2018 Creativity Reading Challenge

This challenge was cancelled in 2017 but a new person is taking over the challenge next year.  I am going to sign up again.  You can read books on creativity, art, crafts, writing, film making, photography, DIY, cooking, music and any other topic that helps you live a more creative life.  The challenge runs the 2018 calendar year and there are no requirements concerning the number of books that you need to read.  You can include traditional books, ebooks or audiobooks.  I think that I might be looking to buy a few new cookbooks next year so that may be where I will concentrate my creativity.  While I do several types of arts and crafts, I tend to buy DVDs instead of books these days on those types of things.  

11th Annual Manga/Graphic Novel Reading Challenge

This reading challenge was my favorite for 2017 so I am rejoining next year.  However, since I read many more graphic novels than required this year, I am going to sign up at the Bronze Age level.  The Bronze Age requires that I read at least 24 books.  In 2018 the link-ups to reviews will be in a Facebook closed group so if you are interested in this challenge you must join the Facebook group and post a link at least once a month in order to remain active.  

2018 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

I am going to join this challenge again next year.  It runs from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018.  Since I read much more historical fiction this year than expected I am going to go out on a limb and sign up for the Ancient History category.  Ancient History requires that 25 books be read.  Let's see if I can make it.

Wrap-Up of the 10th Annual Manga/Graphic Novel Reading Challenge

I signed up for this challenge at the Modern Age level agreeing to read 12 books for the challenge.  By the end of the year I ended up reading 31 books for the challenge!  My reviews are shown below:

Beardo:  The Art Degree Guarantee
Exit Wounds
The Undertaking of Lily Chen
Rolling Blackouts:  Dispatches From Turkey, Syria and Iraq
The Arab of the Future
Hostage
Insomnia Cafe

Wizzywig
2 Sisters
The Big Kahn
California Dreaming:  Cass Elliott Before the Mamas and the Papas
The Best We Could Do
Patience
Sam Zabel and the Big Pen
Soldier's Heart
A Game for Swallows
How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less
Weapons of Mass Diplomacy
The Arab of the Future 2
I Remember Beirut
Dare to Disappoint:  Growing up in Turkey
The Customer is Always Wrong
Lennon: The New York Years
Soviet Daughter
Threads From the Refugee Crisis
Killing and Dying
Safe Area Gorazde
Nanjing:  The Burning City
Red Rosa
The Attack
Girl in Dior

My favorite book:  Rolling Blackouts:  Dispatches From Turkey, Syria and Iraq.  I loved this new book from Sarah Glidden and her new graphic novel sub-genre, reportage comics.  I also need to give a shout-out to Zeina Abirached for her I Remember Beirut and A Game for Swallows.  Both of these books affected me deeply and I probably remember them the most along with Rolling Blackouts.  Dan Dougherty's Beardo series is one of my favorites too. 

My least favorite book:  Nanjing:  The Burning City.  There was no story written in the book and it was hard to follow the drawings.  

Wrap-Up of My Kind of Mystery 2017 Reading Challenge

I read 18 books for this challenge which had no required number of books for participants to read. I think that not having a reading goal was freeing for me and resulted in me reading more mysteries than if I was actively searching for mysteries.  The links to the reviews of the books that I read are below:

The Champagne Conspiracy
Coffin Road
The Seventh Plague
The Killing Ship
A Change of Heart
The Black Widow
The Lost Order
Runaway
The Obsidian Chamber
The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
Mercy
The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown
The Prisoner
Use of Force
By Any Means

My favorite book:  Coffin Road.  You can't beat a Peter May mystery.

My least favorite book:  The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown.  Boring!

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2017 Wrap-Up

I signed up for this challenge at the Renaissance Reader level wherein I agreed to read 10 books.  However, I actually read 19 books for the challenge!  Links to the reviews are as follows:

The Deadliest Sin
The Shogun's Daughter
Jade Dragon Mountain
The Tapestry
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
Midnight in St. Petersburg
The Scribe of Siena
The Tea Planter's Wife
The River of Kings
Valley of the Kings
The Butcher Bird
Plague Land
Pachinko
The Last Jew
The Vatican Princess
Dragon Springs Road
The Confessions of a Young Nero
The Empress of Bright Moon
The Moon in the Palace

My favorite book:  The Scribe of Siena.  This was a hard choice because I loved many of the books in this challenge.  However, this book was not only my favorite book of the challenge but my favorite book of the year.

My least favorite book:  The Valley of Kings.

2017 Reading Statistics

For most of my life I was an avid reader and for 8 years I wrote a blog called The Mystery Bookshelf on Blogger.  I know that during my blogging years I was reading between 120-130 books per year. For some reason, I just stopped reading for 4 years.  I do not know why.  I just got started reading again in 2017 and have read 81 books this year.  I am surprised that I read this many books.  In the beginning of the year I expected that I might be able to read 30-40 books if I tried hard.  I really did not know what to expect because I cannot figure out why I stopped reading.

However, I am still going to sign up for a few reading challenges next year.  I am going to skip the Craving the Cozies Reading Challenge as well as the What's in a Name Reading Challenge.  The Creativity Reading Challenge was cancelled soon after I joined earlier this year so that challenge is off also.  I am not sure about rejoining the New Author Reading Challenge.  I have found that as I search for books for other challenges I am finding new authors so there is no point in making a special effort for that challenge.  

On to 2018!

Craving the Cozies 2017 Reading Challenge Wrap Up

I signed up for this challenge at the Peckish level which required me to read 10 books.  Sadly, I only read 5 cozies.  I think that while I used to love this mystery sub-genre, it is not as interesting to me as it once was.  I still have favorite authors that I will always read such as Cleo Coyle, Laura Childs, Julie Hyzy, and Susan Wittig Albert.  However, I think that I will include these books in a mystery book reading challenge in the future since a cozy is technically a mystery.  Below are the links to the books that I read for this challenge:

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown
The Last Chance Olive Ranch
Pekoe Most Poison
The Champagne Conspiracy
Dead Cold Brew

My Favorite Book: Dead Cold Brew!  Cleo Coyle just knows how to write a great mystery.

