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Bone river

This is the story of a very stoic group of people living in the Washington Territory of the Pacific Northwest during the mid 1800s. Megan Chance spins a tale of mystery and intrigue that grips the reader and will not let go until you have read all 386 pages. Only a person who lives in the Northwest could describe the weather like Megan does. I have not felt this cold and wet reading a book since I read Dan Simmon’s 'The Terror'. Megan’s descriptions of the foul weather actually made the book feel cold in my hands! The constant rain, flooding, and harvesting of the oyster beds accords the proper atmosphere for this arcane novel. Before I tell you about the story, I have to give Megan Chance kudos for the critique in descriptive writing. It’s ironic that this story is set in the 1850s, because that’s the time period for some of the greatest descriptive writers; such as, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickens. I’m not saying this book is a classic, but I think her writing style draws the reader into the story’s time period and location better than most modern authors.:star5:;)
Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O
 
Peter Ackroyd - London: The Biography :star4:

This is not, as I had guessed from the title, a chronologically told history of London but a highly interesting mix of facts and figures, pictures and quotations about various aspects of my favourite city - history, architecture, the arts, language, curiosities, and life itself. A lovely, informative read for London lovers.
 
Dominion by C.J Sansom :star3: A break from Sansom's excellent historical crime series,Dominion is an alternate history novel starting with Winston Churchill not becoming Prime Minister and Britain waving the white flag to Hitler after a brief 39-40 war. Readable as always but I was quite disappointed and felt that Sansom held back far too much. To see how it's done he should read Fatherland by Robert Harris. Hold on,he praised it up in his afterwards. :shifty:
 
Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney
:star4:

Nice story about a troubled young man living in New York and struggling with family loss, sudden divorce, and a quickly disintegrating career. His answer? Cocaine, alcohol, and loose women of course.
McInerney's writing is funny, thought provoking and thoroughly enjoyable to read.
 
House of Leaves

This novel is not a sequel to Walt Whitman’s 'Leaves of Grass' , in fact it’s not like anything I’ve ever read before. Welcome to the world of ergodic literature. This was my first foray into this genre, and I liked it. This genre requires the reader to make a real effort to read and interpret the text. There are different ergodic levels, such as, Charlton Mellick III’s bizarro 'Cuddly Holocaust' , or Ayn Rand’s play 'Night of January 16th' , a murder trial where the jury is picked out of the audience and their verdict will decide the outcome of the play. I’m not sure where Mark Z. Danielewski’s novel fits in the world of ergodicity, but I’ll give the next reader an idea of what’s in store for you: hundreds of footnotes ( some real and most not ), one to four texts on the same page, some pages blank, some with one or two words, some pages upside down, some obliquely angled, and different narrators on the same page. And why is the word ‘house’ always in blue and ‘minotaur’ in red? I have to say that some of the footnotes are pure genius. The reader does eventually understand what’s going on, because the diverse narrators, and variant footnotes are in distinctive fonts! Absolutely brilliant!
:star5::cool:
Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O
 
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow

:star5: :star5:

That's January gone, then. But well spent. Damn, this book eats everything.
 
The Museum Of Dr. Moses - Joyce Carol Oates
:star3: +

Collection of Dark short stories. And I mean dark. Not a glimmer of hope or light, but Oates is a masterful writer. Seems like she could write convincingly about almost anything.
 
There is no otherwise

Not for nothing, this pleasing short story ( 44 pages ) reminded me of Jay and the Americans 1964 song 'Come a Little Bit Closer' . All the elements are there, but still the ending is somewhat different. My question to author Ardin Lalui is why did you stop the story on page 44? I was really getting into the content when it ended. Why? It’s too bad, because the book seemed like it was ready to ignite. If you are not ready to write a full novel, try a 200 pager like Stephen King’s 'The Mist' . Not every author can write a 54 page masterpiece like Washington Irving’s 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' , or the 44 page classic 'Rip Van Winkle' . Your story displays pending talent and I look forward to your first novel. I also found the lack of quotation marks refreshing, while substituting them with dash marks somewhat original.:):star5:
Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O
 
Lionel Shriver - A Perfectly Good Family :star3:

Three siblings who haven't got much in common except for their parents inherit the family home. None of them wants to give up the house, but neither can any of them afford to buy out the others, so they'll need to team up somehow. The book has its strong moments but the characters appeared a little over the top and not entirely believable.

Adam Davies -Goodbye Lemon :star3:

Jack travels back to his childhood home when his father is felled by a severe stroke. The family never got over the loss of Dex, their middle son, who drowned in the lake as a six-year-old. Nobody ever spoke of him again, and Jack, who never wanted to return to his birthplace, begins to unravel his family's murky past. I liked the plot and the musings about how reliable our memories really are, but here, too, I found most of the characters quite overdone.
 
The lightning thief

The following is a guest observation of a Rick Riordan book by my most wonderful nine year old grandson, Kai:
This book is mainly about Zeus’s lightning bolt being stolen. He was sleeping one night when somebody stole his bolt, and Percy Jackson is on a quest to find it. Percy was forbidden to be born because his powers would be too powerful. His father was Poseidon, and he was born with his father’s power.
This is a really, really good book.:lol::star5:
Book Reviews And Comments By Rick O
 
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