“…politicians were all that way. They honestly believed in their personal power of persuasion. These were the men and women who never stopped campaigning. Every dry cleaner, bar, and cafe they stopped in, every golf outing and fund raiser they hit, they shook hands, smiled, remembered an amazing number of names and convinced people though nothing more thatn their personality that they were likable. These men and women excelled in politics. They were willing to make to make concessions and be flexible so others thought them reasonable. On the international stage, though, these types got taken to the cleaners. Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister at the onset of WWII, was the classic modern example. He had met Hitler, looked him in the eye, made him laugh, and concluded that he was a decent chap despite the evidence to the contrary that had been provided by the British intelligence services. Hitler took Chamberlain for a fool and played him through the occupation of Austria, the invasion of Poland, and right on up to the invasion of France. Somehow Hitler had been able to resist the irresistible charm of Chamberlain.”
“It should not have come as a surprise to him that in a town like Washington and in a place like the White House, politics played such an important role but, in an irritating and undermining way, it did. Add to all of that a convoluted, misguided, and rabid political correctness that permeated nearly every meeting, and you were left with an environment in which the inconsequential was debated and dissected, and the issues of real importance we obfuscated and put off for someone else to deal with at a later date. It was not a place where a man of action felt at ease” [emphasis added]
A productive business meeting to me is an oxymoron so imagine what it might be like to attend a business retreat. In Power Play
Jake Landry found himself “invited” to attend a retreat with all of the top echelon of his company. Not only was Jake not part of that crowd, the crowd consisted of hyper-competitive personalities vying for position of their company. Many of whom opposed the new CEO who was recently hired from outside the corporation.
From the back cover:
“Written in 1921, We
is set in the One State, where all live for the collective good and individual freedom does not exist. The novel takes the form of the diary of mathematician D-503, who, to his shock, experiences the most disruptive emotion imaginable: love.”
On the front cover:
“A new translation…”
Ordinarily I would not even pick up a book written in 1921 translated from its original Russian, but it was recommended by a friend. That was not enough though until I was told that Ayn Rand was influenced by this book. After finishing the novel, I have to admit that I did not really see the influence in Rand’s work although there were some common threads.
The latest novel in Susan Wittig Albert’s
China Bayles mystery novel leaves behind her usual cast when China travels to Kentucky to visit a Shaker Village. In Wormwood, Albert alternates between two stories, both involving intrigue, love, theft, and murder. In the main story, China Bayles travels with a friend to investigate shady dealings at a historic Shaker Village.
It isn’t too long before China finds a body. This is a good, light mystery as you would expect from an Albert book. What I thought was a nice component of the novel was the parallel story that takes place in the same Shaker Village, but a hundred years earlier. I had heard of Shaker furniture, but did not know anything about the people. A deeply religious and chaste people, their story also involved intrigue, love, theft and murder.
Mitch is back and that means another great book for me to read. Author Vince Flynndoes it again with CIA operative Mitch Rapp. I am going to be very disappointed when I finish reading these books. In the fourth novel, Executive Power
, Rapp continues to battle global terrorism. Though supposedly “retired” from the field he keeps his hand in the battles to protect our country.
In this novel, America is not directly threatened, but Rapp and the CIA travel the world to combat extremists. I am obviously reading the Rapp novels years after they were first published (Executive Power was published in 2003) and it is interesting to think about what was happening in American back then. I found these two excerpts particularly interesting:
That is not a typo on the book name; it is author Don Brine’s attempt at a parody of the more famous book by Dan Brown. My guess is that Brine (AKA Adam Roberts) wants not only to parody Brown’s best seller, but trivialize the theories in The daVinci Code.
“a man had a very cunning theory which he wrote down in a book, and it proved to be very popular indeed…But then it turned out that this very cunning theory was not so cunning after all because it wasn’t true. Not even remotely. Not even a tiny bit likely.”
Imagine that your a well-off suburban father and you find yourself deep in the inner city as you search for your troubled teenager. Or imagine that you are a mother who recently went back to work as a lawyer only to be pulled away because your son has disappeared.
In Hold Tight
you are thrust into worlds of murder, drugs, cyber-spying, infidelity, a chauvinistic cop, a smart cop, cell phones, and of all things an elementary school. Somehow author Harlan Coben links these together in a riveting novel. One of the things that I enjoyed is that I could sort of figure out what might happen as the story progressed, even though I was not always right, yet this did not detract from the story. I was pulled along because of the pace of the story.
It slices, it dices, it does the work of many other home utensils. We have all seen the commercials and while we often turn the channel, a lot of times we watch…and even buy. In the first chapter of What the Dog Saw
I was treated to the fascinating background and life of world famous pitchman, Ron Popeil.
Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favorite authors and Blink is on my top ten list. When I first saw his new book in the store I naturally picked it up to buy it, but was not enthused by the description and actually put it back down. The description that this was “the best of his writing from The New Yorker” did not interest me.
is a collection of past articles and “other controversial essays” covering race relations, taxes, black history month, public education, the media, and much more. Because of the format, none of the articles is more than three pages and sometimes the subject left me wanting more from Sowell.