My Least Favorite Book:  The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown.  I just could not follow the plot and was bored to tears.

New Author Reading Challenge 2017 Wrap Up

I read 31 books from 28 new authors in 2017!  This is a great record.  The challenge did not have any required number of books to read which probably made me pull more books from my library shelf than if I was actively searching for new authors.  A subliminal message here!  Note that I did not include authors who wrote graphic novels in this category but if I had then I would have read 53 new authors this year.

The new authors that I read this year include  the following:

Suzanne Johnson:  The Photographer's Wife
Alex Berenson:  The Prisoner
Vaseem Kham:  The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown
Vanora Bennett:  Midnight in St. Petersburg
Melodie Winawer:  The Scribe of Sienna
Dinah Jeffries:  The Tea Planter's Wife
Taylor Brown:  The River of Kings
Terence Coffey:  Valley of the Kings
Tahmima Anam:  The Bones of Grace
Yoojin Grace Wuerta:  Everything Belongs to Us
S. D. Sykes:  Plague Land; The Butcher Bird
Min Jin Lee:  Pachinko; Free Food For Millionaires
Dominic Smith:  The Last Painting of Sara de Los
Shilpi Somaya Gowda:  The Golden Son
Alex Dolan:  The Empress of Tempera
Jung Yun:  Shelter
Jess Lourey:  Salem's Cipher
Sonali Dev:  A Change of Heart
Simon Beaufort:  The Killing Ship
Janie Chang:  Dragon Springs Road
Margaret George:  The Confessions of a Young Nero
Donna Bijan:  The Last Days of Cafe Leila
Weina Dai Randel:  The Empress of Bright Moon; The Moon in the Palace
Nancy Bilyeau:  The Tapestry
Elsa Hart:  Jade Dragon Mountain
Wanda Brunstetter:  The Hawaiian Quilt
Laura Joh Rowland:  The Shogun's Daughter
Minal Khan:  Silk Tether
Karen Bartlett:  The Health of Nations
Shobhan Bantwel:  The Forbidden Daughter

My Favorite New Author:  Melodie Winawer.  I have to pick her because of all of the books that I read in 2017 The Scribe of Sienna is the one book that sticks out in my head as the best book that I read.  I read this book in July and with my middle age memory being what it is, The Scribe of Sienna has to be one fantastic book for me to remember it as I do.  There were 2 other authors whose books stood out in my mind also.  Min Jin Lee who wrote Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires and Jung Yun who wrote Shelter.  Each of these 4 books I remember the most from 2017.

My Least Favorite New Author:  Taylor Brown.  He wrote The River of Kings which I just could not get into.

Girl in Dior

Girl in Dior is the story of the rise of the fashion label Christian Dior. Intermingled into the story is that of a fictional budding journalist Clara Nohant who becomes one of Dior's models and after marrying into British royalty, a customer.

The book is supposed to be a biography of Christian Dior.  While his life is covered, the addition of a fictional character, Clara, mars the story and I do not know why the author chose to add her to the story. Clara was not necessary to write a great graphic biography.

The illustrations are exquisite.  I would love to see some of them framed on my walls. The question for many will be whether the price of the book is worth the illustrations given a botched storyline.  For me, the answer is yes.  It was the beauty of the dresses illustrated that made me buy this book.

It's hard to figure out how to rate this book.  I think anyone interested in fashion will like it because of the illustrations as well as the history of the House of Dior.  I just wish fiction wasn't added to this biography.

By Any Means

I have read all of the books in this Ash Rashid detective series and loved them all.  By Any Means was published in 2014 so I am a little behind in my reading.

In this installment of the series Ash is no longer working as a detective for the Indianapolis Police Department but has been reassigned to the community relations department. He primarily gives speeches to schools. However, on his way home from work one day he finds a car accident.  Since no other officers are available, Ash is told to stay at the scene until an officer can arrive. Ash is unable to not investigate so he begins asking questions to those who were in the area when the accident happened. He determined that these responses do not add up and begins to investigate what he feels is a homicide.

As usual, author Chris Culver outdoes himself with his writing.  It is fast paced with plenty of twists and turns and there is a cliffhanger ending. I also love that his protagonist is an American Muslim, albeit not much of a practitioner of his faith.  Ash is an alcoholic. This is a welcome addition to American fiction and normalizes the viewpoint of Muslims in our society.

A great read!

The Attack

When I bought this graphic novel I presumed it was about a terrorist attack in the Middle East, which it is.  However, the plot was much different than I expected.

Amin Jaafari is an Arab and a naturalized Israeli citizen living in Tel Aviv.  He is also a surgeon and lives a life of luxury compared to that of his fellow Arabs. When his wife Sihem is identified as a suicide bomber who killed 19 people in a restaurant, Amin has to comes to grips with how she decieved him. He had no idea that she had terrorist leanings. Amin then travels to Palestinian areas in order to discover how his secular wife became radicalized.

I loved this book. The author does not take a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, unusual in a book taking place in the Middle East. He shows both sides along with the stress and grief that they both share in this conflict. 

Red Rosa

Kate Evans' Red Rosa is a graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg.  I was not familiar with Luxemburg before reading this biography but I found that she was a woman ahead of her time.  Rosa was a passionate socialist who did alot of writing and speaking to educate and inspire many people to her cause. She was the only woman of her era, the early 1900s, to have this power.

She was born and raised in Poland but also lived in Germany promoting her beliefs. She was tough enough to question the beliefs and actions of both Marx and Lenin. She also did not care for society's role for women and chose not to marry, prefer to have lovers instead. She was truly a woman in control of her life and I admire that.

As a feminist myself, I was surprised that I had not heard of Rosa Luxemburg before seeing this book.  She was certainly a female powerhouse of the twentieth century and belongs in studies on women's history.  Unfortunately, none of the courses I took in college mentioned her.

