The Book Thief

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! This was 550 pages of wonderful bohemian writing. It’s an extraordinary story about a very young madchen, Liesel, and a young junge, Rudy, during the 1940s on Himmel Street in the fictitious town of Molching in Nazi Germany. My opening phrase is used many times in the novel as a reaction by a character when surprised. Guess who narrates this novel? DEATH (“it kills me sometimes, how people die”)...yes, I said DEATH tells this story! But it’s more than a story about a young boy and girl. It’s about the fear of being discovered as a Hitler hater by the Nazis, or of hiding a Jew in your basement, or of searching for food everyday, or the everyday trepidation of bombing raids by the allies. The people on this street are not very nice to each other...or was it my imagination. Almost everybody calls a women, saumensch (bastard), men are called saukerl (human pig) and everybody is an arschloch (asshole). I never could figure out why that was. Yet, somehow these people of Himmel Street get along with each other to some degree or another. I thought their local vernacular (was this common in all of Germany?) was hilarious.
 
The novel starts off with Liesel Meminger attending the burial of her younger brother (doesn’t say how he died) and of her finding a book a grave digger dropped, The Grave Digger’s Handbook. Later she is delivered to foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Liesel doesn’t know why her mother left her (we never do find out why). She is nine years old and can’t read or write. Hans teaches her the alphabet which ignites her desire to read books. But like I said, the story is not really about a book thief, but a tale of living in a slum town in Germany during WWII. I found the characters delightful and despicable at the same time. Besides the Hubermanns, Liesel and Rudy (the good guys)...we have: the disgusting spitting Frau Holtzapfel; Frau Diller; Rudy’s buddy, Tommy Muller; the repulsive Pfiffiikus (no, I didn’t misspell the name); the hidden Jew, Max Vandenburg; Rudy’s Nazi Youth program enemy, Franz Deutscher; and, Liesel’s not so reluctant victim of stolen books, the frail Ilsa Hermann, the mayor’s wife. Even though the author, Markus  Zusak has a lot of characters, they are all easily remembered, while miraculously sticking to six main characters...good job.

Was the dark chapter inserts all from Death, or also from Liesel, such as,*** Rudy Steiner, Pure Genius ***, 1.He stole the biggest potato from Mamer’s, the local grocer. 2. Taking on Franz Deutscher on Munich Street. 3. Skipping the Hitler Youth meetings altogether?  In any case, it was a refreshingly unique style of writing, and I loved the short chapters (my fave).The author is quoted saying,”I often feel like that - that a story is watching from somewhere, waiting for the right moment to stand in front of you. The thing is, you’ll only recognize it if you think about it enough. It’ll come.” I like Death’s last line in the novel, “I am haunted by humans”. I believe this adult novel (my opinion) is considered YA, if so, it’s the best one that I ever read. I highly recommend this inventive story. Wow!
   
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Here are some other YA novels that I’ve enjoyed reading. I was surprised that very few made the the top one hundred list provided by Goodreads.com. The Book Thief came in at number 10. My grandson Kai read and reviewed another ten, or so, that I’m not mentioning. The following are five that I’ve read and their Goodreads.com ranking:

No. 8- Divergent by Veronica Roth (2011). A five faction dystopian Chicago world. If you are sixteen years old...time to pick your faction.
No. 9- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960). A novel of childhood in a sleepy southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it.
No.12- The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien (1937). The story of Bilbo Baggins and the spectacular world of Middle-earth.
No. 52- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951). Teenager Holden Caulfield’s prep school failure and his three day romp in NYC.
No.80- Watership Down by Richard Adams (1972). The adventures of a group of rabbits searching for a better warren.

