SUICIDE RUN: THREE HARRY BOSCH STORIES (kindle) by Michael Connelly

Published by Little, Brown and Company in 2011.

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is back on the case in these three short stories. Fans of the series know that Harry has had a long career in print and he had already had a long career before he started showing up in Michael Connelly's books. These stories are at varied points in his career, he has various partners and co-workers from throughout the series show up and he has various degrees of success in them.

Two of the stories are quite short - short enough that I was just starting to settle in for a good Harry Bosch story and they just...ended. The third is a pretty good story and just long enough that I found myself wishing that Connelly had fleshed it out a bit more into full book length.

I rate this collection 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Suicide Run: Three Harry Bosch Stories.

YOU LEARN BY LIVING: ELEVEN KEYS for a MORE FULFILLING LIFE (audiobook) by Eleanor Roosevelt

Originally published in 1960.

Published in December of 2018 by HarperAudio.
Read by Vivienne Leheny.
Duration: 5 hours, 29 minutes.
Unabridged. 

Eleanor Roosevelt, cousin of one president and wife of another became a celebrity and a political force to be reckoned with in her own right after the death of her husband in 1945.

She worked with the United Nations and wrote a regular newspaper column. Over her lifetime, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote more than 25 books, met thousands of people, visited dozens of countries and raised half a dozen children. All of that in addition to being First Lady for more than 12 years.

Eleanor's column was normally based on letters that were sent to her. A lot of those letters asked for her advice. This book is a distillation of the advice she had given over the years. It is written in a very approachable, simple manner and, as she notes at the end of her book, doesn't really teach anything new. Instead, there is a lot of practical advice and observations with a lot of personal anecdotes thrown in.

I enjoyed the book, but I have to rate it 4 stars out of 5 because there was nothing exceptional about it. Lots of good advice, lots of great stories, though. I recommend it, but I did not find it life-changing.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: YOU LEARN BY LIVING: ELEVEN KEYS for a MORE FULFILLING LIFE by Eleanor Roosevelt.

BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD (Highway 59 Mystery #1) by Attica Locke

Winner of the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Published by Hachette Audio in 2017.
Read by JD Jackson.
Duration: 9 hours, 25 minutes.
Unabridged.

Darren Mathews is a rare thing - a black Texas Ranger. He is also suspended for getting involved in a situation with a man with Aryan Brotherhood ties that ended up murdered soon afterwards. 

A friend in the FBI tells him about another situation, way out in a small town on Highway 59 in East Texas at the edge of a bayou. Two bodies have been found in the bayou - one black and one white.

The first body was a black man - beaten nearly to death and then drowned in the bayou. The second was a white woman, found floating in the bayou a few days later.

So, Mathews heads off to this little town and starts nosing around with no authorization. He discovers a little cafe run by an elderly black woman on one end of town and a bar owned by her white neighbor on the other end of town - a bar that regularly plays host to the Aryan Brotherhood. In between them is a lot of history.

Mathews thinks he has the situation figured out before he even arrives - but the more he digs, the more complicated everything gets...

Bluebird, Bluebird won the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel. The Edgar Award goes to the best mystery and the mystery in the story was quite good. The story itself was slow to develop, however. The pacing of the novel was sacrificed a bit in order to create more tone and mood in a book that was filled with tone and mood. 

The audiobook was read by JD Jackson. He voiced the characters with a multitude of unique voices and did quite a good job.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD (Highway 59 Mystery #1) by Attica Locke.

DRAGONWORLD by Byron Preiss and Michael Reaves

Originally published in 1979.
Illustrations by Joseph Zucker.

Way back in 1985, I bought a paperback copy of Dragonworld at Viewpoint Books - a great store in Columbus, Indiana. I sold it to a used book store a few years later and I forgot all about it.

A couple of years ago, I found a copy of Dragonworld at a thrift store. I snatched it up, feeling like I had found a relic from my past. I remembered that I loved the beginning of the book and I loved the pictures (there are more than 80 pencil drawings throughout the book), but I couldn't remember anything else about it.

So, I finally got around to reading this book and I have determined that I did not finish the book 34 years ago. I remembered the first 30 pages or so but everything else was a surprise - and not a particularly good one (with the exception of the aforementioned drawings - they are quite excellent).

The book is set in a world with two continents separated by a narrow strait of very volatile water. The eastern continent, Simbala, is filled with people that are like Tolkien's rangers and people that are sort of like elves (but they are still people). They live in the woods and in the forests. They fly air ships, which are sort of like hot air balloons. They also dig deep mines (which is not like elves, I know, but this is barely touched on in the book). The western continent, Fandora, is full of people that are sort of like Tolkien's hobbits mixed with his dwarves. They are farmers, villagers and fishermen.

Fandora is horrified by the sudden violent death of two of its young people. It looks like both are attacked from above, so it is assumed that Simbalese air ships have crossed the strait and attacked them. The Fandoran villages unite and build a ragtag army to cross the sea.

*******Spoliers ahead**********

Meanwhile, a similar attack has hit the people of Simbala. This is where the story gets bogged down. Simbala has an elderly monarch and an extensive royal family but the king has done an unpopular thing (but, then again, maybe it's popular - it depends on the page). He has appointed a miner to be king. The miner is quick-thinking and acted to save the country from an attack by underground creatures (think hobgoblins from Lord of the Rings) and their wolf-things. There is a dramatic build-up to deal with some sort of problem with the mines, but it is dropped and never brought up again.

art from the book

(still more spoilers)

The new king is named Hawkwind and he is an amazingly talented individual. Not only is he an excellent miner, he also had time to learn how to sword fight, how to hunt, how to track things in the wilderness, how to ride horses better than anyone, train that horse to fight alongside him, learn military tactics, learn military strategy, learn diplomacy, acquire a complete education of the lore of his kingdom, romance a gypsy princess and train a hawk to fly around and fight alongside him. No wonder he was made king! Imagine Aragon from Lord of the Rings but make him take a full job as a miner in his spare time.