Ladies, this is a must read!

Nanjing: The Burning City

I was disappointed in Ethan Young's Nanjing. It is a wartime narrative of the fall of China's former capital city Nanjing to the Japanese in 1937. The book showcases 2 Chinese soldiers who were caught in the city after it was captured by the Japanese.

I did not learn much about the WWII fight commonly known as the Rape of Nanjing. Perhaps I am used to this type of story being told as a reportage comic which has tons of detail via the dialogue.  There is little dialogue in Nanjing and the artwork consists of black and white drawings in comic strips.

Unfortunately, I can only give this graphic novel 1 out of 5 stars. It just didn't teach me anything about this episode in history.

Safe Area Gorazde

Safe Area Gorazde is the story of the town of Gorazde in eastern Bosnia during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s.  It is told from the point of view of the reportage cartoonist Joe Sacco who was a U.N. journalist who traveled there 4 times during the war.  The U. N. had designated Gorazde as a safe area during the war but it was anything but safe. The community had been majority Muslim before the war began but most of them were slaughtered by the Serbs throughout the war.

The story is heavy on the fighting with interludes on silly teenage girls and parties with local residents. Much of the information on Gorazde comes from the author's guide Edin, a grad student.  Also, refugees arriving in Gorazde tell about the atrocities they saw in their hometowns, including mass executions, that they were forced to flee from. There is also information on Yugoslavia from the end of WWII to the beginning of the Bosnian War. After WWII the different ethnicities lived together peacefully under the authoritarian leadership of Tito. After Tito's death, Slobodan Milosevic took power and began inciting ethnic hatred.

While I had read much about this war while it was ongoing, I learned alot about it from the first person accounts that the author provided in the book.

The book offers a good history of this war. History lovers will want to check this one out.

Killing and Dying

This was not my favorite graphic novel. It is a compilation of 6 separate comics.  While they were amusing, I prefer to have one story told in a "novel."

The comics included "Hortisculpture," "Amber Sweet," "Go Owls," "Translated From the Japanese," "Killing and Dying," and "Intruders."  My favorites were "Hortisculpture" which is about a new art form that combines sculpture and gardening, "Amber Sweet" which is about mistaken identity and "Killing and Dying" which is about parenthood.

The style of the artwork is minimalist drawings done in comic panels. Most are black and white but every few pages there is color.

I hate to give an author a poor rating on a book when I am predisposed to not liking it in the first place.  I won't do that.  If you are the type of graphic novel reader who likes seeing a series of different comics in one book, you will enjoy this one. 

Threads From the Refugee Crisis

OMG!  I learned so much from this graphic novel on life in a refugee camp in Calais.  The book is about the author's volunteer work at the "Calais Jungle" refugee camp in Calais, France which was dismantled last year. She uses full color graphics and changing font styles to tell her story.

 

In Threads you will meet some refugees, see their living conditions, and hear their stories. 

This is a heavyweight book and it took me some time to get through it. I was shocked at how the camp looked and was run.  I was also shocked by how much the involvement of the local police had a negative effect on the refugees. It seems that while some of the refugees had established a sense of humanity in their living conditions, the police destroyed homes and disrupted that sense of normalcy. The author told a story about a pregnant refugee with 5 year old twins who was beat up by the police for no reason and lost her kids. Having the graphics drawn showed me much more than I have ever learned from a traditional news report. As the inside cover blurb states it is filled with "poignant images-by turns shocking, infuriating, wry and heartbreaking." This is an accurate decription. The images are drawn in a childish style that contrasts with the seriousness of the subject matter.

When I finished reading Threads I felt emotionally upset. The author did a great job at showing the horrors of being a refugee. However, her approach to the political issue of immigration, at the conclusion of the book, will probably only appeal to those who already agree with her viewpoints. I think she could have changed some people's minds about immigration if she had used a different type of appeal. 

Threads is one if the best graphic novels that I have ever read and everyone should read it.

Soviet Daughter

Soviet Daughter is a family saga about the Ignatovka family from Kiev. The graphic novel covers the family during the 20th century and into the 21st century from the author's great-great-great-grandmother to the author herself in the present time in America.

Julia Alekseyeva's great-grandmother Lola was born in 1910 to an impoverished Jewish family. Lola only attended school through the 4th grade due to her responsibilities to her family. She connected with only one person in the family, her own grandmother. However, she always had good jobs with the Bolsheviks, Stalinists, Red Army and the KGB. Her family was able to escape the pogroms and while they had little to eat they were better off than others. After the Chernobyl accident most of the family emigrated to the U. S., including the author who was 4 years old at the time.

This book gives a fascinating insight into life in Russia and the Ukraine during the 20th century. As such, it is an important history book for the younger generation to learn about the travails of this era. 

Lennon: The New York Years

Lennon: The New York Years is not really about John Lennon's life living in New York City but rather his life from birth until death.  The storyline of this graphic novel follows several sessions that Lennon had with a psychiatrist while he was living in New York during which he discusses his entire life.

I was quite surprised to read that both of John Lennon's parents abandoned him as a child and that he was raised by an aunt and uncle. With his mother coming in and out of his life as a youth he had serious mental issues. When he began to learn music Lennon started to come out of his shell, using music as therapy.

The book covers the forming of the Beatles, their rise to fame, the crazy years touring and recording albums and their breakup.  I thought it was interesting that when Lennon met Yoko Ono she was able to erase all of the pain he had lived with from his childhood.  I did not know that before. His murder by John Chapman is also covered.

I had read some negative reviews of the book before reading it.  I totally disagree with those reviewers.  This is a fabulous biography of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century and I learned alot about him.  This is a must read.

The Customer is Always Wrong

"The Customer is Always Wrong" is a continuation of Mimi Pond's 2014 "Over Easy." It is the story of her life as a waitress in the 1970s. However, she does not use her real name. Her alter ego is Madge and she showcases the sleazy people that she works with as well as the customers.

