Category: Non-Fiction

SAY NOTHING: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

From award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

The horrific conflict known as The Troubles is introduced to us beginning in 1972, when Jean McConville, 38 and a mother of ten children was abducted from her home in front of her children and neighbors, never to be seen again, until years later when bones found on a beach turned out to be hers.

Everyone knew it was the IRA, but no one was speaking out. Fear and Paranoia were rampant and no one was safe. Family members turned on each other. Neighbors turned a blind eye and some, like Dolours Price, were carrying on the family tradition of violence and proud of it.

This was a bitter conflict that I once thought was over Catholic vs. Protestants but that was only a small part of the story. Everyone wanted peace, but when it came, it was shaky at best.

This is one of the best books I have read on the Irish Conflicts. Turning loved ones against each other and so many deaths and in the end, who was right? Was it all worth it?

I don’t know but reading this account I fully intend to find out more.

Very Well Done!

Netgalley/ February 26th 2019 by Doubleday Books

THE END OF PROCRASTINATION by PHILLIP LARK

THE END OF PROCRASTINATION: Proven Strategies to End Procrastination, Motivate Yourself and Become a Master on Getting Things Done (Productivity Book 4)

Productivity Series Book #4

Self help books aren’t really my thing. And this wasn’t either. I found more quotes and sayings such as ‘Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’ That was what it all boiled down to.

I wasn’t impressed with this one.

Netgalley/ St. Martin’s Business December 31, 2018

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:Artifacts From A Life by Michael Katakis

Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life

Beautifully designed, intimate and illuminating, this is the story of American icon Ernest Hemingway’s life through the documents, photographs, and miscellany he kept, compiled by the steward of the Hemingway estate and featuring contributions by his son and grandson.

I have always been fascinated with Papa Hemingway. The legends are many and larger than life. What is true and what is just colorful tale? He was so many things besides a writer. 

I’ve read many books about the man and his wives and children. Some not so flattering. This author tells the story of his life through his own documents, letters and things he kept for his own reasons. There are photographs documenting his public and private lives, although he seemed to be pretty up front and public about everything he did.

He was driven to be in the middle of the action. To me he seemed to have an insatiable curiosity about everything and every one. The author has done a wonderful job of putting together all of these things and we get a really good look at the life of a man who was bigger than life.

Very Well Done!

Netgalley/ Scribner October 23, 2018

 

 

THE LIBRARY BOOK by SUSAN ORLEAN

The Library Book

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm. As one fireman recounted later, “Once that first stack got going, it was Goodbye, Charlie.” The fire was disastrous: It reached 2,000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more. Investigators descended on the scene, but over thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Susan Orlean is an exceptional writer and her love for the written word and libraries is all over this work.

As she digs into the fire at the LAPL, this becomes a book about libraries and the people who inhabit them. The librarians and all of the ins and outs and backrooms and quirky people who make up the library. What she finds is something that we all have found at one time or another, a second home. A place of community, a place that levels the playing field for those who don’t have the luxury of buying a lot of books or resource material.

I often joke I would love to be locked in a library and after reading Susan’s book, I really want to do that! I associate the library with my childhood, my first library card, the smell, all the adventures I took in those books.

Librarians are really lucky!

I loved this book and I hope you do as well.

Netgalley/ Simon and Schuster October 16, 2018

BOOM TOWN by SAM ANDERSON

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding, Its Apocalyptic Weather, Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis

A lively and introspective look into Oklahoma City, where colorful city officials business leaders, artists, and sports fans have turned an unassuming Southwestern city into a thriving metropolis with a dazzling basketball team.

Sam Anderson–award-winning critic and journalist–makes his long-awaited debut with a stunning, insightful, and raucous portrait of Oklahoma City, an iconoclastic outpost in America’s heartland.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I’ve lived in Nichols Hills since Hurricane Katrina spit us out of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. The entire state has been a mystery to me.

I had never heard of Sam Anderson, sorry Sam, but I won’t forget him! This was the best unvarnished look at who makes the rules here and what the powers that be have envisioned for the city.  Oklahoma City is a huge sprawling area of tiny pockets of old-established neighborhoods. While there have been huge improvements to downtown OKC, beyond the city center the homeless linger under bridges and overpasses and oil and gas rules. Unemployment is rampant unless you are an oil field worker and even then you may only have a job until it’s bonus time.

From the Land Run to Aubrey Mclendon’s spectacular exit from his oil and gas woes to the Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne, whose house I have been in and it is just as weird and wacko as Sam will tell you about.

I laughed so hard all the way through this book. Sam has captured the city perfectly as well as all of its most colorful residents.

Very Well Done and I look forward to more from this author!

Netgalley/August 21st 2018 by Crown

 

Vaccines, Autoimmunity and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness by Thomas Cowan M.D.

Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Assault on Childhood

This book could not be more timely. The vaccine debate is sometimes a polarizing one. Pitting the Anti-Vaccers against the ones who choose to vaccinate.

Cowan not only looks at the ways childhood disease has changed with the onset of vaccines which are made by companies and pushed by them and the government. Sometimes knowing they are not safe. But when there is big money to be made, we all know how the big Pharms operate.

He offers a different look at the spiritual side as well. He questions the whys and hows. He asks especially why did we have a polio out break between 1916 and 11918? And those answers are extremely interesting.

He speaks to autism and childhood diseases. Some which in the past have contributed to a healthy immune system.

I am torn on this issue. But I believe in the right to choose your child’s health plan and belong to a Vaccination PAC here in Oklahoma where we successfully passed a bill that would put that choice into the hands of the parents. And to me that is where it belongs.

Any thoughts?

Netgalley/August 14, 2018 Chelsea Green Publishing

xx Patricia

NETGALLEY CHOICES FOR THIS WEEK

  For fans of The Woman in the Window and Gone Girl comes a twisted and addictive psychological thriller about a cunning wife, a damaged husband and a chilling murder that no one saw coming! March of 2019

 A seamstress who specializes in historical detail, Daria Dembrowski is happy to welcome the Highland Games to town—it’s all fun and games until someone gets “kilt.”  September 11, 2018

 The breathtaking barrier island of Melbourne Beach, Florida, is every tourist’s fantasy—until murder washes ashore . . .    September 25, 2018

 An unforgettable year in the life of a visionary high school science teacher and his award-winning students, as they try to get into college, land a date for the prom, and possibly change the world. September 04, 2018

That is what popped on my site this morning. They all look good in their own way so can’t wait to get started on them!

Anything really good I should get???

xx Patricia Books,Books,and More Books Reviews