Notes from a bibliophile

Sidney Sheldon is one of my mom's favorite authors, so we made a bet - I would read one of her books if she read one of mine. On the positive side, I think I'm getting her hooked on Harry Potter. On the negative side, I had to read Sidney Sheldon. The plot revolves around several unusual deaths around the world. The only connection between the deaths is that the dead people all worked for the same company, Kingsley International Group. KIG is a think tank originally begun by Andrew Kingsley, but after a workplace accident, run by his younger brother Tanner. Two of the murdered men's wives begin to seek answers, but soon their lives are in danger as well. There's also a sub-plot centering on climate change and the odd weather events that global warming appears to be causing around the world. It has a few not-too-startling twists. It also has some odd little quirks that must be addressed. Let's start with facts, though. This novel was written in 2004 when Sheldon ...

I love to travel, but I do it so little that if I'm honest I'd have to say I love the idea of travel. I can count the number of places I've visited on one hand and still have some fingers left over. There are so many places I want to go, but for now they are only a dream. The list is mostly the tourist-y places. Not a lot of places outside the norm, because frankly, I'm a little scared of a lot of places. You hear so many bad things. And I don't want to be an "ugly American". I think that is what led me to listen to this course - I want to be able to understand how other cultures work so that, on the wildly implausible chance I can ever afford to travel, I will understand what I am entering into and hopefully enjoy myself more. Professor David Livermore talks about 10 cultural dimensions that differ to some degree from culture to culture. They are: 1. individualism vs. collectivism - he talks about how babies are treated, how they are encouraged to s...

We need to talk. There's been some distance between us for some time now. I've tried many times to bridge that gap, but it just seems insurmountable. You and I, we come from different worlds - I'm from Venus; you're from Barnes and Noble. I know all my friends love you, but we just want different things right now. I want to be entertained; you want to annoy me. In the past it might be trite cliches, forced dialog, or unbelievable scenarios, but in this case I just can't put my finger on it. I know what you'll say: this is a pattern of mine. First there was The Foundation Trilogy. I know the only reason I balked at that relationship was because it was my dad's favorite and at the time I just wanted a rebel - a book dressed in black leather, riding a Harley. Foundation was like all those other books in high school, just another book someone else chose for me, and I wanted to make my own choices. You're going to point out that I hated The Hobbit the first...

This is a complex whopper of a tale. There are so many characters that are integral to the plot, even though they aren't the three main women the story focuses on. Molly, just emerging from a severe depression after losing her baby, is given a story reporting the discover of an infant's body near a creek on the grounds of the local university where her husband Justin teaches. Despite her husband's misgivings, she insists on reporting the story and eventually finds that this is not the first death found at that spot. There is also Sandy, a high school dropout trying to change her life despite all the odds being stacked against her. The last main character is Barbara. She is the typical, type-A PTA mom and wife of Steve, the chief of police.  The story alternates between each woman's story and is interspersed with the articles Molly writes, her notes from her psychologist visits, and Sandy's mother Jenna's high school diary. In addition to these characters the...

Akutagawa is a wonderful storyteller. The language is rich and atmospheric, really evoking a mood. Here are the synopses of the stories included in this book: In A Grove : The testimony of seven witnesses to a murder, one of which is the ghost of the murdered man told through a medium, is told to a court investigating the crime. All are slightly different, leaving the reader to wonder what really happened in that bamboo grove. This story is the main plot of Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon . Rashomon : Although this short story gives its name to the film, very little of the story makes it into the film. It's the story of a servant who has just been dismissed by his samurai master because Kyoto has fallen into decline. He sits at the Rashomon gate to escape the rain and ponders whether to stay an honest man and starve or survive by becoming a thief. An encounter with an old woman scavenging amongst the corpses left to rot at the gate helps him decide his next course of action....

As a bibliophile, is there any wonder I felt I needed to listen to this course? It's a very interesting look at several books written throughout history that had a profound impact one the world. I've read very few of them, but most of them are on my "to read at some point in my life" list. Here's the breakdown and the lecturer(s) on each: 1. The Epic of Gilgamesh by Grant L. Voth 2. Homer's The Odyssey by John M. Bowers 3. The Bhagavad Gita by Grant Hardy 4. Sun Tsu 's The Art of War by Andrew R. Wilson 5. Confucius's The Analects by Mark W. Muesse 6. Herodotus' Histories by Elizabeth Vandiver 7. Plato's The Republic by Dennis Dalton 8. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics by Robert C. Bartlett 9. Ovid's Metamorphoses by Elizabeth Vandiver 10. Marcus Aurelius's Meditations by Luke Timothy Johnson 11. St. Augustine's Confessions by William R. Cook & Ronald B. Herzman 12. The Koran by Grant Hardy 13. Fibonacci's Th...

If you haven't discovered these short stories by notable authors published by The Mysterious Bookshop, I highly recommend you search them out. I found them at one of my local independent bookstores, Murder by the Book in Houston. As of now there are 26 books in the series, a couple of which I've already blogged about: 1. The Book of Virtue by Ken Bruen 2. The Book of Ghosts by Reed Farrel Coleman 3. The Scroll by Anne Perry 4. The Book Case by Nelson DeMille 5. Pronghorns of the Third Reic h by C.J. Box 6. Death Leaves a Bookmark by William Link 7. An Acceptable Sacrifice by Jeffrey Deaver 8. Book Club by Loren D. Estleman 9. The Book Thing by Laura Lippman 10. The Long Sonata of the Dead by Andrew Taylor 11. The Final Testament by Peter Blauner 12. The Caxton Lending Library & Book Depository by John Connolly 13. Rides a Stranger by David Bell 14. What's in a Name? by Thomas H. Cook 15. It's in the Book by Mickey Spillane & Max All...