About: War and Peace by Leo Tol­stoy is a fic­tional book first pub­lished in 1869. The work is regarded as one of the most impor­tant works of world lit­er­a­ture. The copy I read was trans­lated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. 1350 pages Pub­lisher: Oxford Uni­ver­sity Press, USA; New edition ISBN: 0199232768 My rating for War & Peace – 5 Great price on this book in paper or elec­tronic format More books by Leo Tolstoy Thoughts: It took me a while to read War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy, not only for the obvious reason (1,024 pages) but also because I read it in spurts, between reading other books. If you didn’t read War & Peace you should, not only is it full with studies of the human condition, but also full of wisdom which is still relevant to this day. I felt that I learned a lot from reading this book, not only about history, but also about culture and human intelligence. It’s too bad that if Tolstoy would have lived today, War & Peace wouldn’t even have been published. It’s not popular, too long and too tiresome – they would say. But this is real literature, with validity and…

Even though Nikolas Rokoff, Tarzan’s enemy from previous books, died, his henchman Alexis Paulvitch is very much alive and wants to even the score. Rokoff lures the son of Tarzan & Jane, Jack, away from London but the resourceful young man escapes with the help of Akut the ape.

Harold and Lucille Hargrave lost their young son, Jacob, on his eighth birthday 50 years ago. One day Agent Bellamy of the International Bureau of the Returned knocks on their door with Jacob in tow.
While Lucille embraces her son, Harold is not so sure.

In the town of Arcadia, and all across the world, the Returned are appearing causing sadness, happiness, alarm and overpopulation. While some people think it’s a miracle, others think the Returned are the work of the Devil, yet many others simply don’t know what to make of this phenomena.

Sam Kornberg lives in L.A., his marriage is falling apart and it looks like he’ll never be the novelist he dreamed of being. Looking for any job he might be qualify for , Sam gets a job as an assistant (he specializes in being an “assistant”) detective to Solar Lonsky.

Sam’s first assignment is to track a mysterious woman who triggers the adventure his about to take involving shootouts, mistaken identities, insane asylums and lots of movie talk in a video store.

Dan Hilles broke up with Stacey, his long time girlfriend. Dan has been out of the dating game for so long he has no idea on how to proceed, talk to girls or even behave as a single man.

But Dan has his friends, Ollie, Jack and Rob who are there to help and also trip him for their own amusement. After all, what are friends for?

Young Edmond Dante, a sailor, has almost been named captain of a ship and is in preparations of marrying his sweetheart. But Dante becomes the victim of a sinister plot which leads to false imprisonment in an island fortress. The naïve Dante doesn’t realize how serious his situation is and that the chances of him ever seeing the light of day decline daily.

After several years, and with the help of a friend, Dante manages to escape the prison and plots his revenge.

Arti­cle first pub­lished as Book Review: ‘March Violets’ by Philip Kerr on Blog­crit­ics About: March Violets by Philip Kerr is the first in a series of noir novels about Bernie Gunther, an ex-policeman who turned private investigator. March violets refers to Germans who went along with the Nazi violence mindlessly. 256 pages Publisher: Penguin Books Language: English ISBN-10: 0142004146 My rating for March Violets – 4 Buy this book in paper or in elec­tronic format More Books by Philip Kerr More Rec­om­mended World War II books on Man of la BookStore Thoughts: I read a few Bernie Gunther books before this one, but after I read the first one I ran out (meaning inside) to the store (Internet) and browsed (searched) for used copies of the series. Being a single minded Neanderthal, as my beloved wife can attest to, I decided to read March Violets first because… well… it’s first. The novel has a murder/mystery aspect but even more fascinating is the sense of coping with Nazi horrors on a daily base. The sense of the Nazis taking over and destroying souls feels very real in this novel and is an underlying horror which is present on every page. The book’s psychological aspect (intended or not) of just how…

The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti is a debut novel by this accomplished woman. The novel looks at the Middle East problems through a pro-Palestinian point of view.

Engineer Henri Poincaré works hard to try and bring up the frigate HMS Lutine which went down almost 200 years before with millions worth of gold in its belly. As a reward for his hard work, Henri takes a break and hikes at low tide across the Wadden Sea. Henri gets to know his guide, Liesel Kraus who is a director at Kraus Steel and is still haunted by a violent history and corrupting wealth.

About: Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the sixth book about the Lord of the Jungle. Even though this is the sixth book about a character with an established history, it is a prequel. My rat­ing for Jungle Tales of Tarzan — 3 Buy this book in paper or FREE in elec­tronic format More Books by by Edgar Rice Burroughs Thoughts: Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs is a collection of short stories which tell of the adventures of Tarzan before he met any white people. As the other books, these tales are very readable and make for a quick read. The stories are loosely related to one another and most of them are told in chronological order. In these stories Tarzan learns to love, develops religion, and philosophizes about the moon. Meanwhile, our prolific ape-man analyzes himself in relation to the other jungle animals in general, and specifically apes. The book is filled with fights, it seems Tarzan fights a representative of every jungle animal he encounters as well as the Gomangani tribe. The novel is filled with fast paced action and good characterization. For the modern reader however, the book will seem racist –…