en-US Fri, 16 May 2025 08:59:24 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 138995
It's modern picaresque, with frequent nods to Cervantes... Quixote and Sancho drink and talk - about Judas and Stalin, the prodigal son, Marx, and belief that wears off like vodka. A book of moral complexity that explores deep theological themes in a light-hearted, accessible way.]]> 221 Graham Greene 0671474707 John 5 3.94 1940
author: Graham Greene
name: John
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1940
rating: 5
read at: 1997/02/01
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: favorites, literature, religion-theology
review:

]]> 54828959
Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.]]> 858 Larry McMurtry John 5 4.78 1985
author: Larry McMurtry
name: John
average rating: 4.78
book published: 1985
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/23
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: historical-fiction, literature, western, adventure, classics, favorites, frontier, currently-reading
review:
Best dern Western I ever read.
]]> 58145302 THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The second book of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetralogy, Comanche Moon takes us once again into the world of the American West.
Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow Call, now in their middle years, continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life -- Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him.

Two proud but very different men, they enlist with the Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture.

Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes.
Comanche Moon closes the twenty-year gap between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove, following beloved heroes Gus and Call and their comrades in arms -- Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker -- in their bitter struggle to protect the advancing West frontier against the defiant Comanches, courageously determined to defend their territory and their way of life.]]> 716 Larry McMurtry 0684857553 John 5 frontier, western, favorites 4.33 1997
author: Larry McMurtry
name: John
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: frontier, western, favorites
review:

]]> 191746386
On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution . Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides� bravura account of Cook’s last journey both wrestles with Cook’s legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science-–the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain’s imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook’s intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook’s overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.]]> 408 Hampton Sides 0385544766 John 5 4.47 2024
author: Hampton Sides
name: John
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves: adventure, biography, favorites, frontier, history, nonfiction, sailing
review:
Absolutely fantastic. Extremely well written. Sides has become one of my favorite authors.
]]> 54804 Dead Man's Walk is the first, extraordinary book in the epic Lonesome Dove tetralogy, in which Larry McMurtry breathed new life into the vanished American West and created two of the most memorable heroes in contemporary fiction: Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call.

As young Texas Rangers, Gus and Call have much to learn about survival in a land fraught with perils: not only the blazing heat and raging tornadoes, roiling rivers and merciless Indians but also the deadly whims of soldiers. On their first expeditions--led by incompetent officers and accompanied by the robust, dauntless whore known as the Great Western--they will face death at the hands of the cunning Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump and the silent Apache Gomez. They will be astonished by the Mexican army. And Gus will meet the love of his life.]]> 464 Larry McMurtry 0684857545 John 5 dern good. 4.00 1995
author: Larry McMurtry
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/01
date added: 2024/06/01
shelves: frontier, western, thomas-books, favorites
review:
dern good.
]]> 39028438 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - With a new afterword - From one of the world's most influential spiritual thinkers, a long-awaited book exploring what it means that Jesus was called "Christ," and how this forgotten truth can restore hope and meaning to our lives.

"Anyone who strives to put their faith into action will find encouragement and inspiration in the pages of this book."--Melinda Gates

In his decades as a globally recognized teacher, Richard Rohr has helped millions realize what is at stake in matters of faith and spirituality. Yet Rohr has never written on the most perennially talked about topic in Christianity: Jesus. Most know who Jesus was, but who was Christ? Is the word simply Jesus's last name? Too often, Rohr writes, our understandings have been limited by culture, religious debate, and the human tendency to put ourselves at the center.

Drawing on scripture, history, and spiritual practice, Rohr articulates a transformative view of Jesus Christ as a portrait of God's constant, unfolding work in the world. "God loves things by becoming them," he writes, and Jesus's life was meant to declare that humanity has never been separate from God--except by its own negative choice. When we recover this fundamental truth, faith becomes less about proving Jesus was God, and more about learning to recognize the Creator's presence all around us, and in everyone we meet.

Thought-provoking, practical, and full of deep hope and vision, The Universal Christ is a landmark book from one of our most beloved spiritual writers, and an invitation to contemplate how God liberates and loves all that is.]]> 260 Richard Rohr 1524762091 John 5 4.43 2019
author: Richard Rohr
name: John
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/25
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: nonfiction, religion-theology, favorites
review:

