Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on May 8, 2011 by pagesofjulia

YAY for Lee Child as usual! Especially after a couple of unimpressive audiobooks in a row, it’s been such sweet relief to hear Dick Hill’s deadpan narrative. I feel like he suits Jack Reacher very well.

Backstory: Jack Reacher is a serial character. He’s a former MP (military policeman), fairly decorated, who’s retired young to travel the country at random. He has enough money to get by just wandering, and seems to want to be left alone (although it’s not clear what would occupy him if it weren’t for the circumstances that keep drawing him in). He is repeatedly pulled, against his will, into events of dangerous or criminal intrigue, and he uses his general bad-ass-ness to beat up the bad guys and uplift the righteous little people.

I really appreciate Reacher. He’s a character that works for me very well. He’s almost a superhero – big, strong, smart, quick-thinking, and with a general inclination to do the right thing. He has integrity. He’s just about perfect; but just when he starts to really look like a caricature, we find he’s not so perfect after all. In Worth Dying For, the bad guys got him tied up and hurt for a little while; I was surprised to see him thwarted. But you can’t keep Reacher down. In Gone Tomorrow, too, he gets captured and held, but not forever! I’m not saying he’s an entirely realistic character or anything, but for my tastes, Child pulls back just in time, right before I say “oh, come on…”

And he’s not just a physical hero – although he is enormous, very strong, has no body fat, is a highly skilled gunman, a formidable hand-to-hand fighter, etc. He’s also smart, and an expert in all things military as well as in many other obscure areas of knowledge. It’s a bit uncanny, how much he knows and how much he can figure out. But in this area, too, he’s pulled back from the brink of cartoonish superiority: for example, Lila Hoth convinces him of the American military’s role in a time and place he didn’t think it was possible. I like that in this conversation he listens, asks discerning questions, and isn’t afraid to learn, even to be wrong. In short, Reacher is, to me, a real hero: almost perfect but with a few human deficiencies and – best of all – aware of them (rare though they be).

I also get these little nuggets of information. Like, he muses that there are experts out there who could look at the dimensions of the bricks, and the arrangement of them, in his unknown little dungeon-cell, and know pretty precisely where the building is and when it was built. But Reacher’s not one of those experts. (I’m paraphrasing the audiobook from memory.) See what I mean? It might have been just a little too much if Reacher had been the brick expert, too, on top of everything else. And what a cool little historical nugget. Of course there are brick experts; it makes perfect sense. It had never occurred to me, though.

At any rate, aside from my ramblings about the wonder that is Reacher, this is a good book. I love the little details. When Reacher wakes up after being drugged, he wonders how long he’s been out; with all four limbs bound, he ducks his head to rub his chin against his shirt, thereby feeling how much stubble he has. Now he can make an educated guess. This is a neat detail – evocative, realistic, and also impressive. Reiterates how proficient this guy is. I just hope we really do have guys this effective in our military and/or law enforcement systems.

I came across just one or two points of contention. I think the 9/11 aftermath and international politics was rather clever but also rather pat; 9/11 politics is a fairly common thread in mystery-intrigue genre fiction, and I was a little disappointed and a little bored there for a minute, although Child handled it fairly uniquely. And I was a little bothered by a certain person, for whom English is not a native language, uttering sentences like “…you employed a deductive process. Do you think you are uniquely talented? Do you think that deductive processes are unavailable to others?” This didn’t sound very realistic for this character to me.

But overall this was another great Reacher story. Fast-paced, gritty, suspenseful, funny and witty, and, for me, just the right balance of realism and hero-worshipping-fantasy. Go get you some Jack Reacher right now if you have any interest in action-adventure, mysteries, intrigue, or loveable heroes.

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book beginnings on Friday: Nothing to Lose by Lee Child

Posted on May 6, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence. You might also consider stopping by the original post.

I am listening to this one in the car on audio. (You will note, if you’ve been following, that I am listening to more and more audio. More on that later, but suffice it to say the format is more or less working for me.) I love my Lee Child… Here’s your book beginning:

The sun was only half as hot as he had known sun to be, but it was hot enough to keep him confused and dizzy. He was very weak. He had not eaten for seventy-two hours, or taken water for forty-eight.

