Crime & fiction books

This is an excellent naval novel by Douglas Reeman. Essentially it is a story about the relationship between a man and a ship, excellently described and told.

The book has two parts. The first takes place in 1915, when young midshipman Richard Chesnaye serves aboard HMS Saracen. HMS Saracen is a strange bastard of a ship, known as a monitor. It is a construction with huge guns – 15 inch – mounted on a ship, designed mainly for land bombardment. We follow Chesnaye as he serves on the ship, and during combat action in Turkey (World War I). In Gallipoli in 1915, in heavy combat, both the man and the vessel perform excellently.

Then we meet them both again in the spring of 1941. The two seeming relics of the past are brought together again Chesnaye in command as Captain of the HMS Saracen. Both are viewed as unfit. And to most people HMS Saracen is just an ugly, obsolete ship. It was a type of ship already obsolete when it was launched and now almost entirely forgotten. But to Chesnaye she brings back memories. She is a ship he loves and one which he regards as having interesting potential. And Chesnaye does a great job and delivers results beyond expectations with his old, beloved ship.

And when a convoy from Egypt en route to Malta protected by the Saracen and a battle group of newer naval ships is attacked by the Italians, both captain and ship rise to the occasion, repulsing the onslaught of the superior foe.

Written in the mid-sixties, H.M.S. Saracen is one of Douglas Reeman’s very best novels, and an excellent naval war book. The conclusion of the book is very moving. If you like modern naval fiction or are interested in the Royal Navy and the campaigns it waged in the Mediterranean in the 20th Century, then this is a book to read! HMS Saracen is a highly enjoyable novel that depicts the horror and the glory of war at sea in a very realistic and suspenseful way.

Links to books by Douglas Reeman at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN

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Desmond Bagley is one of England’s almost forgotten thriller writers. A great thriller writer, actually, The Golden Keel was his debut novel, and a book that really got him noticed. It is said to have been based on a true story, in the sense that it was a story overheard by Bagley in a bar in Johannesburg. The story is about Mussolini’s vast personal riches and the men who went looking for it. It was published in 1963 to great acclaim and followed by a further fifteen popular adventure novels.

The main character is Peter Halloran, a migrant to South Africa after the end of World War II, who has established himself in a successful and profitable designer and builder of yachts and small watercraft. Life is good – business is good, and he has a beautiful wife and daughter.

Then, one day, in the local yacht club bar, he meets Walter, an alcoholic ex-soldier, who tells him an improbable tale of a hidden treasure. When Walter was a prisoner of war in Fascist Italy, he managed to escape with a small band of Allied prisoners and waged a guerilla campaign for several months in the hills of Liguria against the Nazi Germans. Towards the end of the war, their band ambushed a truck convoy, which contained a massive treasure in gold bars, jewels and even the State Crown of Ethiopia.

Rather than turn the treasure over to the authorities, they hid the trucks in an abandoned mine and sealed the entrance. Now that the war is over, the treasure is for the claiming, provided that they can think of some way to smuggle it past Italian customs.

Halloran thinks little of the tale until several years later, when life has turned sour. His wife and daughter having been killed in a traffic accident, he finds that he needs a change in life. A chance re-encounter with Walker leads to a meeting with Coertze, and with the three men agreeing to a partnership to recover the treasure. Walker and Coertze know where it is, and Halloran has the perfect solution to getting it out of the country.

There is a lot of Alastair Maclean to the novel. The storyline is very down to earth – no James Bond heroics – and Bagley makes the story move at a brisk pace. The book features the usual fights, gunfire, violence and love interest you’d expect. The Golden Keel is also tightly written, plausible, interesting, and has an intelligent ending. A nice read by an author that does not deserve to be forgotten.

Links to the books by Desmond Bagley at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

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The sequel to The Dreaming Void continues Hamilton’s epic narrative chronicling humankind’s potentially self-destructive search for existential and spiritual fulfillment inside an ever-expanding black hole at the galactic core. The book – and the series – is very interesting in the sense that it mixes science fiction and fantasy. There are two intersecting universes in this book – the Commonwealth and the Void – and different physics apply in each. The universe inside the Void leans towards fantasy and mental powers, whereas the outside Commonwealth universe leans towards hard science fiction.

As before, several complex plot lines are weaved together seamlessly. The driver behind all the action is the mass pilgrimage planned by the religious movement Living Dream into the “black hole”-like Void. Some view it as the road to eternal bliss, some view it as a move that will increase the Void’s expansion and bring the end of the galaxy.

The actors are many and they have very different and conflicting outlooks and motivations. The key players are the Living Dream, Inigo (the First Dreamer), the Second Dreamer Araminta, the Skylords, Edeard “The Waterwalker”, the government ANA (Advanced Neural Activity system), the Commonwealth military, the Burnelli family, the various Commonwealth factions, the Ocien Empire, the Primes, several key agents of the factions, and many more.