IMMORTAL

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Nick M. Lloyd writes an avant-garde sci-fi thriller that breaks out of your typical alien invasion scenario that sci-fi fans (like me) are used to digesting. I have read only one sci-fi novel that was anywhere close to Lloyd’s premise...that being the great Larry Niven’s Footfall. I appreciated the author using good judgement in keeping the main characters down to a handful. I read so many novels that have such an immense amount of main characters that it ruins the rhythm of the novel and forces the reader to take notes on who’s who...one of my sore points. That didn’t happen in Immortal. Even though I loved this novel, I found some minor flaws. I never fully understood why Dr. Kusr was in the story. I’m not a big fan of acronyms and this novel has plenty (MIDAS, MedOp, COBRA and SpaceOp for example), but since this novel involved an alien invasion (or did it), I see the need for all the technical geek operations. And one last thing...the pace was too slow in the beginning and way too busy in the last hundred pages, or so. You are probably asking yourself...I thought you loved the novel? I DID, but can’t help being so persnickety. So what’s the story about?

The story opens with Tim Boston and Samantha Turner on the job as members of the development team at MIDAS (Massive Integrated Data Analysis System), one of the businesses owned by Britain’s richest men, Francis Mackenzie. Suddenly, five of their smart screens sounded an alarm. Each screen displayed the same identical message, “We are the Ankor. We are ‘aliens’. You must obey us in full to survive. There will be no dialogue. We will send critical directives. A Gamma Ray burst will arrive in 164 Earth days. Three concurrent defenses are necessary. Deflector shield, survival units and Community bunkers. Individual instruction will follow." Wow, some opening warning or caretaker edict. Friend or foe? It’s too early to tell. The message was announced to the world’s populace along with every Earth government. “After twenty minutes of information bedlam, some relevant items appeared on the smart screen: Multiple governmental agencies across the globe have validated that the messages are coming from somewhere just outside the current orbit of Neptune...Gamma Ray burst arrival 164 days. Source unknown. Damage unknown. Large Gamma Ray burst associated with previous Earth extinction.” You mean the dinosaurs? This little tease was based on the first twenty one pages of the chilling novel.

The novel’s venue is mainly in Great Britain. A lot of Earth’s strategy is formed in the Prime Minister’s office. Colonel Martel, a committee member, somewhat agrees that the Ankor’s request for certain materials (to help make the shield) be granted and sent in orbit around Earth, But strangely the Ankor refused to answer any questions. Prime Minister Timbers asks Col. Martel, “What’s your take on their refusal to respond to questions?” Martel says, “We have to assume they have good reason. If the gamma ray burst is real then it probably happened between one to three hundred light years away and has been traveling for for one to three hundred years towards us.” Did I tell you that Earth estimates the alien ship to be a cube five miles high and five miles wide while traveling at ungodly speeds? Okay, enough already. You got your taste of this wonderful novel up to the first 35 pages. The next 378 pages are on you...enjoy!! 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Did this novel need to get published by Amazon Fulfillment in Poland? I think it’s a shame that the big publishing houses would rather print garbage from the likes of James Patterson and his gang of ghost writers, Scott Turow, David Baldacci and of the champion of junk writing...Bill O’Reilly and his gang of ghost writers. Now don’t say that I’m being too harsh...I’ve read all of them. They are pure commercial writers and sadly are making a fortune.

Sometimes I wonder if writers like Nick Lloyd submitted their novel to Tor Publishing, who specialize in sci-fi and fantasy. Well anyway, congrats to Nick Lloyd for his original and satisfying story!   

WILD WESTERN DAYS

Yippee Ki-yay! For the three short stories written about fictional cowpuncher, Hopalong Cassidy by Clarence E. Mulford. The stories that were written are BAR-20 (1906), The Coming of Cassidy (1908) and Hopalong Cassidy (1910). Yippee Ki-yay was used in many of Roy Rogers’ songs, but to me it was hollered at the cattle by a cowpuncher trying to gather the cattle for the roundup. These stories were written in the language of the times (vernacular), so the story moved slowly forward as you try to understand the meaning of what you just read. For example, Cassidy talking to a woman on the trail, “Ma’am, I wasn’t going to tell you till I had to. But it don’t make no difference now. It’s Injuns, close after us. Don’t show yoreself. If you show yoreself. There’s allus danger with Injuns, ma’am.” The woman wants to know if help is coming. Cassidy says, “Yes. Mebby th’ Injuns won’t know yo’re here, Ma’am.” Okay, that was a readable passage, but don’t get comfortable because the language only gets tougher as the story advances. I actually like writers who use the vernacular (Mark Twain is another)...it makes for more unadulterated reading.

