Month: November 2009

5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, D, Nonfiction, P, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009

REVIEW: The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson and Martin Dugard

Tara

The Murder of King Tut
by James Patterson & Martin Dugard

Copyright: 2009
Pages: 332
Rating: 5/5
Read: Nov. 13-15, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; 2010 Countdown Challenge
Yearly Count: 60

First Line: It was New Year’s Eve as a somber, good-looking explorer named Howard Carter, speaking fluent Arabic, gave the order to begin digging.

King Tut, the Boy King. Less than a decade after becoming Pharaoh of Egypt, the boy dies mysteriously. In the years following his demise, his name is essentially wiped from the history books. Even today, the death of King Tut remains somewhat of a mystery. Howard Carter’s life mission was to uncover a virgin tomb; he wanted King Tut’s tomb the most. He began his search in 1907. It would take many, many years before he finally found Tut and the world would finally begin to understand the Boy King. In this book, James Patterson teams up with Martin Dugard to really look through all the evidence and put Tut’s life and death in a spotlight like never before – true crime and history collides in this book as Patterson unravels the mystery surrounding the Boy King.

Being a history major, I love anything history pretty much. But here recently my husband, mom, and dad, all went up to Indianapolis to see the King Tut exhibit. It really reignited my interest in Egyptian history. I was unfortunately never able to take a course in college on Egypt, but I knew some things from different museum trips and whatnot. But this book was really interesting to me. It read like a novel, which will make history interesting to a lot more people. (It also has the name James Patterson on it – which I have come to the conclusion sells a book like nothing else.) It’s really an easy read. And yet it’s historical. A lot of people don’t read historical books because they might feel bogged down or whatever the reason – however, if you are one of those people, please pick up this book!! You will not be bogged down at all. It reads like all of Patterson’s other works – like a novel. If you have any interest whatsoever in Egypt, this is an interesting book. However, I do want to add, that I’m not completely sold on Patterson’s conclusion – that it was a conspiracy of the three people closest to him. I’m not saying that it isn’t true, it very well may be, but without knowing more information regarding the mystery surrounding Tut’s death I’m not sure if this is right. Who knows if Tut was even really murdered?! However, if he was, there was almost certainly some sort of conspiracy, and it definitely revolved around the desire to have the power that Tut had as Pharaoh. But one of the three people that Patterson names, I’m not completely sold on being a part of the conspiracy. I think that there could possibly be other explanations for that person’s actions. But that’s just my opinion … I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good murder mystery, because that’s what this book is all about!

4/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, G, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009

REVIEW: The Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace

Tara

The Eleventh Victim
by Nancy Grace

Copyright: 2009
Pages: 353
Rating: 4/5
Read: Nov. 6 – 13, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; 2009 Celebrate the Author Challenge; 2010 Countdown Challenge
Yearly Count: 59

First Line: A little something. What was it? Something … Some detail was wrong.

Young Hailey Dean’s life is turned upside down when her fiance Will, is murdered weeks before their wedding. She deals with it the only way she can think of: she becomes an attorney. And a darned good attorney at that. Working as a prosecutor in Atlanta, Hailey racks up a 100% win rate in court. She is unstoppable. Until she meets Clint Cruise. She manages to get the jury to convict the serial murderer, but it will be her last case. She has finally reached her limit. She leaves Atlanta and the court system behind. She finds herself in New York City working as a psychiatrist. She thinks everything is going great for her – until not one, but two of her patients turn up murdered. And who is the police’s prime suspect? Hailey herself. She manages to get herself out of jail, but she knows that the police are watching her every move. But when she finds out that Cruise has been released from prison on a technicality – her whole world is going to be chaotic because she knows he is the one who is framing her for the murder of her patients.

I enjoyed this book. It was slightly formulaic and predictable. However, I thought that overall the storyline was pretty good. Knowing Nancy Grace from watching her show over the years, I’m sure she has lots of great ideas for fiction books based on all of her experience. I know she put some of herself into Hailey Dean, which made Hailey’s character that much more likable. I thought that for Grace’s first stab at fiction, she did really good. She had some well developed characters and I love how she had kind of two, almost three, storylines going on at the same time and yet they weren’t confusing to me the reader as to what was going on. I enjoyed this book and hope that I see more of Nancy Grace’s fiction books in the future.

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, Nov. 8, 2009

Tara

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Mondays

Monday, Nov. 2
The President's Assassin by Brian Haig The President’s Assassin by Brian Haig

It’s a mass execution: six people shot and killed in a Virginia mansion, one of them the White House Chief of Staff. But that isn’t the reason Sean Drummond is called in. Newly enlisted in a CIA cell called the Office of Special Projects, the Army lawyer knows the bodies are just a warning. Because the killer left a note. Now the hunt begins for the ultimate hitman: brilliant, coldhearted, with an insider’s knowledge of D.C. If Drummond fails, the world will never be the same – and someone will collect the $100 million bounty on the President’s head.