The richness of The Temporal Void is unbelievable. And, to top it off, several intriguing threads from the Starflyer War (see Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained) keep popping as well. We follow struggles for power, political maneuvering, religious ambitions, and military conflicts as well as passion, love, betrayal, trust, and conflicts at personal levels in fascinating technological and physical settings. The Commonwealth is in turmoil and threatened.

The tale of Edeard, whom we met in The Dreaming Void as an egg shaper from Ashwell, who has moved to the crystal city of Makkathran and now seeks to eliminate the city’s criminal gangs, is prominent in this volume. Edeard utilizes incredible telekinetic and telepathic powers, far beyond those of the average Makkathran citizen, and shakes up the city’s political system while learning some hard lessons along the way. And he engages in several romantic adventures as well.

Another character much in focus is Paula Myo. She is out of retirement to find the second dreamer to protect her from being controlled by any of the factions. And finds that she once again is up against the frightening The Cat, a devious, totally ruthless and evil female with impressive skills.

The Temporal Void is an extremely fascinating read. I liked the complex motivations, uncertainties and contradictions that Hamilton’s characters possess a lot. This second book of the trilogy is a thick brick of a book, but as the pages fly by it still feels much too short. Peter F. Hamilton really knows how to tell a tale. I eagerly await the third volume!

Links to Peter F. Hamilton’s books: amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

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SYNOPSIS: Everyone who’s seen the successful movie “Elling” (2000) probably remembers that Elling was a bit… attached to his late mother (to put it mildly). “Mors Elling” is based on one of author Ingvar Ambjørnsen’s books written before “Brødre i blodet” (the basis for “Elling”).

It tells the story of Elling, living with his mom in downtown Oslo. She knows she won’t be around for ever and in an effort to get him out in the world, and help him stand on his own two feet, she buys tickets for them both for a trip to sunny Spain!

What follows is a series of mishaps as we tag along with Elling through situations he’s never been in before. Riding on an airplane, on the beach surrounded with topless women, the Spanish nightlife, befriending the Norwegian woman in the neighbouring hotel-room, etc. It is at times funny but never as light-hearted as the original movie. Here there is more emphasis on the seriousness of Elling’s condition, and we rarely find ourselves laughing like we did with the first movie.

• Actors: Ane Dahl Torp, Christin Borge, Erlend Bakker, Grete Nordrå, Helge Reiss
• Directors: Eva Isaksen
• Format: Import, PAL, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Subtitles: English, Swedish, Danish
• Region: Region 2 (NB)

Links to the Elling DVD’s at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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This is the second – and substantially revised and expanded -  edition of Dan Cederholm’s best-selling Web Standards Solutions. Web Standards is a movement that is gathering strength among Web designers, and is increasingly embraced as the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax. Dan Cederholm, a very well-known and excellent CSS guru, has long been in the forefront of this movement.

Standard solutions improve consistency, make redesign and changes of web sites easier and add robustness to web sites. Increasing adherence to standards also makes possible a smoother transition to new types of screen and viewing devices, such as screen readers for people with vision impairments, cell phones, PDFs, e-book readers, and what not. HTML, XML, XHTML and CSS are all such technologies.

This is a truly excellent book written by one of the best programmers and designers out there. I have used the previous edition of this book for a long time, and often gone back to it to find inspiration or solutions. A very useful book! And the new version is even better!

Web Standards Solutions is a great guide to understanding the advantages you can bring to your web pages by implementing web standards and precisely how to apply them.

Cederholm shows you how can use CSS to lay out your pages in excellent, solid designs that are flexible and look good across viewing platforms, as well as a number of smaller, neat and efficient techniques for producing great looking elements that go into the layout, all equally scalable and easily revisable as the layout itself.

• The Expanded edition contains great bonus material.
• Teaches how to use Web Standards effectively to build better web sites.
• Cederholm’s “solutions style” promotes learning.

Web Standards Solutions has 16 short chapters, each covering the theory and practice of different web standards concepts and showing multiple solutions to given problems for easy learning. You’ll learn about multi-column layouts, using image replacement techniques to your best advantage, making the best use of tables and lists, and many more. Cederholm gives you advanced web design techniques and discusses important caveats.

This is a great book for people wanting to learn how to use CSS the right way, who wants good, solid workable and pretty looking solutions, and Web developers and designers wanting to learn standards-based techniques to improve their sites. Web Standards Solutions is very good investment, in my opinion!

Links to books by Dan Cederholm at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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Sklansky is recognized as the leading theoretician of poker. In this book he introduces you to the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, its implications, and how it should affect your play.

Other chapters in the book discuss the value of deception, bluffing, raising, the slow-play, the value of position, psychology, heads-up play, game theory, implied odds, the free card, and semi bluffing.

Many of today’s top poker players will tell you that this is the book that really made a difference in their play. That is, these are the ideas that separate the experts from the typical players. Many people hold the opinion that this is the best book ever written on poker. I have read it several times, and still benefit from reading it!

