52. The Book of Dragons

The Book of Dragons - Edith Nesbit

A book of classic dragon tales.

Too immature for me to enjoy.

Too mature for my little girls to enjoy.

Probably well suited to 10-12 year old boys who really like to read.

49. 100 Quotations To Make You Think

100 Quotations to Make You Think - Wolfgang Riebe

Really, it is. It is 100 quotes. Did they all make me think? No. Have I heard them before? A few. Mostly they are new to me.

One that I liked and it made me think...

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

That one made me think. It was also one of the shortest in the little book, but it made me think more than any of the others.

What did I conclude at the end of the massive pondering I undertook? Well, it really depends on what kind of tree they are planting as to whether I agree with the quote or not. There, think about that.  :-)

48. Rules For Patriots

Rules For Patriots - Matt Kibbe

Supposed to be modeled as a response to Saul Alinsky's Rules For Radicals...put out by Freedomworks...a Tea Party group.

Eh. It left a lot to be desired and has taken a good idea and made it into a political organization that becomes so big that it means nothing any longer. Too many differing opinions and compromises to bring in others lead to watering down the message.

I used to agree with Freedomworks much more than I do now. Not because I have changed my views, because they have changed themselves to include more "issues" and then I have more to disagree with than I did before.

What makes a patriot? When did patriot become synonymous with falling in line with all the political agenda crap of a single party? Puhleeeeaase.

45. Frenzy

Frenzy - Jonathan Craig

This was a foray into an old pulp fiction crime novel. It was kind of fun. An enjoyable plot with characters that were interesting and full of the expected stereotypes. The book was originally published under the name "Junkie!".

Steve is a trumpet player in a jazz ensemble. The chics really dig him. Kathy is an ex-heroine addict that he has fallen in love with. She is being framed for murder...by Lois, who is in love with Steve but married to Mel. Lois and Donna also happens to run a call girl service disguised as a secretarial pool. Hey, if Lois can get Kathy to work for her then maybe she can get her hooked on drugs again and Steve will be free again... Wait, Donna is also a nymphomaniac? Wow! There is a real twist.

Poor Loreen. All she wanted to do was go to work as a secretary. She did some work at the Pentagon and then embezzled a grand from Lois thinking it would be OK because Lois would not want to make noise. I will bet Loreen's dying body sure made a noise as she was run down by that huge Chrysler! 

Steve needs to be taught a lesson. Ahh...let's frame him for the murder of Mel. If Lois can't have him then NOBODY WILL! Lois and Donna will run off to Mexico with the profits from the call girl business and start a new life... but the double-cross happens and Lois kills Donna and tries to force Steve to go on the run with her...   Oh, the tangled webs that get woven.

It was great fun.

40. The Practice of the Presence of God

The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence

This is a collection of letters written by a Carmelite monk and the recollections of some of his speakings in the 1600's. It is a bit repetitive, but I guess the idea was important to him.

How do you get and stay in the presence of God? Practice, of course. How do you practice? Think about God. Read about God. Talk about God. Pray to God. Constantly strive to include God in everything. His presence in your life will become habit. :-)

This is no "All of Grace". OK, but no revelation from this one.

35. The Cossacks

The Cossacks - Leo Tolstoy

Bah. It bored me. Too much soap opera drama garbage to keep me interested. Good writing, but not interesting. Maybe I was looking for something else.

33. The Glow

The Glow - Brooks Stanwood

A suspense novel written in the mid seventies. Supposedly along the lines of Rosemary's Baby. I hate to say it, but this is definitely not Rosemary's Baby, nor is it even close.

There is this group of mid-fifties folks who are health nuts and spend a lot of time jogging and working out. They welcome a young couple into a very exclusive upper east side apartment (Manhattan, of course). The couple joins them in the ultra-healthy lifestyle. Weird stuff happens. People disappear.

Come to find out...and I will spoil this one because I doubt anyone will go find it or read it if they did...the old folks stumbled upon a secret tribe of cannibals in the Amazon and discovered a secret to staying youthful forever. The problem is that it requires the blood of super healthy young people mixed with the roots of very special trees.