]]> 55660735
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A #1 ABA INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE BESTSELLER
Ěý
Few in history can match the revolutionary career of the Marquis de Lafayette. Over fifty incredible years at the heart of the Age of Revolution, he fought courageously on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a soldier, statesman, idealist, philanthropist, and abolitionist.
Ěý
As a teenager, Lafayette ran away from France to join the American Revolution. Returning home a national hero, he helped launch the French Revolution, eventually spending five years locked in dungeon prisons. After his release, Lafayette sparred with Napoleon, joined an underground conspiracy to overthrow King Louis XVIII, and became an international symbol of liberty. Finally, as a revered elder statesman, he was instrumental in the overthrow of the Bourbon Dynasty in the Revolution of 1830.
Ěý
From enthusiastic youth to world-weary old age, from the pinnacle of glory to the depths of despair, Lafayette never stopped fighting for the rights of all mankind. His remarkable life is the story of where we come from, and an inspiration to defend the ideals he held dear.]]> 512 Mike Duncan 154173033X John 5 4.50 2021
author: Mike Duncan
name: John
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/11
date added: 2023/05/11
shelves: biography, history, nonfiction, favorites
review:
Absolutely fantastic. Filled a huge gap in my understanding of the French Revolution and it’s relationship with US founding fathers. Fascinating life and aptly titled.
]]> 75262316 The principles of effective training and nutrition have been understood for decades, and the truth is, it's pretty boring stuff—lift weights, eat enough of the right foods, and get adequate rest. Do that consistently for a few years, and you'll build a strong, impressive physique. So why do so many guys struggle to achieve their fitness goals?
The problem is that boring (albeit effective) advice is hard to sell, and in our congested, hyped-up, social media-crazed world, aspiring trainers, coaches, and fitness influencers are incentivized to pump out ever more sensational, polarizing, and provocative content that leaves the average guy confused, overwhelmed, and buried under mountains of misinformation and silly BS. I wrote Radically Simple Strength to cut through the clutter and conflicting advice and answer one simple "What should the average guy do to get in awesome shape?" Rather than using this space to craft a slick sales pitch, let me skip the meaningless marketing jargon and tell you how Radically Simple Strength is

Who this book is (and isn't) for
This book is not for competitive powerlifters, elite athletes, or professional bodybuilders. Those guys don't need my help. This is a book for regular guys with average genetics who want to be a little bigger, a lot stronger, not fat, and not hurt. It's for men who want to make the most of the hereditary hand they were dealt and get in the best shape possible without killing themselves in the gym or making fitness their full-time job. So if you're sick of spinning your wheels and not getting the results you want. If you're tired of sorting through all the flashy fad diets, complicated training programs, and ambiguous advice. And if you're ready to build a strong, lean, muscular physique you're proud of, I hope you'll give me the opportunity to be your guide on this Radically Simple journey. Your best body is waiting.]]> 266 Paul Horn John 5 4.29
author: Paul Horn
name: John
average rating: 4.29
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/08
date added: 2023/04/08
shelves: books-you-never-really-finish, health-nutrition, nonfiction, self-help, sports-fitness, favorites, fitness-and-strength
review:

]]> 78508 The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.
From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.]]> 416 Candice Millard 0767913736 John 5 4.18 2005
author: Candice Millard
name: John
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/27
date added: 2022/10/27
shelves: adventure, frontier, nonfiction, favorites
review:

]]> 53497540 self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name him "The Fittest (Real) Man in America."

In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.]]> 366 David Goggins 1544507860 John 5 4.56 2018
author: David Goggins
name: John
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/07/17
date added: 2022/07/17
shelves: biography, memoir, nonfiction, self-help, sports-fitness, war, favorites
review:

]]> 28686959 256 Norm Macdonald 0812993624 John 5 4.03 2016
author: Norm Macdonald
name: John
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2021/09/22
date added: 2021/09/22
shelves: biography, humorous, memoir, nonfiction, favorites
review:

]]> 176108 Librarian note: See this edition record for the Laurel-Leaf Books/Dell edition that may have been published with ISBN 014240733X.

No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends - true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. And when it comes to the beating up on "greasers" like him and his friends - he knows that he can count on them for trouble. But one night someone takes things too far, and Ponyboy's world is turned upside down...

~from inside flap]]> 198 S.E. Hinton John 5 4.32 1967
author: S.E. Hinton
name: John
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at: 2021/08/09
date added: 2021/08/09
shelves: childrens-books-i-read-to-my-kids, classics, favorites
review:

]]> 53358819
From the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Tiger Woods comes the definitive inside story of the New England Patriots—the greatest sports dynasty of the 21st century.

It’s easy to forget that the New England Patriots were once the laughingstock of the NFL, a nearly bankrupt team that had never won a championship and was on the brink of moving to St. Louis. Everything changed in 1994, when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and soon brought on board head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. Since then, the Patriots have become a juggernaut, making ten trips to the Super Bowl, winning six of them, and emerging as one of the most valuable sports franchises in the world. Today, the team’s twenty-year reign atop the NFL stands as the longest in league history.

How was the Patriots dynasty built? And how did it last for two decades? In The Dynasty , acclaimed journalist Jeff Benedict provides richly reported answers in a sweeping account based on exclusive interviews with more than two hundred insiders—including team executives, coaches, players, players� wives, team doctors, lawyers, and more—as well as never-before-seen recordings, documents, and electronic communications.

Through his exhaustive research, Benedict uncovers surprising new details about the inner workings of a team notorious for its secrecy. He puts readers in the room as Robert Kraft outmaneuvers a legion of lawyers and investors to buy the team. We listen in on the phone call when the greatest trade ever made—Bill Belichick for a first-round draft choice—is negotiated. And we look over the shoulder of forty-year-old Tom Brady as a surgeon operates on his throwing hand on the eve of the AFC Championship Game in 2018.

But the portrait that emerges in The Dynasty is more rewarding than new details alone. By tracing the team’s epic run through the perspectives of Kraft, Belichick, and Brady—each of whom was interviewed for the book—the author provides a wealth of new insight into the complex human beings most responsible for the Patriots� success. We watch the NFL’s savviest owner treat Brady like a son, empower Belichick to cut and trade beloved players, and spend sleepless nights figuring out diplomatic ways to keep Brady and Belichick together for two decades. We come to understand how a genius head coach keeps his players at an emotional distance and blocks out anything that gets in the way of winning. And we experience the relentless drive, ferocious competitive nature, and emotional sensitivity that allows Brady to continue playing football into his forties.

