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Showing posts from December, 2013

The Best Novels of 2013

... or at least the best of those I read: 3. Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer. Pat Tillman was an American icon, but not by his own choosing. He was a man who gave up an NFL career so he could serve his country in the aftermath of 9/11. He became an Army Ranger, fought in Afghanistan, was held up as an emblem of what an American could surrender in order to battle for his country, and was killed by friendly fire. Krakauer's reporting skills are at their best here. We get a moving portrait of a complex man and the hell that being in battle can be. This was the only nonfiction book I read this year, and it was worth every second. 2. Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. Amy's introduction to us as a woman falling head over heels for this guy Nick at the start of the book is one of the best set-ups for a novel I have seen in years. She is breathlessly in love, swept away, in awe. But slowly, petal by petal, we see this flower of love begin to fall apart. Amy disappears. Was she murd

It's a Man's World on My Reading List

I had to compile a list of the authors whose works I read recently, and I came to an odd realization. I am a reader of male authors, almost exclusively. The one exception in the list is Gillian Flynn and her brilliant "Gone Girl," which by the way is being made into a movie with David Fincher as director. (The buzz is that Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike will play Nick and Amy. Feedback on those choices?) My other reading choices in the past several months? In order, they are: "Live Wire" by Harlan Coben; "The Cold Moon" by Jeffery Deaver; "One Shot" by Lee Child; "Where Men Win Glory" by Jon Krakauer; "The Highway" by C.J. Box; "The Jefferson Key" by Steve Berry; "And The Mountains Echoed" by Khaled Hosseini; and (still in the process of reading) "Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford. Next on my list? Probably "Live by Night" by Dennis Kehane, although "Life After

Action Thrillers Don't Thrill Me

I have nothing against Steve Berry. My writer friends who have met him at conferences say he is a genuinely nice guy. I admire the work he does through his foundation in advancing the study of history, and the man writes well. The problem is that I don't like what he writes. His specialty is the action thriller, and he masters the genre. He is the king of the short declarative sentence. He keeps his storytelling at a rapid-fire pace. But why don't I like his work? His plots are intricate, and they are nicely formulated. He has a knack for taking historical fact and weaving it into his brand of fiction. What I don't like is that I don't give a hoot about his characters. Cotton Malone is his protagonist. He is a man of action. He has POTUS on speed dial (which is a characteristic of more than a few action thriller main characters). He has a love of his life. I don't care about her, either. Her name is Cassiopeia Vitt. (I can't help but think of Katarina Witt w