Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (7)

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
By Richard P Feynman

Richard Feynman... Physicist, Genius, Nobel Prize winner... curious character... An interesting collection of stories... From his childhood.. and fixing radios for neighbors.. to the working on the A bomb during the war.. to teaching.. but the interesting parts of the books are the looks at his life... meeting girls in Arizona, hanging out in Las Vegas, learning to draw (and becoming quite good), visiting Japan, living in Brazil.. The man had a lot of experiences in his life.. and you get the idea that he did it by being very genuine.. and talking with people...
Dr Feynman died of cancer in 1988, at the age of 69. This book was published the year before his death.

Stallions Gate (5)

Stallions Gate
By Martin Cruz Smith

This was about the Los Almos project to develop the nuclear bomb during WW II. The story revolves around Joe, and Indian, who got into trouble for sleeping with an officers wife while in the service. He gets out of a military prison to be driver and body guard for 'Oppy' (J Robert Openhimer) who was a childhood friend.
Joe finds he doesnt really belong anywhere.. not quite an Indian, as he left years before, not a white person, not really intot he Army..
There are many side stories in this book.. about the scientist.. the work on the bomb.. music which may be Joes only real passion.. His uncle who is trying to cause problems with the project, and instead gets into trouble with Indian Service.
The book is going in many directions.. but never really sure what is important.. is his love life the story.. the drama with his family.. with the Capt that got him out of the brig.. is there espionage going on... lots of questions with few answers.. in the end most of the smallers stories come to some conclusion.. I did not care for the end.. but it was one way to end it.. all in all the book was a bit vaugue and confusing.. just like real life

Family - The Ties That Bind.. And Gag (4)

Family- The Ties That Bind.. And Gag!
Erma Bombeck

Erma is gone, but her books live on. This was written late in her life, and is in many ways a 'greatest hits' The children (now grown) come home for a visit.. this sets off a nastalgia of memories taken from previous books.. but also is a pointinet look at how children impact the lives of their parents.. and how they feel looking at the 'all grown up'
I do enjoy Erma and laughed out loud at many parts.. she has the dry sense of humor that I so enjoy.. A female Bob Newhart in many respects. I must say I now see her work a bit differently.. now that I have children :)

Batman: The Stone King (3)

Batman: The Stone King
Justice League of America
By Alan Grant

This is a novel, not a comic book.. but written about the JLA and the varios superheros.. in the era of Justice League TV show.. IE Jon, the Martian, The Watchtower etc. The main emphasis was on Batman, although all the superheros made appearances, and were part of the story. Not a bad story.. didn't like the evil the best.. it was hard to understand the threat.. and how to beat it... But overall an enjoyable book!
Finished 1/13/06

Hard Living On Clay Street (2)

Hard Living on Clay Street
Portraits of Blue Collar Families
Joseph T. Howell

I first encountered this book in 1986. I was in college.. bored one day I picked up a book belonging to my roommate and opened to a random page and read some of it.. It seemed real.. and interesting.. Later in the year he threw the book out, not wanting it anymore.. I picked to book out of the trash and said I would take it...
So I have hauled this book around for 19 years.. I finally got around to reading it...
It is the non-fiction account of a working class neighborhood in DC in 1970/71. It looks mostly at 2 families.. The first is a young family, lots of kids.. dirt poor.. with the daily struggle to pay bills and have enough money to eat.. mostly because the husband is too busy drinking to bother going to work. The family has little structure.. everything is a crisis... They also seem to have a lot of medical problems. Of the 7 family membmers aged 3 ~ 65, 3 are hospitalized, and the wife puts her surgery off until the following year.
The second family is older.. the couple together 6 years each have 3 adult children from previous marriages. The husband, and auto mechanic makes good money, and they are financially comfortable. The drama comes from the wifes 3 children and their marriage woes.. each has problems, breakups, and ongoing crisis.. which the mother worries about continunally.
A very interesting book which could have been written today.. just change the amounts they earned and paid for things... Very little analysis.. their stories are presented for the view to evaluate.
It appears another edition of this book was put out in 1991.. with a new epiloug.. I will have to look for this and see what became of our players.

Riding The Rap (1)

Riding The Rap
Elmore Leonard

Starting out 2006 with a great Elmore Leonard book.. I just flew through the pages.. great characters! The begining of the book starts with a character from Maximum Bob, but it is not about him, but rather the Marshal that is transporting him. A very enjoyable book in the best of Leonard style :)

Books Read in 2005

Here is a list of the 78 books I read in 2005.

