A Bookish Blog
Pilgrim Days: From Vietnam to the SAS by Alastair MacKenzie is a memoir of the author who served in the special forces of several countries over his life. The book documents his life from serving in the New Zealand Army in Vietnam, to the SAS, South Africa, Oman, and finally as a private security agent.
The Empress by Laura Martinez-Belli (translated by Simon Bruni) is a novel about the life of Empress Carlota, wife of Maximilian von Habsburg of Austria who was, for a sort time, installed by the French as Mexico’s Emperor.
The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia by Tom Stevenson is a wonderful coffee table book with writings about the most recent trends in the world of wine, written by experts from several countries. Mr. Stevenson is an award wining wine writer.
A novel taking place over three decades in Israel, starting in the 1960s after the Six Days War, following the life of a group of friends and their families
The first think I noticed when holding this book is the quality of the item. The book is lavishly printed, quality pages and magnificent photographs throughout. Cosmos: Possible Worlds by Ann Druyan consists of 13 chapters, all are separated subjects and need not to be read in order
Germania by Harald Gilbers is a murder-mystery taking place during the last weeks of World War II, following a Jewish investigator reactivated by the Gestapo. This book won the Glauser Prize for the best German crime novel.
Most everything in the book can be found on news websites, or forums. This is still a worthwhile read though, mostly because of the author’s unique experience couch surfing and meeting Chinese people who are a bit more adventurous than the average citizen.
The authors understood that people need variety and included desserts such as cakes, bars, and even a chocolate mousse. Besides the desserts, the book offers a bit of everything except meats.
Attempts, and succeeds, to navigate the enormous amount of information to tell a fascinating, easy to read story. More importantly, the authors managed to separate the truth from the mountains of disinformation being put out by state and non-state actors, in official as well as unofficial roles.
In a small Swedish town, a bank robbery has taken place. The bank robber is, obviously, not a professional for trying to rob a cashless bank. The robber stumbles into a showing for an apartment, on New Year’s Eve no less, and accidentally turns the incident into a hostage situation.
