Everything else is just made up
Moneyball by Michael Lewis – Rating **** 1/2 Moneyball the film directed by Bennett Miller and written by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Zorkin Rating **** I always enjoy having the option to read a book and then seeing that book come to life in film. This blog is full of examples of this. One that comes to [...]
Amazon recently tested a marketing program called 100 books for under $3.99. This is for Kindle books only. The test program went so well that they decided to make it a regular feature. Hey, everyone likes a good deal. So when my distributor asked me a few weeks ago if I wanted to participate I [...]
Review of Dead Reckoning by Caitlin Rother Rating ***** I first learned of this story from a 48 Hours episode. Or maybe it was Dateline. It could have been 20/20. The fact is that all of these shows and more covered this story. It’s one of the dumbest yet heinous crimes imaginable. A kid in [...]
Review of The Murder of The Century by Paul Collins Rating ***** This book involves a murder that took place in 1897. It’s not so much a mystery. Two people were arrested and charged with the murder, with both pointing the finger at the other. What makes this story so interesting are the parallels of [...]
Review of Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World written by Joan Druett Rating ***** The story told in this book has a lot of similarities to the story of Endurance and Earnest Shakelton but with a few interesting twists. First, this story involves two shipwrecks not just one. And interestingly enough [...]
A review of Overboard by Micheal Touglas Rating ***** This is the story of two sailboats, a storm, and two men tossed overboard. The incident took place in May of 2005. The 45 foot sail boat Almeisan was sailing from Connecticut to Bermuda when it, like the other sail boat, got caught in a massive [...]
Review of The Tiger: A True Story of Vengance and Survival by John Vaillant Rating *** This is a book about a tiger in the Russia Primorye region that attacked and killed a Russian hunter. The story isn’t just about this one incident, but covers the reasons behind this first killing, subsequent killings, and the hunt [...]
The book purports to tell the true story of how the nightmares of the Leiningers’ two-year old son led the parents and others to the conclusion that James was the reincarnation of a WWII fighter pilot named James Houston.
The book starts off promising as it tells the story of Henrietta Lacks and how some tissue samples taken from her while she was undergoing cancer treatments eventually led to the discovery of a cell line that is able to grow indefinitely.
This book proves to me that publishers and bookstores have it all wrong. They want to pigeon-whole every book into a genre. This book is categorized as a military history book. Okay, so it is. But how about simply calling it nonfiction. How about calling it a true story. Laura’s previous book was Seabiscuit, another great book. She could have found another story to tell about the horse world. Instead, she came across this amazing story and decided to tell it. She’s not a military historian. She’s probably not even a WWII buff. But she knows a good story when she sees one.
I recently wanted to purchase two different books for my Kindle. The first one was a self-help book whose title I can’t remember, and the second was a book I really wanted to read called No Ordinary Joes. The fact that I can’t even remember the title of the first book shows just how easy it is to lose a potential customer if the pricing isn’t right.
The book starts out with a scene that immediately casts the author in a negative light. She is riding in a taxi and spots her mother digging through trash. The author hadn’t seen her mother in months, but instead of stopping and coming to her aid, she has the taxi turn around and speed off in the opposite direction. Only after reading the book do you understand the reasoning behind that opening scene and realize that it is the perfect opening.
This is a story that has followed an unconventional path. It was first brought to light by author Mark Boal, who wrote an article for Playboy magazine (Mark is also up for best screenplay for The Hurt Locker). Mark’s magazine article piqued the interest of director Paul Haggis, who turned the story into the movie In The Valley of Elah, which I saw and thought was very good. Mark Boal wrote the screenplay. There’s even been a 48 Hours segment. Now comes a more complete telling of the story by author Cilla McCain
I recently bought three eBooks all dealing in some manner with Google. I read all three at the same time, letting the Kindle keep track of where I was in each book. Since I read all three books simultaneously and all three cover similar ground, I thought I’d comment on them together rather than separately.