If you remember the old days of TV, like I do, you have to remember the first cowboy series, starring William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy and Gabby Hayes (for a short time) as his sidekick, Windy. By the way, Boyd was the first non-villain cowboy who wore a black hat on TV, or in the movies. How did Bill Cassidy gets his name...Hopalong? What’s a cayuse? (it took me 97 pages before I finally looked it up) Get your own copy of Clarence E. Mulford’s novel to find out that and more, cowpuncher...like what was Hopalong Cassidy’s favorite drink...sarsaparilla or whiskey? You will love this bit of nostalgia. Okay already...what about Cassidy?

I’ll tell you a little bit about the first story (The Coming of Cassidy). And that’s exactly how the story opens with red-headed Bill Cassidy travelling north by himself. Meanwhile, Buck Peters, the trail boss on the BAR-20 cattle ranch, was losing cowpunchers. After Buck hires some renegade buffalo hunters as cowpunchers, things fall apart, as the renegades were only interested in cow rustling. Cassidy saves the day and is now in the good graces of Buck. Buck petitions Cassidy to take the job. Cassidy says, “I’m headed north. But I’ll give you a hand for a week if you need me.” Buck says, “Much obliged, friend; but it’ll leave me worse off than before. My other puncher’ll be back in a few weeks with th’ supplies, but I need four men all year round. I got a thousand head to brand yet.” So after only thirteen pages, Buck and Cassidy become friends and the reader gets a taste of Cassidy’s prowess with his Colt.

In this story, the author sets the stage for all future western books: cow rustling, branding, chuckwagon eating, gunfighting, saloon gambling, injun fighting, sleeping outdoors under the stars, fist fights, train robberies and of course the big trail drive to get the cattle to the market. Buck and his punchers experience a Norther (a month long blizzard) on their drive westward. Many cattle and cowpunchers die during the Norther... creating a beef shortage. So the first herd to get to the market will get the best prices for his rancher. Let the race between the BAR-20 and the Diamond Bar begin. You know in the back of your mind that there will be skirmishes between the two ranches as they race west. After the trail boss of the Diamond Bar ranch, Sam Crawford, causes a stampede of Buck’s herd, Cassidy rides into their camp and confronts the Diamond Bar trail boss and accuses him of causing the stampede. Cassidy shows Sam proof that he did it. As Crawford’s men quit after finding out what a foul thing he did, “Crawford was backing toward the wagon, his hand resting on the butt of his gun, and a whiteness of face told of fear that gripped him.” Cassidy says, “He ain’t no man, he ain’t; he’s a nasty li’l brat of a kid that couldn’t never grow up into a man. So, that being true, he ain’t goin’ to get handled like a man. I’m goin’ to lick him, ‘stead of shooting him like he was a man.”

This was good ole fashion fun reading these short stories. The answer to the question in paragraph two is sarsaparilla. William Boyd took his Hopalong Cassidy role seriously and never took a different role (after he became Hopalong Cassidy) including the one offered to him by Cecil B. Demille as Moses in The Ten Commandments (1956). Now git otta he’r. 🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Besides the TV/radio shows, William Boyd did 28 Hopalong cowboy movies. Even though Boyd, as Cassidy, always let the villain draw first, Hopalong killed 100 bad guys and fired 30,000 shots during the show’s TV and movie history. Another oddity is that Hopalong never kissed the heroine he saved! After buying out his shows and movies, Boyd became a rich man. One hundred companies sold over 2,500 products for over 70 million dollars in total sales. William Boyd would not be interviewed by Johnny Carson. Why? Because he wanted to be remembered as a tall strong cowboy, not an old man. Oh yeah, one last question: Whose picture was the first to appear on a lunch box? You guessed it...William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. One last thing...In 2009, the USA printed a 44 cent commemorative stamp with William Boyd appearing as Hopalong Cassidy on his horse, Topper.    