I received this one as one of a three-book box swap on PBS. I thought this one looked really interesting!

Exposed by Alex Kava Exposed by Alex Kava

Veteran FBI profiler Maggie O’Dell and Assistant Director Cunningham believed the threat targeted Quantico. It targeted them. A deadly virus – virtually undetectable until it causes death from a million internal cuts. The victims appear random, but Maggie wonders if vengeance isn’t the guiding hand. An aficianado of contemprory killers, using bits and pieces from their crimes – the Beltway Sniper’s phrases, the Unabomber’s clues, the Antrhax Killer’s delivery. Maggie knows dangerous minds, but she must tackle this new opponent from within a biosafety isolation ward – while waiting to see if death is already multiplying inside her body. She just fears her last case might end with the most intelligent killer she’se ver faced escalating from murder … to epidemic.

I love the Maggie O’Dell books!! This is the second book in the PBS swap (and the one I really wanted). I hope that this book is as good as the last one I read in the series.

Haven by John R. Maxim Haven by John R. Maxim

Elizabeth Stride has come to Hilton Head Island to escape her past as “the Black Angel” – a ruthless assassin – and to escape Martin Kessler, a fellow operative who owned a piece of her soul. But just as she’s begun to rebuild her shattered life, Kessler reappears, toppling Elizabeth’s protective wall of anonymity. A teenage girl is about to be abducted from an exclusive nearby tennis club – a girl who uniwttingly holds the key to a horrific planned act of terrorism. By joining forces in a daring rescue of the girl, Elizabeth and Martin will be forced to put their fates in each other’s hands one more time – and decide once and for all if they are to live together or apart. In doing so, they will be drawn into a secret war of fanaticism, gree, and doomsday technology. And there will be no haven.

This was the third of the three book swap from PBS. It sounds interesting, new author for me. So we’ll see how it is 🙂

Wednesday, Nov. 4
A Simple Act of Murder by Mark Fuhrman A Simple Act of Murder: November 22, 1963 by Mark Fuhrman

A Simple Act of Murder is the investigation that this case should have had from the beginning. America’s most famous detective, Mark Fuhrman – who has cracked some of the best-known and must puzzling crimes in American history – cuts through the myths and misfortunes to focus on the hard evidence. He examines the ballistics and medical records, scrutinizes photographs from the crime scene and the famous Zapruder film, and weighs the testimony of hundreds of witnesses. Filled with vivid photos, informative diagrams, and original drawings by Fuhrman himself that show the evidence in a new light and make complex forensic evidence clear and easily understood, this book is the visual record of the JFK assassination. In this gripping and highly personal account, Fuhrman unveils a major clue that had been ignored for forty years – a breakthrough that will change the debate over the assassination. Overturning accepted notios about the way the murder occurred, A Simple Act of Murder answers many questions that have plagued the American people ever since that fateful day in Dallas.

Saturday, Nov. 7
Patriot Games by Tom Clancy Patriot Games by Tom Clancy

From England to Ireland to America, an explosive wave of violence sweeps a CIA analyst and his family into the deadliest game of our time: international terrorism. An ultra-left-wing faction of the IRA has targeted the CIA man for his act of salvation in an assassination attempt. And now he must pay … with his life.

Got this one from PBS. I’ve never read a Tom Clancy book (but I enjoyed the movies based on his books, lol), but have a few others of his on my shelves.

Announcements, Life

2010 Reading Challenges – Already?!

Tara

Seriously, where has this year gone?! It’s like I woke up and it’s November already. I’ve been watching new challenge information come through on my Google Reader as well as through the ANovelChallenge Yahoo group. I can’t believe that its here already. 2008 was my first year doing challenges, and I went a little crazy with them. It got to the point where I was having to choose my books in order to fit certain requirements just to finish challenges. In 2009 I backed off somewhat and managed to sign up only for the challenges that I knew I would have no problem fulfilling (although I’m not going to make 100 books read for the 100+ Reading Challenge that J. Kaye hosts).

So I’ve been thinking about how I want to address 2010. I know that a lot of different bloggers out there have been posting about needing to make some changes in regards to challenges and their reading. I have been considering this a lot lately as well and feel that I need to do some things differently too. I have been receiving some emails about getting more books to review. I have been very selective from the beginning as to what books to even accept for review. So luckily, I only have a backlog of three right now. (And two of them I have had forever and they need to get read, now!) So I don’t feel as if I need to change anything in regards to review books, but it’s really the challenges that are going to need to change. A few months back I kind of “gave up” on my challenges. Not necessarily gave up, but just kind of let myself relax in regards to them so that I could read what I wanted to! Now there’s a shocker in the book blogosphere! So when I begin to think about the 2010 reading challenges that are starting to pop up everywhere, I realize that I’m probably only going to be interested in a select few.