So, to stay alive the oldies (which are actually around 90 years old) must occasionally drink the blood-root juice mixture in order to stay young. They devised this entire lifestyle and plan to maintain the illusion and the trap into which they lure young couples over and over again.

It was alright. No big thrill and definitely not worth searching for.

28. How to Read Literature Like a Professor

Hot to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines - Thomas C. Foster

I was really hoping to enjoy this book more and to learn a lot more than I did. I picked up a few tips and hints, but nothing like I had envisioned before picking up this book. The biggest thing I learned was that even at a professorial level you are still limited by your own experiences and your own memory as to how you are going to translate or interpret literature. Everyone will see things differently. The same person at different times will see different things.

What is the point then? Mostly it is to get past the emotional reader level as the only reaction to a book. That will always be a prime reason for me to read. I like how a book can repulse me or make me smile. Those are emotional reactions. But this book tries to explain why I get those reactions on more than just a feel good or bad level.

It was interesting to read about the different topics the author wanted to discuss. There were chapters called: Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It's Not), If It's Square, It's a Sonnet, When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare..., ...Or the Bible, It's Greek to Me, It's More Than Just Rain or Snow, Is That a Symbol, It's All About Sex..., ...Except Sex, and so on. Each one of them showed how an author uses little tricks of the trade to relate his story back to something you have seen before in order to elicit a given response.

There were some highlighted one line tidbits throughout the book that explained a lot:
"The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge."
"Ghosts and vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires."
"There is no such thing a wholly original work of literature."
"It's never just rain."
"Flight is freedom."
"Irony trumps everything."
"When writers send characters south, it's so they can run amok."

You know what really pissed me off about this book though? I was hoping to learn from it. I was hoping to garner some kind of secrets from the inner sanctum. I was hoping to get a peak into the workers of a secret society, if only for a second. I went in with high expectations and even higher hopes...until page three. Yep, page THREE!

The first example the author used to explain something he wanted his reader to understand...the one he found to be the perfect example to go first...was this...
"I always begin with the greatest quest novel of the last century: Thomas Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49 (1965)."
As you may remember from my review about two weeks ago concerning The Crying of Lot 49...I didn't like that book. So, this man told me on page three that he was one of those pretentious asses that is going to turn crap into something significant because it is so beyond anything of it's kind...blah blah. From that moment I knew I was not going to get what I was looking for and hoped to pick up a little thing here or there that I could use. I did that. But, overall the book ended up solving nothing and leaving a ton of stuff open to whatever the reader wanted it to be.

Is that a symbol for something? It can be if it symbolizes something to you. It is whatever it is for whomever wants it to be whatever they want it to be. Yackity yack yack yack. I think I will just stick to enjoying a book and not analyzing it through the eyes of Plato or Shakespeare. I am perfectly happy being one of the ignorant masses that will never be a snobbish member of the elite academia. Whatever.

I am glad I didn't pay for this one.

22. Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

This is a seriously long book. I was never going to read the written word, so I downloaded the book and listened to it in audio format.

The writing is amazing. The characters are some of the most well defined I have ever encountered. That probably comes easily when you use a zillion pages. I think the reader did an outstanding job with this humongous task.

So, why is it just OK? Because the whole book is just total soap opera. Ugh.

Tolstoy's writing is awesome. Tolstoy's story? I found it laborious and uninteresting. But, I am a man living in 2012.

12. Monstrosity

Monstrosity - Edward Lee

This book was a let down for me. I was hoping for the suspense of Flesh Gothic. I never got it. The ending was a dud. It had some cool parts, but when I read a horror novel I want to feel that spine chilling thing. It was nowhere near that.

I will read more Edward Lee, but I am left feeling short changed by this book.

(I went back and read my review of Flesh Gothic. I didn't like that book either. For the same reason. For some reason I remembered it differently. I guess I will not read more Edward Lee.)

