Guest Review: Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton
Fiction , Guest Posts / October 13, 2012

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…

Book Review: Not Famous Anymore by Michael Loyd Gray
4 Stars , Fiction , Latest Posts / October 9, 2012

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…

Guest Review: Star Wars: The Last Command by Timothy Zahn
Fiction , Latest Posts / October 6, 2012

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…

Book Review: The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller
4 Stars , Fiction , Latest Posts / October 3, 2012

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…

Book Review: Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
4 Stars , Fiction , Latest Posts / October 2, 2012

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

Guest Review of the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
Fiction , Guest Posts , Latest Posts / September 24, 2012

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…

Book Review: Vlad by Carlos Fuentes
4 Stars , Fiction , Latest Posts / September 24, 2012

Article first published as Book Review: Vlad by Carlos Fuentes on Blogcritics. About: Vlad by Carlos Fuentes is a short novel taking place in Mexico City, Mexico. The story was part of the 2004 collection “Inquieta Compañía” and recently came out as its own book translated by Alejandro Branger and Ethan Shaskan Bumas. 112 pages Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; Tra edition Language: English ISBN-10: 1564787796 My rating for Vlad – 4 Buy this book in paper format from Amazon.com* Thoughts: Vlad by Carols Fuentes takes on an interesting premise, what if Dracula still lived and settled inMexico City. As one might expect, there is a lot of dark humor in this book, starting with the strange requests the client is making of the real estate agent (“remote”, “easy to defend”) to the client’s look which consists of a silly wig and glued on mustache. What I found to be different in this book is that the reader knows a lot more than the narrator. This style of storytelling invigorates the dark comedy and brings a sense of ominous foreboding to banal and meaningless lines said by the famous Count. In this rendition of the story, Fuentes marries vampire and lawyers – both server as vessels for…

Book Review: Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip
2 Stars , Fiction , Latest Posts / September 19, 2012

About: Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip is a novel taking place in China’s underworldduring the beginning of the Century. The majority of the novel takes place in Shanghai’s criminal element, bars and clubs. 352 pages Publisher: Kensington (May 29, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 0758273533 My rating for Skeleton Women – 2 Buy this book in paper or electronic format More Books by Mingmei Yip Thoughts: Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip (website | Facebook |@mingmeiyip) is a well written novel about a Chinese woman who is part of the Flying Dragon gang, however she is actually spying undercover for a rival gang. Many seem to think this novel takes place in the 1930s, however I could not find any reference to that time period in the book. I was looking forward to reading this book and the beginning was promising, I could immediately tell that it was written with a certain flair. The setup of the protagonist, Camilla, was enticing but the outcome did not fulfill the promise of the tease. I felt as if I walking down the street and following my nose to a small bakery where a fresh loaf of bread was just taken out of the oven….

Book Review: Black Fridays by Michael Sears
4 Stars , Fiction , Latest Posts / September 18, 2012

Article first published as Book Review: Black Fridays by Michael Sears on Blogcritics. About: Black Fridays by Michael Sears is a novel which capitalizes on the author’s Wall Street experience providing interesting insights on financials capers. This is a first book by Mr. Sears and seems to be the first of a series. 352 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult Language: English ISBN-10: 0399158669 My rating for Black Fridays – 4 Buy this book in paper or electronic format Thoughts: Black Fridays by Michael Sears (website | Facebook) is a novel about financial schemes, murder and greed but mostly about the meaning of fatherhood. While I couldn’t begin to understand the complexity of the scam which Jason Stafford, the protagonist, pulled over his Wall Street bosses, I liked the other aspects of this book. Jason has a son which he is fighting for. After spending a couple of years in jail Jason certainly wasn’t up for the “Father of the Year” award, but neither was his white trash ex-wife, her fixation with abusive men and her way of dealing with autism (locking the kid in a room at his grandmother’s house so he won’t hurt himself). I enjoyed the financial aspect of the book and the…

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