Home Books By Year Archive by category "2013 Reads" (Page 2)

Category: 2013 Reads

Book 17 of 2013 – The Imperial Cruise – James Bradley

The Imperial CruiseIn 1905 Theodore Roosevelt sent the largest diplomatic mission in US across the Pacific to Asia. The mission was led by his Secretary of War William Howard Taft and the group included his daughter Alice.  James Bradley’s book about this mission The Imperial Cruise is Book 17 of 2013. During the trip Taft on Roosevelt’s behalf negotiated a series of secret agreements – which were unconstitutional – that laid the groundwork for future Japanese actions over the next 30-40 years. The details of these agreements remained secret until after Roosevelt’s death and really have been absent from history books. Read More

Book 16 of 2013 Parnell Hall’s – Stakeout

stakeoutThere are several mystery characters in mystery series  that make me laugh, but two stand out first there’s Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum and secondly there’s Parnell Hall’s Stanley Hastings. Stanley’s latest caper Stakeout is Book 16 of 2013.. Stakeout is the 18th book in the series that I started reading in 1991! Like all the others this one is a fine caper, which had me out laughing out loud on more than one occasion! The Washington Post Book World says this about the series: Read More

Book 14 0f 2013 – James Lee Burke – Creole Belle

Creole BelleI have feeling that if I were an English major or at least more literature literate, I would love the great novels of James Lee Burke even more than I do presently! Creole Belle is the 19th Burke novel featuring Dave Robicheaux and is Book 14 for 2013 this one took a while to read, mainly because it is rather long (528 pages) and I got distracted by a couple of other books, but when I came back and picked it up about midway through, I zipped right through it, especially over the last two hundred or so pages. Like all the other books it’s a whopping good read!! Read More

Book 13 of 2013 – The Blood Gospel – James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell

The Blood GospelArchaeologist Dr. Erin Granger is working on a dig in Caesarea, Israel when an explosion rocks the Masada. The explosion splits Masada and emits a gas that kills all the visitors The explosion reveals an unknown underground chamber. Soon Sergent Jordan Stone is sent to bring Erin to the site to help and try to discover what happened! Read More

Book 12 of 2013 – Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy

ImpeachedFirst a comment on my March reading. I started the month reading James Lee Burke’s Creole Belle and three non-fiction books. Impeached by David O. Stewart, The Armistad Rebellion by Marcus Rediker and Kofi Anann’s Interventions. I had also gotten out of the library The Blood Gospel by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell. By the middle of the month, I had made the most progress on the David Stewart book and minimal progress on the others. About the day before Blood Gospel was due back at the library, I started reading it. No wait, it was actually overdue when I started it! Anyway I was enjoying it, so Creole Belle got set aside! I continued to read Impeached along with The Blood Gospel and managed to finish Impeached at the beginning of this month. It is Book 12 for 2013. I was pleased that I finished the book because it’s the kind of book that I usually start and enjoy and then ,move on to something else, so to finish it is a good thing! Read More

Treacherous Beauty – Peggy Shippen, the Woman Behind Benedict Arnold’s Plot to Betray Anerica

Peggy ShippenSo in Book No 11 for 2013 Treacherous Beauty, the authors Mark Jacobs and Stephen H. Case make the case (no pun intended, well maybe a little) that the subject of the book was the Scarlett O’Hara of the Revolutionary War: “a woman whose survival skills trumped all other values. Had she been a man, she might have been arrested, tried and executed. And she might have become famous. Instead, her role was minimized and she was allowed to recede into the background – with a generous British pension in hand”  the Treacherous Beauty is Peggy Shippen, Mrs. Benedict Arnold! Read More

Book Number 9 of 2013 – The President and the Assassin….

Leon Czolgosz

Emma Goldman

Albert_Parsons_portrait

Ok so which of the four people pictured above can you identify? Before I read Book Number 9 for 2013, I could have maybe identified two! The first two are the key players in the book, while persons three and four helped nudge number two along! The first two are William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz, who are The President and the Assassin, respectively, from Scott Miller’s  terrific book titled – The President and the Assassin:McKinley, Terror, and the Empire at the Dawn of the American Century. Persons three and four are anarchist Emma Goldman and Albert Parsons.  both of whom provided a push to Leon to do the deed! Read More

Current Reads – Is Five Too Many??

Ok so how many books is it Ok to read at one time? Right now, I’m reading five! Is that too many? On the fiction side, I’m reading the latest from novel from one of my all time favorite authors James Lee Burke,Creole Belle. He is such a great writer! It takes about two to three pages for me to get sucked back into the world of Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcell and New Iberia, Louisiana! Read More

Book 8 of 2013 – Trust Your Eyes – Linwood Barclay

Ok so I’ve written before that I loved Linwood Barclay‘s Zack Walker books and wished that he kept writing them. When I questioned him about that he said that while the books received critical acclaim  they just didn’t sell well, then he started writing standalone thrillers and his career took off! While after finishing his latest book Trust Your Eyes, I will never again question his decision and I will eagerly awaiting his next standalone!!  For me Trust Your Eyes is the best book he has written yet and I am not alone in the opinion: Read More