Link to books by David Sklansky at amazon US and at amazon UK.

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More and more readers seem to buy e-book readers, and the competition in the markedplace is getting more and more intense. Kindle, by Amazon, is a huge hit. And now Barnes & Noble has released its own e-book reader, the Nook. The third major contender among consumers is Sony’s e-book readers, the PRS-600BC and PRS-700BC. And more e-book readers are on their way. This is good news for readers: more alternatives to choose among and competition that reduces prices.

New York Times has published a comprehensive review of e-book readers, but these for the moment seem to be the major competitors.

Nook is the device on the top, and below are pictures of Kindle and the Sony reader.

It’s hard to say which is the best. They all seem to be very good. Their prices are fairly similar too. I suspect that to a large extent it is a question about what your shopping and reading habits are and which company you have the strongest relationship to.

It will be interesting to follow what is happening in this area in the near future. Readers are faced with several good choices, and with more to come.

Links to the e-readers: Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Amazon’s Kindle, and Sony’s e-book readers.

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I would tend to think, were I to ponder it, that America and the world probably is full of aimless college girls. And college boys, of course. College is, after all, a place where many end up going when it is time, simply because they can.

So I suspect that Lorrie Moore’s aimless Tassie’s story is one that, at some level at least, manycan relate to. It gives a portrait, uncomfortably accurate perhaps, of how college is experienced not only, I fear, by Tassie, but by quite a few and perhaps even most students.

Tassie is a young woman from a small town who is a freshman at a Midwestern university. She goes to all those stupid, goofy classes, is a bit bored, and has all those unfocused yearnings and rejections of all that is “old”. In the opening pages Tassie revels in the obvious uselessness of undergraduate study:

“My brain was on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Twice a week a young professor named Thad… stood before a lecture hall of stunned farm kids like me and spoke thrillingly of Henry James’ masturbation of the comma. I was riveted. I had never before seen a man wear jeans with a tie.”

Apart from life in class – which actually but not surprisingly is a minor part of Tassie’s life – she chats with girl friends and flirts with boys. The story is often funny; as when Tessie, sexually innocent as she is, uses her roommate’s vibrator to stir her chocolate milk. But later she falls in love and takes on a lover, and will never make that mistake again. She works as a nanny for a couple who have adopted a toddler.

So what? Been there, done that, even if it is elegantly described by Moore.

Well, that’s in my opinion the thing about this novel – it is wonderfully written by an incredibly talented novelist, but there is hardly even the outline of a plot. The core story is the exploration of a new social setting by a young girl. But the story doesn’t move forward much at all, and it sort of degenerates into social commentary. Until, that is, bad consequences start hitting Tassie, and misfortunes pile up. In A Gate at the Stairs misfortune start as a trickle, but ends as an avalanche. Now the story shifts completely and becomes a very sad tale indeed. Moore manages to make comprehensible an irrational and disoriented logic of grief that is horrifying.

Lorrie Moore is delicious to read. She has great humor and an extraordinary gift for metaphor. The weaknesses of this story are the many unnecessary words and almost too clever writing, and that the plot for a long time doesn’t move at all. The strengths lie in the beauty of the writing, in addition to the humor, wit, and depth of observation displayed by Moore. A Gate at the Stairs is an extraordinary novel and a very worthwhile read by an excellent writer!

PS: A Gate at the Stairs was listed as one of the top 10 books of 2009 by New York Times.

Links to Thomas Mann’s books at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

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In First Family we meet again the former Secret Service agents, now private investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. They are hired by Jane Cox, the First Lady, to find her young niece who has been abducted. Twelve-year-old Willa Dutton has gone missing; snatched from her suburban Virginia home by heavily-armed men who left her mother lifeless on the kitchen floor.

This is the fourth book featuring this duo. They also appear in Split Second, Hour Game and Simple Genius. They are smart, deadly, good-looking, and attracted to one another. But somehow I don’t really catch on to them – they never really come alive for me. Baldacci is a great writer, and I am a fan of his, but I think he should get rid of these two guys.

First Family is a thick book with lots of twists and turns, a plot slightly on the implausible side, full of politics, scandals and plenty of intense action. It is all here: corruption, greed, lust, betrayal, cover-ups, and so on.

Baldacci’s excellent writing compensates for weaknesses in the plot and largely unattractive heroes. And, guess what, the terrorist is not an Arab! Rather it’s a Vietnam War veteran with a grievance. And as the investigation proceeds, some dark truths about the first family start to emerge. Sean and Michelle start making discoveries about things that are concealed, dubious deals, unscrupulous actions, and infidelity.

It’s a fun, entertaining read, a book that sucks you in after a beginning that is a tad slow. First Family is not the best Baldacci I have read, but well worth reading, and quite good entertainment.

Links to the books by David Baldacci: Baldacci at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

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