Tucson Bookworms

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

“In 1880 a truly remarkable man was elected president only to be shot by a madman. But that is where the drama began.”

The dirty politics at that time makes politics today seem polite by comparison. Key to the account is a man with a sense of divine mission. The treacherous vice president had his own mission: to emasculate the president politically. The man who shot the president admitted he shot the president, but denied that he killed him. And he was correct in a very real sense. I drew my own conclusion based on very important facts in "Destiny", but which are another part of our history and world history.

A big question at the time was whether the VP would initiate a corrupt presidency.

Millard has written a compelling narrative that brings this important, but relatively unknown episode, in American history to life.  Highly recommended for those who are interested in our history.

Millard has provided an excellent epilogue, 44 pages of notes documenting the facts, and a detailed bibliography at the end of the book. 

Incognito : the secret lives of brains by David M. Eagleman

Are some of your “choices” dictated by a part of your brain that you don't have direct access to? Do you really have free will. If you get mad at yourself, who is angry at whom?   What is chick sexing?

The title of the first chapter is an extremely apt quote: “There's Someone In My Head, but It's Not Me.” Who's in charge? Your tiny conscious  mind, or the gigantic “Someone”?

Incognito is a science book written by Eagleman, a noted neuroscientist. He  wrote it in a conversational style that turns hard science into readable prose. He also uses vivid illustrations to make difficult concepts easily understood. It's a compelling read with wonderful insights that will give you a lot of food for thought. His opinions about the future are something else.

Stealing Faces by Michael Prescott

Agents of Innocence by David Ignatius

Agents was written in 1987 and it established the author as a master of the spy novel. It is about an idealistic headquarters CIA agent, Tom Rogers, who is transferred to Beirut.

Tom's job is to fight a secret war against terrorism. The players and the situation are extremely intricate, but Ignatius handles all of the complexities, and the ambiguities very well.

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post said “An unparalleled and hauntingly accurate portrait of how the intelligence game is really played.”

I say that it is fascinating and has the feel of accuracy. The characters experience the full gamut of emotions because it is not a “feel good” story, instead it is a realistic story.

The Things You Find on the Appalachian Trail: A Memoir of Discovery, Endurance and a Lazy Dog by Kevin Runolfson

     This book is nothing like “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail” by Bill Bryson because Kevin was well prepared to thru hike the AT.

     His excellent book is about him personally and about the AT. But it is also about a variety of interesting people that he meets during his odyssey. It’s a serious book with lots of laugh out loud situations. Rufus, his unusual dog, contributes a great deal to the story.

     Kevin's discoveries about himself, and his developing romance on the trail bring a surprising depth to his interesting trek.

     Kevin’s strength and perseverance, coupled with blue blazing, aqua blazing, yellow blazing, and trail angels, helped him complete the AT while changing his life.

Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell

Will the real John Henry Holliday,  Doc, please stand up. 

The Doc Holliday and Earp brothers that I know are based on shoot-em up Western movies and novels beginning in the 50s. 

Russell’s Doc Holliday (and the Earp brothers) novel is neither a shoot-em up nor a Western. It is a nuanced novel about the characters, not about the gunfighters, in a Dodge City as she perceives it.

Russell’s book is interesting because it is a very different account than any of the other stories that I have seen or read. But in my opinion her book reflects academia more than reality.

Making Rounds with Oscar by David Dosa, M.D.

Oscar is an outstanding book on several levels. It is about a normally standoffish cat with a remarkable empathy for those who need him. It is also about an exceptional young Dr who already has a life impacting illness. He is a gerontologist in an excellent nursing home. And it is a story of patients with dementia and their families.

It is a hopeful, uplifting book about those who find it almost impossible to be hopeful.

The stories themselves make for a great read, even fun at times. But I highly recommend it because it also provides so much useful information for caregivers,  primarily for patients with dementia but also for any life ending disease. Doctors usually do not provide much of the necessary information for the patient and family that is found in this book.

As we live longer and longer, there is an increasingly high probability this book will help you cope. Read it for yourself, but especially for your loved ones. Be prepared for the future.

Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey

Winters Bone by Daniel Woodrell

Winter’s Bone is about a sixteen year old girl called Ree who lives in the Missouri Ozarks. I was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks and I expected to experience a lot of nostalgia but I was wrong. My early life was common for the area, dirt poor, no indoor plumbing and a one room schoolhouse. We didn’t cotton to strangers. But Ree lived farther back in the hills than I did,  a lot farther.

Ree lived with her two little brothers and her Mom. Ree’s Mom was at home, but her mind was gone. Ree’s father had left them and their house was about to be repossessed. Ree had a grown woman’s responsibilities and they were daunting. And the worst, far worse, was yet to come.

This is not a feel good story of a sassy, spunky heroine who is able to shrug off the vicissitudes of life. Ree is far stronger than sassy and spunky; she is tough as old shoe leather, and she had to be in order to survive, literally. Not many could have lived through what Ree did, man or woman.

  Winter’s Bone is about family dynamics. Horrible, wonderful, really strange, family dynamics that result from generations of inbreeding in an isolated area The people have little education and less money. It is a tough book to read because of how Ree lived and what happened to her. But at its heart it is a good book because you realize just how much you can overcame if you have to. That is, if you have the strength and if you can just keep going.

