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Midday refers to the moment the sun crosses the local meridian.
And Now You Do
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7:14, I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows.
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nvestagata writes "There are people who can walk away from you. And hear me when I tell
you this! When people can walk away from you: LET THEM WALK!
I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving
you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you, staying attached
to you. I mean hang up the phone.
When people can walk away from you,LET THEM WALK. Your destiny is never tied to anybody that left. The bible said that, they came out from us
that it might be made manifest that they were not for us. For had they
been of us, no doubt they would have continued with us. [1 John 2:19]"
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Published: 2005; Pages: 979; Rating: Excellent
Excellent book and the best I have ever read about the Fab Four, and I have read a few of them. This book got a lot of publicity when it was first announced as “The” definitive biography of the Beatles. And since it has been published, it has received even more reviews. Some of them have been negative saying the book “drug” in places and some giving it excellent marks as this reader did.
The part I liked best was the early pages where the childhood of each of the four Beatles was detailed better than I have seen in earlier books. It took John and talked about how poor his family was and how he eventually was raised by his Aunt Mimi. He was such a poor student I wonder what he would have ever done if he had not picked up a guitar one day. The book talked about Paul and what good grades he made in school and how his family did have some musical roots. Paul was left handed and it was interesting reading about how he tried to play with the guitar upside down and restrung it backwards a one time to make his own style of music. None of the Beatles could read music, they just made it. And of course Paul always liked the girls. It talked about George and how he dazzled the other Beatles with his guitar playing when he was first introduced to them back in their early days as the Quarry Men. George was the youngest and was once escorted out of a bar the Beatles were playing in because he was not eighteen yet. George went his own way with his gurus and spiritual life style. All the way to the end. And then there were a couple of drummers that came before Ringo but they never meshed with the other Beatles. When Ringo joined up with his unique style of humor, the rest of the Beatles loved him and then they became the rock group that changed the world of music and even the culture of the world itself. If you never knew about Pete Best, the drummer that preceded Ringo, you will find him between these pages. Also you will find Stuart Sutcliffe, an artist that was a great friend of John’s that played bass guitar for a while before dying of a brain disorder right before they became famous.
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Published: 1995; Pages: 321; Rating: Decent
One more Ed McBain novel for those that like a decently fast moving mystery and a whodunit where someone surely done it. This is probably the last Ed McBain book I will buy, but there might be one or more left in my queue that have to be traveled through. Mr. Ed has been around for a long time, maybe too long. His mysteries are good and he has legions of fans, but they seem to be old hat after you have been through the first twenty of his 87th Precinct Novels. Police procedurals and a few corpses laying around along with a hand full of suspects. That’s it. These days I like James Patterson, Michael Connelly, and Robert Crais better.
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History: Report From Ground Zero
by Dennis Smith
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Published: 2002; Pages: 366; Rating: Good
I looked for quite a while on Amazon.Com for a comprehensive book covering the events of September 11th, 2001. It has been a few years now since this world changing event and I had not read a single book covering the details yet. You would think it would be difficult to choose between the many titles available, but I discovered that an overall narrative of the event was actually difficult to find. Believe it or not. Lots of books were listed about individual pieces of that day and surrounding events, but not the one overall ‘Complete 9/11” book.
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Published: 1977; Pages: 204; Rating: Average
Dean Koontz and monsters are fairly synonymous and have been for several years now. For example this book was published in 1977 which is almost 30 years ago and today he is still cranking out about one of these terror stories a year. Some of his books are fairly good and almost all of them start off good. My main complaint is that he lays a good foundation and characterization to begin with but has some trouble tying everything back together and delivering a good climax at the end. He seems to drift a little once he gets the story going.
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Mystery: "Gladly The Cross-Eyed Bear"
by Ed McBain
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Published: 1996; Pages: 326; Rating: Average
Ed McBain is a long time author famously known for his stories about the 87th Precinct. I do not know how old he is, but I am sure I read some of his books when during my kid years so he should have a lot of life experiences to draw from by now. I think the 87th Precinct is in New York City, but not positive about that yet. The book kind of wanders around in and out of neighborhoods, boat docks, and courthouses. You do not normally think of New York City as a boater’s paradise or a place of beach towels and sand castles.
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Published: 1992; Pages: 1117; Rating: Excellent
David McCullough is one of the eminent historians of our time and he wrote a good one here. The first half of this book is maybe the most fascinating biography I have ever read. The latter half dulls down a little bit, but it does well in wrapping up the story and the life of one of our greatest presidents.
