Crime Partners (2)

Crime Partners By: Donald Goines Read 3/11/15 Donald Goines was a Black writer born in Detroit. His novels are all gritty stories of life on the street, drugs, pimps, guns, murder. This book is no exception, follows 2 stickup men as they try to make the big score. Along the way they hook up with a man named Kenyatta who is trying to clean up the streets by killing off drug dealers and racist cops. They are not dedicated to the cause, but like the money involved. Also loosely follows two cops that are trying to solve the murders. Like most of his books this is a quick read, but enjoyable. His style reminds me of Elmore Leonard, lots of street slang, and it is more about the characters than the end result of the story. This was actually the first of four Kenyatta novels. Turns out Goines wrote more books that I realized in his short life. Goines personal life seems to rival his novels, and he was murdered at age 37). Going to try to find some more of his books, although they seem to be hard to comes across.

Getting My Pretty Back (--)

Getting My Pretty Back By: Molly Ringwald Not finished Fresh off finishing Maureen McCormick's book I picked up Molly Ringwald's book which I have had since last summer when I received it from Paper Back Swap. The book had looked interesting, written when she turned 40, and reflecting on a teen star entering middle age. What it turned out to be was fashion and lifestyle advice for the 40 something woman who is trying to regain vitality in her life. I read about 50 pages (which was quick because there are LOTS of drawings, pictures and quotes). Deciding I really didn't need a cheese fondue recipe or advice on the types of jeans to buy or how to tie a scarf I gave up on this book. Life is too short, and I have SO many books to read. Beside I already get GQ which seems to have good style advice aimed more at me.

Here's the Story (1)

Here's the Story By: Maureen McCormick Read: March 8, 2015 I read an article about Maureen McCormick who played Marcia Brady on TV. Picked up the book through PaperBack Swap It was a quick read and a fairly interesting story. After the TV show ended when she was about 18, she got heavily into drugs which seemed to rule her life for many years, and seemed to have costed her a number of opportunities in her career. She stumbled along and eventually during one of the Brady reunion shows she got some help which began her long road of recovery. Through a co-star in the show she was introduced to a church which became influential in her recovery by providing the support structure she did not otherwise have in her life. Here she met her husband, but their life was filled with turmoil. While clean Maureen was prone to paralysing self-doubt which would lead to bursts of anger usually directed at her husband, who evidently is a Saint. Seems he stayed by her through this turmoil when most people would have thrown in the towel and walked away. In time she was diagnosed with depression and was treated for it and for the first time in her life she felt better. She still had lots to face in her life, but she had renewed direction. She repaired relationships with her mother and became a happier person. The last portion of the book mainly concerns her family, which was always somewhat disjointed. Her oldest brother was always very successful. She has another brother with intellectual handicap, the other brother spent his whole life drifting, doing drugs and getting in and out of trouble, and in his late 40's was still largely being supported by his parents. As the parents age and the mother is diagnosed with cancer the parents move in with this son. He became very controlling and had undue influence over his parents much to the dismay of the rest of the family. An interesting read, overall a very sad story. It is nice that she is doing better now, but you can't help but feel loss for all the years that she was mired in anger and depression.

Flameout: The Rise and Fall of Burger Chef

Flameout: The Rise and Fall of Burger Chef by: by John P. McDonald Read: November 2014 I sorta remember Burger Chef from my young childhood. I remember poking around on the Internet a few years ago reading about the chain, but the spot on Mad Men really rekindled by interest in it. Found this book on the history of the chain, and I bought a Amazon Fire in the fall, and this book was available to read for free! It follows the story from the founders, who were basically engineers who had made various equipment for the restaurant industry. The Burger Chef idea was originally a way for the company to sell more equipment by providing a turn key business that people could take advantage of the hamburger craze of the 50's and on. They grew to become the second largest chain behind McDonald's and were within a breath of becoming #1 but the size of the organization hit its limits. Due to the way they had structured the franchises the company was having problems getting access to capital. They sold to General Foods who spent years tinkering with the successful model, alienating the franchise owners and they eventually fell behind the other chains and died out.