The SHINING

This is a guest review from my fifteen year old grandson, Kai O:

In The Shining, author Jack Torrance, his wife, Wendy and his five year old son, Danny, move to the Overlook Hotel for the winter off-season as caretakers. Winter begins as a relaxing vacation but, as time goes on, it becomes apparent that the Overlook Hotel is more than a winter getaway. Strange happenings start when the topiaries that Jack is trimming almost seem to move. Soon after, Danny, blessed with “the shining” (the ability to read minds and see into the future) finds himself trapped in the playground with some sort of apparition. Another time, Jack finds a mysterious scrapbook.

Stephen King is known for his horror novels, but The Shining has more elements of being suspenseful than anything. The reader gets a good understanding of every character (even the ones briefly mentioned). Stephen King also gives the reader a good sense of every character’s personality, no matter how minor their role is. Thanks to this, the world of The Shining seems bigger than just the Torrance’s at the Overlook. No character feels like a throw-away.

After reading this novel, not many books can compare to The Shining and after reviewing this novel, I only have a desire to read more Stephen King novels. Clearly I enjoyed this novel more than anything I’ve read before with a few exceptions. I would recommend this novel to readers YA (13) and above. I guarantee you will not regret reading The Shining.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Yea, I agree that you can get hooked on Stephen King very easily.
  

The Great Alone

Well, I’ll be darned, somebody can actually write a novel without flip-flopping from the present to the past or the past to the present and write with an incredible grace and awareness of the novel’s direction. Give praise to Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale (see my review of 10/9/2015), for her tragic story of a ex-POW from the Vietnam War who takes his family to Alaska to either rehabilitate himself, or destroy everybody around him. If you like tension, then this is the novel for you...bone crushing tension. Can Kristin write a novel with all this trepidation and still have the reader feel empathy for the six main characters and beyond? Is the sky blue? If you want to study writing...use this novel as one of your required readings. The only fault(s) I found in her novel was that the ending was a tad bit corny and the last 34 pages came to a final resolve way too quickly (could have been drawn-out for at least another 100 pages).

The time period for this novel is 1974 through 1986. You will meet Ernt (not spelled wrong) Allbright, his beautiful wife, Cora, and his redheaded daughter, Leni, who is thirteen years old. Ernt has a bad habit of beating up his wife whenever something doesn’t go his way. The next day he apologizes to a quickly forgiving Cora. They feel that all his problems are related to when he was a POW in Vietnam. Ernt was forced to watch his best friend, Bo Harlan, killed right in front of him at the POW camp. Ernt, on the surface, appears to be a loving parent except when he loses another job and gets drunk. Then it’s beating time for Cora with an apology the next morning. So here we have a drunken wife-beater heading for perdition until he gets a letter from Bo’s father, who lives in the untamed part of Alaska. It’s Earl Harlan (aka Mad Earl)  and he writes to Ernt that Bo wanted him to have his 40 acres of land with a cabin if he died in Vietnam. He writes Ernt that, “a hardworking man can live off the land up here, away from the crazies and the hippies and the mess in the lower forty-eight.”

“Leni had seen all of this before (the many moves). Ultimately, it didn’t matter what she or mama wanted. Dad wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And mama needed him to be happy. So they would try again in a new place, hoping geography would be the answer. They would go to Alaska in search of this new dream. Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was.” So after eleven pages, Kristine Hannah, has already set the stage for this wonderful novel. Will Ernt turn his life around and become a everyday father? Or will he get nasty in the land where everybody was always preparing for winter. Here’s a later thought from Ernt’s wife, Cora, “Once winter came...three nightmares a week also came.” It seemed to me that the habitual statement from Ernt to Cora was…”I’m so sorry. I love you so much...it makes me crazy.” This was a novel that you had to savor...so I took the whole month to read Kristin’s story! 👍👍👍👍👍

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: This is the third book that I’ve read where the story was based in Alaska. And they were all good. The first one that I read was required reading when I was in school...a long time ago. It was Jack London’s The Call of the Wild , originally published in 1903. Goodreads.com says the following about London’s novel:

"The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London’s masterpiece. Based on London’s experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike."

The second book that I’ve read and reviewed was Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child (see my review of 4/13/2013). “I thought the novel was full of symbolism out of an old Russian fairy tale.” I also said, “I found this novel haunting and thought-provoking, especially after I finished the novel.”