I have faith, Reacher! Especially as there’s so much more yet to come. 🙂

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vacation reading: a series of short reviews

Posted on February 23, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Still a good story! Spooky and short, it’s a bit reminiscent of Poe. Action-packed and efficient. I would not have sworn I had read this before, but now I recognize that I have. What a classic. I highly recommend this as a bang-for-the buck, action-packed, early sci-fi spookster with a bit of meditation on the human condition. Not sure if I should count this for the Classics Challenge as its a re-read. :-/

Worth Dying For by Lee Child. (audiobook) Surprisingly good as audio. I wasn’t sure. I’m such a BOOK purist that audio doesn’t always work for me; but it can’t be argued with on a road trip. Part of what made it special, too, is that I got to share it with the Husband, who doesn’t normally read. He got really into it, and we shared this suspenseful adventure together. That’s priceless.

Classic Jack Reacher! He’s such a Rambo. It’s a bit comical in the over-the-top violence and general bad-ass-ness, but I eat it up. It’s great fun. We both enjoy the slight absurdity of it, while also appreciating that we can count on this guy to get it right. And I finally begin to understand, at least a little bit, what was so frustratingly up-in-the-air at the end of 61 Hours. This may be my favorite Reacher novel yet.

The Ballad of Typhoid Mary by J.F. Federspiel. Opening quotation: “Life is strange and the world is bad.” (Thomas Wolfe) This sets the tone.

This is another creepy story. It’s historical fiction, and I have made a note in large letters to read up on the concept of Typhoid Mary and how much we know about her in the real world. She was a carrier of typhoid fever: she never got sick herself, but she made people around her sick, to the tune of several hundred at least. She was a cook, passionate about cooking for people, despite seeming to understand that she was killing them. She wasn’t a serial killer; she didn’t do it on purpose; she just didn’t let it stop her. What can we expect, in an age with poor understanding of hygiene and the spreading of disease, of a poor, uneducated, abused & orphaned young woman with no opportunities who suspects she might, in some way, be responsible for all these deaths around her? This was a fascinating read, and another very short one, too.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.This is a collection of case studies, or short stories, or essays, by a neurologist who also fancies himself a philosopher with literary leanings. It was quite attention-grabbing, and I had to keep putting it down to tell the Husband stories. Reading about brain injuries or anomalies of the brain is infinitely more interesting to me since I had my bad wreck and experienced some brain injury and healing of my own. The most interesting thing about a number of these cases is that these patients often don’t realize that anything is wrong!

Sacks’s approach is to contemplate the relationship between mind, body, and soul, which perhaps too few of our hard scientists do. It still ended up a bit on the hard-science side for me, perhaps; he made a number of references (unexplained) to other hard scientists, which made it a bit less accessible to us laypersons. But I loved the stories, the concepts, possibilities, complexities of the human mind.

In the Woods by Tana French. I’ve been hankering for more of Tana French since reading Faithful Place. I really fell for that Frank Mackey! This one opens with immediately recognizable poetry-in-prose, stark, gritty, and strongly Irish. Then I was disappointed to recognize a familiar story: grown male detective forced to confront unsolved childhood trauma of missing friend(s). Argh! But I guess why mess with a good thing…

Oh man. I stayed up nearly all night to finish this book. (and this, in a place where I LIKE to get up to watch the sun rise!) Same story my head; it did have its plot similarities but it was so gripping and spooky, like a ghost story, except even spookier because there was nothing supernatural at all, just creepily realistic human nature. I can’t wait to get the next book!

Side note: the beautiful, tragic, doomed, perfect friendship reminded me somewhat of One Day by David Nicholls, which had an entirely different tone to it.

Echo Park by Michael Connelly. (audiobook)Another highly enjoy audiobook! This one unabridged, thank goodness. (I realized AFTER we listened to Worth Dying For that it was abridged, and now have to go back and read the book.) Connelly, for all that he’s sort of stark and black-and-white, also strikes me as a poet; I love that Bosch “educates” his ice with vodka. That’s unique! I’ve read this book before, but it’s been long enough that I still enjoyed the mystery. I like all the background or frame elements in Connelly, like the jazz (and I like that the Library of Congress, and some clever librarian there, make an appearance in relation to the jazz), and the audio format took advantage and gave us a few jazz riffs in the background here and there, which was a nice touch. I hadn’t really thought about using music on on audiobook, and actually, there were some other snippets of music added that I didn’t think worked so well; but jazz behind Connelly is a strong choice.

