Stardust is an inventive fairy-tale reminiscent of the old stories and an imaginative as the best of them; a wonderful, funny and charming book

Buy this Star Wars Book in paper or electronic copy* Andrew: Originally published at http://www.rancorslovetoread.com/2008/12/andrews-review-of-truce-at-bakura.html 3/5 Rancors – There are no vacation days for the heroes of the Rebellion. Finally, the Emperor’s reign of terror has been ended, the Empire is in disarray, and the Rebellion is suddenly in a position to start laying the groundwork of a new galactic government. Unfortunately, mere hours after these tumultuous events a distress call from the remote system of Bakura arrives at Endor and it’s back in the proverbial saddle for Luke Skywalker and his buddies. The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers tells the story of an alien invasion of the Bakura system, a place “protected” by the Empire but in desperate need of aid. The Rebels must find a way to help the Bakurans while maintaining an uneasy alliance with Imperial Governor Wilek Nereus and his forces. The alien invaders are an extra-galactic reptilian species named the Ssi-ruuk. Total enslavement of all other life is the Ssi-ruuk reason for their assault on Bakura and other systems. The most unusual aspect of these creatures is the method they use to power their fleet. It is called entechment and involves draining living beings of life to power…

The conflicts in the book range from the straightforward jousts to the conflict within ourselves (Ivanhoe’s and Rebecca’s relationship).

Leanne Shapton grew up under the definitive identity of “competitive swimmer”. She spent the larger part of her life on the humid decks of muggy swimming pools, in and out of freezing waters, and constantly comparing herself and her times to the swimmers around her. Growing up as a competitive swimmer myself, the images and scenes that Shapton portrays in her novel Swimming Studies is all but too familiar. While this novel really grabbed my attention because of its familiarity for me and my own life events, there was something universally appealing about the style, voice, and subject at hand. Even without the knowledge of binge eating carb dinners before competition or staying in foreign hotel rooms with your teammates and competitors, Shapton strikes on the universal notes of longing to belong, searching for an identity, and grief and loss. Buy this book in paper or elec­tronic format* More Books by Leanne Shapton This novel follows the life of a woman and girl utterly obsessed with the solitude of swimming and the race, but also completely foreign to it. Shapton explores her experience as a swimmer in grade school, as a college swimmer, vying for an Olympic spot in her later…

Article first published as Book Review: Not Famous Anymore by Michael Loyd Gray on Blogcritics. About: Not Famous Anymore by Michael Loyd Gray is a fictional book which addresses the price of fame. We all know that being famous cannot be easy, but why do famous people who got what they wanted keep complaining? The pub­lisher is giv­ing away one copy of this book –to enter fill out the Raf­fle­copt­ter form at the end of the post 260 pages Publisher: Three Towers Press Language: English ISBN-10: 1595981578 My rating for Not Famous Anymore – 4 Buy this book in paper or electronic format* More Books by Michael Loyd Gray Thoughts: Not Famous Anymore by Michael Loyd Gray(website | Facebook | @moonpie125) asks a very interesting question: what if you were famous and decided you didn’t want to be known anymore? I keep hearing that often, someone who achieved the pinnacle of success now, when they got it, all of the sudden acts as if it is a burden. While I’m sure that it’s not easy, that is the price of success in that arena and they knew well ahead of time what they were getting themselves into. What I find even more fascinating is the…

Wel­come to another install­ment of “Thoughts from the Ran­cor Pit” in which Andrew and David from the fab­u­lous blog “Ran­cors Love to Read” will review books tak­ing place in the Star Wars uni­verse. This time they are review­ing The Last Command the third install­ment in The Thrawn Tril­ogy which pop­u­lar­ized the Star Wars books. Also, don’t forget that today, 6 October, 2012 is the Star Wars Reads day which will be marked with activities promoting Star Wars, reading and reading Star Wars in book stores across the nation. The good folks at Star Wars Reads have given Man of la Book some cool giveaways to promote this most excellent event. Check it out and enter – THIS IS A ONE DAY GIVEAWAY, I will pick the winner on Sunday. Buy this Star Wars Book in paper or elec­tronic copy* More Books by Timothy Zahn Andrew: Orig­i­nally pub­lished at http://www.rancorslovetoread.com/2009/01/andrews-review-of-last-command.html 5/5 Rancors – The Last Command is the climactic novel in Timothy Zahn’s superb Thrawn Trilogy, a series published in the early 1990’s that laid the groundwork for much of the Star Wars Expanded Universe that was to come. All of Zahn’s carefully constructed plotting comes together here in an action-packed and highly rewarding tale, intertwining the…

Article first published as Book Review: The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller on Blogcritics. About: The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller is a German novel taking place in a Soviet forced labor camp at the end of World War II. Ms. Müller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. 304 pages Publisher: Metropolitan Books Language: English ISBN-10: 080509301X My rating for The Hunger Angel – 4 Buy this book in paper or electronic format* More Books by Herta Müller Check out this & more World War II books on Man of la BookStore Thoughts: The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller takes place in 1945, when the Soviet Union demanded that all Romanian Germans who are 17 to 45 years of age be relocated to forced labor camps in order to help rebuild the devastated nation. According to the author’s note at the end of the book, she spent many hours talking to poet Oskar Pastior who suffered under the decree. Müller filled four notebooks with Mr. Pastior’s testimony until 2006, when he suddenly passed away. This is an extraordinary book about the hardships the German people faced after the war, as Leo Auberg, the protagonist states: “To this day, the hunger angel speaks out of your mouth. But no matter what he says, this…

Nat Jaffe and Archy Stallings are the owners of Brokeland Records, one of the few bastions of vinyl record stores left in Oakland, CA circa 2004. In comes Gibson Goode, ex-NFL star, multi-millionaire and entrepreneur who wants to open his Dogpile megastore in the area. The megastore will force Brokeland Records, who are struggling as it is, to close

Thunderball by Ian Fleming begins with M, MI6’s head, sending James Bond, our hero, to a two week vacation in a health clinic due to poor health caused by lots of drinking and smoking sixty cigarettes a day.

If you do not know the plot of the Hunger Games by now, then where have you been living? Under a rock? Well, it goes something like this: in a future time, the world is divided into twelve areas and controlled by the Capitol. The evil leader, President Snow, makes each area give tributes, one teenage boy and one teenage girl, to the Hunger Games- a fight to the death in a natural arena. Much like the Roman tradition of pitting gladiators against animals and each other, these battles resulted in only one victor. Buy The Hunger Games Trilogy in a boxed set or electronic format* After the big movie release, reviews of the Hunger Games series probably came out of the woodwork. Truthfully, I had no interest in reading the books until after I watched the movies. My friends kept telling me how great they were and how I should go read them now, but I did not see the appeal. After all, aren’t they just another young adult series? That plus the idea of kids fighting to the death kind of put me off to the whole thing. Eventually, however I caved in enough to rent the movie…