The Clockmaker's Daughter

This is a novel with many intertwined stories centering around the Birchwood Manor in 1862 England and continuing for the next 150 years. The novel jumps back and forth between the 1800s, 1900s and the year 2017 with way more than needed characters. I almost stopped reading (I didn’t because of the author’s above average prose) Kate Morton’s latest novel until the novel became plausible and understandable on page 160. Normally, I’m not a big fan of flip-flopping novels. How do you figure? For 160 pages I was convoluted and bored, then the story's light bulb came on and suddenly I couldn’t stop reading the next 322 pages. I have never read a novel that handled reminiscing as well as Kate Morton’s did. There are as many chapter narrators as there are characters, but the main narrator is a ghost. Yes, a ghost. I did notice a few similarities with Kate Morton’s novel to Eudora Welty’s 1972 novel, The Optimist’s Daughter, but no presumptions made.

In the summer of 2017, a archiver named Elodie Winslow finds a leather satchel bag containing an artist sketchbook and a sepia photo of a beautiful woman under the stairwell of her workplace. They appear to be from the 1800s. She takes an interest in finding out who this woman was and who owned the satchel with the initials L.S-W. The sketches were beautiful and also contained a scrap of paper saying, “I love her, I love her, I love her and if I cannot have her I shall surely go mad, for when I am not with her I fear…” And the story is off and running. You will meet many interesting characters throughout the novel, such as Edward Radcliffe, a young artist and owner of the Birchwood Manor; his sister, Lucy; Leonard Gilbert, a WWI soldier and scholar; Juliet, a widow with three kids running from Hitler’s bombs of WWII; Jack Rolands, a treasure hunter; Mrs. Mack, a female Artful Dodger; Fanny Brown, Edward’s fiancé; and the very mysterious Birdie Bell / Lily Millington, a pickpocket or an artist model?.

Your first stop after Elodie finds the articles is going back to 1862. Edward Radcliffe invites his gang of Magenta Brotherhood (a group of artists and photographers) to spend a joyous summer at his new manor. Of course we go back to the past and jump to the present for all the participants (I’ve only mentioned a few in the above paragraph). Not for nothing, when you do this much reminiscing, the years start getting jumbled in your mind. Is it 1858, 1862, 1869, 1899, 1928, 1944 or 2017? (That's only a few of the years that the writer flip-flops.) A lot of the chapters start out with a narrator that’s somewhat unidentifiable until halfway through the chapter. Before I got to page 160, I had no idea what the purpose of this novel was. Was it to find a murderer? If so, who got murdered? Was it a mystery or just a semi-gothic story? Will Elodie’s snooping solve the case, if there is a case? And how do these dozens (and I mean dozens) of characters fit into this 150 year old puzzle? Are you confused? You should be. I would rate the first 160 pages poorly (😣) and the next 322 pages (😀😀😀😀)...supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I only mentioned Eudora Welty’s 1973 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Optimist’s Daughter in the first paragraph, because of some minor similarities other than the book’s title. For instance, The main character in Kate Morton’s novel had a similar name to the writer of The Optimist’s Daughter...Elodie versus Eudora. Second of all, Welty’s novel was saturated with reminiscing as was Kate Morton’s. As a matter of fact, I looked up the reviews of Welty’s 1972 novel and they were eerily close to mine. One reader said of Welty’s novel, “I’ve read other reviews and realize this book was confusing to some people even to the point that they gave up…” I’m just saying.

RED MOON

Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel, which was frequently boring and unduly technical, is a murder/mystery whodunit situated on Earth’s moon. The actual murder almost becomes a sidebar to the political troubles of China on the Earth as well as on the moon. Pages are accented with Feng Shui (also known as Chinese geomancy), which is a pseudoscience that uses energy forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environment (according to Wikipedia). One of the three main characters, Ta Shu, seemed to be a master at blending himself into his surroundings, if that makes any sense. I guess the Feng Shui time spent on the book was to give the reader the flavor of old China. Ta shu was a older gentleman that was a ex-poet laureate (for the lack of better words) of some renown but now had his own travel TV show. At times he seemed to be a combination of philosopher Confucius and the benevolent Honolulu detective Charlie Chan.

