Friends this is my review of the Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey, which I listened to recently as a Librivox recording. http://librivox.org/the-lone-star-ranger-by-zane-grey/
I must admit that the recent sun and fine weather has meant that I am a little behind in recording the books I have read or listened to, but that does not mean they will get missed off just slightly delayed in being recorded. As a child I had a children’s version of this book, which I liked, probably due to the picture of the horse on the front cover. Now a good many years later I come back to it and it was interesting how parts of the story were familiar and parts were not. The star of the story is Buck Duane, the son of a famous gunfighter, who falls prey to the old problem – challenged by a cowboy who wants to make trouble, Duane kills him and then must ride off to the lawless country near the Neuces River to escape being arrested and perhaps, hanged. After a lot of description of life out in the wild he eventually kills a notorious outlaw who is particularly known for his brutality. This then gives him a reputation for killing the most notorious Texas outlaws, which draws an unexpected interest: a captain of the Texas Rangers offers him a pardon and a ranger’s badge if he will infiltrate the gang of the shadowy figure known as “Cheseldine” who wields vast power in West Texas, and make it possible for the Rangers to break the gang’s hold on the region’s towns. Duane accepts, never guessing in his wildest nightmares that he would sniff out this Cheseldine, along with his hideouts, and his lieutenants… and whilst at the same time fall in love with his daughter! The original story has a very large amount of description, compared to action, but in doing so Zane paints a fantastic picture in words of life out in the wild west. The version I listened to was over 11 hours in length, but it never did seem boring due to the skill and use of the words used. This was book 30 week 23 fiction 27 (7 on audio) non fiction 3
0 Comments
Friends, the sun and tennis have led to a backlog with my blog and as you will see I have not written anything for a few days, but this does not mean that I have stopped reading. So this is my review of the book Mistress of Justice by Jeffery Deaver that was read a while ago.
This was an interesting book in so much as the original version was written in the early 1990's, which I read at the time. It was then edited and updated to this current version which I have just read. Whilst I could not have told you what the original story was before reading it, when I got to a lot of the key points I knew what was then going to happen next. Though I am sure the numerous twists at the end were not the same. It kept me guessing right to the end. So what was the book about – Lawyers, mergers, loan documents, theft and detection. Our hero Taylor Lockwood is working in one of the finest Wall Street law firms as a paralegal and is tasked with helping to find a stolen document that could change the outcome of a forthcoming merger. When not working she plays jazz piano in the local clubs. She take this investigation very seriously and is soon delving into the private lives off all the senior lawyers that have been around on the night of the theft. A murder is then committed and things go from bad to worse. Can Taylor find the culprit before they get her? The story goes from one twist to another as the suspects are gradually ruled out, till finally the killer is all that is left. This was an enjoyable book as book 29 week 22 fiction 26 (6 on audio) non fiction 3 Friends, this is my review of the book Lie down with Lions by Ken Follett, which I read recently. This book was written in the mid 1980's, and is about life in Afghanistan, though not of course the Afghanistan, which we hear about on the news every day, but one where the Russians are the invaders and the locals are fighting them as the oppressors.
Ironically the book is all about the Americans, in the form of the CIA helping the rebels. They supply arms and teach them how to make traps and lay land mines. Oh the snake that turns on the hand that feeds it. In some aspects the book is quite sad, and makes one question how things might have been if the rebels still had weapons of over 100 years old, rather than high explosives. Anyway enough daydreaming about the what if? - The book is a romantic spy adventure, set in Afghanistan, where our star Jane falls in love with two unbeknown to her spies, one working for the CIA and one for the Russians. She marries one of them, and has a daughter. When one spy tries to kill the other along with several local war lords, she is trapped, and has to get out of the line of fire. There then follows a chase across Afghanistan. This part of the story did seem to be real life acting as a mirror to the fictional narrative, but makes an exciting This being said the twist at the end was unexpected, and the book was an enjoyable read. This was book 28 week 21 fiction 25 (6 on audio) non fiction 3 This is my review of the book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson which I listened to as an audio book recently.