11. Dubliners

Dubliners - James Joyce

This is some awesome writing. It must be. The stories sure didn't keep me captivated. It was all about making the scene come to life reading this book. That is what kept me interested.

3. How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must)

How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must): The World According To Ann Coulter - Ann Coulter

I started reading this book quite some time ago. I would read a chapter and do something else. I would pick it up again and read a little every few days. That means it took longer than normal to actually finish this book, but it is finally complete.

The book itself and the specific subjects discussed are dated. This book was published in 2004, before the second Bush election.

What I find with Ms. Coulter is that I agree with what she has to say, but I do not think her method of delivery is going to do anything but make liberals mad and get a select group of conservatives as cheerleaders. I am sure that is the purpose. Maybe she started out hoping to change some minds, but I don't see it working using the tactics she employs.

Who else is in this category? Limbaugh. Matthews. Hannity. Colbert. Beck. Maher. Krugman. Savage. Olbermann. There are so many. Yap yap yap...and the only people listening are the ones that already agree. Ya'll keep on yapping. At least you are worth a chuckle here and there.

1. Warlord Of Kor

Warlord Of Kor - Terry Carr

Humans travel to a distant planet and explore the primitive civilization. Interesting Sci-Fi published in 1963. Nothing special, but it was fun.

Welcome to 2012.

87. The Vig

The Vig - John Lescroart

Good cops...bad cops...ex-cons gone straight...mafioso on the take...hot girls wanting to be famous...insurance money...understanding ex-wives...bartender buddies that should have an honorary psych degree...not so perfect goons and hitmen...whoopee!

It was OK. More of the same. No thrill. Just another story. Predictable. Even the best plans are doomed to overlook some minute detail that will unravel the entire plan in very convenient ways. Whatever.

86. Whitewash

Whitewash - Alex Kava

Eh. This was just your average every day run of the mill nothing special but it was entertaining.

The part I found most fascinating was the very idea that organic materials left over from processing plants (chicken heads, etc.) could be turned into oil by accelerating the supposed process by which oil is created naturally. Imagine the potential.

The part I found ridiculous is that they could do the same with hurricane debris (lumber, plastics, metals, etc.).

So, what it came to was that the company producing this new oil was having to pay for the chicken heads and stuff because fertilizer companies wanted that same stuff. There was cost involved. On the other hand, due to numerous hurricanes, the government was paying 50 dollars per ton for someone to haul stuff away. So, the corporation that spent billions on inventing and building this plant and making it work so that the country, and the world, would not be dependent on Middle East oil fields, was suddenly so short minded that they took shortcuts that they knew would put dioxins into a river...just to save a dollar short term.

I think that is ridiculous. A corporation invested billions. Now the author wants us to believe they would not refine the process for what they said would be two more years in order to recycle the debris waste safely? That is insane! No corporation is going to risk billions in order to save a few hundred thousand. Especially when they were just about to be awarded a contract that gave them exclusive rights to supplying the Department of Defense.

They threw away a future. They discarded an awesome invention and MASSIVE profit potential in order to save a dollar right now? Totally ridiculous.

Other than that, it was not bad, except that maybe there were too many characters and different story lines that just happened to all coincide in the end and make a nice neat little package. Yeah yeah yeah.

85. Crisis

Crisis - Robin Cook

A medical thriller that I listened to making trip to and from work. It kept me interested, but was less than thrilling. I had a suspicion that the cause of death would be from the pills given by the doctor. It sucks when I figure it out so early.

What really bugs me is that the doc had some guys come in and rough up his own kids in their home. What a douche!

84. Bus Stop

Bus Stop - William Inge

This is a play. I discovered it in an advertisement at the back of the book Rally Round The Flag, Boys! and decided to give it a try. It was written in 1955 and is supposed to be a comedy. I did not find it all that funny. It was also supposed to be a "romance". I did not find it romantic either.

I bus driving through Kansas makes a scheduled stop at a diner only to discover the road ahead is closed due to a winter storm. The play is the interactions between the passengers and the diner workers...oh, and a sheriff.