The second main character, Fred Fredericks, a Quantum mechanic, is on the moon for the first time to install a quantum communication system for the Chinese Lunar Authority. What’s a quantum? A discrete quantity of energy proportional in magnitude to the frequency of the radiation it represents. Got it? Haha. The dozens of peripheral characters in this novel all had long job titles and similar names, which made it difficult for the reader to remember who was who. Here are a few characters and their job titles: Jiang Jianguo, the lead inspector and head of the Lunar personnel coordination task force; Zhou Bao, officer of the Chinese Lunar Authority in charge of Petrov Crater Station, or the analyst. Why is that title short? Sorry, it’s actually the analyst in the Hefei office of the Artificial Intelligence Strategic advisory Committee who communicates with AI I-330. Yet the story grew on you to the point that you needed to know why a certain Governor Chang Yazu was killed and who did it. What happened when Fred met Chang Yazu to deliver the ordered private phone (a unicaster)? "Chang extended his hand and Fred took it, and they shook hands...Chang looked surprised...then he crumpled to one side." Dead.

Now let’s talk about the technical lingo used by the Hugo Award winning author, who thought we should be so informed. I understand the author is very technical in his novels, but I think he went overboard in this novel. We will use Fred Fredericks thinking to himself about a problem as an example of too much tech: “He wondered if Shor’s algorithm, which took advantage of quantum superposition to factor large numbers, could be used to define the temporal length of a moment of being. It had to be longer - it felt much longer - than the minimum temporal interval, the Planck interval, which was the time it took a photon moving at the speed of light to move across the Pauli exclusion zone within which two particles could coexist: that minimal interval of time was 10 -44 of a second. A moment of being was more like a second, he felt, maybe three seconds.” Now, did that help us find the murderer? No, it’s more likely that Kim Stanley Robinson was showing off his noggin. To be fair, all of the book’s text is not like that.

The third main character is Chan Qi (surprisingly, the author kept the amount of main characters down to a low acceptable level), daughter of Chan Guoliang, the Minister of Finance and member of the Politburo Standing Committee in China (I told you that no one has a simple job title). She was a political activist, who always seemed to be on the run from the powers that be. On page 79, Officer Zhou learns from Inspector Jiang that Qi is being kicked off the moon, “She’s a princeling. And she is pregnant.” Zhou exclaimed, “No getting pregnant, it’s against the rules.” The saga of Fred, Qi and Ta Shu continues throughout the novel. It’s a world where every Chinese person (living on the moon...not sure about Earth) has a chip implanted in their back so the authorities can track them. Military activity is forbidden on the moon by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The South Pole of the moon is controlled by the Chinese and the North Pole by the Americans. The governments of China and the USA are in economic turmoil and in the midst of a civil rebellion. The novel is set thirty years from now. Okay, you got all the tidbits you’re getting from me. Did I like the Novel? I’m kind of neutral on the story, only because of all needless confusion and extra fluff. By the way, the novel doesn't end, which means there is a continuation novel coming. Doesn't anyone write a standalone novel anymore? He has done much better work. I’ll give this novel three sleepy heads out of five. 😔😔😔

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars

Comment: I always try to do a little homework on the book I’m reading, but sometimes I still don’t understand. Take the feng shui for an example. I went to Wikipedia for help, but still don’t understand. Here, in part, is what they said:

“The feng shui practice discusses architecture in terms of ‘invisible forces’ that bind the universe, earth, and humanity together, known as Qi. Historically, feng shui was widely used to orient buildings - often spiritually significant structures such as tombs, but also dwellings and other structures - in an auspicious manner. Depending on the particular style of feng shui being used, an auspicious site could be determined by reference to local features such as bodies of water, stars or the compass.”