It has some very vivid descriptions of characters, and landscapes, which make it ideal as an audio book, as the mind can help them to come to life. To put it into context the book is set around 18th-century Scottish events, notably the "Appin Murder", which occurred near Ballachulish in 1752 in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising. The star of the story one --David Balfour, a lad of seventeen and newly orphaned, is directed to go and live with his rich uncle Ebenezer, the master of the estate of Shaws in the lowlands of Scotland near Edinburgh. Ebenezer, the ultimate scrooge, is shocked to suddenly have his young relative descend on him and tries to rid himself of David with an arranged accident. Getting David to climb an incomplete tower staircase in the dark. - Can't afford candles! Failing that, he pays the captain of a brig to kidnap David and sell him into slavery in Carolina. A collision in the fog brings onboard the brig a survivor, Alan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite, who is carrying a dangerous amount of gold on his person. David warns him of a plan by the brig’s captain and crew to overpower him and seize the money, and then finds himself fighting alongside Alan. By good fortune, Alan is handy with a sword and they have access to the firearms locker, and the pair defeat the crew. Limping to port, she is holed by rocks, and David finds himself a castaway on the Scottish shore. There then follows an ambush, murder, a chase and somehow David needs to claim his inheritance, whilst at the same time help Alan to escape to France. Of course there is still Ebenezer to deal with. Thought it is claimed that at the time it was written as a children’s novel, I am sure it stands up against modern day adult adventure thrillers and that was book 27 week 20 fiction 24 (6 on audio) non fiction 3 Friends this is my review of the book A Dance with the Dragons 2: After the Feast by George R R Martin, which I read recently. This is the continuing saga of the Seven Kingdoms, book five. Evidently when the book was written it was split into two parts due to it's size and complexity.
Well yes – it is better than book four but if it had been the first book of the series I would not have bothered with the rest. The trouble is the cast is so large, there is an appendix of over 50 pages explaining who everyone is, Along with this the story does not follow one plot line but multiple plot lines weaving a truly multilayered story that is just about comprehensible. Yes I am all in favour of an author keeping the reader ins suspense, it is just how long that suspense should be is the question. The book has murder, death, dragons, slavery, outlaws, priests, nobles, and of course lots and loads of treachery. Added to this there are lots and lots of battles. The incredible thing is that the world described is believable whilst being amazing at the same time. George's imagination is incredible creating a world of such amazing complexity. This book carries on from part 1 and book 3. If and when George finishes the saga I will read them all again in succession one after the other and I am sure this will make the story much more intelligible and enjoyable. Ideally one should reread book 3 before reading this if you were like me and read it quite some time ago. I read book four between the two. Also some form of synopsis of what has happened to get to the start of this book would have been a helpful reminder, as it just carries on expecting you to have remembered what has gone on before, which is not always the case. I do know I am not the only person to have made these kind of comments, and I do hope that the next book starts to tie the plot lines together and to bring some form of conclusion, as I am sure it will take more than one book to tie up all the loose ends. But that being said the snapshot that the book represents, of the world being described is amazing. So that was book 26 week 20 fiction 23 (5 on audio) non fiction 3 Friends, this is my review of the book The Wall by Alistair Moffat. This is a book that has been sitting on my side waiting to be read for a number of months now, as I have been looking forward reading it and wanted to enjoy the anticipation. It did not disappoint.
Though it is called “The Wall”, it is really a potted history of Britain covering around 500 years centred around Hadrian's Wall. The book is ram packed with facts from research, and every couple of pages has a “QI” fact relevant to the time period at that time. These in themselves could have been collected together to form a book. Much to Paulines' annoyance, every couple of pages I would say – did you know this (or that) so much so that she is now reading the book. Not only does the book give great information on how the wall was built over a ten-year period by more than 30,000 soldiers and labourers at the behest of the emperor Hadrian. It also gives a fascinating insight to Roman life in Britain at that time, along with lots of facts and figures about the wall itself - it consisted of more than 24 million stones, giving it a mass greater than all the Egyptian pyramids put together. One of the things I was amazed to learn was how it went down the Cumbrian coast and all in all covered 120 miles, before reading the book I had thought it just went east-west across the country, as there was threats from the sea as well as from the land. I do have another one of his books to read sitting on my shelves, but that will wait for a while, when the weather is not so good, as it is a bit longer A very interesting book, packed full with facts and one that cannot really be hurried otherwise they will get missed. This was book 25 week 19 fiction 22 (5 on audio) non fiction 3 Friends this is my review of the book Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, which I listened to recently as a Librivox recording. http://librivox.org/nicholas-nickleby-by-charles-dickens/