The result is an intimate portrait that captures the human drama of the dynasty’s three key characters while also revealing the secrets behind their success. This is perhaps the most compelling and illuminating book that will ever be written about the greatest professional sports team of our time.]]> 592 Jeff Benedict 1982134100 John 4 4.44 2020
author: Jeff Benedict
name: John
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/04
date added: 2021/06/07
shelves: nonfiction, sports-fitness, favorites, history
review:

]]> 580616 521 Stephen E. Ambrose 0684811073 John 5 4.23 1996
author: Stephen E. Ambrose
name: John
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 1996/01/01
date added: 2021/05/29
shelves: biography, history, nonfiction, favorites, frontier
review:

]]> 911868 496 Kenneth Roberts 0892723645 John 5
Arundel is full of adventure, great characters, unforgettable scenery, romance, humor, just about everything you could hope for in a book. And it is based on real history. Roberts used the journals of Arnold's soldiers as his primary source material.

I started reading this last night to my 7 year old when he couldn't fall asleep. Looking forward enjoying this adventure again. ]]> 4.19 1930
author: Kenneth Roberts
name: John
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1930
rating: 5
read at: 1996/11/09
date added: 2020/12/05
shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, literature, childrens-books-i-read-to-my-kids, recommend
review:
This is probably the best work of historical fiction I have ever read. It is the story of Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec (when Arnold was still a good guy), as seen through the eyes of a teenage boy who comes along. It's like Last of the Mohicans meets Annakin Skywalker. It blows the Harry Potter books away, and I say that as one who absolutely loved the Potter series.

Arundel is full of adventure, great characters, unforgettable scenery, romance, humor, just about everything you could hope for in a book. And it is based on real history. Roberts used the journals of Arnold's soldiers as his primary source material.

I started reading this last night to my 7 year old when he couldn't fall asleep. Looking forward enjoying this adventure again.
]]> 6327123
By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, the New York Times bestseller City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.]]> 258 David Benioff 0452295297 John 5 Phenomenal. 4.28 2008
author: David Benioff
name: John
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2010/04/18
date added: 2020/12/05
shelves: historical-fiction, literature, humorous, favorites, recommend
review:
Phenomenal.
]]> 29430012 He can't leave. You won't want to.

With his breakout novel Rules of Civility, Amor Towles established himself as a master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction, bringing late-1930s Manhattan to life with splendid atmosphere and a flawless command of style. A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov.

When, in 1922, the thirty-year-old Count is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.

Unexpectedly, the Count's reduced circumstances provide him entry to a much larger world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel's other denizens, including a willful actress, a shrewd Kremlinite, a gregarious American, and a temperamental chef. But when fate suddenly puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she so deserves.

Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the Count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.]]> 462 Amor Towles John 5 4.33 2016
author: Amor Towles
name: John
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2018/07/04
date added: 2020/12/05
shelves: cold-war, historical-fiction, literature, russian, war, wwii, favorites, recommend
review:
What a great book. This was not what I expected, nor the typical style of book for me. But the characters are so well written, and the story told with such dry wit, that it was impossible to put down.
]]> 43612456 Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America’s foremost writers. True Grit, his most famous novel, was first published in 1968, and became the basis for two movies, the 1969 classic starring John Wayne and, in 2010, a new version starring Academy Award® winner Jeff Bridges and written and directed by the Coen brothers. True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father’s blood. With one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the killer into Indian Territory. True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, like Mattie herself. From a writer of true status, this is an American classic through and through.]]> 228 Charles Portis John 5 4.47 1968
author: Charles Portis
name: John
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1968
rating: 5
read at: 2020/05/16
date added: 2020/12/05
shelves: adventure, civil-war, classics, detectives, favorites, frontier, historical-fiction, humorous, literature, war, western, recommend
review:

]]> 33642077
Rocky Mountains, 1823. The trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is one of the most respected men in the company, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker.But when a scouting mission puts Glass face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two men from the company are ordered to remain with him until his inevitable death. But, fearing an imminent attack, they abandon Glass, stripping him of his prized rifle and hatchet.

As Glass watches the men flee, he is driven to survive by one all-consuming desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, he sets out on a three-thousand-mile journey across the harsh American frontier, to seek revenge on the men who betrayed him.

The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.

The novel that inspired the epic new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. ]]> 273 Michael Punke John 5 4.21 2002
author: Michael Punke
name: John
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2020/04/26
date added: 2020/12/05
shelves: frontier, historical-fiction, literature, western, war, adventure, favorites, recommend
review:

]]> 136251
In this final, seventh installment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.]]> 759 J.K. Rowling John 5 4.61 2007
author: J.K. Rowling
name: John
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2020/09/29
date added: 2020/09/30
shelves: childrens-books-i-read-to-my-kids, favorites
review:
Wow!! What a great book, what an epic tale. I started reading the Harry Potter books last Christmas, to my 7 year old son and 5 year old daughter. In a little more than a year, we read all seven books and finished tonight. I will always treasure the memory of reading this series to them, the excitement they felt, roller coaster ride. Tonight, when it was over, my son started bawling crying. I asked what was the matter, and through the most genuine tears I have ever seen, he cried "it was the best story ever." I look forward to anything else Rowling writes, and of course, reading the Potter books again to my 2 year old when she's ready, and someday to my grandchildren.
]]> 43730451



In Dreams of El Dorado , H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame-and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. The West was where riches would reward the miner's persistence, the cattleman's courage, the railroad man's enterprise; but El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.

Balanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.]]> 544 H.W. Brands 1541672526 John 5 4.21 2019
author: H.W. Brands
name: John
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/02/27
date added: 2020/02/28
shelves: history, nonfiction, western, adventure, biography, civil-war, enviornment, war, favorites, frontier
review:

]]> 3 309 J.K. Rowling 0439554934 John 5 4.47 1997
author: J.K. Rowling
name: John
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 2017/01/01
date added: 2019/10/01
shelves: childrens-books-i-read-to-my-kids, favorites
review:

]]> 2905977 288 Rodney Dangerfield 0066211077 John 5 3.80 1995
author: Rodney Dangerfield
name: John
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2019/05/26
date added: 2019/05/26
shelves: biography, favorites, humorous, memoir, nonfiction, self-help
review:

]]> 51068 217 Dashiell Hammett 0679722645 John 4 3.74 1930
author: Dashiell Hammett
name: John
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1930
rating: 4
read at: 1996/02/20
date added: 2018/07/31
shelves: classics, detectives, favorites, mystery
review:

]]> 1245530 The New York Times bestselling novel from Dennis Lehane is a gripping, unnerving psychological thriller about the effects of a savage killing on three former friends in a tightly knit, blue-collar Boston neighborhood.

When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever.

Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay -- demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood.

A tense and unnerving psychological thriller, Mystic River is also an epic novel of love and loyalty, faith and family, in which people irrevocably marked by the past find themselves on a collision course with the darkest truths of their own hidden selves.]]> 401 Dennis Lehane 0688163165 John 5 4.20 2001
author: Dennis Lehane
name: John
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at: 2001/03/15
date added: 2018/07/31
shelves: favorites, literature, mystery, detectives
review:

]]> 261345
"Dog and man can fit together like no others do. Lewis and I had that fit....

How did we get that close? I think the wilderness had something to do with it. Lewis and I would have been close anywhere, but the wilderness brought out the best in both of us. We were made for that territory."

In 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off on a journey to explore the vast territory of the United States west of the Mississippi River. Accompanying Lewis and Clark and their team of explorers through this uncharted wilderness was Lewis' dog Seaman.

Lewis and Clark and Me is Seaman's story. From his first meeting with Lewis, to being mistaken for a bear by Indians who had never seen such a large dog, to his encounters with wild animals both familiar and unfamiliar, Seaman's tales are filled with the joys of companionship and the tingling excitement of adventure.

Seaman's stories are based information provided in the explorers' journals. The book include many of these direct quotes from the original text as well as a detailed map showing the highlights of this amazing expedition.]]> 64 Laurie Myers 0805063684 John 5 4.02 2002
author: Laurie Myers
name: John
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2018/06/12
date added: 2018/06/12
shelves: childrens-books-i-read-to-my-kids, favorites, historical-fiction
review:
Great book for elementary age kids.
]]> 39782161 274 John E. Keefe 1983535710 John 5 John E. Keefe recreates this somewhat obscure event in Prohibition-era Boston with impeccable research and an eye for detail. The tragic story includes a cast of historical characters including the infamous Mayor James Michael Curley, Irish beat cops, gangsters, flappers and a crazy court case. The book includes excellent photos and political cartoons from contemporary newspapers. It reads like fiction. Hollywood needs to make a movie out of this.]]> 4.17 2018
author: John E. Keefe
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2018/05/20
date added: 2018/05/20
shelves: history, nonfiction, favorites, boston
review:
This book was great. Anyone interested in Boston history should read it. John E. Keefe recreates this somewhat obscure event in Prohibition-era Boston with impeccable research and an eye for detail. The tragic story includes a cast of historical characters including the infamous Mayor James Michael Curley, Irish beat cops, gangsters, flappers and a crazy court case. The book includes excellent photos and political cartoons from contemporary newspapers. It reads like fiction. Hollywood needs to make a movie out of this.
]]> 5907 Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. The text in this 372-page paperback edition is based on that first published in Great Britain by Collins Modern Classics (1998), and includes a note on the text by Douglas A. Anderson (2001).]]> 366 J.R.R. Tolkien John 5 4.29 1937
author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: John
average rating: 4.29
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2018/01/08
date added: 2018/01/08
shelves: childrens-books-i-read-to-my-kids, classics, fantasy, favorites
review:

]]> 13641972 ISBN13: 9780812982626

In this epic, critically-acclaimed and Pulitzer Prize-winning tour de force, Adam Johnson provides a riveting portrait of a world rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love.

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen� to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the state soon recognize the boy’s loyalty and keen instincts.

Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,� Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.”]]> 443 Adam Johnson John 5 literature, favorites 4.16 2012
author: Adam Johnson
name: John
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2013/06/02
date added: 2016/03/31
shelves: literature, favorites
review:
This was such a great novel. It opened new worlds and closed every loose end.
]]> 1084907
This handsome edition is designed and illustrated by Barry Moser. There are thirteen two-color wood engravings.

"A masterpiece. . . . This is more than stunning fiction: It is a lyric record of a time and a life, shining with Maclean's special gift for calling the reader's attention to arts of all kinds—the arts that work in nature, in personality, in social intercourse, in fly-fishing." —Kenneth M. Pierce, Village Voice

Norman Maclean (1902�'90), woodsman, scholar, teacher, and storyteller, grew up in the Western Rocky Mountains of Montana and worked for many years in logging camps and for the United States Forestry Service before beginning his academic career. He retired from the University of Chicago in 1973.]]> 217 Norman Maclean 0226500578 John 5 literature, favorites 4.14 1976
author: Norman Maclean
name: John
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1976
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/02/13
shelves: literature, favorites
review:

]]> 10860414
Michael Pollan’s Food Rules prompted a national discussion helping to change the way Americans approach eating. This new edition illustrated by celebrated artist Maira Kalman—and expanded with a new introduction and nineteen additional food rules—marks an advance in the national dialogue that Food Rules inspired. Many of the new rules, suggested by readers, underscore the central teachings of the original Food Rules , which are that eating doesn’t have to be so complicated and that food is as much about pleasure and community as it is about nutrition and health. A beautiful book to cherish and share, Food Rules guides us with humor, joy, and common sense toward a happier, healthier relationship to food.]]> 212 Michael Pollan 1594203083 John 5 4.11 2008
author: Michael Pollan
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/06/10
shelves: health-nutrition, nonfiction, favorites
review:

]]> 1175598 128 Ernest Hemingway 0224602780 John 5 literature, favorites 3.69 1952
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: John
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at: 2004/01/01
date added: 2013/07/21
shelves: literature, favorites
review:

]]> 843804
In his first book for young adults, Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school. This heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written tale, featuring poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, is based on the author's own experiences. It chronicles contemporary adolescence as seen through the eyes of one Native American boy.

Illustrated in a contemporary cartoon style by Ellen Forney.]]> 230 Sherman Alexie 0316013692 John 5 4.17 2007
author: Sherman Alexie
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2010/05/07
date added: 2013/06/27
shelves: literature, memoir, favorites, humorous
review:
Fantastic. My favorite Sherman Alexie book by far.
]]> 7826803 604 Hilary Mantel 0312429983 John 5 3.97 2009
author: Hilary Mantel
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2013/02/05
date added: 2013/06/02
shelves: historical-fiction, literature, favorites
review:

]]> 13366259
"The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger.

Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.

With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, The Yellow Birds a groundbreaking novel about the costs of war that is destined to become a classic.]]> 226 Kevin Powers 0316219363 John 5 Wow. 3.74 2012
author: Kevin Powers
name: John
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2013/04/26
date added: 2013/04/26
shelves: war, literature, poetry, classics, favorites
review:
Wow.
]]> 13507212 9780805090031)

Though he battled for years to marry her, Henry VIII has become disenchanted with the audacious Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son, and her sharp intelligence and strong will have alienated his old friends and the noble families of England.

When the discarded Katherine, Henry's first wife, dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice, setting in motion a dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason.

At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over a few terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally himself with his enemies. What price will he pay for Annie's head?]]> 412 Hilary Mantel John 5 4.26 2012
author: Hilary Mantel
name: John
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2013/02/27
date added: 2013/04/16
shelves: historical-fiction, literature, favorites
review:

]]> 11958983 NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Christian Science Monitor � St. Louis Post-Dispatch

In his magisterial bestseller FDR, Jean Edward Smith gave us a fresh, modern look at one of the most indelible figures in American history. Now this peerless biographer returns with a new life of Dwight D. Eisenhower that is as full, rich, and revealing as anything ever written about America’s thirty-fourth president. As America searches for new heroes to lead it out of its present-day predicaments, Jean Edward Smith’s achievement lies in reintroducing us to a hero from the past whose virtues have become clouded in the mists of history.

Here is Eisenhower the young dreamer, charting a course from Abilene, Kansas, to West Point, to Paris under Pershing, and beyond. Drawing on a wealth of untapped primary sources, Smith provides new insight into Ike’s maddening apprenticeship under Douglas MacArthur in Washington and the Philippines. Then the whole panorama of World War II unfolds, with Eisenhower’s superlative generalship forging the Allied path to victory through multiple reversals of fortune in North Africa and Italy, culminating in the triumphant invasion of Normandy. Smith also gives us an intriguing examination of Ike’s finances, details his wartime affair with Kay Summersby, and reveals the inside story of the 1952 Republican convention that catapulted him to the White House.

Smith’s chronicle of Eisenhower’s presidential years is as compelling as it is comprehensive. Derided by his detractors as a somnambulant caretaker, Eisenhower emerges in Smith’s perceptive retelling as both a canny politician and a skillful, decisive leader. Smith convincingly portrays an Eisenhower who engineered an end to America’s three-year no-win war in Korea, resisted calls for preventative wars against the Soviet Union and China, and boldly deployed the Seventh Fleet to protect Formosa from invasion. This Eisenhower, Smith shows us, stared down Khrushchev over Berlin and forced the withdrawal of British, French, and Israeli forces from the Suez Canal. He managed not only to keep the peace—after Ike made peace in Korea, not one American soldier was killed in action during his tenure—but also to enhance America’s prestige in the Middle East and throughout the world.

