Book Reports

Jules finds a way to get back at the venal mogul, secure the future of his grandson, and submit to cosmic justice for his own crime.

In "The Order," Silva transitions from previous novels' focus on Israeli spymaster Gabriel Allon's fight against Islamic terror, to intrigue within the Catholic Church.

Wilson, reluctantly concluded the US must enter the war on the side of the Entente as war events suggested the real possibility of a dark tyranny sweeping away democracy should the Central Powers prevail.

These guys, one hundred forty some years ago, were building a prefab building at 81 degrees north latitude, in bitter cold, with little more than rudimentary tools and their wits. No radios... no way to communicate with the outside world. Men are tested in many ways these days, but, few are ever tested in the same way as were Greely and his men.

In 1617, the date when Moghul Emperor Jahangir, granted the EIC trading rights, the Moghul Empire accounted for a fifth of the world’s population and a quarter of the globe’s manufactured goods, while England, with a 20th of India’s population, produced three per cent of the world’s manufactured goods.

And this book, "Savage Son." We are to believe that a protected higher up in the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) can lure a top former Seal, now CIA operative, to a remote Russian Island to be tracked and hunted? And that the CIA operative (Reece) went on this mission against the express wishes of the CIA.... and that the Russian hunter was tipped off as to the CIA operative's (Reece) plans by the Chief of Staff to the US President? C'mon!

It is said that "the moment makes the man." Despite Washington's imperfections and doubts, he summoned up enough strength to see the job through drawing from his core belief in the primacy of individual freedom as a God given right.

Most people know about Brigham Young, Smith's able, pragmatic, successor, and the well organized Mormon crossing of the American plains he orchestrated. But, that trek would have been impossible without a people hardened in the crucible of Joseph Smith's remarkable city of Nauvoo. Park's book is a needed, well told story about American exceptionalism and an exceptional American. Read it.

To some extent, the 2019 book under the new title is a bait and switch.

He's one of those guys you want to be near when the proverbial mud hits the fan.

I have said "I'm finished with Jack Reacher" several times. But, Lee Child understands his fans are hooked. Reacher is like a drug. If Reacher is the worst drug I use, I suppose that's not so bad.

Desai's book points out many examples of seeming shocking treatment of colonials as British authorities tried to maintain control of a rapidly deteriorating situation in Amritsar. 

Resulting from heavy handed trade requirements and growing Christian missionizing, there grew an unease amongst the peoples of North India that the EIC threatened their way of life and their religious beliefs. 

In any case, whichever book is read, the completion of the Transcontinental Railway is an important event in American history, without more than cursory knowledge of which, a full understanding of the American experience is not possible.

"Traditional media hates this, but some have called Trump a true media revolutionary on the order of Gutenberg, for neutralizing the power of the curating media." Bishop

Stewart's book is instructive either for the open minded conservative who wants to hear the other point of view (Mwah sic), or the liberal who wants to have his pro Comey views about the Trump/Comey set-to validated.

Queen Victoria, who shed copious public tears on Wellington's passing, called him the greatest man produced during the nineteenth century.

In fact, the book, makes the credible argument that the rise of German naval militarism was the proximate cause of WWI.

Even more than WWII, WWI continues to shape the politics and international relations of the world.

The authors warn that the next confirmation fight involving a Trump nominee is likely to be bloodier than this one.

And, so begins the story of the Trail.

The characters are unforgettable... there are riveting battle scenes... the novel is a page turner.

"The Parisian" is set, mainly, in immediate post WWI, Nablus, Palestine. The novel's timeline runs from 1915, when protagonist Midhat, son of a successful Nablus clothing merchant, attends medical school in Montpelier, France, to the mid 1930's when seeming irresolvable violence and tension are rife between Jews and Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Specified information (as opposed to random, "junk," or "Shannon" information) can only come from a mind, says Meyer. And so it is, he says, for the most complex, specified, information sequences known to man: DNA

If you've been dispirited by the fast paced, but spare, recent formulaic Reacher novels... try the earlier ones... the plots are better and there's more meat on the bones.

Reacher, has been abruptly reassigned from Panama to a North Carolina army post, where his first assignment is to investigate the death of a two star tank general whose body has been found in a seedy motel room.

I'd like to read the other side of the story. But, I suspect that Tara's parents are not the type of people who would publicly trash their daughter, however they felt about her privately.

Implied in the exchange is the author's self satisfaction in conceiving the clever, triple entendre novel title.

Like other Islamic rulers during the Golden Age of Islam, the Moghuls were enlightened leaders.

This book outlines how new scientific knowledge of human genetics, post the 2003 sequencing of the human genome, comes into conflict with social science orthodoxy on race.

Amos and Alex sleuthing at the house across the street draws them, with the assent of local police, into a cauldron of area crime that involves multiple murders, life insurance fraud, pill pressing, and a treasure hunt for a long-forgotten gold stash.

From China’s slumping economy to war clouds over the South China Sea and from environmental devastation to demographic crisis, Auslin says Asia’s future is uncertain.

Polk is one of the five US most successful American presidents in advancing American exceptionalism (the others, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump). ***

***Second Five: Nixon, FDR, Truman, Jackson, TR.