Shadow of the Giant by Orson Scott Card

 

6/10

It's literally been 16 years since I read the previous book in this series. This is the fourth book in the Ender's Shadow series. Back in the day, this was the final book in the series but I guess there are one or two more now? Anyway, I've been meaning to get to this one for a long time, obvs, but I have this weird pattern of not being able to finish off the last books in a series. It's never a good sign when you have to read summary's of the prior books in the series to remind you of any of the characters and prior plot lines. Nonetheless, we read it and it was fine. Nothing too noteworthy or exciting takes place. Lots of war games and political strategy. The longer the book went the more I was ready for it to conclude. It was like a game of Risk, but instead of watching people play Risk, you are watching them talk about playing Risk. Glad to have finally read this one though, but now I have to look into these additional books that are now in the series. It makes sense that other books were added because there were definitely story lines that were left open and I could see some opportunities for some interesting storytelling based on what was left open, mainly with the lady who is raising Achilles's child and of course with Bean and his children on the spaceship. Hopefully I can get to those other books soon, but it realistically could be another decade from now.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

 

8/10

I waffled between giving this one a 7, and if I did decimals it would probably be more like a 7.5. It's basically an absolute floor of 7 based on the premise of the story alone. All Wilder had to do was not fumble it, have somewhat interesting characters at certain parts, and it's good enough for an 8. And that's what we had here. One of my favorite opening lines to a book that I've read in a long time: "On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." I'm locked in after an opening line like that. The rest of the book deals with the lives of those five individuals and what led them to be on the bridge at that moment and a Priest's quest to determine whether those souls "deserved it" or if they were simply "called home early" depending on whether they were good or bad people. That's a simple generalization by me to the book dealing with the age-old question about the level of God's involvement in tragedies.  Apparently, Wilder drew on a biblical passage in writing this book, Luke 13:4, which reads, "Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem?" Also, apparently, at the memorial service in New York for British victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, British Prime Minister Tony Blair chose to read the closing sentences of this book: "But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." Interesting stuff. As for the five characters who precipitated into the gulf below, the first two victims were the least interesting to me, an older lady and her servant. The next victim was the most interesting, a twin who had recently lost his brother and was down in the dumps leading up to the tragedy. The final two victims were fairly interesting, an older guy and the young son who was just joining the old man as an apprentice of sorts. Like I said, because of the fantastic premise of this story, just have somewhat interesting characters and this book gets an 8 for me.

Thornton Wilder books I've read, ranked:

1. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
2. Three Plays 

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

 

6/10

I really wanted to love this book and I tried and convinced myself for a very long time to love it. But by the end there was no denying that this one is just flat out average. I think the first part of this book introducing Jude and his hopes and dreams, including his eventual unplanned marriage and separation, is the best part of the book. Unfortunately, not a whole lot transpires after he moves to Christminster where he always dreamed of living. His initial efforts there are interesting, but once he meets his cousin and love interest, Sue, it is all downhill from there. The book is pretty much one big long and harsh commentary about the institution of marriage. I still liked Hardy's writing which, along with the enjoyable first part of the story mentioned above, was enough to get this one a 6/10.

Thomas Hardy books I've read, ranked:

1. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
2. The Return of the Native
3. The Woodlanders
4. Jude the Obscure 

 

George Washington's Secret Spy War by John A. Nagy

 

3/10

This book is very poorly written. It is very thoroughly researched, but someone (ideally the editor?) needs to tell the author that you can't just regurgitate and barf out every minute detail you have ever researched and think it will come out as an interesting story that people can follow. The info at the very beginning about Washington's involvement in the French and Indian War was fairly interesting. I bumped it to 2 stars as an acknowledgement of the vast amount of research performed and increased it up to a 3 because he actually finally presents a coherent and interesting story in the last few chapters and in the conclusion. My advice to anyone thinking of reading this would be to only read the final few "Deception Battle Plan" chapters and the "Conclusion" chapter. The rest is a huge waste of time.  

Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri

 

9/10

This was a very enjoyable book. Told from the perspective of a child, it covers the author/narrator's life growing up in Iran, becoming a refugee, and living in Oklahoma, with a lot of family/cultural history weaved throughout. This was a very unique book where the author's voice was very distinctive. I enjoyed the weaving of the stories and patchwork presentation and how it tied to the imagery of the weaving of the Persian rugs and patchwork story and memories of a refugee and the telling of the stories in the 1001 Arabian Nights. I also liked how the book title came from The Lord of the Rings, surprisingly. He mentions the part where Sam sees Gandalf come back after thinking he was dead, "And Sam thinks maybe all the sad parts of the adventure will come untrue." That was a fun little discovery. Very solid and very enjoyable book. Another one I would highly recommend to really any reader of any age.

Lots of great quotes and thoughts throughout; here's a few:

"If we can just rise to the challenge of communication -- here in the parlor of your mind -- we can maybe reach across time and space and every ordinary thing to see so deep into the heart of each other that you might agree that I am like you. I am ugly and I speak funny. I am poor. My clothes are used and my food smells bad. I pick my nose. I don't know the jokes and stories you like, or the rules to the games. I don't know what anybody wants from me. But like you, I was made carefully, by a God who loved what He saw. Like you, I want a friend."