A Model Summer (8)

A Model Summer
By Paulina Porizkova
read 6/18/11


Written by a former model as fiction, but may be semi-autobiographical. Follows a 15 yr old girl who is sent to France for the summer to model. She has little direction or supervision and is painfully insecure. She stumbles along without any help trying to figure out what she is expected to do... along the way she learns some lessons about life sex love people and relationships.

The Signal (7)

The Signal
by Ron Carlson
read 5/29/11

Story about a guy fly fishing with his ex-wife in Wyoming. Gets into the back story about how they met and why they broke up, inter mixed with some other story teasers. The story was ok... had trouble figuring out where it was going at times. The imagery was cool as they hike through the wilderness.

A Charmed Life (6)

A Charmed Life: Growing Up in Macbeth's Castle
By Liza Campbell
Read 5/15/11

When she was a young girl her Grandfather died and her father inherited a title and a Cawdor castle in Scotland as his birthright. So the family moves to the castle and dad proceeds to spend lavish amounts of money and cars and parties, he can be extremely mean to his wife and family. Makes a series of bad business decisions while drinking more and more. Eventually the wife leaves and he remarries, after he dies the estate becomes a mess and more facts about his life come to light.

Enjoyable read, but heavy on British history....

Street Players (5)

Street Players
Donald Goines
Read May 8, 2011

Two books in 2 days :) According to the cover Donald Goins is the greatest ghetto writer that ever lived. This is a tale of several pimps in Detroit focusing on Earl and his struggles with his girls, his ups and down, fortune and failure.
Interesting in the late 60's genere.

Three Stations (4)

Three Stations
Martin Cruz Smith
Read May 7, 2011

I love the Arkady Renko novels, I read my first on in 1981 in High School and have enjoyed each one since. This is the latest in the series, Renko still in Moscow, still in trouble with his bosses... and still trying to solve crimes that nobody wants him to look into. This book spends a lot of time with Zhenya the boy who Renko has met in previous books. He is living at Kosomol Square a notorious railway station know locally as Three Stations, he meets a young girl who has had her baby stolen and is trying to help her while Renko investigates an OD of a prostitute.
Another excellent book, I read it in a day and wished it would not end so soon!

Whoreson (3)

Whoreson
By Donald Goines
Read 4/24/11

Donald Goines was a Michigan writer of some note before being killed in 1974. He wrote about the black urban experience. This book starts in the 40's with a baby born to a prostitute and follow him as he grows up in the slums of Detroit and quickly learns the game, running prostitutes and scams so he can lead the easy life. The book is an interesting look a the ghettos of the 1950s and how the man would do anything to get to the ends.. with no regard to the people he crushed on his way.
Highly recommended, I will have to pick up some of his other novels!

The Lost Symbol (2)

The Lost Symbol
By Dan Brown
Finished 4/23/11

This is the latest Dan Brown thriller, and the plot is wound around Freemasonry, and set in Washington DC. Surprisingly I didnt find the part about Masonry that interesting, but there was some great stuff about DC.
I have this love hate relationship with Dan Brown.. his books read like a made for TV movie... they keep leading up to cliff hangers then focus on another character. This is annoying, however he has the wonderful way of slowing revealing information and back story that is very clever.
This was a worthwhile and enjoyable read.

Cubra Libre (1)

Cubra Libre
Elmore Leonard
finished 3/31/11

My reading has become nearly non-existant, but I will see what I can do to turn this around. I started reading this book last fall and stopped. I picked it up again this winter and started from the beginning... then fell off... and read about 1/2 of it this week. Honestly this is not one of Leonards best. It is set in late 1800's in Cuba and revolves around a horse trader who gets thrown in jail... involved in a plan that involves a pretty girl from New Orleans and $40,000 in cash... all set against the back drop of the looming Spanish American war. I kept getting lost in the characters and the causes... at least I got through it!