Domestically, Eisenhower reduced defense spending, balanced the budget, constructed the interstate highway system, and provided social security coverage for millions who were self-employed. Ike believed that traditional American values encompassed change and progress.

Unmatched in insight, Eisenhower in War and Peace at last gives us an Eisenhower for our time—and for the ages.

Praise for Eisenhower in War and Peace
Ěý
“[A] fine new biography . . . [Eisenhower’s] White House years need a more thorough exploration than many previous biographers have given them. Smith, whose long, distinguished career includes superb one-volume biographies of Grant and Franklin Roosevelt, provides just that.�—The Washington Post
Ěý
“Highly readable . . . [Smith] shows us that [Eisenhower’s] ascent to the highest levels of the military establishment had much more to do with his easy mastery of politics than with any great strategic or tactical achievements.”�The Wall Street Journal
Ěý
“Always engrossing . . . Smith portrays a genuinely admirable Eisenhower: smart, congenial, unpretentious, and no ideologue. Despite competing biographies from Ambrose, Perret, and D’Este, this is the best.”�Publishers Weekly (starred review)]]> 976 Jean Edward Smith 140006693X John 5 4.04 2012
author: Jean Edward Smith
name: John
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2012/07/29
date added: 2012/07/29
shelves: biography, history, nonfiction, war, favorites
review:
I like Ike. Great biography. It read like a page turner and gave me untold respect for Eisenhower, without whose leadership, the world might have ended in nuclear armageddon decades ago.
]]> 7253301 608 Iain Pears 0385522851 John 5 3.83 2009
author: Iain Pears
name: John
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2011/05/12
date added: 2011/05/13
shelves: historical-fiction, mystery, literature, favorites
review:
Fantastic. A book-lovers book.
]]> 174871
One of the problems with approaching Chesterton is that he was so prolific and wrote on such a variety of topics that the reader is simply overwhelmed. But Ahlquist makes the literary giant very accessible, highlighting Chesterton's amazing reach, keen insight, and marvelous wit. Each chapter is liberally spiced with Chesterton's striking quotations. On the way, we learn "what's wrong with the world" (and how to make it right) and recognize the failure and futility of many modern ideas and the freshness and fullness of traditional truths.

There is something special that runs throughout Chesterton's books that ties all of his ideas together and sets him apart from the strange and confusing and broken philosophies of the modern world. That common thread in Chesterton's writings is common sense. It is instantly recognizable and utterly refreshing.]]> 188 Dale Ahlquist 0898708575 John 5 4.37 2003
author: Dale Ahlquist
name: John
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2010/08/28
date added: 2010/08/28
shelves: books-you-never-really-finish, essays, favorites, religion-theology, biography
review:
A terrific introduction to Chesterton, this volume is a brief biography with an overview of twelve of his most important books,
]]> 6938153 Book by 160 Neal Casal 0810982668 John 5
This is one I'll be recycling through my read-currently reading shelves quite frequenty.]]> 4.63 2010
author: Neal Casal
name: John
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/02/19
date added: 2010/02/19
shelves: photography, favorites, books-you-never-really-finish, music, memoir
review:
This was amazing. I spent last night after the kids went to bed just slowly absorbing these photos. Neal Casal has got a great eye, and the subject matter was very near and dear to me. Some tof the best music of the last decade has come from Ryan Adams, and certainly the best touring rock band of the last 4 or 5 years was the Cardinals.

This is one I'll be recycling through my read-currently reading shelves quite frequenty.
]]> 25669
In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known "hinge" of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the "island of saints and scholars, " the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the west's written treasures. With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning. Thus the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.]]> 246 Thomas Cahill 0385418493 John 5 3.81 1995
author: Thomas Cahill
name: John
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2008/03/30
date added: 2010/02/14
shelves: favorites, history, religion-theology, ireland
review:

]]> 77344 When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.

So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness.

Angela’s Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt’s astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

]]> 364 Frank McCourt 0684874350 John 5 4.02 1996
author: Frank McCourt
name: John
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 1997/02/10
date added: 2010/02/14
shelves: biography, favorites, memoir, nonfiction, ireland
review:

]]> 2983489 A hilarious blast of scathing irreverence from the award-winning actor and comedian.

"A pissed off Leary is the best Leary," says one critic of the writer and comic. In Why We Suck, Dr. Denis Leary uses his common sense, and his biting and hilarious take on the world, to attack the politically correct, the hypocritical, the obese, the thin--basically everyone who takes themselves too seriously. He does so with the extra oomph of a doctorate bestowed upon him by his alma mater Emerson College. "Sure it's just a celebrity type of thing--they only gave it to me because I'm famous," Leary explains. "But it's legal and it means I get to say I'm a doctor--just like Dr. Phil."

In Why We Suck, Leary's famously smart style and sardonic wit have found their fullest and fiercest expression yet. Zeroing in on the ridiculous wherever he finds it, Leary unravels his Irish Catholic upbringing, the folly of celebrity, the pressures of family life, and the great hypocrisy of politics with the same bright, savage, and profane insight he brought to his critically acclaimed one-man shows No Cure for Cancer and Lock 'n Load, and his platinum-selling song, "Asshole."

