Thursday Thirteen #92

My first TT for some weeks, and I'm going back to books again!   Another selection of books that have been sitting unread on my shelves.  My TBR list never gets any shorter.  Have you read any of these?  Any good ones here?  Any stinkers?.

SHADOW OF POWER  by Steve Martini.  This writer has published a number of novels featuring a lawyer called Paul Madriani.  I have only lately discovered them, and I enjoyed the only one I have read so far.  This is the latest in the series.  I expect I shall enjoy this one too.

DEADWOOD  by Pete Dexter.   I don’t know if this 1986 book was the basis for the HBO TV series or not.  It is certainly about the same subject – the lawless town (lawless because it was apparently outside the jurisdiction of any form of civil government) of Deadwood in what is now South Dakota.  The same characters as the TV show are there (Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, Jack McCall – I haven’t looked to see if Al Swearingen is in the book or not) because they were real people who lived in the real Deadwood.  I don’t really like westerns but this isn’t really the same thing.  I suspect that Deadwood is a far more accurate portrayal of the Old West than Bonanza,  Wagon Train and all those other sanitized versions of a lawless history.

MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN  by Jonathan Lethem.  This one looks rather strange!  A boy with Tourette’s  syndrome works for Brooklyn’s chief gangster, who is murdered.  From the description, this is part detective story, part character study.  Intriguing.

FLIM-FLAM!  by James Randi.  Even though he dislikes the term, James Randi has become known as a professional debunker.  He wrote a very interesting book about exposing so-called faith healers as charlatans.  There are several examples of him on YouTube, exposing homeopathy and fortune telling for the drivel they are (in one example, with the assistance of the not-so-well-known-as-now  Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), and he claims too to have exposed the so-called spoon bending psychic Uri Geller as a fraud.  According to the table of contents, this book deals with psychics, medical frauds, photographs of ghosts and fairies and several other delusions.  Should be fun!

THE BURGLAR WHO STUDIED SPINOZA  by Lawrence Block.  I’ve read one of Block’s other novels about this character, an antique book dealer who also is a very successful burglar, and I enjoyed it a lot.  This one is about a rare coin, a murdered coin-collector and all sorts of good stuff, it seems.  I don’t know where Spinoza comes in, though.













THE BOOK THIEF  by Markus Zusak.  This looks like pretty heavy stuff.  Not for reading by the pool.  It’s apparently about a nine-year old girl living with a foster family  in Germany in 1939, after he parents have been taken away to a concentration camp.  She steals books.  The story is about her and the people who live near her as the war progresses.  The story is told in the first person, not by her but by Death.  Death  as a narrator is such a strange concept.  I  expect that this is one of those books that requires a lot of concentration.











THE SACRED BONES  by Michael Byrnes.  Another of those thrillers that brings religion into it. Lots of them around since The Da Vinci Code.  This time, a crucified skeleton is discovered in a secret underground vault in Jerusalem, and the examination of the skeleton by forensic scientists could have implications that would shake Christianity, Islam and Judaism to their roots.  Whose skeleton is it?  Wow, you don’t think it could be You-Know-Who  do you?











THE DUMBEST GENERATION  by Mark Bauerlein.  This is all very alarming, I must say!  The main thrust of this book, it seems, is that the enormous advances in technology over the last few decades have not opened up a new word of learning and engendered a spirit of enquiry in the young.  Quite the opposite; they have helped to usher in a period in which education has been dumbed down to catastrophic levels.  We’ve all heard horror stories, I suspect, of children who think that it is acceptable to use text message codes in school essays and exams.  This book clams to show us how badly the rot has set in.










BANJO  by Claude McKay.  This was written in 1929.  Its about a group of drifters, all of them black and all of them far from their various homes, who live hand to mouth on the waterfront in Marseilles, France.   One of them is nicknamed Banjo and he seems to be the main character.  This is subtitled “A story without a plot” but I don’t know how true that is.  The dialogue seems to have been written in dialect, which is something no writer would countenance these days.











