Looking for Your Next Book

 We look back at the Academy days of Jean-Luc Picard and see that he's quite the loner, focused solely on doing well and getting ahead. But his instructor, Mr. Spock, informs him that getting to know the people on his team is important when making leadership decisions and orders Cadet Picard to attend a party with his fellow cadets. Well ... Spock can order him to attend but there's nothing that says he has to enjoy it or participate in shenanigans! Through a series of incidents, young Jean-Luc discovers that there's more to being command than simply giving orders and knowing 'the book' backward and forward. This is a pretty simple story (hard to believe it makes up six issues of a comic) and frankly pretty obvious. I never felt like we were following the same Jean-Luc Picard who would go on to captain the USS Enterprise or become a Starfleet Admiral. That's not to say I think we are the same at age 19 as we are at 50. Of course we learn and grow, but I don...

A woman, model Tina Sachs, is killed, brutally slashed to death while her young daughter sat in another room, quietly playing with her doll. In the squad room of the 87th Precinct, Steve Carella asks his lieutenant to assign Bert Kling to the case. Kling has been a bit belligerent since the loss of his fiancé. He's about to get booted out of the squad but Carella still believes in him and thinks he just needs the chance to prove his worth. But Kling and Carella have an argument during the investigation and Carella orders Kling to go home. Shortly after Kling leaves, Carella makes a discovery in his investigation and heads off to follow up on his lead. Unfortunately Carella never calls in to report on what he's discovered and the criminal(s) behind the crime surprise and subdue the officer. Stripped naked and bound to a radiator, the killers torture (mentally and with doses of drugs) Carella to try and force him to tell them how he discovered them as they believed they had cover...

 The work of terraforming Mars has been a long and challenging process but just as the hopes of those living on the red planet reach an excited level as success looks to be within reach. But disaster looms as a contaminated ice asteroid threatens the planet's water supply. Professor Zambrotta “Zammi” Kaspar is charged with investigating a fatal crash on a remote ice asteroid and is surprised to discover his sister, who had been missing, working there as an indentured miner for one of the big mining corporations. After rescuing his sister, Zammi and his sibling set out to investigate the contaminated water and discover competing visions, from different corporations, for the future of humanity and the terraforming of Mars. I typically have not enjoyed books based on games (for instance, while I typically like the sword & sorcery genre, I haven't enjoyed books specifically based on D&D) but as Terraforming Mars is my most-played board game over the last five years (about ...

 Timothy O'Sullivan was an American photographer in the 19th century. Some of his photos are among the most iconic of the American Civil War. After the war, O'Sullivan traveled to the American West, raising photography to an art form with his pictures of what was still considered to be unusual locations. His work had an impact on photographer Ansel Adams. Despite the longevity of his work and his obvious skills, very little is actually known about O'Sullivan, which in many ways mirrors the locations he's photographed - unusual and sometimes forgotten locations that evoke strong emotions. Author Robert Sullivan sets out to learn more about both - O'Sullivan and his chosen vistas. Along the way, Sullivan reflects on America, the changes that have occurred over the past century, as well as how poorly Indigenous People were treated in O'Sullivan's time and how things haven't changed much there. I really thought I'd find this book to be more enjoyable tha...

Margaret Millar's The Fiend is a story of the mentally deranged individual, Charlie Gowen. There had been an incident in Charlie's past, involving a child, which has made him the town pariah.  Today, though, at least on the surface, he is more or less coping and the few people he does interact with consider him more or less "cured."  His brother, Ben Gowan, seems to be aware that Charlie needs constant watching and has given up his own life to keep a watchful eye on his brother. For good reason. Charlie is slowly showing signs of returning to his old life with an unhealthy interest in children. Charlie should not be sitting in a car across from a park and watching the children.  Charlie has fixated on one particular little girl, Jessie Brant, when he watches her scramble around a jungle gym and fall. Charlie believes it is his duty to warn her parents - that she needs protecting, from dangers like the jungle gym as well as from people like himself. The book is not so...

I started to read this book on multiple occasions but would put it away barely getting past the Introduction each time.  The problem? I really didn't care for author Tim Rayborn's 'voice'. Rayborn makes little asides and and remarks that a middle school boy would find funny (generally sexually charged comments, like:  The wonderfully named Emperor Heliogabalus (ca. 203–222 CE) apparently decided that mimes’ simulated sexual activity during shows simply would not do, so he ordered them to actually have sex onstage while performing. Well, I suppose it’s a job perk. ... Regardless, the mimes of the time were undoubtedly only too happy to incorporate him into their future farcical performances, live sex acts notwithstanding. Or, The gods weren’t happy about this, so they cut off Agdistis’s penis and buried it in the ground. From this sprang an almond tree—no jokes about “nuts.” The nymph Nana became pregnant from one of the almonds—ancient Greek contraception clearly sucked...

I have read a lot of Beatles-related books over the past dozen years that I've been writing this review blog but this is perhaps the most moving and the most insightful of all that I've read. Mal Evans was possibly closer to the Beatles than other individual, from their early days at The Cavern Club, to their rise to fame, their international tours, and through their breakup. An argument can be made, of course, for a few other, perhaps more well-known individuals, but because of Mal's presence at so many places, I'd give him the edge. Who was Mal Evans? To really answer that you should read this book (you should read it anyway, even if you don't care what the answer is). He is often considered to be the Beatles' roadie, or bodyguard, but he was so much more than that. He was exactly what the Beatles needed at the time, although it's more than likely that no one realized that, or just how much he provided, beyond lugging gear and removing rowdy fans. It is ce...