Dickens is someone I have steered clear of till now, as I studied one of this books at school, and we spent so long dissecting each chapter, that the story line got lost and I thought he was dull and boring. So it was with mixed feelings that we started to listen to this book. Especially as the recording we were listening to was over 35 hours in length, so it was going to be quite a commitment to get to the end. In fact it was totally addictive, and this was in no small part by the skill of the reader Mil Nicholson http://www.act2sc3.com/ and she claims on her website that as of January 2013 she has had over 100,000 downloads of her various recording on Librivox. Mil manages to bring the characters to life, through her clever use of various voices. So what is the story about – even though it was written over 150 years ago, it is so up to date in it's themes. Banking and money lending scandals, sex slavery, child abuse, and poor schooling. Add to that illegal duelling, assorted scams, the theatre and various romances. As the book is a so called classic there is great detail written on the plot elsewhere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Nickleby for example, which I am not going to repeat. But in essence the book is an adventure/romance about Nicholas' life from childhood and how he and his family goes from riches to poverty and back to riches again, with all the excitement of the various themes I have mentioned thrown in the pot. This was a very unexpected enjoyable book so much so we are now listening to another Dickens epic during our travels. This was book 24 week 18 fiction 22 (5 on audio) non fiction 2 This is my review of the book Protect and Defend by Vince Flynn – (This is what I was coming to write when I found that my previous review of Huntingtower was not there)
This is a book that has an end point and works directly towards that end point, but it does explore the ideas of what is legal and right when trying to get information out of someone – does the end justify the means. Iran has a nuclear facility hidden in the centre of one of it's cities – deep underground and an Israeli agent manages to destroy it, creating a tomb for all the people working inside and a radioactive environmental disaster. The American's get blamed for the action saying it is the result of a spy plane bombing. Things quickly start to get out of hand as the United Nations condems the attacks, and Iran threatens to cut off the oil supply to the west. The Lebanese terrorist Imad Mukhtar then enters the fray and wants to take advantage of the quickly deteriorating situation. OF course there is only one person that the American President can call on to help and that is Mitch Rapp, the CIA superhero. He goes on the rampage against the plotting terrorists, with the motto shoot first ask questions afterwards, with the aim of averting total meltdown of the west. All good fun as a thriller, for Bank Holiday reading. This was book 23 week 17 fiction 21 (4 on audio) non fiction 2 This is my review of the book Huntingtower by John Buchan. When coming to write the blog I realised that somehow my entry for this book had not been published. Shows me that I should check my blog a bit more often. Probably in a hurry and closed the browser without publishing. Anyway.
I listened to this as an audio book – normally I listen to audio books when driving or making cards for our business Hungry Giraffe www.hungrygiraffe.co.uk. This book appealed as it was set in the south west of Scotland near Carrick in the early 1920's. The hero of the book is a old grocer who has sold up his business, and has now retired. He goes on a walking holiday and uncovers the imprisonment of a Russian lady aristocrat by Bolshevik agents. He sets about freeing her and uses a amazing group of lads from Glasgow the Gorbal Diehard's to help him. The locals join in and uncover a plot based on espionage and violence, which contrasts greatly with the local domestic tranquil Scottish landscape. The low-tech convoluted method that they use to rescue her is fantastic, and a battered bicycle wheel also is key to saving our hero form certain death. As much as the story is interesting and fun, the asides of everyday description are amazing as well. The Diehard's smoking for example. The story has been compared to a modern fairy-tale of rescue of a young princess. All good fun. I listened to the Librivox recording and this was book 22 week 17 fiction 20 (4 on audio) non fiction 2 This is my review of the book Jeeves in the Offing, by P G Wodehouse, which I read recently. The book is the ongoing saga of Bertie Wooster, and his family and friends. It starts with him reading about his engagement and forthcoming wedding to Bobbie Wickham in the Times. The only trouble is that this is the first he has heard about it, and he needs to investigate what is happening.
To do this he goes off to Brinkley Court, his Aunt Dehlia's house. Sadly it is time for Jeeves to have his annual summer holiday at Herne Bay, so he has to go on his own. When he gets to Brinkley he finds to his horror that the butler there has transformed into Sir Roderick Glossop, the famous brain surgeon, on undercover work. Also his awful former headmaster is around, as he is going to award the prizes at the local school – the Market Snodbury Grammar School. This bring back terrible thoughts of a previous prize giving for Bertie. Things go terribly wrong and the only way out seems to be to go off to Herne Bay and get Jeeves. Stop him doing his shrimping and let him come up with a way out of the mess. Sadly for Bertie the easiest way of doing this is not the most comfortable for him. Good fun, though a little formulaic. I think I will leave it for a while before I read any more of the series. This was book 21 week 16 fiction 18 (3 on audio) non fiction 2 |
Tim Fuller
Dyslexic doodles on photography, food (growing, cooking & of course eating), faith and other fascinating things. This is a personal blog expressing my views. Archives
November 2015
Categories
All
|