Steve Gross
A great improvement from the previous one in the series. Much more spy-like although too many references to the “great” Allon. It's a mystery to me why he's so great.
Fascinating book, mostly about genetics and sports ability. Could have used better editing - many times the author doesn't know when to stop. He also inserts himself into the book needlessly. The real-life stories are engrossing, though.
Lawrence Wright, who wrote the excellent “The Looming Tower”, tackles Scientology in this new book. The result is not a success. Too many personalities, too much time spent on Hollywood people and Tom Cruise in particular. he could have cut 100 pages from this overlong book. Scientology is very weird.
Magnificent. Ellis interweaves two stories that occur simultaneously during the extended summer of 1776. One story is the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence and the other story is Washington's first major battle, the Battle of New York, which he loses badly. Both stories depend on the other. Terrific writing.
Much like the first book in the series, The Thirty Nine Steps. Too many coincidences and strokes of luck. It is a fascinating peek into the world of 1916 Europe.
Very much like the other books by Rollins in the Sigma series. If you like them, you'll like this one.
Robert L. Ripley of “Believe It or Not” fame, was an interesting character. The writing is rather plain and a little repetitive.
A very thorough treatment of the evolutio9nary problems of the Cambrian Explosion and Information Theory. Bit dense at times.
Modern-day adventurer looks for the fabled White City in Honduras while paralleling his quest with an explorer/spy of WWII. OK of its kind.
This is an interesting story, but poorly edited. It switches from biography of Stoker to psychological and quite unconvincing proofs of Stoker's influences.
I disliked this book in so many ways:
1) It's a proctologist's view of Israel
2) the writing is overwrought and repetitive
3) I think the history is wrong in many places
4) How much can one author write about himself?
5) I disagree with the author's leftist politics (although, to his credit, he never pretends otherwise)
Most boys go through an intense dinosaur phase; the author never got over it. If you were once interested in dinosaurs but have no idea what the current state of the art in paleontology is, you will enjoy this. By the way, I was sad to learn that there is no such thing as a brontosaurus.
Wonderful book on the making of the John Ford/John Wayne film “The Searchers”. The first half is all about the true history behind the story; indian abduction of white children was the first American literary genre. The second half is about the actual movie. John Ford was a real SOB. Highly readable although the author should have omitted the epilogue.
Injured and traumatized cop partners with injured and traumatized dog. Some interesting chapters told from the dog's point of view. A little too repetitive - how many times can you say “he stroked the dog”? Still, better than average recent Crais.
This book has three parts: the search for the Higgs Boson, a description of the Large hadron Collider and what a particle physicist does. This book cries out for an editor - the author repeats himself endlessly. Still, some good physics explanations.
First in a lengthy series featuring Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, VT police. Nice writing.
Decent mystery set in Victorian Toronto. The language is often difficult for us older, non-Canadian folks.
Lots of literary theory mumbo-jumbo in the middle, but the ending is clever. Only for die-hard fans.
Excellent, thought-provoking book with a new economic theory to answer three puzzles of Jewish history: 1) There were one million Jews in the year 0; why aren't more Jews today? 2) Why did Jews go from farmers in the Talmudic period to merchants and craftsmen? 3) Why did Jews migrate to Europe and North Africa? A new and substantial way to answer these questions that has large implications for the Jewish future.
The writing was pretty good, but there were many discurses that didn't add much, such as various topics of mental health. Also, I would have liked some detail on the mathematics. Nash was not really a nice person; I'm amazed at how many good friends he had.