Using feng shui (according to huffpost.com) can be a way to rearrange our homes. Let’s use the bedroom for example:
1. Get rid of the TV- TV’s and all electronics, for that manner - emit positive ions, which are said to drain energy from the body.
2. Don’t let a mirror face your bed- You should never be able to see yourself in a mirror while you’re in bed. When you see a human image in the mirror, you’re inviting another person into your relationship.
3. Move your bed away from the windows- Feng Shui is strict on the rule that your head should never be under a window while sleeping...position your bed against a solid wall with no doors on either side...don’t point your feet toward a door. Traditionally, the dead are carried out feet first.

Okay, in my next review, I will have the feng shui rules for your kitchen (Haha).

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Are you looking for a poignant story that also displays man’s durability? How about adding viciousness and tenderness to the formula? Then you will want to read Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Did I mention a reciprocated love affair under holocaust conditions? That being said, The Memorial Research Centre of Auschwitz disputes some of Heather Morris’s details (according to The Jewish News) due to factual errors. For example in the book, Lale Sokolov (the tattooer) says he tattooed his lover-to-be Gita Furman’s arm with the number 34902, while the Research Center says it was 4562. Lale told his story to Heather Morris when he was very old. What number was really on Gita’s arm is a moot point. She died in 2003, three years before Lale told his story. Lale divulged his story to the author while in his late eighties (he died in 2006). Did he have a touch of Alzheimer’s disease? Or does it really matter? The Research Center said that there are many other factual errors in his story. Oh well, it’s not up to me to say who is right or wrong. Maybe that’s why Morris added “a novel” in small letters on the book’s cover. I, for one, thought the story was real.  

A minor flaw in the book (or novel) is the once in awhile lighthearted incident. When that would happen, it would remind me of the sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes. I didn’t think there was any room for levity in Lale’s story. Anyway in 1942, twenty-five year old Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, sees a poster in his hometown. “It demanded that each Jewish family hand over a child aged eighteen or older to work for the German government. The whispers, the rumors about what had been happening in other towns, had finally come to Krompachy. It seemed that the Slovakian government was acquiescing further to Hitler. The poster warned in bold type that if any family had such a child and did not surrender them, the whole family would be taken to the concentration camp.” Lale reported to the government and offered himself for transportation. Did the Nazis keep their word and leave Lale's family alone? Does a cattle train qualify as transportation? When he finally gets to his destination “dogs are barking, orders are yelled in German, bolts are released, wagon doors clang open. Get down from the train, leave your possessions...dogs snap and bite at those who are slow to move!” As the men are herded through the gates of the camp, “Lale looks up at the German words wrought from the metal: ARBEIT MACHT FREI (work sets you free)." Do you think the Germans are lying?

“I am commander Rudolf Hoess. I am in charge here at Auschwitz...now you will be processed here, and then you will be taken to your new home: Auschwitz Two-Birkenau.” A tattooer stabs the number 32407 on Lale’s left forearm...the men are told to strip...faster, faster...next is a cold shower, then they are issued old Russian army uniforms and boots. But don’t dress until your head is shaved. Lale is assigned Block 7, a large hut with triple bunks down one wall. The men scramble and shove each other out of the way. No food till the morning (a cup of smelly brown liquid with a piece of potato in it) and the mattresses are stuffed with hay. Wow! And I thought my first day at Parris Island was tough! The days are grueling building new barracks and crematories...moving rocks from one place to another. One day, Lale witnesses the German SS cramming naked men into a bus, locking it and then dropping a gas canister from a roof vent...killing all inside (this is one of the incidents that The Memorial Research Centre of Auschwitz says never happened). Lale faints and comes down with typhus. Somehow the men hide him for the next seven days while he recovers. When he mends, he is offered the job of assistant tattooer (tatowierer in German) and reluctantly takes it. And the story is off and running! That’s what happened in the first 35 pages...I’m not telling you anything else. Mum’s the word. Not a peep. Nada.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: One of the strangest holocaust movies I ever saw was Roberto Benigni’s 1998 movie, Life is Beautiful. Have you seen it? Benigni won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Actor. It was kind of comedy meets tragedy. A very sad movie. Here’s a synopsis from Google:

“A gentle Jewish-Italian waiter, Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni) meets Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), a pretty school teacher, and wins her over with his charm and humor. Eventually they marry and have a son, Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). Their happiness is abruptly halted, however when Guido and Giosue are separated from Dora and taken to a concentration camp. Determined to shelter his son from the horrors of his surroundings, Guido convinces Giosue that their time in camp is merely a game.”