Madge is a fledgling cartoonist who works at the Imperial Cafe in Oakland, CA which is managed by the goofy Laszlo.  Most of her co-workers are drug addicts who may or may not be able to work on a given day.  Instead of the story focusing on Madge, Laszlo's family life is prominent.  This does not mean that it isn't exciting.  The book was engrossing and I read all of its 450+ pages in one sitting.

What is special about this book is the author's ability to create a plot with many twists and turns. I do not usually see a graphic novel that is so heavily plotted. This is a must read for graphic novel fans.  It's a 5 out of 5 stars.

Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey

Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey is a graphic memoir of the author's life as a student in post-coup Turkey where she grew up. This coming of age story takes place in the 1980s and early 1990s covering the author beginning primary school in Izmer and attending college in Istanbul. The artwork includes both doodling and collage work.

Ozge Samanci's parents were both teachers.  Her mother taught sewing at a vocational women's high school and her father taught technical drawing at a vocational men's high school. Her father wanted both Ozge and her older sister Pelin to become engineers so that they could get good jobs and have a better life. Pelin wanted this career but Ozge had other ideas like being an actress, an oceanographer, or an artist. Wanting to please her father, both Pelin and Ozge cram studied in order to get into the best school that would guarantee their admission to the best colleges. Pelin was successful but Ozge could not pass her entrance exams.

While she was growing up Ozge was fascinated by Turkish leader Ataturk and frequently would apologize to his picture when she felt she did not live up to his ideals. She also idealized Jacques Cousteau and had a poster of him up on her bedroom wall. Together they would discuss what Ozge's role in life should be.  

Ozge eventually gets into the college Pelin was attending but could only get in as a math student. After flunking most of her classes she eventually graduates but knows she cannot work as a mathematician. As her Jacques Cousteau poster told her, she had learned how to learn by studying math and was prepared to learn whatever she wanted, including art.

I loved this book. It seems that the ending was abrupt and I believe a sequel is needed to finish the author's story. She is currently a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois where I live. I am curious as to how she got there.

I Remember Beirut

Zeina Abirached, in her follow-up graphic novel to A Game For Swallows, concentrates in I Remember Beirut on those things that she remembers about her life living in war torn Beirut in the 1980s. There is no formal plot. Each page begins with "I remember" and talks about a different memory she has such as the sound of unwrapping a Kitkat candy bar, never having running water and that the school bus did not stop in her neighborhood.

The artwork is the same used in A Game For Swallows.  The drawings are stark black and white.  Each time the letter "o" is used in a word the author placed a dot inside it. This is a bullseye and shows how victimized the residents feel about the war.  It is a most unconventional graphic style but works well for the story the author is telling.

I loved the book but must admit "Swallows" is better.

The Arab of the Future 2

This book is part two of the author's biography of his childhood.  It covers the years 1984 - 1985 and will be continued in another installment of the series.  Like the first book, the artwork consists of line drawings with color schemes for different places that the author lived at.  As he did in the earlier book, Sattouf uses pink for his life in Syria and blue for visits to his mother's native France.

When this story opens it is time for Riad Sattouf to begin school.  He is terrified because he does not speak Arabic, knows no other kids and stands out due to his blonde hair. Some of the kids think he is Jewish because he is blonde but Riad denies this. His Lebanese father is a university professor so the family has some status. Riad meets two kids who become his friends and together they all share a healthy fear of their teacher, a woman who enjoys hitting her students in the hands with a stick.

The story covers one school year, Riad's summer visit to his mother's family in France and the beginning of his second year in school. I think the first book was a little better.  It covered his life from birth to age 5. It had more action as the family moved to 5 different countries during this period of time. However, I am interested in reading however many installments to this series that are written.  The series gives an interesting perspective of a child with European and Arabic ancestry living in the Middle East.

The Photographer's Wife

The Photographer's Wife is the Suzanne Joinson's second novel. It is about a British woman, Prudence Ashton Miller, who spent  part of her childhood in Jerusalem where her father was working. Prudence, however, is not a photographer's wife. Eleanora Rasul is the photographer's wife.  Although she is central to the story, she is not the protagonist. The title of this book is baffling.

The story begins in Jerusalem in the 1920s where an 11 year old Prudence Ashton has recently moved into the Hotel Fast in order to be with her father Charles Ashton. Her mother was confined to an institution in England. There she meets her father's friends and business associates William Cunningham, an aviator, the beautiful Eleanora who has just married the Arab photographer Khaled Rasul, her father's mistress Frau Baum and Khaled Rasul's friend Ihsan, who is teaching Prudence the Arabic language.

The story alternates between the 1920s and the late 1930s/early 1940s when the English are trying to erase from history their time collaborating with Germany in Jerusalem. War between England and Germany is about to begin and there are things that need to be covered up. The British government wants Prudence, now separated from her husband and with a son, to give them photographic evidence of this past that could incriminate them in working with the Nazis. This brings back memories that Prudence thought had left her mind.

At first I thought that this was a historical fiction novel. It is not written with the historical fiction template and I was not sure if it was written poorly or another type of novel. I soon realized that it is another type of novel and is written in prose. While I felt the story moved a little slowly, it was only because my expectations were wrong. I am not used to reading this type of novel.

The plot was interesting and the reader does not know until the end of the book that the reason for telling the story is that the British government wants to erase this part of their history. I think the book may have been more exciting if there were clues throughout the story of this intent.

This was a great read and I would rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

Weapons of Mass Diplomacy

French author and diplomat Antonin Baudry, writing under the pen name of Abel Lanzac, has written a fictionalized account of his time working for the French Foreign Ministry during the time period leading up to the U. S. invasion of Iraq. It is a graphic novel.

The story begins with Arthur Vlaminck getting hired as a speechwriter for Foreign Minister Alexandre Taillard de Vorms.  De Vorms has a nasty temper and loves to quote poets and philosophers. He is never happy with what Vlamink writes. Never. Vlamink gets to travel with the Minister on diplomatic trips abroad and to the United Nations (U.N.) where he sees the American president (George W. Bush) and Jeffrey Cole (Colin Powell) address the U.N. concerning Resolution 1441 which provided for inspections on the nation Khemed's (Iraq) weapons of mass destruction in order to avoid war.