Proudly Irish American, defiantly working class, with a reserve of compassion for the underdog and the overlooked, Leary delivers blistering diatribes that are penetrating social commentary with no holds barred. Leary's book will find wide appeal among people who want to laugh out loud or find a guide who matches their view of what's wrong in America and the world-at-large; and fans of his one-man shows, his many movies, and Rescue Me, Leary's Golden Globe and Emmy-nominated television show. Why We Suck is the latest salvo from one of America's most original and biting comic satirists.]]> 240 Denis Leary 0670031607 John 5 3.67 2008
author: Denis Leary
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2008
rating: 5
read at: 2008/11/18
date added: 2010/02/03
shelves: nonfiction, favorites, humorous
review:
Tommy Gavin is my hero, but an angry real life Dennis Leary comes a close second. I agreed with every word of this book, without a moment of introspection.
]]> 8837 ]]> 229 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0156027496 John 5 4.18 1939
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: John
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at: 2008/07/01
date added: 2010/02/03
shelves: literature, nonfiction, favorites
review:

]]> 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 John 5 literature, favorites 3.99 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: John
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/02
date added: 2010/02/03
shelves: literature, favorites
review:

]]> 323872 304 Ron Hansen 0061120197 John 5 3.88 1983
author: Ron Hansen
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1983
rating: 5
read at: 2007/10/01
date added: 2010/01/02
shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, literature, western
review:

]]> 835068
The Gifts of the Jews reveals the critical change that made western civilization possible. Within the matrix of ancient religions and philosophies, life was seen as part of an endless cycle of birth and death; time was like a wheel, spinning ceaselessly. Yet somehow, the ancient Jews began to see time differently. For them, time had a beginning and an end; it was a narrative, whose triumphant conclusion would come in the future. From this insight came a new conception of men and women as individuals with unique destinies--a conception that would inform the Declaration of Independence--and our hopeful belief in progress and the sense that tomorrow can be better than today. As Thomas Cahill narrates this momentous shift, he also explains the real significance of such Biblical figures as Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the Pharaoh, Joshua, Isaiah, and Jeremiah.

Full of compelling stories, insights and humor, The Gifts of the Jews is an irresistible exploration of history as fascinating and fun as How the Irish Saved Civilization.]]> 304 Thomas Cahill 0385482493 John 5 3.83 1998
author: Thomas Cahill
name: John
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2008/03/31
date added: 2009/11/22
shelves: nonfiction, history, religion-theology, favorites
review:

]]> 414056 -- Best Life "If you want to learn about schooling and allegiance and leadership and, most of all, football, by all means--slip inside the sweatshirt."
-- The Wall Street Journal "Halberstam takes the classic sports-bio formula--one stellar performer's rise to the pinnacle of American sport--and transforms it into a nuance-rich story of individual triumph and social history."
-- Booklist "In describing the triumph of 'an unadorned man,' a coach without artifice, Halberstam has created a tale of excellence."
-- The New York Times Book Review]]> 288 David Halberstam 1401301541 John 5 sports-fitness, favorites 3.93 2005
author: David Halberstam
name: John
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2005/01/01
date added: 2009/11/13
shelves: sports-fitness, favorites
review:

]]> 732927 333 Bruce Olds 0312420935 John 5 4.05 1995
author: Bruce Olds
name: John
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 1998/01/01
date added: 2009/10/18
shelves: historical-fiction, favorites, literature
review:

]]> 76789
Lauded as "a rip-roaring life" ( Wall Street Journal ), TR is a magisterial biography of Theodore Roosevelt by bestselling author H.W. Brands. In his time, there was no more popular national figure than Roosevelt. It was not just the energy he brought to every political office he held or his unshakable moral convictions that made him so popular, or even his status as a bonafide war hero. Most important, Theodore Roosevelt was loved by the people because this scion of a privileged New York family loved America and Americans.

And yet, according to Brands, if we look at the private Roosevelt without blinders, we see a man whose great public strengths hid enormous personal deficiencies; he was uncompromising, self-involved, and a highly imperfect brother, husband, and father.

Beautifully written, and powerfully moved by its subject, TR is the classic biography of one of America's greatest and most complex leaders.]]> 928 H.W. Brands 0465069592 John 5 history, favorites, biography 4.17 1997
author: H.W. Brands
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1997
rating: 5
read at: 1998/11/01
date added: 2009/10/18
shelves: history, favorites, biography
review:

]]> 168668
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.]]> 453 Joseph Heller 0684833395 John 5 favorites, literature 3.99 1961
author: Joseph Heller
name: John
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 1998/01/01
date added: 2009/10/18
shelves: favorites, literature
review:

]]> 75410
The Teammates is the profoundly moving story of four great baseball players who have made the passage from sports icons--when they were young and seemingly indestructible--to men dealing with the vulnerabilities of growing older. At the core of the book is the friendship of these four very different men--Boston Red Sox teammates Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams--who remained close for more than sixty years.