Woodrell still lives in the Missouri Ozarks and Winter’s Bone reveals a dark side of Americana that sure sounds authentic to me. 

How to Make People Think You’re Normal by Ben Goode

The front and back covers are better than a lot of the pages in this 93 page book. For me the title was a misnomer because the book made me realize that I am actually normal. If you think that is not possible, read the book and find out what abnormal really is.

There are some good parts such as 13 ways to have fun at with telemarketers, corporate philosophies, and 13 good reasons to watch TV.

But I’m glad that someone loaned it to me so I didn’t have to pay for it. Another indication that I really am normal, at least to some extent.

The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) by Daniel Silva

The Rembrandt Affair is both a mystery and a thriller. The story hinges on a Rembrandt painting that has been missing since WW II. Both the action and the mystery are riveting.

Gabriel Allon is highly respected in the Art community because he is an outstanding restorer of world famous masterpieces. He is even more respected in a very different world because he is also a Mossad agent for Israel. Before he retired, Gabriel was offered the position of Mossad Director. Because a friend is murdered, Gabriel comes out of retirement and works for the new Director.

The cast of characters includes Nazis, Holocaust dead, Holocaust survivors, Swiss banks, the Vatican, Iran, and Israel. Then add major art theft, economic greed and the threat of a nuclear armed Iran to the mix and the results are explosive. It is so dangerous that the directors of the national espionage agencies in Britain, Israel, and the United States are controlling the action. I am glad that The Rembrandt Affair is fiction, but it is too close for comfort to what is going on today.

Silva and Gabriel are favorites of mine and although there isn't the normal amount of Gabriel action in The Rembrandt Affair, there is more than enough. The non action parts are extremely interesting and the combination keeps the story moving right along.

The Burning Wire by Jeffery Deaver

Devious Deaver did it again. I thought that I was on to him this time, but he fooled me badly, as usual, in this Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs thriller. And the Watchmaker is back.

If you are a fan of Rhyme and Sachs, all I need to say is that this book is pure Deaver.

If the characters are unfamiliar, Rhyme is a brilliant, quadriplegic, forensic criminologist and Sachs is his on the scene investigator. They are both outstanding and well developed characters. This would be an excellent place to meet them and other continuing characters.

Burning Wire is literally an electrifying story. A murderer kills by sabotaging a New York City electricity grid substation. As always, there is a lot of fascinating factual information to season the mix of plot twists and turns. Who is the killer? What is coming next? Deaver is a master of maintaining a high level of tension throughout the book.

The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker

This is an excellent book but it is difficult to fully characterize because it has several major themes.  Certainly the best description is that it is a crime thriller. It is also a procedural for an FBI investigation. At its heart it is a story of romance, both predictable, unpredictable and eerie. And it may provide the best insight into the white side of mental illness that I have ever read. But the dark side of mental illness is also graphically depicted in the person and work of the serial killer.

In addition to the normal police and FBI presence, FBI agent Brad Raines turns to a highly unlikely team for additional assistance. They are residents of a very upscale psychiatric hospital that only treats patients who are highly intelligent.  The hospital and its work is fascinating.

The characters, inside and outside the hospital, are fully drawn and complex. The character development and interaction are far more interesting than is normal because some of the people are definitely not normal even though their intelligence is out of this world. Fortunately, Dekker does not make anyone a caricature. The book would be excellent if it only covered the mental illness and the complex relations between the “sane” and the “mentally ill”, the very bright, and the brilliant.

The murderer kills his victims in a gruesome way to make them “perfect brides”. And he keeps on killing while Raines tries desperately to find who he is and where he is. The suspense is palpable.

Weird Hikes by Art Bernstein

When I got this book I thought it would be weird hikes (like I’m weird), but I was wrong. “Weird” means supernatural and dream hikes, fourteen in all. The author claims that they are all absolutely true. Therefore I checked the Non Fiction option.

I didn’t find the hikes very interesting, but that may be because the supernatural aspect didn’t appeal to me at all.

If you like the supernatural, you might find this to be an excellent book. It is a hiking book and it is different.

Intent to Kill by James Grippando

Grippando has written another gripping suspense (pun intended). This is an excellent book in most respects. In some cases Grippando works so hard to disguise what happened by twists and turns that the ending didn’t seem very realistic to me. But it was a great read getting to the end. And the ending is possib le, just unlikely.

It’s about James Ryan, a minor league baseball player who seems destined for the majors. His wife Chelsea is killed in a hit and run accident while Ryan is playing before a Red Sox selector. He can’t concentrate any more and is dropped from the team and he quits baseball. But it’s also about how the family copes with a tragedy: Ryan, his daughter, Chealsea’s parents and her brother with Asperger's Syndrome.  (Maybe severe autism?) Then it turns into a crime thriller.

On an anniversary of Chelsea’s death and anonymous tipster says that her death was no accident. A follow up tip says “I know who did it.” These tips are consistent with information that the police had held back after the “accident”.Then, as they say, the plot thickens. A politician who can’t remember what happened the night he drove home in a drunken stupor. The owner of the minor league team who is willing to give Ryan another chance, if he can earn a spot on the team. The Irish Mafia, a hit man who got his nickname “The Checker” because he studied the history of Georgia, and a homeless man living in a crypt.