MAN AND BOY  by Tony Parsons.  One of my favourite blog chums recommended this book to me.  It’s about a divorced man who finds himself with custody of his young son – a situation in which the author found himself, so we can assume that a lot of this is drawn from his experience.  This novel was very successful when it was published in 1999  and I’m not sure why I haven’t read it already.











THE SPELLMAN FILES  by Lisa Lutz.  An impulse buy from the supermarket book rack.  It’s about a 28-year-old female private detective who is “part Columbo, part Bridget Jones” Could be good, could be crap. Can anyone advise?














MOB COPS  by Greg B. Smith.  This is an appalling, and apparently true, story of two long serving and highly decorated detectives in the NYPD, who also worked throughout their careers for the mafia, acting as informants, drug dealers, money launderers and, worst of all, hit-men.  They retired, wealthy and comfortable, but the truth eventually caught up with tem.  This wasn’t all that long ago.  I thought things had changed since the days of Serpico, but maybe they haven’t.











SIX SECONDS  by Rick Mofina.  I don’t know much about this and the cover blurb isn’t all that specific, other than to list three events which are somehow linked and, it seems, all part of a plot to change the world in only six seconds.  “A big, solid international thriller that grabs your gut—and your heart” it says.  Gosh!

Comments

[Gattina]

Sorry, I don't know any of these books. English books are hard to get here in Belgium.

[Anthony North]

Ah, James Randi. As a writer and researcher on the paranormal for the past quarter century, I just love an open mind :-)

[Hazel]

If it's You Know Who's skeleton it will be quite an interesting angle. I'd like to get my hands on Flim Flam.

[Hootin' Anni]

No, I haven't read any of these, but the Book Thief sounds absolutely a must read if you ask me!! I too have a ton of books on my TBR list. Believe it or not, I'm reading two at a time right now.

My 13 is posted, I do hope you can stop by sometime if you have time today. It's 13 catch phrases I really like. Have a glorious Thursday!!

[CountryDew]

I'm not familiar with any of these books but I think I might like to read a few of them. Thanks for sharing. I love book TTs!

[Janet]

I haven't heard or read any of them, but MAN AND BOY sounds good!

[samulli]

I have read The Book Thief, which was fantastic, and Man and Boy, which was quite sweet, but not too memorable for me. Motherless Brooklyn is still on my "get someday" list. The Dumbest Generation sounds like fun.

[Harriet]

I'm embarrassed at how behind I am on my reading. I did enjoy your cartoon below.

Have a great Thursday!
http://harrietandfriends.com/2010/04/47-percent-americans-pay-federal-income-tax/

[Kristen]

I recently read The Book Thief. It was quite good; a bit of a tear-jerker at times. Told from the point of view of "death," it was a fresh perspective on a heavy subject.

[colleen]

I thought that said Steve Martin but knew it didn't look like a book he would write. I pefer non-fiction at the moment.

[Mary Quast]

I haven't read any but recognize a few. I've heard Tony Parson's book was good. Maybe I'll add that to my TBR list.

[Maria]

I also haven't read any of these, but Mob Cops looks like something I would enjoy.

[Rasmenia]

I must be backwards - I've been to Deadwood, SD several times & have read quite a bit of history on the place. I'm a bit of an Old West geek - maybe a side effect of growing up in the West - but after watching only 1 episode of "Deadwood", I stopped. My husband is still lobbying for me to give it another chance.

"The Book Thief" sounds excellent. I think I'm going to have to add that one to my ever-expanding list on Amazon UK - so far, that's the best resource I've found for getting English books in France (that I actually WANT to read).

[Celticlibrarian]

Sorry, haven't read any of these, but The Spellman Files looks interesting.

[Paige Tyler]

I've never heard of any of those, but some of them look interesting!

Paige

My TT is at http://paigetylertheauthor.blogspot.com

[Wylie]

I haven't read any of these but do give the Rick Mofina a try. I know his agent and she has excellent taste in books so I'm betting it's worth your time.

[Moondancer Drake]

I was struggling for a TT topic and I think soon I'm going to borrow your idea and do books. It's always fun to read about book I may or may not have read yet.

http://moondancerdrake.livejournal.com/147443.html