I don’t think that you will see me signing up for a lot of challenges in 2010. And what you do see me sign up for, I think, will be pretty open challenges. By this I mean that I’m not going to be signing up for challenges like the “What’s in a Name” challenge where you have to choose books based on certain criteria (I’m STILL having trouble coming up with a book whose title has a building in it!). You will probably see me gravitating a little more towards challenges that are rather open ended and are more geared towards getting these books off of my shelves. I have an amazing amount of books that I have on my TBR MOUNTAIN! Here in the last few weeks I have been going through my books and really weeding them out. I posted probably 25 books on PBS and Frugal Reader that were from my TBR pile but that just weren’t that interesting to me. And trust me: Life is too short to read bad books! So I will probably want to sign up for challenges more like the 100+ Reading Challenge as well as ones like the Random Reading Challenge and the Read Your Own Books Challenge. Now, the question becomes, will these challenges be hosted again? I really don’t know yet, I haven’t done enough research. I’m pretty sure J. Kaye is hosting 100+ again. And the Random challenge runs into 2010. The RYOB challenge, I could do that one on my own (although it’s not as easy to do I find, lol).

But there are also other things that I am wanting to do with my reading. First of all, I was a history major in college. And I have noticed that since I graduated college in 2007, I really haven’t done much reading in terms of historical books. At first I was simply burned out on history, but now I want to get into history a little bit more. I would like to start reading about the Presidents for one. I have seen perpetual challenges out there where you read a book on every President. That’s something I would like to get into. I also enjoy true crime, I’ve let that fall by the wayside as well. There are just numerous directions that I can go in terms of my reading. But I think that the main thing that I want to get back into (and this is a theme that I have seen on a lot of other blogs as well) the actual spontaneity of reading! I want to just be able to go upstairs and choose a book and not have to worry if it’s going to fulfill a challenge requirement because I need to finish such-and-such challenge before such-and-such date. I want to get back into reading for fun. I have noticed myself slumping something awful this year. Maybe it was because 2008 was such a prolific year for me, maybe it was because of the challenges and their requirements, maybe it was because we bought a house and got a dog. I really don’t know. I probably will never know. But the fact of the matter is that I need to get back into enjoying reading and enjoying what I’m reading.

Another thing that I have been incredibly guilty of this year is suffering through books that I simply hate. Just yesterday I put down a book that I was 43 pages into because I hadn’t paid a bit of attention to it because I simply did not like where it was going. I didn’t want to take half of the month of November to get through that book, which is exactly what I would have done. So I did what I always said I would not do: I put it down. I gave up. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. If a book doesn’t grab me in at least the first 20 chapters, it probably won’t ever grab me. Why waste my time reading it? Why have to write a mediocre review at best? Why have to suffer through it when I have what seems like a gazillion other books up on my shelves?

2010, for me, is really going to be a year that I get back into reading. I’m going to read what I want, when I want to. I’m going to read what interests me. I’m going to read what entertains me. I’m going to read what spooks me out a little bit. And I’m going to enjoy every bit of it. Will I miss the structure of book challenges? Probably. Will it kill me? Not really; they’ll still be around in 2011 (I hope!). This is just something that I need to do for myself because I really want to get back into the spontaneity and enjoyment of reading.

4.5/5, AUTHOR, Book Review, Fiction, P, RATING, Read in 2009, READING CHALLENGES 2009

REVIEW: Silent Witness by Richard North Patterson

Tara

Silent Witness
by Richard North Patterson

Copyright: 1996
Pages: 500
Rating: 4.5/5
Read: Oct. 29 – Nov. 6, 2009
Challenge:  2009 100+ Reading Challenge; RYOB 2009
Yearly Count: 58

First Line: Gina Belfante murdered her husband at one-fifteen on a Tuesday morning.

Attorney Tony Lord left his hometown shortly after graduating from high school and never looked back. He left the memory of his murdered girlfriend behind. But when he returns, nearly thirty years later, it’s to defend his high school best friend of the charge of murder. Sam Robb, married father of two, was the last person to see sixteen-year-old Marcie Calder alive. And when forensic evidence reveals that she was carrying his child, he quickly goes from witness to suspect. Tony returns back to town to help his former best friend. But he has no idea what he is getting into and what the consequences of defending his friend of Marcie’s murder could be in the end.

This one was a good read in my opinion. It took me a little longer to read than it should have because I’ve been really busy lately. But overall it’s a really good read. There are some sluggish parts, and the way that Patterson utilizes the flashback style of writing could be a little confusing in parts. However, I found that the ending to be very good. Patterson really brought things back together full circle and had his characters have to face some really tough issues. I really recommend this book.