Adolf Tolkachev’s story is one of brilliant courage and heroism. That it ends in tragedy and betrayal only seems to accentuate the stakes that he faced in his struggle to tear down the totalitarian tyranny of the Soviet state. David Hoffman’s telling of Tolkachev’s story in The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold […]
Book Review | The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal by David E. Hoffman
2016-01-20 · by ·
Book Review | Red Rising by Pierce Brown
2016-01-14 · by ·
Well, heck. If this isn’t how you open a series, then I don’t know how you do. Red Rising starts deep below the Martian surface, where Darrow, a “Red,” lives and works the mines as a helldiver retrieving helium-3 which will fuel the terraforming of Mars. Reds are on the bottom of the class system, […]
Books to movies in 2016…some hits and some misses
2016-01-06 · by ·
Buzzfeed recently listed out 19 books that will become movies this year. Some are hits, while others are misses, and lots are proof that there’s no accounting for taste. A few hits: I’ve previously read a couple of Mitchell Zuchoff’s books, and Benghazi never ceases to be a source of interesting controversy, so I’ll likely pick […]
Book Review | Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
2015-12-28 · by ·
At this point, Words of Radiance has been out for a year and a half, and I suspect most of Sanderson’s fans have read it. I’ve bumped into them at cons, book stores, signings, and, frankly, almost every other place where you might find readers. I bump into them at the most unlikely of places […]
Book Review | David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
2015-12-23 · by ·
In persuading me to read David Copperfield by Charles Dickens this recent autumn, a friend described that book thus: “It’s basically David Copperfield’s whole life story. That’s it. Just his whole life.” Some one thousand plus pages later (depending on which edition you read), it’s a pretty accurate description. Beginning just before his birth, with David telling […]
Book Review | If a Pirate I Must Be: The True Story of Black Bart, “King of the Caribbean Pirates” by Richard Sanders
2015-12-23 · by ·
Shiver me timbers! Thar be a book worth the read! Arrr! I had only a small idea what to expect when I picked up If a Pirate I Must Be: The True Story of Black Bart, “King of the Caribbean Pirates” by Richard Sanders. A selection for my book club (known as the Manly Book Club […]
Book Review | Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore
2015-12-18 · by ·
Oh, Jerusalem. There is no other place on Earth quite as tragic, drenched in both blood and history. And it makes for reading that cannot be put down. Here’s the short version of why you should read Simon Sebag Montefiore’s history of Jerusalem: In just under seven hundred pages, Jerusalem: The Biography is a satisfying, narrative-based […]
Book Review | Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson
2015-12-17 · by ·
I loved Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. Dark, gritty, and grim, the tone of the story is not my typical fare. And, to be honest, I feel a little guilty admitting how much I enjoyed it–after all, Brandon Sanderson is one of the biggest names in fantasy, and expressing admiration for his […]
Book Review | This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral — plus plenty of valet parking! — in America’s Gilded Capital by Mark Leibovich
2015-12-16 · by ·
If you needed any reason to be cynical about American politics–especially nationally–then Mark Leibovich’s This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral — plus plenty of valet parking! — in America’s Gilded Capital is the book for you. I guarantee that you will not put it down with a breath single breath of hope and optimism […]
Book Review | Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson
2015-12-15 · by ·
In Hidden Empire, man has reached the stars, spreading out and colonizing them, but not without help. The Ildirans have given man the stardrive, an inexpensive way to cross the vast distances of space in a fraction of the time that it takes light to travel. Other than the Klikiss, an extinct race whose archaeological […]