Truman really was an everyman’s blue collar type worker and President in that he said what he was thinking and played very little with the double talking professional politicians in big government. Accordingly he was one of those fellows that some people really liked (those that appreciated straight talk and honesty) and then there were some who really hated him (those that did not like having to face the truth or anyone tell them the truth). When Truman did not like you, there was no real challenge in figuring this out.
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Novel: Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
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Published: 2001; Pages: 326; Rating: Excellent
When you first see the title of this book, you think it must be some mathematical story with an endless set of non-repeating numbers, but it is not. Nothing mathematical about this book at all. The name “Pi” comes from the main character’s name, an Indian boy, by the name of Piscine. Pi is just his nickname.
Typically I do not like books by foreign writers with a foreign setting, but this one sort of broke the mold and after starting off a little slow, turned into an excellent page turner that had a wind blowing you right to the very end. It was different, no doubt about it.
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History: The Making of Europe
by Christopher Dawson
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Published: 1932; Pages: 274; Rating: Poor
Someone at work with whom I was having a political argument loaned me this book to read. After thumbing through it before diving in, it appears to have been one of his textbooks in college, and you know how dry those kind of books can be. This was certainly no exception. This was about as tough a read as trying to sew with a tire iron.
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History: Keeper of Genesis
by Robert Bauval & Graham Hancock
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Published: 1997; Pages: 396; Rating: Average
I bought this book at a book store in India once during a three week stay with not much to do on the weekends. They actually had a little coffee shop inside the store just like you find in a Barnes & Noble, but maybe on a little smaller scale. Most of the selections were paperbacks as is this book, but they had some new edition hardbacks as well, just not very many. For example, the Bill Clinton biography “My Life” had just been released while I was in India and they had it in stock shortly after the USA stores received it.
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Novel: The Broker
by John Grisham
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Published: 2005; Pages: 357; Rating: Good
“The Broker” is a lawyer languishing in a prison somewhere when the first pages are turned. Once upon a time he had a huge office in Washington D.C. overlooking the White House and brokered deals worth megamillions. Caviar was the only thing he had for breakfast each morning. But, he tried to broker a deal that affected satellite security involving every major nation in the world and they all got mad at him. The CIA scooped him up and hid him away with a never ending sentence. He is also about fifty years old and I am wondering if that is the age of Grisham these days.
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Mystery: "Honeymoon"
by James Patterson
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Published: 2005; Pages: 390; Rating: Great
I like all of James Patterson’s books and this is another good one with his usual great characterizations. Beautiful villains and happy go lucky heroes are between the pages along with a few million dollars being passed around that everyone in the book would like to get their hands on. The FBI is hanging around along with a set of fast cars, expensive meals, and lots of vintage wine. I am not sure what “vintage” means. Probably has something to do with expensive. The trail begins early with a man getting whacked and the beautiful woman getting his money, and then the clues begin to mount as the chase begins.
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Mystery: "No Second Chance"
by Harlan Coben
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Published: 2003; Pages: 338; Rating: Great
Harlan Coben is an author I missed somewhere along the line. A friend of mine (Tinker) recommended one of his books while we were perusing the “Murder By The Book” place in Houston and I picked this one up almost at random from a pile of used books. In fact, after I got home and looked inside the cover, it had a price of $1.00 penciled on the first page. That was certainly not the price I paid for it. After scratching my head for a minute, the answer to the puzzle popped in. This is an independent bookstore owned by local people and run by local people. I suppose if they make all the garage sales and flea markets and pick out some excellent books like this for a buck, then they stand a good chance of putting them back on the shelf and selling them for a pretty profit to people like me. It worked.
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Mystery: ''City Of Bones''
by Michael Connelly
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Published: 2002; Pages: 393; Rating: Excellent
This was the first book I ever read by Michael Connelly and an excellent mystery it indeed turned out to be. Later I was to meet Michael in person at a bookstore in Houston and shake hands with him, but at the time this fellow by the name of Tinker Ivey was telling me how good his mysteries were at making you flip the pages. The Tinker man was right.
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History: ''Murder In Brentwood''
by Mark Furman
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Published: 1997; Pages: 392; Rating: Good
It would be interesting to see a poll taken now years after the event to see what percentage of people believe O.J. Simpson was guilty of murder. The murder of his wife and the murder of a friend of hers that happened to be on the premises when O.J. pulled his knife out and started cutting throats. I wanted to see Mark Furman’s side of the story after watching the trial so long ago and seeing it won not on the physical evidence presented by the defense, but instead by the defense pulling out the race card in large part by the door opened by Furman. And also because there was no other possible way to defend O.J.
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49 _STORIES (4 _PAGES, 15 _PERPAGE)
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 We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are
free from great ones.
-- La Rouchefoucauld
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