It was OK, but not funny and definitely dated.

I don't read plays much. The stage direction stuff was disruptive to me. I don't know what all the codes mean and therefore it took away from the flow of the story as I tried to visualize what was happening. I may have enjoyed it more if I knew what all those abbreviations meant. Bah!

73. Long Time Leaving

Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South - Roy Blount Jr.

A liberal southern democrat who has lived in Massachusetts and New York compares where he came from with where he is. It is kind of funny at times. It rambles on and on at others.

I loved the comparisons of people's viewpoints and ways of life.

Blount lost me about half way through when he started these long dialogue discussions between William Faulkner, Shakespeare and Mark Twain. He didn't get me back when he spoke of Ray Charles or other singers. I totally lost interest for that whole section of the book. It was probably about half.

But, overall he had me chuckling.

I have heard Roy Blount Jr somewhere before. I did this one on audio and read by the author. I know that voice. I wonder from where.

72. L.A. Outlaws

L.A. Outlaws - T. Jefferson Parker

This is a fun crime novel. Exciting and action packed. An LA County Sheriff with unwavering integrity. A beautiful dark and mysterious modern day Robin Hood type outlaw running around LA. She just happens to really be an award winning history teacher in the LA Unified school district, a single mom, and the last person anyone would suspect...except of course the super duper copper.

The book is no big thrill. The bad guys are bad. There are crooked cops to help them be even badder. There are ties to MS13 which gives things a more vicious feel. The "real" bad guy likes to hack people up with a machete that shoots shotgun shells. Yeah, whatever.

One of the best parts of this book was the cars. Allison Murietta, the "outlaw" bad ass, just happens to love boosting awesome rides. She not only steals them, but is a real car enthusiast. I liked some of her descriptions of the cars.

The ending was terrible. Talk about the worlds longest feel-good do-good wrap up. Everything ended happily. The cops relationship with his dad. The cops traumatic experiences from his Iraq war experiences. The family history. The kids are all cared for. blah blah blah blah... come on... and the option for a sequel was left glaringly open.

Like I said, it is just another crime story. In fact, there is probably nothing new here at all. I still enjoyed it. It required no thought at all. That was nice for a change.

71. 7: The Mickey Mantle Novel

7: The Mickey Mantle Novel - Peter Golenbock

Here is a fictional novel about Mickey Mantle doing a tell all about himself from heaven. It is written by a man who actually knew Mickey, and Billy Martin, and Joe Pepitone, and Jim Bouton, and Whitey Ford, and Roger Maris, and so many other real life ball players from the Yankees heyday as well as their families and friends. Golenbock wrote this book as if Mantle say down with a sports reporter from back in the day and was discussing his entire life to "set the record straight" without hiding anything. The truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth.

OK. Mantle was great. He was also an alcoholic. He was also famous for his infidelities. We know all that. This book expanded on those stories in ways that could have been left unsaid forever.

I loved loved loved the parts where Mantle was discussing the baseball seasons or interactions with different managers or relationships with other players on and off the field. I especially liked the Casey Stengel stories. The baseball was great. At the same time the story definitely showed how the alcohol and crazy life were affecting Mantle on the field. What could the man have done if he didn't do all the silly junk he was known for. What could he have been if he did not get injured so much?...which alcohol had a lot to do with in some ways.

But, when Mickey was discussing all his affairs and sexual encounters there was much more than was needed. It bordered on stupid. Some of the stories were funny and all, but it was taken too far. We get it. He had a problem. So did Billy Martin. Also, no secret.

Why write this book when you were "friends" with the guys? I think it is totally in response to another book that was written. Jim Bouton wrote Ball Four, in which he revealed some secrets about the late great Yankee players. I think that made Golenbock mad...and since he needed to make a few bucks he could write a book that revealed even more...fictitiously...and bust Bouton's chops a lot while doing it. I think that is what this book is all about.

It was OK, but if you want to learn anything about Mantle this is not the place to look.