Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
Broken Ground by Val McDermid is a great Scottish crime mystery. This book came out last year but my favorite librarian suggested it to me few months ago. This is a wonderful book and I completely enjoyed it .
Continue reading “Broken Ground by Val McDermid”
The title is The Trust: A Novel by Ronald H. Balson. This is a really good book and I’ll be sure to check out other titles by the author.
Liam Taggart’s last visit to Northern Ireland ended badly. Very badly. Continue reading “The Trust: A Novel by Ronald H. Balson”
The full title is “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America“. The author is Nancy MacLean, a professor of history and public policy at Duke University. So you can be certain that the author knows her history. In addition, there are extensive notes and a bibliography.
Continue reading “Democracy in Chains – why and how”
Health Care: Meet the American Dream by Janis Powers is a great read for anyone with an interest in health care. Since healthcare is one of the most contentious issues in recent years I hope this book finds a large audience.
The United States has a very complicated system which has the highest costs in the world but relatively poor outcomes. Clearly major changes are needed.
Continue reading “Health Care: Meet the American Dream”
The full title is Reimagining Our Tomorrows: Making Sure Your Future Doesn’t SUCK by Joe Tankersley. I thank Netgalley for the privilege of reading an ARC of this book.
None of us knows what the future holds. Will it be good or will it be bad?
Continue reading “Reimagining Our Tomorrows”
An Irish thriller. The title comes from the inscription on the Four Courts building in Dublin, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.” This is a wonderful book on many levels and I completely enjoyed it. It is billed as a thriller and it is. But is it much more.
“Though the Heavens Fall” by Anne Emery is the 10th and latest in the Collins-Burke Mystery Series. It was a new series for me so I can say for certain that you do not need to read this series in order. I started with number 10 and did not feel lost in the least.
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The full title of this book is How to See Religion Differently: What questioning your beliefs can reveal, and why it can lead to a healthy mind. The book is by Luke Pemberton who was raised Catholic and questioned his beliefs (or at least what he was told to believe) as he got a bit older.
I think that questioning your beliefs is a good thing. Different folks will decide different things. Religion makes sense to many people. Others will decide that religion or maybe a particular religion is not for them.
Continue reading “Questioning your beliefs is a good thing”
Lies by T. M. Logan is not coming out in the US until September 2018. So I’d like to thank Netgalley for a chance to read and review this book well before the release in the US. It has been available in the UK for a while and presumably sold well enough that the a release in the US seemed like a good idea.
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I decided to read It’s the Economy, Stupid mainly because of the cover which told me that this book would explain why Donald Trump was elected President. I did not understand it before reading this book and still do not understand.
Continue reading ““It’s the Economy, Stupid” by Christos A. Djonis”
The full title is The Price of Greatness: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the Creation of American Oligarchy by Jay Cost.
American freedom from Great Britain was won by many. There were many visions of what this country should be. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were key figures in deciding how the ideals of the revolutionaries could be preserved in a lasting government.
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Do facts matter to you?
I am reading The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic
by Benjamin Carter Hett. I just started, about 10% into it according to my Kindle, but I thought this was an interesting quote from the book.
Continue reading “Facts matter, at least to some of us”
The full title is The Price of Greatness: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and the Creation of American Oligarchy by Jay Cost.
I accidently posted 2 reviews of this book and so posted the last one combined the some thoughts from the earlier version. See my final review of The Price of Greatness.
I was very surprised to see The Firemaker by Peter May available as an Advance Reading Copy (ARC) on Netgalley. I thought this was an older book. But I have been a fan of Peter May since reading his Lewis trilogy so I was interested.
The Firemaker is the first book in his set of China thrillers set in the 1990 and early 2000s. I checked and this series was published between 1999 and 2004. The reason for an ARC is this is a re-release in early 2018. The best explanation for why he decided on a re-release is the Introduction by the author.
Continue reading “The Firemaker by Peter May”
The full title is “A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes “ . Adam Rutherford is hardly a household name at least here in the US. But I hope it will be a name that people looking for good science writing will remember.
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This is How It Begins is a very good book. I thought it was so good I read it twice.
I will sometimes re-read books but usually after a good interval has passed. I think this may be the first that I have read a book twice within a few weeks. It is definitely the only one that I read twice before the book was released.
It is that good. Continue reading “This is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey”