Fiction books read (2008)

 

• The Wire in the Blood (Val McDerend)
• Retribution (Jullianne Hoffman)
• Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) 
• The Last Don (Mario Puzo) 
• Monsoon (Wilbur Smith)
• A Time to Die (Wilbur Smith)
• The Blue Horizon (Wilbur Smith)
• The Genesis Code (John Case)
• The Count Of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
• The Partner (John Grisham)
• Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
• Prey (Michael Crichton)
• About a Boy (Nick Hornsby)
• Self Defense (Jonathon Kellerman)
• Nick Hornsby (A Long Way Down)
• The Last Temptation (Val Mc Dermid)

Books: Jack Reacher (Lee Childs)

Another of my recent addictions is Jack Reacher. I'd go as far as saying I have a bit of a "school boy" crush on him. He's the invention of Lee Child and the protagonist of 12 books all of which I have now voraciously read.

So who is Jack Reacher? Here are some facts about Reacher for your interest and enrichment…

• Jack Reacher is the modern day equivalent of the enigmatic stranger who rides into town to sort everything out with fist and gun.
• He was born on October 29th, 1960 on an Army base in Berlin. His father is a Marine who served in Korea and Vietnam. As kids, Jack and his family moved non-stop from one military base to another.
• Reacher mustered out of the army with the rank of Major in 1997 when defence budget cuts made him "lose interest".
• Since leaving the army in 1997, Reacher has been a drifter. He travels around the United States, exploring the one country he never got to see in his childhood. He is always on the move.
• Reacher owns nothing except the clothes he is wearing. He wears his clothes 4 days or so, then throws them away and buys more clothes. He is weighed down by nothing.
• Reacher makes money by doing odd jobs. He also tends to pocket the money he takes from thugs.
• Reacher has blue eyes and fair hair. He is a giant of a man, standing at 1.96m tall with a 50-inch chest, and weighing between 100-115kg. He is exceptionally strong. He is also crack shot.
• Reacher has a knack for finding and tackling trouble where ever he goes. As well as helping people in distress.
• Reacher has no doubts about his objective: to rid the world of bad guys. And nobody does it better. However, Reacher is also that rare kind of action hero who always takes the trouble to think things through and solve the puzzles (using his brilliant investigative skills) before sorting the bad guys. He thus combines brute force and brilliant deduction.
• Reacher capitalises on his past career as a Military Policeman. He served for 13 years. He is a hell of a good investigator. Maybe the best the army ever had.
• Some of the baddies he comes across are real heavy weight nasties who have a penchant for cutting peoples' balls off.
• Reacher has the uncanny ability to know what time it is, at any time of the day, without referring to a timepiece.
• He has the ability to take on multiple thugs at once and he generally comes out unscathed.
• He has a fascination with mathematics and a love for blues music.
• He is addicted to coffee.
• He has a passion for pretty women (particularly if they are in distress) and tends to bed at least one per book (surprise, surprise!).

So there you go. Welcome to one of the truly memorable tough guys in modern fiction. Don’t let it be said I don’t try to enrich my readers through my blog…

Top 100 BBC Reads

Ally and I both decided that it would be great to read the Top 100 BBC Reads - a list of the 100 favourite books voted for by the readers of ww.bbc.com. Needless to say it's turning out to be a whole lot of reading!! I've now read 29 of the 100, Ally being a more voracious reader is at around 40...

The two most recent books I have read are The Count Of Monte Cristo (yes, all 1241 pages of it!) and Anne of Green Gables (what an unexpectedly delightful book). Both books were fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Next I'll be tackling Catch 22 and Pride and Predjudice. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just catch the movies (just about all the books have been made into movies at one time or another) - but I suppose that would be cheating!

Fiction books read (2007)

• Abduction (Robin Cook)
• Derailed (James Siegel)
• Echo Burning (Lee Child)
• The Hard Way (Lee Child)
• Bad Luck and Trouble (Lee Child)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (JK Rowling) 
• Obsession (Karen Robards)
• A Memory of Demons (David Ambrose) 
• Cider House Rules (John Irving)
• The Big Picture (Douglas Kennedy)
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin (Louis de Bernières)

Non fiction books read (2006)

Presence

• Practicing The Power of Now, (Eckhart Tolle)
  
  

Natural selection

• The Origin of species, (Charles Darwin)

Fiction books read (2006)

 

• 1984 (George Orwell)
• The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
• False Memory (Dean Koontz) 
• Kill The Messenger (Tami Hoag) 
• Cold Fire (Koontz)
• The Pelican Brief, (John Grisham)
• The Gemini Scripts (Robert Ludlum)
• King of Torts, (John Grisham)
• The Testament (John Grisham) 
• Something Wicked (Jennifer Rowe) 
• My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)

Non fiction books read (Cambridge years: 2004 - 2005)

Personal Development

• Getting Things Done (David Allen)
• Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (Richard Carlson)
• The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell)

History

• A Brief History of the Human Race (Michael A. Cook)

Fiction books read (Cambridge Years: 2004 - 2005)

• The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)
• Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• His Dark Materials (Philip Pullman) 
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)

A Brief History of the Human Race

I'm recently started this book and am really enjoying it. The History of Mankind in just 359 pages - and not just western history; it includes an historic account of every continent. It might be brief but it's full of interesting ideas and anecdotes - to be recommended.

Talking of brief histories, I found an account of The History of the Universe in 200 Words or less on the web. Impressive but not many of the 200 words are short!

Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything"

Wow, what a brilliant book. I have always enjoyed Bryson's hearty travel books but he's really blown me away this time with his rivetting account of everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation. This book should be on every school's reading list because it makes physics, chemistry, biology and geography and all those other cob-webby text book subjects come alive like I'd never have thought possible. Brims with strange and fascinating facts that make you gasp and contemplate, I can't recommend this book more.