"It's a miracle that anyone would ever fall in love with someone else and -- of all the people in the world -- that person loves them back. Like if you fell off a building and landed in a pillow truck, somehow."

"Making anything assumes there's a world worth making it for."

"[H]ow many Christians do you know who give a tenth to the church?"

"It seemed so obvious that everything was already eternal. That something made all of it."

"[T]he only way to stop believing something is to deny it yourself. To hide it. To act as if it hasn't changed your life."

"Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love."

"He's a God who listens as if we are his most important children, and I think He speaks to tell us so."

"[A]bove all other laws is the law of love."

"Reading is the act of listening and speaking at the same time, with someone you've never met, but love. Even if you hate them, it's a loving thing to do. You speak someone else's words to yourself, and hear them for the first time. What you're doing now is listening to me in the parlor of your mind, but also speaking to yourself, thinking about the parts of me you like or the parts that aren't funny enough. You evaluate, like Mrs. Miller says. You think and wrestle with every word."

"[W]hat you believe about the future will change how you live in the present." 

Carthage Conspiracy by Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill

 

10/10

One of the easiest 10 out of 10's of all time. I loved everything about this book. I never remember really learning anything about what happened legally after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum. So pretty much everything in this book was new to me and it was super fascinating. It was so extremely thorough but never boring and never a simple recitation of data/information. It was told in such an enjoyable and readable narrative. It really was impressive when you consider all the moving parts and characters in play, but everything was kept in perfect order and was never confusing. As for the history itself, there were five men ultimately indicted and put to trial for the murder of Joseph on the legal theory of conspiracy and not that they were the actual men who fired the bullet(s) that killed him. Thomas Sharp and Levi Williams seemed to be the biggest scumbags of the five. The book provides so much detail about the legal maneuverings of both the prosecution and defense; but again, it was never boring. The defense pulled an unprecedented move on the day the trial was supposed to begin by submitting affidavits from the indicted murderers saying that they felt prejudiced against by the local sheriff and county commissioners. The Judge went for it and got Elisors to select a new jury and the final jury had no Mormons even though Mormons were a huge portion of the population of Hancock county. The prosecution did a pretty poor job overall, but was put in a very tough situation, including Mormons not wanting to help or be involved at all. Basically, there were three main witnesses for the prosecution that provided enough details, that if believed, was enough to convict four of the five men. The problem was that two of the three witnesses were discredited pretty easily by a very good defense team. The prosecuting attorney unexpectedly during closing arguments removed all three witnesses from consideration even though that was the entirety of his case. When all was said and done, there really wasn't any way a jury could convict any of the five men even if there were Mormons in the jury. Another shady character was Franklin A. Worrell who pretty obviously was committing perjury by not being fully truthful on the witness stand. He was the lieutenant in charge of the Carthage Grays which were the guards at the jail who pretty clearly were part of the orchestrated effort to kill Joseph, including most likely having his men fire blanks into the mob. There are a thousand other details I could mention. The last thing I'll mention is that it was interesting that the same five men were going to have a trial for the murder of Hyrum right after they were acquitted for the murder of Joseph. The prosecutor asked for more time and was granted it. He then went to work and had several promising leads with new witnesses but randomly didn't even show up on the day of the trial. The trial was continued to the next day and he didn't show up again and so the case was dismissed. The authors conclude based on a letter from the prosecutor to Governor Ford that Ford basically was satisfied with the trial for Joseph's murder and didn't need the prosecutor to push any further for a trial for Hyrum. Also, the book had a bunch of interesting details about what happened after the trial and leading up to the Mormons exodus from Nauvoo. Such a great book and really a must read. Highly recommend.

Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie

 

8/10

A month ago I made a post about Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party and mentioned how I have done a poor job selecting which of her books to read and that my next one would need to be one of her well-known books. Well, for some reason, I still didn't do that. Not sure what comes over me sometimes with my book selections. Fortunately, I really liked this one. A fun part about this one is that it did not involve either Poirot or Miss Marple. The story is set in Egypt around 2,000 B.C. The father's unlikable, scheming concubine gets murdered. Agatha does a great job setting this story up and then making everyone appear to have a motive which makes for a great murder mystery. It also had the unique element, at least in the Agatha books I've read thus far, where the murderer keeps on murdering. This happened in my favorite, The ABC Murders, but the others have had just one murder that is trying to be solved. There's an added element of excitement when murders continue to happen. There was this one moment where the main character Renisenb gets isolated with the character that I suspected was the murderer and it was rather intense, but it turned out that he was not the killer so all was well. The scene where the killer is finally revealed at the end is also really well done.

 One quote:

 "[O]nce the heart is opened to evil - evil blossoms like poppies amongst the corn."

Agatha Christie rankings:

1. The ABC Murders
2. Death Comes as the End 
3. 4:50 from Paddington
4. Elephants Can Remember
5. At Bertram's Hotel
6. Hallowe'en Party