1/7/2005 Underneath It All Traci Lords
1/12/2005 K Is For Killer Sue Grafton
1/25/05 Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil John Berendt
2/10/2005 Highway To Hell Clinton Walker
2/12/2005 Statler & Book Cadillac David Kohrman
2/13/2005 Detroit Now & Then
2/18/2005 Detroit's Michigan Central Station
2/23/2005 Henry & Edsel Richard Bak
3/6/2005 Lumberjack William S. Crowe
3/11/2005 Fitzgerald's Storm Joseph MacInnis
3/11/2005 RE Olds Industrial Lansing Michael Rodriguez
3/12/2005 The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald Fredrick Stonehouse
3/14/2005 Great Lake Light House Tales Fredrick Stonehouse
3/21/2005 Lighthouse Adventures Wes Oleszewski
3/23/05 Sole Survivor Dennis Hale
3/28/2005 The Night The Fitz Went Down Dudley Paquette
3/31/2005 How To Make Love Like A Porn Star Jenna Jameson
4/5/2005 Pledged Alexandra Robbins
4/11/2005 White Pine Days On The Taquhamenon William Davenport Hulbert
4/15/2005 Detroit 1930-1969 David Lee Poremba
4/27/2005 When Pine Was King Lewis Reimann
5/2/2005 Going Back To Central Lon L. Emerick
5/3/2005 Charlevoix Dianne Foster
5/4/2005 Michigan Memories Richard Emmons
5/23/2005 Out Of A Wilderness Justin L. Kestenbaum
6/1/2005 Incredible Seney Lewis Charles Riemann
6/9/2005 I Married A Logger Julie Anderson
6/15/2005 The Dilbert Future Scott Anderson
6/16/2005 Know Your Ships
6/22/2005 A Sailor's Logbook: A Season Aboard Great Lakes Freighters Mark L Thompson
6/30/2005 Building The Straits Lawrence A Rubin
7/2/2005 Mighty Mac Lawrence A Rubin
7/14/2005 A Picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge Mary J. Shapiro
7/15/2005 Freemasons - Inside the Worlds Oldest Secret Society J Paul Jeffers
7/21/2005 Tales of the Wolf Lawrence Sanders
7/27/2005 Swag Elmore Leonard
8/1/2005 West World Michael Criton
8/2/2005 Maximum Bob Elmore Leonard
8/11/2005 Gold Coast Elmore Leonard
8/13/2005 The Loves Of Harry Dancer Lawrence Sanders
8/15/2005 The Pleasures Of Helen Lawrence Sanders
8/18/2005 Private Pleasures Lawrence Sanders
8/26/2005 Stick Elmore Leonard
8/30/2005 The Dream Lover Lawrence Sanders
9/2/2005 Shockwaves Clive Cussler
9/8/2005 Red Square Martin Cruz Smith
9/11/2005 The Hapless Handyman's Home Repair and Weekend Project Guide Sonny "Bubba" Ferguson
9/13/2005 Polar Star Martin Cruz Smith
9/20/2005 Havana Bay Martin Cruz Smith
9/29/2005 Faith Len Deighton
9/26/2005 Hope Len Deighton
9/29/2005 Charity Len Deighton
10/4/2005 Wolves Eat Dogs Martin Cruz Smith
10/5/2005 Final Warning: The Legacy of Chernobyl Dr Robert Gale
10/9/2005 Dr Burns Prescription George Burns
10/14/2005 City Of Gold Len Deighton
10/20/2005 Voices Of Chernobyl Svetlana Alexievich
10/25/2005 Bandits Elmore Leonard
10/28/2005 Dogberts Top Secret Management Handbook Scott Adams
10/31/2005 Unknown Man #89 Elmore Leonard
11/4/2005 A World Called Solitude Stephin Goldin
11/16/2005 Appetite For Destruction Danny Sugerman
11/21/2005 United States Of Europe T. R. Reid
11/22/2005 The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Douglas Adams
11/24/2005 The Resturant At The End Of the Universe Douglas Adams
11/25/2005 The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe C S Lewis
11/27/2005 Prince Caspian C S Lewis
11/29/2005 The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader C S Lewis
12/1/2005 The Silver Chair C S Lewis
12/2/2005 The Horse And His Boy C S Lewis
12/4/2005 The Magicians Nephew C S Lewis
12/5/2005 The Final Battle C S Lewis
12/8/2005 Life, The Universe, And Everything Douglas Adams
12/15/2005 The Mind of Adolf Hitler William C Langer
12/17/2005 Old Twentieth Joe Haldeman
12/19/2005 Mr Majestyk Elmore Leonard
12/22/2005 Tangent Objective Lawrence Sanders
12/28/2005 Tangent Factor Lawrence Sanders

Tangent Factor (78)

Ok.. I meant to post this on Friday, but did not get to it... My final book of the year.. the Tangent Factor.. picks up the story where the Tangent Objective leaves off.. This is another one of those Sanders books where someone is running a 'secret' plan.. and several opposing forces are involved.. and you cant figure out what the hell is going on.. only that people are being pitted against each other.. Similar to the Loves of Harry Dancer. This was a good book, none the less.. I am glad I read them together.. since the characters and places were the same..and it continued several story lines. In the end I started to wonder about the outcome.. Knowing Sanders only wrote these 2 books in this series.. and the story easily could have been expanded to more give the plot.. I was wondering if some of the main characters get killed in the end.. or if the plot goes wrong and backfires.. but this was not the case.. all ended well... I guess we are left to wonder what the 'little captain' did next.