must dare to be happy. ”
“We are always the same age inside. ”
“It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing.”
“Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something. ”
Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, by C.S. Lewis
Reflections on the Dialogue Between Man and God
C.S. Lewis presents fictional letters written to a close friend Malcolm, who seems very real, that discuss things that are puzzling about having a dialogue with God. ‘For example, one question he asks is “If God is omniscient, why do we give Him information?” Lewis is skilled at explaining difficult questions, and this book considers many giving easy to understand answers.
The book starts out discussing "corporate prayer", praying with others, and private prayer discussing "when to pray and where, ready-made prayer, petitionary prayer, prayer as worship, penitential prayer, and prayer for the dead". Of corporate prayer it is clear he has a negative opinion when he says in a letter: “If you were thinking of corporate prayer, I won’t play. There is no subject in the world (always excepting, sport) of which I have less to say than liturgiology. (the system of church rituals and their symbolism}
The book concludes with Lewis looking into the subjects of the soul and the resurrection and then summing up how he feels by saying “If we were perfected, prayer would not be a duty, it would be a delight. Someday, please God, it will be.”
Quotes
"You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
"Life with God is not immunity from difficulties, but peace in difficulties."
"Don't shine so that others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see HIM."
See more C.S. Lewis books and the Authors Page click here
Use the Buy Button Below to order this book from Amazon
The Red and the Black, by Stendhal
The Red and the Black was Stendhal’s major work when it was published in 1830. The book is a character study of Julien Sorel, a carpenter’s son and an ambitious young man who uses seduction as a tool for advancement. He does not see any path for success in the military despite his admiration for Napoleon. That just leaves the church because in Sorel’s time that is the best way to gain power.
The army is symbolized in the novel by the color red and the church by the color black. The novel examines careerism, political opportunism, the climate of fear and denunciation of materialistic values in the Restoration of France.
Sorel is employed as a tutor for the mayor’s wife, Mme de Renal. At the same time, he is training to become a priest and he decides to seduce the mayor's wife, because he thinks that it is his duty.
M. Chélan, the town priest and Julien's mentor, sends him to the Besançon seminary to avoid any further scandal. The director of the seminary, M. Pirard, likes Julien and encourages him to become a great priest. Julien does very well at the seminary, but only because he wants to make a fortune and succeed in French society.
He then goes to Paris where he seduces the aristocratic Mathilde who is the daughter of his second employer. The book ends with Sorel’s execution for the attempted murder of Mme de Rênal after she had jeopardized his projected marriage to Mathilde
See Review of Stendhal’s book Love
click here and link to Review
Stendhal Quotes
“A good book is an event in my life.” ...
“One can acquire everything in solitude except character.” ...
“There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.” ...
“I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.” ...
“A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.”
“A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded.
It is shewing your inferiority. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.”
“A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.”
“After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne
Buy this book direct from Amazon just click the Buy Button
The Nanny Diaries, A Novel, by McLaughlin & Kraus
The writers were students at New York University, and both had worked as Nannies for a number of wealthy families on the Upper East Side, where the book is set.
The book starts off with Nanny telling us: “Every season of my nanny career kicked off with a round of interviews so surreally similar that I’d often wonder if the mothers were slipped a secret manual at the Parents League to guide them through.” This is an early tipoff of predictability that follows in this Nanny’s experience in the summer ahead.
Nanny is an NYU student in her senior year and she takes part-time job as Nanny for a Grayer X the 4-year old son of Mr. and Mrs. X. She cares a great deal about the boy and is concerned about the lack of any relationship that he has with his parents. She picks him up at school, makes sure he goes to the activities that are arranged for him, and in addition works at being a personal assistant to his self-centered not very good mother.
Nanny meets a young man who goes to Harvard living in the same building and has a relationship with him. Nanny’s other life is of some interest but her experiences with the X family are funny, sort of, and predictable
Quotes from the Book
“And he doesn't care what you're wearing or what you've brought him. He just wants you there. Wanting him. And time is running out. He won't love you unconditionally that much longer. And soon he won't love you at all.”
“There are people─ in your home─ human beings─ drowning in their desire for you to look them in the eye. You made this family. And all you have to do is to show up and like them. It's called 'relating'. So get over whatever totally-absent-buying-your-affection parenting that you received and get here, man─ because this is your LIFE and you're just pissing it away.”
Use the Buy Button to purchase this book on Amazon below
Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon tells us in his new book, “Show Your Work!, 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered”, and then how to do it. Each of the ways listed is expounded on. He tells us that the key is a process, not a product and that we should share something everyday.
Kleon says it is about being find-able, about using a network instead of wasting time networking.
The book is a next step from his prior two books, “Steal Like an Artist, and Keep Going”. He says the key is that you do good work. It has to be worth stealing.
The 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered are:
You don’t have to be a genius.
Think process, not product.
Share something small every day.
Open up your cabinet of curiosities.
Tell good stories.
Teach what you know.
Don’t turn into human spam.
Learn to take a punch.
Sell out.
Stick Around
Quotes from this Book
“the worst troll is the one that lives in your head.”
“Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.”
“Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple.”
“But now I realize that the only way to find your voice is to use it. It’s hardwired, built into you. Talk about the things you love. Your voice will follow.”
“the worst troll is the one that lives in your head.”
“Don't think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine.”
“Don’t try to be hip or cool. Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.”
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
RSS Block
Select a Blog Page to create an RSS feed link.
Learn more
Fyodor Dostoevsky had been attending meetings on socialism with some intellectuals in Russia when he was arrested for suspected revolutionary activities. He went to prison and was about to be executed when the Tsar had a pardon delivered and it was learned that part of his punishment was making him think we was going to die.
In 1866, after this experience, Dostoevsky’s published his novel, Crime and Punishment, about a student named Raskolnikov living in the slums of St. Petersburg who planned a brutal murder to demonstrate his own intellect.
Dostoevsky often used symbols in his writing and the name Rodian Raskolnikov comes from “Raskol” which refers to a “split” or “schism” that took place within the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century.
Raskolnikov mind reveals the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil who cannot escape his own conscience. He believes that he can commit the perfect crime.
Raskolnikov uses an axe to kill the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, a defenseless old woman, and her younger sister Lizaveta Ivanovna. The axe is another symbol used by the author representing the basic tool of the Russian lower classes and later in prison Raskolnikov is criticized by some of the inmates saying since he was really a gentleman himself, he shouldn’t have used an axe for the murders.
Raskolnikov confessed to the crime and presented at the trial his defense that society was not hurt by the loss of the pawnbroker and he did not personally benefit from the money he took but instead used it to help others detailing some the kind deeds. It was concluded that he must have suffered from a mental condition and he was sentenced to serve only 8 years in prison.
See Review of Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky click here to go to the review
Quotes
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”“The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!”
“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.”