While this is a serious topic, the author has written a wonderful satire of this part of our recent history. He has shown the difference of opinions between France and the U. S. on the subject all while showing the reader how diplomacy works.

I do not understand why the author does not use his real name, the name of his boss, Bush, Powell or Iraq. I am certain there is a professional reason for this but I do not know what it is.

This book was pretty amusing.  I highly recommend it.

Use of Force

Use of Force is Brad Thor's 12th Scot Harvath spy thriller. I have read every book that he has written and loved them all.

In this installment of the series main character Scot Harvath is able to prevent most parts of a terrorist attack in the U. S. He is then sent to Libya to pick up an ISIS operative. While he is trying to get to the terrorist, ISIS mounts escalating terrorist attacks in Europe, killing many.

One thing I love about Brad Thor's writing is that the mystery to be solved begins early in the book. This gives me the entire book to soak up the changing action and try to figure out clues to the denouement.

That said, I feel that Use of Force falls a little short.  While it is still a good novel, the writing is not up to par with Thor's earlier works. Thor admits that he changed his approach to writing with Use of Force. I am not sure what the change is but this novel was not as fast paced as all of his others. It does have the usual non-stop action though.

While I feel that Thor's writing falls short with this novel, because he was at the top of the thriller game, his writing is still heads above other thriller writers' abilities and I would still recommend the book to everyone. However, instead of giving a usual rating of 5 out of 5, Use of Force is 3.5 out of 5 because I was disappointed.

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less

Sarah Glidden is a comic book author and illustrator who primarily writes nonfiction and reportage comics. Her artwork is usually done in watercolors and is usually drawn in traditional comic panels. I reviewed her second book, Rolling Blackouts, in May.  How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less is her first book which was originally published in 2010. It covers a Birthright Israel trip that she took to Israel with a friend in 2007.

The back cover blurb states: "Sarah Glidden is a progressive Jewish American twentysomething who is vocal about her criticism of Israeli politics in the Holy Land. When a debate with her mother prods her to sign up for a Birthright Israel trip, Glidden expects to find objective facts to support her strong opinions. What she gets, however, is a regimented schedule meant to showcase the best of Israel: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Masada, Kinneret and the Dead Sea, and other landmarks. Worries she may be falling prey to an agenda, Glidden seizes various opportunities to discuss the fraught complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But with self
-effacing humor and reflection, Glidden realizes that the opinion she is most surprised by may very well be her own."

I love the author's reportage comic sub-genre. This memoir of her birthright trip is part travelogue and part memoir. The arguments that she presented concerning the Israeli-Palestini issue were well thought out and show both sides of the issue. She is a non-observant Jew with Palestinian sympathies when she begins her trip but returns home confused about the issue. While the subject matter is serious, the book is an easy and relaxing read.

This is one of my favorite graphic novels of all time and everyone needs to take a look at this one.

A Game For Swallows

A Game For Swallows had a huge impact on me, challenging my American notions of what life is like in war torn countries. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. This is especially true in this graphic novel with its stark black and white drawings of the author's former Christian neighborhood in Beirut.  She shows how much of her community is safe by drawing a small circle on a page of paper. She also shows how barricades are set up to make it safer for people to walk outside without getting hit by a sniper. This tells me so much more than what I hear in tv and newspaper news reports.

The story begins with the author as a child being holed up in the foyer of her family's apartment, the only safe place in the apartment. Neighbors come by during bombings to join the family in the foyer for safety reasons. There is much hospitality present as coffee and alcohol are always being offered to everyone. Worry is present also as the family worries about other family members who got stuck in other parts of town when the guns and bombs began to go off. The neighbors create a homey atmosphere for the author and her brother by sharing cooking lessons, games and gossip.

The title of the book comes from a quote by Florian "to die  to leave  to return  it's a game for swallows." I am sure it was chosen to represent the fact that people have to constantly move to new places when they are living in a war zone in order not to get killed.

I thought it was interesting that the author placed a dot inside the letter "o" every time it was used in a word. It is a bullseye and let's the reader know just how much the country's residents feel they are being attacked by the warring parties. The font used for the dialogue was a plain style font that contributed to the seriousness of the story. The author, Zeina Abirached, used her artwork to the fullest extent in telling her story. It made the story much more compelling than if she had used a different style.

I was blown away by this book and cannot recommend it more highly.

The Prisoner

The Prisoner is Alex Berenson's 12th novel and 11th John Wells spy thriller.  It is the first book of his that I have ever read.

The front cover blurb summarizes the book as follows:  "An Islamic State prisoner in a secret Bulgarian prison has been overheard hinting that a senior CIA officer may be passing information to the Islamic State. The agency's top officials, and even the President, say the possibility is unthinkable. But John Wells and Ellis Shafer, his former boss at the agency, have reason to believe it. To prove their fears, Wells will have to reassume his former identity as a hardened jihadi, then get  captured and sent to the same prison as the source..."

I enjoyed this book somewhat but was disappointed that the main story did not commence until halfway through the book.  It took me over a week to read it which for me is a long time.  I usually finish a book in 1 or 2 days.

The pace was slow which made it a boring book. I know that this is a minority opinion as I have read many glowing reviews of the book. It just did not do much for me.

Soldier's Heart

Soldier's Heart The Campaign to Understand my WWII Veteran Father is a wonderful graphic memoir by Carol Tyler. Tyler shows how her father's war experiences traumatically affected him and, in turn, affected his relationships with his children as they were growing up, including how they obtained their own emotional baggage from their upbringing. The book joins the author's angst over her present life, a failed marriage and mentally ill daughter, with the memories her father has from his war experience. The trauma has now affected three generations. At the time the book was published in 2015, he was still alive and was 95 years old.