Whatever You Say I Am (the life and times of Eminem) by Anthony Bozza.I put this in the same category as the Hefner biography, actually. These are some highly controversial men, offensive to many if not to all, who have impacted our world; without making a value judgment, I can say I find them interesting to read about. My feelings about Eminem are complicated, just like with Hefner. (I was talking with my Pops the other night along these lines and we put Reagan in the same category but that’s a whole new can of worms.) I haven’t finished this book, am less than halfway through, but I can say I really enjoy the way Bozza puts his reader fully into a time and place. For example, to help place us in the year in which Eminem was working to release his first album, he gives us a full rundown of the musical hits and award winners of the year in various categories, as well as what movies and television were hot. Now, I’m not generally all that up to date on pop culture, but this worked for me; it really evoked a time in my life. I think that works for all of us, because isn’t sound or music second only to smell as a mnemonic? Doesn’t hearing a particular song take to you a time and place? At any rate, I’m enjoying this biographical study of a controversial figure.

And finally, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway. As I’ve said, I’m enjoying reading Hemingway’s usual tone and style, that I know so well, used in journalism. I hadn’t read any of his journalism before. I guess the nonfiction I’ve read would be Death in the Afternoon and A Moveable Feast, and then all that fiction that’s so heavily autobiographical. Any Hemingway I can get, I like.

I’ll keep you up to date on the books I still have to finish; and I have a few Maisie books waiting for me. I might finally be caught up!

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Persuader by Lee Child

Posted on February 4, 2011 by pagesofjulia

It’s an interesting world here in Houston these days. We are having completely abnormal weather: three nights in a row of hard freezes are just about unheard of. Our pipes froze the first night (we have learned some things since then) and yesterday afternoon, and today, businesses have closed, people have been sent home from work (or told not to come), and there has been some minor panicking over road conditions. The panic may have been a little over the top but then again, we have significant ice on the roads and many of us (many! including me) don’t know WHAT to do with that; there have been quite a few car accidents and apparently one traffic fatality. I think staying home sounds stellar, if possible. I am at work today. Ah well.

All of this did conspire to cancel all my plans and back-up plans last night, so I settled in instead to finish my latest Lee Child/Jack Reacher novel, Persuader. It was great! Just what I’m looking for from him, again. Usually Reacher has to be convinced to take up whatever cause is in question, but not this time. When the book opens he has recognized a sinister face from his past, and he’s already determined to involve himself in whatever this man may have going. We meet some unusually friendly, likeable, cooperative federal agents (usually he butts heads with these folks) and he heads into an elaborate set-up. It’s good juicy action that engages from the first page. And unlike my last Reacher read, it ends satisfyingly. Reacher finds the holy grail, makes a love connection and disentangles from it in the same breath, gets a new set of clothes, and walks into the sunset. Or the sunrise; he likes to leave his destination up in the air, after all.

This was just the kind of quick, adrenaline-packed, comforting couch read I was looking for. Ah, what a delicious night at home with the Husband and the two dogs. Today I’m straight into the next read, Birds of a Feather, in an attempt to catch up with the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along. Soon, though, I intend to get into some classics for the Classics Challenge; I have some set aside. What a lovely world!

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Teaser Tuesdays: Persuader by Lee Child

Posted on February 1, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Duffy wanted me to move into the hotel and offered to have somebody drive me back to my Boston hotel for my luggage. I told her I didn’t have any luggage and she looked at me sideways but didn’t say anything.

From page 38 of Lee Child’s Persuader. Standard Reacher behavior – and I love that there’s a “she” already. Reacher doesn’t consummate his flings the way Connelly’s character Bosch tends to, but there’s always an attractive (and generally also very tough) woman around. I’m looking forward to the ease of reading a fast-paced Reacher thriller for the next few days!

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61 Hours and Mr. Playboy

Posted on January 18, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Ack! So sorry it’s taken me this long! See what a three-day weekend does for me? No, I didn’t mean it, don’t take them away. It was a GREAT three-day weekend. Yesterday was a stellar day on the mountain bike trails up north (didn’t see another soul!) followed by a sushi pig-out with the Husband, ahhhhh, lovely.

So I just had a hard time catching up today, and I’m sorry this post is so late. I do have things to tell you.

I finished Lee Child’s 61 Hours this weekend, and it was everything I want a Lee Child/Jack Reacher book to be. It was fast-paced and exciting and suspenseful, with a good mystery that I solved myself this time (although I doubted in the final moments, I confess). Reacher was a superman and I was impressed and it was great fun. BUT! I was totally dissatisfied with the ending. It was far too up-in-the-air; I need greater satisfaction than that, greater resolution. I don’t think people read page-turner head-bashing mysteries to be left up in the air; I think we like conclusion! Without spoiling, I hope, let’s say it leaves Reacher’s fate decidedly in question. Luckily I know that the next Reacher book is already out, so either he survives or is reincarnated. That saves Child from some of my frustration. But really, if he were reading this: Mr. Child, you do such a good job. Next time do go ahead and tell us what happened! Ah well, this will just get me into the next one all that quicker. Perhaps this was his aim all along.