Twenty years later, I’m still trying to form an opinion.          

the NEUROMORPHS

The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:

Move over Yul Brynner and your Magnificent seven, there’s a new sheriff in town. It’s Dennis Meredith’s Patrick Jensen and his seven retired Navy Seals. This also goes for you Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson! Could you take on a army of invincible androids while also battling the Russian mob? I don’t think so. Jensen and his Seals can...at least on paper. Meredith’s novel is by no means a classic thriller or fantasy, but it is interesting entertainment. These kinds of novels are quickly forgotten only because they are mirror images of prior impossible scenarios. I thought that the author’s prose was okay, but he didn’t score any points in the empathy category. And give me a break...would Patrick’s wife, Leah, do what she did? Really? And Patrick would let her? That one was a stretch. Anyway, let me tell you a little about the story.

While Robert Landers, a prominent Houston lawyer, is at work, his servant helper android, Andrew, is mimicking Landers’ voice and mannerisms. Why? Andrew is a typical domesticated helper android made by Helper, Inc. When Robert comes home, his bourbon and soda isn’t waiting for him. He finds his android in the bathroom. “What are you doing in there, goddammit?” Andrew says, “I apologize, sir, I - “  Landers took a shower and when he came out, Andrew was circling him in order to make “a three-dimensional virtual image” of Landers while practicing Landers voice. Landers is furious, “What the hell are you doing?” Andrew repeated every thing that Landers said in order to achieve a perfect voice match. Landers said, “Damn, you’re defective! I’m going to trade your plastic ass in, maybe on a girl robot that fucks.” That was the last thing Landers said. “Andrew grabbed Landers by the throat, lifted him off the floor, and crushed his windpipe.”

Who modified this previously docile android into a killer? The doorbell rings, it's a Russian mobster, “Is he dead?” Andrew says, “Yes, Dimitri, he is dead.” Did the Russians have someone change the android’s operating system? We find out that the answer is yes when Andrew is remade into the new Robert Landers by a former employee of Helper, Inc, Gregory Mencken. Apparently, the Russians want to knock off rich people in order to grab their assets. Landers is the first to be replaced by an android. Mencken, an fired engineer from Helper, Inc. is helping in the makeover only because the Russians will kill his family if he doesn’t cooperate. The new Robert Landers will now go to his bank and transfer all his money to a bank in Arizona. All of this happens in the first five pages. The androids with the new operating system (OS) codes will be known as the neuromorphs. “Helpers with this code embedded in their OS’s could act independently! In the worst case, they could even escape human control.”
 
Where does retired Navy Seal, Patrick Jensen, and his wife, Leah, fit in? Well, they buy a co-op apartment in Phoenix and guess who is on the acceptance committee?...the neuromorphs. Can you see how lethal the combination of Patrick and his Navy Seals, killer androids and the Russian mob will be when they collide? Later Patrick will ask Helper, Inc. software expert, Garry Lapoint, what he thinks the new androids are, “Well, it’s a new operating system the criminals needed to give the androids the ability to act independently to kill their owners and embezzle their money...but remember, these Helpers have neuromophic brains. They evolve. They probably consider themselves a life form, like humans.” They are clandestine assault robots with a collective hive mind...Ouch! Can you foresee the confrontation that’s coming? The story has its ups and downs with a lot of trite and corny parts, but if you are a fan of this type of never-ending action you will love this novel and for that reason I'm recommending it, even though it’s not my cup of tea.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I believe the first novel written about robots was Isaac Asimov’s 1950 bestseller I, Robot. The novel has several short stories that tie together. Some stories are about robots gone mad, mind-reading robots and robots with a sense of humor. In Dennis Meredith’s novel, The Neuromorphs, the robots didn’t have any sense of humor. That and the fact that they didn’t breathe were sure tip-offs for Patrick Jensen and his Navy Seals in sorting out the androids from humans.

In I, Robot, Asimov establishes the three laws of Robotics:

1-A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2-A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

3-A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second.