Carol Tyler wants to be closer to her parents but is unable to penetrate the hard exteriors they developed from the trauma of the war experience. Like most members of the greatest generation, they did not talk about the past. One day Charles Tyler calls his daughter on the phone and talks for 2 hours about the war. His daughter, the author, then begins 2 projects. She begins a scrapbook of her father's war years and also begins to research his war experiences by going through government archives and interviewing her father. What she puts together is a magnificent history of how WWII affected the generation that fought it and how their battle scars affected their abilities to raise their future families. Having been raised myself by this generation I can truthfully say that every family I grew up with has the same baggage that Tyler family has. It is part of our American history.

The reason for the title "Soldier's Heart" is simple. This was the term used after the Civil War to describe the PTSD that soldier's suffered from. The artwork changes throughout the book from comic panels to full page drawings done in both pen and watercolors. The colors vary by page from saturated colors to desaturated colors.

A Soldier's Heart is a fabulous history lesson on WWII. If you did not live through it I highly recommend that you read it. For those of us that lived with the aftermath of the war, it may explain why your family life turned out the way it did.

Simply magnificent!!!!!

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen

Sam Zabel is a comic writer who has suffered from writer's block for six years. After giving a speech at a local university he meets Alice Brown who tells him about an old comic book called The King of Mars by Evan Rice. Sam gets a copy of the book and begins to read it. He suddenly sneezes and finds himself in the comic's world on Mars. Sam begins a fantasy journey that takes him through the history of comic books and a discussion on how women have been treated in comics over the years. He discovers that Evan Rice used a magic pen that helped him write the King of Mars.

The book involved time travel which I am not fond of. I cannot fault the author for writing a book in a genre that I do not like. The reason that I selected this book to read is because I knew it was considered to be comic book classic.

Time traveling fans, this one is for you.

Patience

I must start off this review with a mention of the artwork.  The author has used psychedelic sixties colors which puts me in heaven.  I wish that the story matched these lovely colors but for me it did not.

The story opens with a man named Jack finding his pregnant wife Patience murdered in their home. After years of living with his grief Jack finds a time traveling machine and uses it to go back in time to save Patience.

I am not a fan of time traveling stories so I found this book hard to follow. It does not seem right, though, to fault an author for writing a book that I am inclined to not like.  I pickd up the book at my public library based on the color of the artwork. So, if you love time travel books, maybe this one is for you.

The Best We Could Do

The Best We Could Do is the story of the Bui family in both Vietnam and the U. S. Most of the story, though, takes place in Vietnam.  It gives the family's history from the time of the  author's grandparents to the family's arrival in America in 1978 and then to the present time.

The story opens and ends in 2005 with the author giving birth to her first child and then switches to 1999 when the author left home to move in with her boyfriend. The cultural differences between the author and her mother and their inability to communicate confounds the author and results in her wanting to search for her roots in Vietnam.  Her memories move back to 1978 Malaysia where the Buis lived in a refugee camp for several months before emigrating to America. Then we travel back in time and to Vietnam as the author's father tells her the family history. This is where most of the story is told.

The Bui family was quite resourceful in adapting to the changing political terrain in Vietnam. They were always able to remain just above destitution until the Vietnam War decimated the country. The Buis were not concerned with which side of the war was right or wrong.  They were only trying to survive and keep their extended family safe. Author Thi Bui's parents' relationships with their own parents is dissected and how the grandparents coped with a changing country is shown. Likewise, Thi Bui's siblings' relationships with their parents also unfolds as they grow up and learn to deal with the harshness of their lives.

I was captivated by the family's story and believe that their cultural background aided their ability to survive conflict and make a new life in a different country. The Vietnamese are longsuffering.  They are family oriented and as long as the family is OK, life is good.

I am unclear on the reason for title of the book. Obviously, the family's sufferings to survive could be the reason the author chose "The Best We Could Do." However, I think it is about her relationship with her mother. Thi Bui became assimilated into American culture including its expression of affection. Her mother rarely displayed affection or said what she felt in her heart, which I believe is pretty normal for a person who experienced the trauma of war and displacement. These differences seemed to create a divide between them that could not be breached. Ms. Bui clearly wants to be closer to her mother. Another thing I noticed is that throughout the book the author included several private moments that she had with her mother. She did not share her siblings having these moments. With the book opening and closing with the author having a baby, and her mother being present for the birth, instead of this being a family saga, it seems more like the back story for the reason that their relationship is restrained.

Since the book is a graphic novel I feel that I must mention the artwork. Ms. Bui used pen and ink drawings to tell her story. They were colored in cool-toned orange shades.

The Best We Could Do is such a great story that I read it twice in a row. I cannot recommend it more highly. I think that you will love it and, at the very least, you will learn about the history of the Vietnamese in the 20th century.

California Dreamin': Cass Elliott Before the Mamas & the Papas

I loved, loved, loved this graphic novel. Cass Elliott seems to have been born with that cool attitude that she had during her lifetime. She was cool even as a child. The book covers her life from birth until the release of the Mamas and the Papas first hit song California Dreaming.

She was born with the name Ellen Cohen and was especially adored by her father. As a child she was encouraged to eat because her parents did not have alot to eat when they were young. Cass had a great singing voice from the time she first began to sing. She was born with talent.

The black and white drawings show her becoming more and more overweight as she grew up. It did not bother her at all but when she was old enough to seek music jobs, music producers did not want to hire her because of the weight. As Cass sought the perfect band to sing with she used her strong personality to get ahead. She wanted to sing with a trio called the Journeyman, composed of John, Michelle and Denny. Having pushed her way into their lives she was able to become part of the group and the rest is history.

The book details how the band got their name, how Cass got her stage name, how California Dreaming was composed and how Cass's personality propelled her to success in the music business. I found only one drawback to the book. I had been expecting the artwork to be colored in psychedelic sixties colors. When it came in the mail I was disappointed to see that it was done in black and white drawings. Perhaps that was intentional by the author as the psychedelic sixties began at a time when the book's story ended. I would love to know from the author if this is true.