Next I started reading Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream by Steven Watts. This one has a due date at the big library where I don’t work, so I thought I’d go ahead and get started. Also, it’s a bit of a brick – close to 600 pages, only 450ish of which is the book itself (lots of notes, not a bad sign with a biography).

And it was easy to get into! I observed in last Friday’s book beginning that it had a strong start; seemed readable (what a drag to have to force oneself to follow really dry nonfiction, you know what I’m talking about) and also seemed to approach the subject in the way I was hoping. I’m reading a Hefner biography because I find him a fascinating character: complex, and polarizing, and prolific in his influences. I’m pretty clear that I do admire him, but I know he’s complicated and suspect that not everything about him is admirable. So, I’m looking for a biography to help me understand these complexities.

And I think I’ve found it! First of all, it does turn out to be a very readable book. I sat down and got through 125ish pages in one sitting, which means that by the second sitting I’m more than a third of the way through this brick. That’s an endorsement. I also appreciate Watts’ approach; he’s working to place Hefner in the larger forces guiding the US and all the ways in which our culture was changing during Hefner’s youth. I’m still dealing with the early years of Playboy magazine, barely scraping 1960, so there’s plenty to come. We’re getting to know a number of the characters in his life and in the Playboy commercial empire. I find it plenty entertaining. I like learning about Hefner’s intricacies and contradictions. If you’re looking for a Hefner biography I would recommend this one so far.

It’s a beautiful day because I got up and rode my bike before work this morning. Here’s to pleasurable reading and rain-free mornings to ride. 🙂 I’ll be back more reliably to you tomorrow; til then, enjoy!

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Teaser Tuesdays: 61 Hours by Lee Child

Posted on January 11, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Well, I had some trouble today choosing a new book to read. I’m a bit worn out from Niffenegger and have piles and piles of TBR but need something easy and juicy. So, I walked over to James Lee Burke and Lee Child on my library shelves (luckily they live close to one another, ha) and took stock. I’m choosing 61 Hours by Lee Child today, because the obscure location in South Dakota sounds like a smart strategic move to make in the Where Are You Reading? challenge (I don’t recall noticing any books about South Dakota recently) and because I like what I see on the dust cover in the way of teaser. But you, instead, get these few lines from page 163:

“Tiny eddying drafts were stirring odors out of the rugs and the drapes. They were not unpleasant.”

Sorry so short! This is how Child writes: short, declarative sentences (or in some cases, fragments!) that are very, very expressive. Perhaps you could use more of them in this case; but I’m sticking with two sentences because I’m following the rules today 🙂 and because I think it’s a fine example of mood. I would say that serial character Reacher is somewhere he doesn’t belong in this moment, since he’s smelling odors that seem unfamiliar. (I guess I’m also assuming it’s Reacher experiencing the odors. I may be wrong.)

I’m excited to be started something new that I expect to be fast-paced, engaging, fun, and not too intellectual, like the other Reacher novels I’ve read before.

I also want to point out to any participants in Sheila’s Where Are You Reading? challenge, a cool link I found this morning. Flavorwire has made a list (oh boy! we all love lists don’t we?) of 10 Great Works of Literature for America’s 10 Most Literate Cities. View it here for inspiration.

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enjoying Lee Child

Posted on January 6, 2011 by pagesofjulia

From Merriam-Webster Online:

un·put·down·able
adj \ˌən-ˌpu̇t-ˈdȧun-ə-bəl\
: unable to be set aside : riveting
First Known Use of UNPUTDOWNABLE: 1947

Lee Child, like Michael Connelly, defines “unputdownable” for me. I surface from these books gasping for air. I guess any really “good” book (any that YOU really like) is unputdownable in a way. But Child and Connelly both create such gripping plots! I love their bad-boy characters (even when they are a bit of a caricature, ahem Jack Reacher) and I just can’t wait to read what craziness they’re going to undertake next. I love it! Reacher is liable to do such nonsense, so off-the-cuff. And the plot surprises, and the people we learn to care about – I just can’t put these books down. I’m always in danger of staying up all night on a work night, or not hearing what the Husband just said.

