Novel Reivews:

Review-Stephen King's 11.22.63

 

 11/22/63 by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As Stephen King said repeatedly in 11.22.63, “The past harmonizes”....and so does this book.  11.22.63 shows King traveling in the time streams between 2011 and 1958 United States.  I agree with Time Magazine when they said that this book is a great travelogue back to the 1950’s American Landscape.   However, this book is much more than just a mere nostalgic kick down Route 66.
 
The main character, Jack Epping, thinks he must go back in time and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald.  He, like many, feels that if just John F. Kennedy was not shot then the world would be a much better place.  But we find that changing the strings of time is never for the better no matter the intentions.  And you can’t stop God’s hand in our storied time; there is no legislation to do away with earthquakes, or tornadoes.

This book was tremendously researched, and because of this one comes away with a sense that this really could be true.   King used his historical research and connected the strands into one epic masterfully.  He is a master at pinpointing the zeitgeist for our age; he understands the times and the people better than the talking heads over at C.N.N. and Fox News. I might even say that Stephen King is our current United State's Charles Dickens.

Be careful for time traveling with King has the possibility of creating jet leg without stepping across a time zone.  The end of the book is a stunner.

Readers who liked this book can also check out Jack Finney’s Time and Again and From Time to Time.
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Review of Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thomas Pynchon is a writer who compels the reader to work hard through his books to find a gem at the end of his rainbow.   If you want something easy Mr. Pynchon probably is not your cup of tea.  But if you are willing to be submerged in a new experience Pynchon is your guide.

Here Pynchon, our rough guide, takes us to the Los Angeles neighborhood that surrounds LAX. The time is 1969, and the mood is hazy. Our government has us involved in a never ending war with a place called Vietnam.   The economy is good not great.  The beginning of the internet is here but it will not be released to the public till 1991.   Charlie Manson has gotten every suburbanite scared of long haired freaks.  There seems to be a quite buzz about. Los Angeles  feels like it could blow up into a Technicolor Riot at any moment. Pynchon does an incredible job of lifting up what subterranean currants made Los Angeles glow dim in the 1980’s. This is where we find Doc, a private gum shoe, investigating the disappearance of his girlfriend.

 I really enjoyed this book and think that anyone who likes Elmore Leonard or Raymond Chandler would find this book a blast.  It also could be the book for all of you interested in social history; with a need to find out what caused something to turn from a dream into now a nightmare.

All people who love Shelley Winters will love this book.  

Inherent Vice is scheduled to become a movie released in 2014.

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Hemingway Good Grief??!!!??? Take Some Prozac...

I now dislike Ernest Hemingway thoroughly, what a depressing freak. There is too much pain in this world. We don't need any more depressing bearded talk, from a guy who loved only romantically and never found real love in his life time. I am sorry he felt so much, but he should have grown up, been a real man, and not some traumatized hunter for his lost soul.   If I could ask Hemingway to do one thing it would be to shave his beard and get on with his life.  We all know that this did not happen, but hey I wish it had.   He could have used his great journalism to uplift humanity not bring it down into the awful muck. 

"if to survive as an artist in a given social environment a person has to put up expressive symbols, he or she is likely to show the psychic effects of these adverse conditions."  

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihay Flow New York: Harper and Row, 1990. (pg 266- Notes on Chapter 6)

50 States of Reading: Wisconsin

BSI Lakeland, Florida- Loving Frank is a love story, or a passion story of two married people who find love outside of their marriages.  Amanda Ross in the Daily Mail of the U.K. poignantly tells why the story is important to readers today:

Nancy Horan grew up surrounded by the work of the celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright, in Oak Park, Illinois.  She lived on the same street as Lloyd Wright’s most infamous client, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, their affair rocked society yet very little has been written about her. Biographers of Lloyd Wright, and admirers of his work have glossed over the relationship, concerned that the unsavoury personal details would diminish his architectural achievements.  Nancy was fascinated by the highly educated Mamah, who inspired such passion in Frank that he left his wife and six children to be with her, a scandalous act at any time, but particularly so in 1909.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1092279/Wild-passion-high-society-Loving-Frank-Nancy-Horan.html#ixzz0zmykSRK4


A review by Gregorio Roth will be coming at the beginning of October... look for it!!!!!

This book represents Wisconsin