Monthly Archives: January 2016

01.27.16
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THE JAPANESE LOVER/ ISABEL ALLENDE/ COMPLEX SOCIAL THEMES

Isabel Allende captures a complex variety of societal topics in her new novel The Japanese Lover. Allende weaves desperate themes in a story line encompassing aging, a burning love affair which transcends racial lines, the Japanese internment during WWII, human trafficking, child pornography and homosexuality.

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Allende hardly misses a social issue while telling a story surrounding the life of a well to do San Francisco woman from a prominent Jewish family who beginning in her childhood falls in love with a Japanese boy, the son of the gardener at their seaside estate. The story continues over hills and valleys Till death do us part.

It is always pleasurable to read Allende’s writing. Her novels touch reality  and the characters provoke thought and deliver insight but absent a lecture.  I also commend to you Allende’s Island Beneath The Sea and Daughter of Fortune. Search here at gordonsgoodreads for further details on these novels.

01.20.16
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DESTINY and POWER/ GEORGE H.W. BUSH/ MASTERFULLY MEACHAM

With high advance praise from historians David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael  Beschloss one need not say much more in recommending this masterful work by  Jon Meacham.

imgres-2 Destiny and Power,The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush captures the man brilliantly and fairly and secures him a permanent place in American Presidential history.  George Herbert Walker Bush may indeed be  A last of his kind, and Meacham relates clearly and concisely  the depth of that appellation.  More than a biography, Meacham details a period in American and world history through the portal of the Bush Oval Office. The research is impeccable and the access provided Meacham by a very private president and his family is remarkable.

A must read, now even more meaningful with another Bush running for President.

I also recommend  Meacham’s Franklin and Winston an Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. Search gordonsgoodreads for details.

01.12.16
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COMMANDER IN CHIEF- HOOKED ON TOM CLANCY NOVELS

It is another must read for all lovers of Tom Clancy Jack Ryan Novels.  Again, Mark Greaney carries on the great tradition.  Commander In Chief turns the Russo/American conflict from The Ukraine to Lithuania with a thinly disguised Russian President Valeri Volodin raising havoc in the Baltic’s.

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Jack Ryan Jr. returns in this novel with a large role and John Clark again proves he is invincible!  Add to the plot money laundering, Bitcoin and a new class of Russian submarines and Greaney has all the necessary ingredients for 718 pages of excitement.

No spoilers here!  Just get the book and anticipate a good read.