This book is a must read for anyone coming of age in the sixties or seventies when the music of the Mama's and the Papas was popular. It gives an inside view of one of the greatest music groups of our time.

The Big Kahn

The Big Kahn is a graphic novel about a family secret, so secret that Rabbi David Kahn's wife and kids do not know about it. At the Rabbi's funeral, his long lost brother arrives and tells the family that Rabbi Kahn has lived a lie. He is not Jewish, not a real rabbi and his real name is Donnie Dobbs. They are horrified.

All of the family members react differently to the news. Son Avi who was expected to inherit the rabbinate worries that the congregation will not vote him in, considering him to be a fraud like his father.  Scandalous daughter Lea becomes more interested in Judaism and wife Rachel cannot cope with the whispers about her that she overhears from ladies in the congregation. Young son Eli is just trying to find himself.

I loved this novel with all of its Jewish flair.  However, the same story could have been told about any faith tradition. All churchy people gossip about other church members so I can fully understand Rachel wanting to withdraw from society. The scenes from the funeral are not unique to Judaism as all people say the same words at funerals.  That said, this is a very Jewish story.  I can relate, though, from my experiences as a Protestant.

While this is a small book of 166 pages, the author has created characters with great depth through superb dialogue and emotional drawings.  This is the first time I have seen characters created as fully as you would find in a regular novel. Speaking of the artwork, The Big Kahn has black and white drawings with minimal shading done in comic panels.

Loved this book.  I give it 5 out of 5 stars!

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown

The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown is the 2nd installment of the Baby Ganesh Agency Investigation series by Vaseem Khan. The not-so-amateur sleuth is retired police investigator Ashwin Chopra who lives in Mumbai. Inspector Chopra has a pet baby elephant that he takes with him everywhere, having bought a special van to drive the animal around in. The elephant, named Ganesha, has intelligent and emotional features similar to a human, at least in Inspector Chopra's eyes.

The story begins with the opening of an exhibition of the British Crown Jewels at the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai. The Queen is also in India on tour. Chopra manages to obtain tickets for the first day of the exhibition for himself and his wife Poppy.  The main treasure of the exhibition is the Queen's crown with its Koh-i-Noor diamond. The diamond was given to Queen Victoria from India, via its British masters, and many Indians feel that it should remain in India. While Chopra is gazing at the crown he hears several loud noises and smoke engulfs the room.  When he regains consciousness, the crown is gone.

The Force One guards investigating the theft quickly find the perpetrator, police Inspector Shekhar Garewal, after finding the crown in his home, minus the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Chopra is asked by Inspector Garewal to help him clear his name as he is innocent of the theft.

I enjoyed the first half of the book but got bored when Inspector Chopra's investigation began and I started skipping pages. The characters did not appeal to me.  Chopra's wife Poppy seemed to be interesting but she had a minor role in the plot. Also, I had a hard time recognizing the pet elephant's role. Let's face it, the suspension of belief required to believe that an elephant can contribute to an investigation is too far to go. While the book is advertised as a mystery I would categorize it further as a cozy mystery.

Since I liked half of the book I will give it 2.5 stars.

Midnight in St. Petersburg

Midnight in St. Petersburg takes place in pre-revolutionary Russia.  Orphaned Inna Feldman flees her home in Kiev where a pogrom is beginning, for St. Petersburg where she has a distant relative that she hopes will take her in. The Leman family agrees to let her stay for a few days but are fearful of letting her stay longer as Inna has no papers to identify herself. She left them behind, as well as her Jewish identity, and stole the papers of a wealthy woman during the pandemonium of the prime minister's assassination at a concert that the Tsar had also attended.

Inna and her cousin Yasha Kagan, who lives and works for the Leman's in their violin making workshop, soon become attracted to each other and Yasha convinces them that Inna should stay for awhile and begin an apprenticeship in the workshop to help pay for her keep. Inna agrees and stays for several months, meeting all of the Leman's friends including an Englishman, Horace Wallick, who works for Faberge and has fallen in love with her. She also becomes enamored with a priest that she met on the train to St. Petersburg, Father Grigory, who is becoming famous by his last name, Rasputin.

As the revolution continues to get bigger, restrictions on Jews are lifted but soon are put back into place.  When Inna is asked by a member of the aristocracy to repair a Stradivarius, she thinks that she can get away from another coming pogrom by escaping St. Petersburg for Yalta when she delivers the repaired violin.  Does she go alone? Take Yasha or Horace with her?  Is she able to escape? You will have to read the book to find out!

The plot was somewhat predictable. I knew which man Inna would pick based on the type of woman that she was. What I could not predict was the ending, which surprised me a little.  You knew it was going to end in either 1 or 2 ways.  I did enjoy, however, learning about the era and how the Russian people coped with all of the problems a revolution brings, ie, food shortages, uncertainty and for the Jews, deciding whether to leave Russia or stay.

The storyline about Inna's passion for one of her suitors was exciting. I won't tell you which one! Most of the hints that the author gave the reader were from Inna's thoughts.  It would have been nice to have had more of them.

I enjoyed the book and hope to both read more about this era and more from this author.

The Scribe of Siena

The Scribe of Siena is Melodie Winawer's first novel.  It takes place in Siena in the 1340s, before, during and after the Plague killed most of the residents. While there is some time travel involved, 90% of the story takes place in the 1340s.

Beatrice Trovato is a neurosurgeon in New York City.  Her brother Ben, a medieval researcher lives in a house in Siena where he is researching why Siena lost more people from the Plague than other European cities. After agreeing to visit him, Beatrice receives a letter in the mail from his attorneys advising that her brother has died and that she has inherited his estate, including his research notes.  They advise her that several local scholars would like to finish his research and write a book.  Beatrice travels to Siena and moves into his house.  She intends on finishing his research project.