My current selection, Running Blind by Lee Child, has a new-to-me twist to it: Reacher is temporarily settled, in house he inherited, with a settled girlfriend, both in New York. This is my 3rd in the Reacher series, and he’s normally got a toothbrush in his pocket at a maximum. (Sometimes he loses his toothbrush.) He’s a real bad-a$$ but has a good heart; one usually has to twist his arm but he does end up taking on problems that only sort of involve him, on the side of Right. In Running Blind, his girlfriend is the arm that gets twisted. So, girlfriends can be a liability.

Reacher is a retired MP (military policeman) and it’s this connection that gets him. Women from his military past are being murdered in a most unusual fashion, and the FBI (of all people! apparently the Bureau and the MP do NOT get along) need his help. I won’t say too much more, but Reacher does his usual busting of heads and other appendages. He’s unstoppable, a little bit of a superhero (thus my caricature comment), a small giant with big muscles, and skills in both hand-to-hand combat and gunplay that require a little suspension of disbelief. It’s definitely brain candy but I find it great fun, and there’s still a murder mystery going on too. In fact, the FBI in this case includes some profilers, and you might have noticed that I have an enthusiasm for them (thus my love of Criminal Minds on television and my interest in this book, also here). So, there’s some whodunit involved in the brain candy as well. Just my style!

Thank you Lee Child for the unputdownable book of the week. Think I’ll keep seeking his out.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Running Blind by Lee Child

Posted on January 4, 2011 by pagesofjulia


It’s time for Teaser Tuesdays with Should Be Reading!

From page 212 of Lee Child’s Running Blind:

“A male hitchhiker standing six feet five and weighing two hundred and thirty pounds is on the cusp of acceptability for easy rides. Generally, women won’t stop for him, because they see a threat.”

Fans of Child’s serial character, Jack Reacher, will recognize our burly hitchhiker. I picked this up on a whim today, short on time and heading out to lunch, and so far it’s another solid Child. I like it!

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catching up: Frederica, Maisie Dobbs, and Running Blind

Posted on January 4, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Oh my, I’m so sorry! I’ve gotten behind. I didn’t know the holidays would throw me so hard; I really didn’t expect it; but they did. I owe you several book write-ups now!

First of all, over the holiday weekend for New Year’s I finished Georgette Heyer’s Frederica, and enjoyed it so thoroughly! The characters were so cleverly drawn, and the dialogue was so witty and fun, I just giggled and hated to put it down. I will definitely seek out more Heyer. Who knew what I was missing all these years? I have never considered myself a reader of romance, but I shall have to either amend this statement or somehow define romance around Ms. Heyer, which I don’t think the reading world will permit. My only complaint would be that it ended rather abruptly. You know, what we look for in romance is not surprise: we know from the beginning, more or less, who’s going to end up together. We don’t need to be surprised. We just need to sigh in satisfaction at the union being competently arrived at. And at the end of Frederica, when the appropriate couple finally couples, it’s sort of abrupt, brief, and not very well-described. I didn’t need graphic sex or anything, but I wish we’d gotten a bit more declarations of sentiment. Ah well. I’ll be back for more all the same. The witty banter throughout were the best part anyway, that and the “scrapes” of the younger Merrivilles.

Then I was home sick yesterday, and didn’t blog (ack!) but I *did* get to read a whole book cover to cover: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear. This is in thanks to Book Club Girl, who’s hosting the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along. I signed up for this challenge/read-along out of curiosity, not having encountered Maisie before, because she sounded interesting in the blurb provided. I figured I would sign on for just this first book and see how it goes. Well, I found Maisie delightful!

I really enjoyed the WWI history and the feeling for that time-and-place setting that was evoked. I actually cried a bit at some of the wartime farewells and hopeful loves and deaths – am I getting sappy in my old age or what?? – find myself crying a lot at books these days. I thought Maisie was remarkable for her poise and dignity in a number of strange situations, from childhood onwards. What a story of movement between classes in a time of change. The flashbacks and back-story on Maisie were some of my favorite parts. But I also enjoyed the up-to-date relationship she formed with Billy Beale, too. I hope he sticks around. I liked the characters and I look forward to more of them. So, I’ll be sticking with this read-along!

Today I was caught off-guard at lunchtime without a book, gasp, and picked up the nearest-to-hand Lee Child book: Running Blind. As you might have noticed before this, I’m becoming a fan of Jack Reacher. This one is right in line with Reacher’s vigilante loner style. See my Teaser Tuesday. Go Reacher!

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