(one last paragraph of spoilers)

Enter the dragons. Actually, they are coldrakes, which are like dragons, but dumb. Kind of like chimpanzees when compared to humans. There is a mixed breed dragon/coldrake (don't think too long about my previous comparison of humans and chimps) that is worried about the future of the coldrakes. He is moving them from the frigid north to the human-filled south (and he killed the children of Simbala and Fandora, causing the war). He is the most interesting character because he is doing bad things in a misguided effort to save his own kind. But, in the end, he is quickly dispatched.

*************End spoilers*********

By far, the best part of this book is the pictures.

The real problem of this book is that it should have been a trilogy. The situation in the mines could have been addressed. The war could have been more fleshed out. The dragon/coldrake issue could have been a book by itself. Plus, there's a hint of a sequel that never happened. 

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: DRAGONWORLD by Byron Preiss and Michael Reaves.

THE BROTHERHOOD (PRECINCT 11 #1) by Jerry B. Jenkins

Published by christianaudio.com in 2011.
Read by Johnny Heller.
Duration: 9 hours, 8 minutes.
Unabridged.

The Brotherhood is the story of Boone Drake, a young Chicago cop who seemingly has it all. He is married to his beautiful high school sweetheart. They have a healthy toddler son. His career is on the fast track. His family attends a big church and he helps run the athletic program.

But, a horrific home fire destroys this idyllic life. Jack loses his family and his faith as he slowly recovers. As Jack slowly rebuilds his personal life, will he still be able to move forward in his career?

************Caution: spoilers***********

This book is all about world building for the other two books in the series. We meet Drake and set up his tragic backstory. Sadly, the tragedy dominates the book. The descriptions of how his family died are quite graphic and go on for quite a while (there is an extensive hospital scene). It verges on the level of being grief porn. It just goes on and on and on.

The actual police part of the book has some very good moments, especially with the smaller day-to-day police work. But, the big culminating case was delivered a little too easily. This is really an up-and-down book.

Johnny Heller read the book. I generally enjoy Heller's narration and I enjoyed it this time as well. He is quite good at creating individual voices for the characters.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: THE BROTHERHOOD (PRECINCT 11 #1) by Jerry Jenkins.

THE SUBTLE ART of NOT GIVING A F*CK: A COUNTERINTUITIVE APPROACH to LIVING a GOOD LIFE (audiobook) by Mark Manson

Published in 2016 by HarperAudio.
Read by Roger Wayne.
Duration: 5 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

Two things before we start:

1) I am not a reader of self-help books - I can't think of the last one I read. 

The author, Mark Manson

2) You simply cannot read this book if coarse language bothers you. I will follow the style of this book in this review.

Manson makes many points in the book, but two stuck out to me. He posits that many people are unhappy because they simply try to focus on too many things and can't do any of them well. In short, he says that you have to stop giving a f*ck about everything and figure out the very few things that you actually give a f*ck about and make them your priority.

One of his other points is similar, but worthy of mention. He points out that no matter where you go, there's a 500 pound bag of sh*t problems waiting for you. If you move to a new city, there will be a 500 pound bag of sh*t of problems. If you quit your job because you can't stand the 500 bag of sh*t in that place, you will find a different 500 pound bag of sh*t at your new job. If you break up with your girlfriend because you can't stand her sh*t, there will be another big bag of sh*t with your new girlfriend.

The secret to it all is that you find the 500 pound bag of sh*t you can deal with and stay there. Everyone has different sh*t that they can tolerate.

The book was well read by Roger Wayne. He sounded so confident and authentic in his reading that I actually assumed that the audiobook was read by the author.

So, I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. There is a little too much filler for a full 5 stars, especially for a 5 hour audiobook. But, this is a worthy read.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: THE SUBTLE ART of NOT GIVING A F*CK by Mark Manson.

SAG HARBOR: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Colson Whitehead

Published in 2009 by Random House Audio.
Narrated by Mirron Willis
Duration: 11 hours, 17 minutes.
Unabridged.

Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor is set in 1985. Benjie Cooper and his brother are spending the summer at the resort town of Sag Harbor, New York. This Long Island resort town is actually two resort towns - one white and one black. The Coopers are part of a very close-knit African American community of New York City professionals that started their part of Sag Harbor two generations earlier.

During the summers, families head out on the weekends and older kids are often left out in Sag Harbor for the summer. Benjie and his brother are in high school and a group of high school boys hang out together all summer. Benjie is desperate to be cool (being on Dungeons and Dragons-playing Star Wars fan doesn't help - take it from a kid who was both in high school at the same time).

They get summer jobs, they hit the beach, they look for girls, they try to get into concerts at local night clubs, they get BB guns and shoot each other, they explore, identify houses that were undoubtedly haunted, avoid doing laundry until way after it starts to smell and other typical teenage boy things. Also, they desperately want to figure out what makes girls tick.

...and that is pretty much the plot of the book. I listened to it as an audiobook, and Mirron Willis' narration was well done. But, there is no real plot to the book. There are hints of family strife that never are explained. There are hints that some of the boys go on to do great things and some end up in jail or worse. There's not even a "where are they now?" epilogue at the end of the book. It starts right after Memorial Day and ends at Labor Day - almost like the world's longest "What I did over the summer" essay.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Sag Harbor: A Novel by Colson Whitehead.