While following up on his research notes, Beatrice finds a journal from a fresco painter of the era in a library.  She is fascinated by his life and finds within one of his paintings an image of her own face.  Beatrice falls asleep in a cathedral and when she wakes up she is still in the cathedral but 650 years before the 21st century.

Of course Beatrice finds people staring at her because she is improperly dressed for the time period.  After being charged with this crime a nun, Umilta, rescues her and takes her to the Opsedale where she will live and work.   Because Beatrice is literate, unusual for women of the era, she is allowed to work in the scriptorium as a scribe.  While taking a break one day she meets a fresco painter who is painting a fresco for the Opsedale.  He is Gabriele Accorsi, whose journal she had read.

As Beatrice tries to sort out how she traveled back in time and how to return to the 21st century, she continues to work as a scribe.  She worries about catching the Plague as she knows from history that it is about to be unleashed in Siena, but realizes that she is better suited to life in the 14th century than the 21st. She loves her new job and has friends, including Gabriele.

I loved this book. I was spellbound from the moment I began reading.  While I am not a fan of time traveling, most of this book was a medieval mystery.  I did enjoy, though, the present era where Beatrice was trying to figure out what her brother had discovered in his research. The beauty of Siena captivated me and I think that I am going to have to put this city on my travel bucket list. I want to see everything that Beatrice saw. This is a wonderful debut book for the author and is a must read.

The Tea Planter's Wife

I loved this book!  It is the first novel by Dinah Jeffries that I have ever read and I am impressed.

The story begins in the 1920s with 19 year old newlywed Gwendolyn Hooper traveling from England to Ceylon to join her thirtysomething husband Laurence at his tea plantation. Culture shock is her initial problem with the need to learn new words for workers such ayah and appu, get accustomed to the loud noise and fragrant smells of the country as well as the danger of the political strife between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. She also has to learn how to manage a household staff of employees who are much older than her.  In addition, Gwen has to deal with the other women in Lawrence's life, his ex-mistress Christina, his sister Verity and his deceased first wife Caroline. None of this is easy for the teenager.

The Tea Planters Wife was a fast read.  I loved the setting descriptions of Ceylon's topography, weather patterns, the smell of cinnamon in the air and life on a tea plantation. The fragrance of cinnamon captured my imagination as it is so different from Chicago where I live which smells like . . . something different. The only exception would be when the latrine coolie did not arrive on time. Ugh!

The characters were interesting. Gwen had nothing but adversity to deal with throughout the novel. Sister-in-law Verity is a pretty nasty person, Christina is still pushing Laurence to continue their relationship and Laurence is something else. I felt he totally ignored his wife's needs and put the needs of the other women in his life first as well as those of his employees. I would have dumped him.

All in all, I would give this novel 4 out of 5 stars.

The River of Kings

I had a difficult time getting interested in this book.  I re-read pages 1-50 several times but could not get into it.  I then skimmed over a few more pages but could not follow the plot.  The back cover blurb describes the writing style as prose which is not the style normally used in historical fiction. This might be my stumbling block. However, here is what the book is about, per the inside cover blurb:

". . . The Altamaha River, Georgia's 'Little Amazon's one of the last truly wild places in America. Crossed by roads only five times in its 137 miles, the black-water river is home to thousand-year-old virgin cypress, to the direct descendents of eighteenth century Highland warriors, and to a staggering array of rare and endangered species.  The Altamaha is even rumored to harbor its own river monster, as well as traces of the oldest European fort in North America.

Brothers Hunter and Lawton Loggins set off to kayak the river, bearing their father's ashes toward the sea.  Hunter is a college student, Lawton a Navy SEAL on leave; they were raised by an angry, enigmatic whimper who lived the river and whose death remains a mystery that his sons are determined to solve. As the brothers proceed downriver, their story alternates with that of Jacques de Not be, the first European artist in North America, who accompanied a 1564 French expedition that began as a search for riches and ended in a bloody confrontation with Spanish conquistadors and native tribes. . ."

Almost every review that I have read of the book has been a 5 star review.   I don't get it.  If you have thoughts about the book please leave a comment.

Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings is the first book in a trilogy about the pharaohs of Egypt. Book 1 covers the 18th dynasty and is about the lives of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamen.  Nefertiti makes an appearance as she was married to Akhenaten. It is the debut novel of Terrence Coffey.

Ancient Egypt is a fairly new historical period for me and this was one of the easiest books for me to read.  Gary Corby's mysteries are the only other books about this era that I have read but I need to read them slowly as I get bogged down in the Egyptian names and words that he uses.  Coffey's book has more contemporary language which made it is fast read.  

I am looking forward to reading the next two books and whatever else this author writes.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Bones of Grace

The Bones of Grace is the third book in the Bengal Trilogy.  I had not previously heard of the trilogy when I saw this book at my public library so I have not read the first two books.  Because I had some difficulty with how the story was told I will not be reading them.

The inside front cover blurb summarizes the book as follows:  "On the eve of her departure to find the bones of the walking whale-the fossil that provides the missing link in our evolution-Zubaida Haque falls in love with Elijah Strong, a man she meets in a darkened concert hall in Boston.  Their connection is immediate and intense despite their differences: Elijah belongs to a prototypical American family; Zubaida is the adopted daughter of a wealthy Bangladeshi family in Dhaka. When a twist of fate sends her back to her hometown, the inevitable force of society compels her to take a different path: she marries her childhood best friend and settles into a traditional Bangladeshi life..."

I did not continue with the blurb summary because I did not read any further than the above part of the story. It is told from Zubaida's perspective but is only told through her thoughts and her thoughts are not written in a straight storyline.  The storyline jumps back and forth without chapter breaks.  I do not even remember if the storyline changes by paragraph. All I know is that I could not follow the plot with Zubaida's random thought process.

While I have a rule to stop reading a book if I cannot get interested by the 50th page, I read to page 175 (out of 407 pages) because the plot seemed so interesting and I thought that the book would get better.  It didn't.  It is unfortunate as I had high hopes for the book because it is about Bangladeshi culture.