Blog Archives
One Good Dog
Author: Susan Wilson
Two characters telling their story: a man and a dog. The man, Adam March, is a wealthy executive that one day, after having a breakdown at work and slapping the secretary, is due to lose everything and is also forced to do community service in a homeless shelter – a world away from his reality. The dog is a cross of pit bull and rottweiler who is raised to fight and one day gets to escape and live in the streets for a while before being adopted (not voluntarily, at the beginning) by the man.
Like this:
The Fault in Our Stars
Author: John Green
Hazel Grace Lancaster is 16. At 13, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer that also kind of spread to her lungs. Suffering from depression, she is taken to Support Group, where she meets Augustus Waters, 17, who lost one leg due to osteosarcoma (bone cancer), but has been in remission for more than a year now, and who is there mostly to accompany his friend Isaac, with eye cancer.
Hazel Grace and Augustus quickly become close after she recommends him reading her favorite book “An Imperial Affliction”, which ends mid-sentence and leaves her (and now Augustus) with lots of questions. Through an institution that helps kids make their one wish come true, they fly to Amsterdam to meet the author and try to discover what happened to the characters of the book.
This is a heartbreaking love story, one that you know you should not hope for a happy ending, and still you pray for a miracle to happen. But as they say all the time in the book, “the world is not a wish-granting factory”…
Like this:
Miracle in the Andes: 72 days on the mountain and my long trek home
Author: Nando Parrado
The same story as Alive, told not from a 3rd person’s point of view, but from the perspective of a survivor, who was there the whole time struggling to keep alive.
The narrative is very powerful and passionate, taking us again to those 72 days in the Andes Mountains and, while Alive was a detailed recollection of the facts through extensive interviews with the survivors, this book focuses on Nando Parrado’s own experience, thoughts and feelings. It’s a story that shows us how love, faith and hope cannot be lost even in the most difficult and darkest moments.
Amazing book, capable of making you cry while reading it.
Buy Miracle in the Andes from: The Book Depository or Amazon.
Like this:
Glue
Author: Irvine Welsh
Another masterpiece, Glue has entered my list of favorite Irvine Welsh books, sharing the 1st place with Filth 
It is the story of 4 guys throughout the years: from the 70’s, when we have a glimpse of them kids through their parent’s eyes, until 2002, when the book ends and they are reaching their 40’s.
Andrew Galloway (Gally), Terry Lawson (Juice Terry), Carl Ewart (N-Sign) and Billy Birrel (Business Birrel) are 4 “schemies” from Edinburgh, each of them with his own personality, problems, dilemmas and interests, but all sharing a bond of friendship that, if diminished by the years and their life projects, could not be extinguished after all. Read the rest of this entry
Like this:
Updates
Hello All,
It’s been a while since my last post, and as we have some family visiting us, with whom we are doing a bit of traveling around Australia/New Zealand, don’t expect a new review until the beginning of April.
Meanwhile, here is what is happening nowadays: Read the rest of this entry
Smokeheads
Author: Doug Johnstone
“Four friends. One weekend. Gallons of whisky. What could go wrong?”
Well, I guess everything, especially when you have a narcissistic guy in the group and lunatic cops around.
The term “smokehead” has nothing to do with pot or drugs or anything on this genre. It is how fans of the Islay Malt are called, Islay being a big producer of whisky off the Scottish coast, and where the story of the book is set. These four long time friends, great appreciators of whisky, travel to the island for the weekend, where one of them is planning to show them around and maybe convince the rich (jerk) one to invest some money to start his own distillery, but things go terribly wrong and the weekend turns into a nightmare.
Like this:
The Killing Place (UK) / Ice Cold (US)
Author: Tess Gerritsen
While attending a pathologist’s conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Dr. Maura Isles impulsively (and due to personal problems back home with her lover-priest Daniel Brophy) goes on a road trip with her new friends. Caught up by a huge snow storm, they get stranded in the middle of nowhere, a place called Kingdom Come, where it seems all residents left abruptly for some mysterious reason.
When she doesn’t turn up in Boston, Jane Rizzoli, together with her husband Gabriel Dean and tormented soul Daniel Brophy, fly to Wyoming to search for her.
Like this:
Scar Tissue
Author: Anthony Kiedis, Larry Sloman
Red Hot Chili Peppers fans: this book is about Anthony Kiedis, not the band, so if you want to read mostly about the band and not their front man, then this book is not for you (I mean, you should read it anyway, but just don’t complain later on that you were expecting more about the other members). Of course RHCP will appear a lot along the book, as it is part of Kiedis’ life, and he tells us about relationships between the guys and where the inspiration for many songs came from, but the book is focused on his life, from his birthday in 1962 to the publication of his biography in 2004.
Like this:
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
Author: Piers Paul Read
This is a true story, and I believe you all have already heard about it. It is a tragedy, but also a demonstration of faith and hope.
4 decades ago, a chartered flight carrying a Uruguayan Rugby team and their friends/families, flying from Montevideo – Uruguay to Santiago – Chile, crashed in the Andes Mountains due to bad weather and the pilots’ error. The plane split in two, with the tail and 7 people landing far from its body. From the 45 people aboard, 33 survived the crash. This was the 13th of October 1972.
The next day, 8 more people had died from cold or injuries. The only doctor aboard had died in the crash, so two of the guys who were studying Medicine were left to try their best to treat injuries and keep people alive, even though there were no medical supplies available.
On the 11th day in the mountains, through a small radio, they discovered that the search for them had been cancelled.
Like this:
Crime
Author: Irvine Welsh
After a mental breakdown due to a child murder case he investigated, and still recovering from drug abuse, D.I. Ray Lennox (Filth) goes on holidays to Miami, Florida with his fiancée Trudi, whose only idea is planning their wedding.
While there, they have a fight which ends up with Ray going with two women he met in a bar to their apartment to have some cocaine. Things go wild and Ray is now responsible for Tianna, a 10 year old girl and daughter of one of the women.
Haunted by the memories and ghosts from his recent case back in Edinburgh, Ray’s only quest now is to protect Tianna from a paedophile network.
The book is good and easy to read, but I didn’t get attached to it as with the other Irvine Welsh’s books. I don’t think there is enough depth on the story and the characters, and although the usual combination of drugs-sex-booze-violence, typical from the author, is there, it felt quite a different writing style – which is not my favorite. I love Welsh’s old and usual way of writing.
Buy Crime from: The Book Depository or Amazon.