The book starts out in early October 2001, when Dominic DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky begin a 1,300-mile trip by car to visit their beloved friend Ted Williams, whom they know is dying. Bobby Doerr, the fourth member of this close group--"my guys," Williams used to call them--is unable to join them.This is a book--filled with historical details and first-hand accounts--about baseball and about something the richness of friendship.]]> 217 David Halberstam 0786888679 John 5 4.03 2003
author: David Halberstam
name: John
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2009/10/17
shelves: favorites, nonfiction, sports-fitness
review:

]]> 364567 ±ą´Çľ±±ôĂ --applause on the rugged frontier.

Johnny also arranges a special attraction for each town. While his actors bustle in and out of costumes, on and off the stage in many roles, one plays the villain in the bank. Then the actors take their curtain calls and railroad away.

Who? Us? Rob a bank? But you saw all of us on stage. When could we have done that?

A Pinkerton man becomes the troupe’s severest critic: He notices the news reports of stage performances one day and bank robberies the next. He follows the troupe, packing his suspicions. Finally, he sets a clever trap.

Johnny Vermillion is one of the most entertaining rogues ever to turn a dishonest dollar. Any audience will love a troupe that can transform A Midsummer Night’s Dream into grand larceny.
]]> 272 Loren D. Estleman 0765309149 John 4 3.38 2006
author: Loren D. Estleman
name: John
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2009/04/01
date added: 2009/10/17
shelves: literature, western, favorites
review:

]]> 27199
By placing the image of the Virgin Mary at the center of their churches and their lives, medieval people exalted womanhood to a level unknown in any previous society. For the first time, men began to treat women with dignity and women took up professions that had always been closed to them.

The communion bread, believed to be the body of Jesus, encouraged the formulation of new questions in philosophy: Could reality be so fluid that one substance could be transformed into another? Could ordinary bread become a holy reality? Could mud become gold, as the alchemists believed? These new questions pushed the minds of medieval thinkers toward what would become modern science.

Artists began to ask themselves similar questions. How can we depict human anatomy so that it looks real to the viewer? How can we depict motion in a composition that never moves? How can two dimensions appear to be three? Medieval artists (and writers, too) invented the Western tradition of realism.

On visits to the great cities of Europe—monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto—Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world. Bursting with stunning four-color art, Mysteries of the Middle Aages is the ultimate Christmas gift book.]]> 368 Thomas Cahill 0385495552 John 5 3.81 2006
author: Thomas Cahill
name: John
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2008/05/01
date added: 2009/10/17
shelves: history, religion-theology, favorites, nonfiction
review:

]]> 775405
In Desire of the Everlasting Hills, Thomas Cahill takes up his most daring and provocative subject yet: Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure of Western civilization.

Introducing us first to "the people Jesus knew," Thomas Cahill describes the oppressive Roman political presence, the pervasive Greek cultural influence, and especially the widely varied social and religious context of the Judaism in which Jesus moved and flourished. These backgrounds, essential to a complete understanding of Jesus, lead to the author's stunningly original interpretation of the New Testament--much of it based on material from the ancient Greek brilliantly translated by the author himself--that will delight readers and surprise even biblical scholars.

Thomas Cahill's most unusual skill may lie in his ability to bring to life people of a faraway world whose concerns seem at first to be utterly removed from the present day. We see Jesus as a real person, sharp-witted and sharp-tongued, but kind, humorous, and affectionate, shadowed by the inevitable climax of crucifixion, the cruelest form of execution ever devised by humankind. Mary, while not quite the "perpetual virgin" of popular piety, is a vivid presence and forceful influence on her son. And the apostle Paul, the carrier of Jesus' message and most important figure in the early Jesus movement (which became Christianity), finds rehabilitation in Cahill's realistic, revealing portrait of him.

The third volume in the Hinges of History series, this unique presentation of Jesus and his times is for believers and nonbelievers alike (for Jews and Christians, it is intended by the author as an act of reconciliation). With the same lively narration and irresistible perceptions that characterize How the Irish Saved Civilization and The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill invites readers into an ancient world to commune with some of the most influential people who ever lived.]]> 353 Thomas Cahill 0385483724 John 5 3.97 2013
author: Thomas Cahill
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2009/10/17
shelves: favorites, history, religion-theology
review:

]]> 27200 Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, his fourth volume to explore "the hinges of history," Thomas Cahill escorts the reader on another entertaining—and historically unassailable—journey through the landmarks of art and bloodshed that defined Greek culture nearly three millennia ago.

In the city-states of Athens and Sparta and throughout the Greek islands, honors could be won in making love and war, and lives were rife with contradictions. By developing the alphabet, the Greeks empowered the reader, demystified experience, and opened the way for civil discussion and experimentation—yet they kept slaves. The glorious verses of the Iliad recount a conflict in which rage and outrage spur men to action and suggest that their "bellicose society of gleaming metals and rattling weapons" is not so very distant from more recent campaigns of "shock and awe." And, centuries before Zorba, Greece was a land where music, dance, and freely flowing wine were essential to the high life. Granting equal time to the sacred and the profane, Cahill rivets our attention to the legacies of an ancient and enduring worldview.]]> 304 Thomas Cahill 0385495544 John 5 3.75 2003
author: Thomas Cahill
name: John
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2003
rating: 5
read at: 2008/04/01
date added: 2009/10/17
shelves: favorites, history, nonfiction
review:

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