Life Before Man (4)

Life Before Man
Margaret Atwood
Read Sept 5, 2010

I really enjoy Margaret Atwood books... they are hard to catagorize, but always very interesting. This one written in 1979 revolves around a couple Nate & Elizabeth. Elizabeth is in a deep depression as her lover Chris has just committed suicide. From here we delve deeper into their lives, their childhood and in time Nate develops a relationship with Lesje a co-worker of Elizabeth's.
The story is not so much about what happens is it is about learning about the characters and what drives them, what motivates them to go on.

Catcher In The Rye (3)

Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
Read 8/25/10

I have not been reading much and came across an article on an entertainment site that listed the best opening lines from books... and this was one of them, so I got a copy of it and read it. This is suppose to be a banned book, although from todays perspective there is not much offensive in it... perhaps that was different in the late 40s when it was written.
It is basically the story of a person who is going insane.. it is told after the fact, but that isnt always obvious. The person becomes more and more detached from everything around him and his life, tormented by the death of his younger brother and his inability to do well in school and please his parents he eventually goes off the rails.

Deception Point (2)

Deception Point
Dan Brown

This is the second book by the author of the DaVinci code. I am trying to figure out if his earlier books are not as good, or if I was wrong about his later books. I think he was still trying to find his style in the early books. He bounces around between characters constantly and everything is a cliff hanger. It reads like a made for TV movie and gets a bit tiring after a while.
The story isn't bad but the characters and their motivations are a bit over the top. In the end the book has a nice little twist that I didn't see coming, and he does tie the story together nicely.

You Wouldn't Like It Here (1)

You Wouldn't Like It Here
Lon L. Emerick

I bought this book while camping at Tahquamenon Falls in Sept of 2009. It is a tongue in cheek book about life in Upper Michigan. The name rang a bell with me but could not quite place it. He has also written serious history books about Upper Michigan and I read one years ago called Going Back To Central.

Trust Me (32)

Trust Me
By Peter Leonard

This is the second book my Elmore Leonards on Peter. Much like his first book it is quick paced and full of twists and turns. He has his fathers flair, not exactly the same but he captures the same interest in the characters.

This turned out to be the last full book that I finished in 2009. I started The Great Bridge, but will not finish that until well into 2010. My reading has fallen off a lot from my peak, but I still read all the time, I find that I am reading more magazines and other pubs.

The Crying Lot of 49 (30)

The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon
read 10/18/09

Time listed this in their top 100 books from 1923 - 2005... I can sum up my views on the book quickly... I didn't get it.

I am not saying it was bad... I just didn't get it... read it yourself and see what you think.

Sandy MacDonald’s Man (29)

Sandy MacDonald’s Man
By R Clyde Ford
Read 10/1/09

My wife found this gem of a book in a used store years ago and it became one of my favorites at once. It tells the story of a young man who works for his uncle at an independent fur trading post on Mackinac Island. He goes ‘into the woods’ for a season and spends a winter in the Wisconsin woods trading and living with the Indians. It is an interesting look at life, trade and the views of people of that time, and perhaps how much has changed in 150 years.
The book was written by a Prof at Michigan Normal College (now Eastern) I have never been clear if this is a fictional account, or a historical account. I have not been able to find much information on it online anywhere. Either way it is an enjoyable read.

White Pine Days on the Taquemenon (28)

White Pine Days On the Taquamenon
William Daveport Hulbert
Read 9/23/09

This book was written over 100 years ago, by a gentlemen that lived in the Taquamenon area, and whose family owned a timber business. He has wonderful stories about the people and the business and timber cruising. But what comes across all his stories are the beauty of nature and the area in the U.P. He has wonderful descriptions of the area. I read this book because we were going to Tahquamenon area camping and after reading this book (again) it is still as true today. It is a beautiful area and this book is a great way to experience it.
The book itself was published about 60 years ago by the Michigan Historical Society and is no longer in print. I was able to find a nice copy on Amazon for $35, and I was happy to have it in my collection of books of Michigan.