Book 5: Lemons Never Lie by Richard Stark

Summary:
A man named Alan Grofield is a small town theater owner. Every summer he puts on community plays, but since he doesn't have much money and the theater drains his finances every year, he's also a criminal on the side. He does just enough heists to make ends meet and keep his theater afloat. He gets pulled into a meeting with a man named Myers to perform a payroll job in New York, but he decides the guy's plan is too risky and walks out. Myers hates that and robs Grofield and the other guy who walked out with him. Eventually the other guy finds Myers and kidnaps him and comes to Grofield to ask what he should do with him. Grofield suggests letting Myers go, so the other guy does. Myers turns around and fatally injures the guy. Grofield then decides to track Myers down and settle the score. He ends up in New York where Myers and his crew are committing the payroll job. Grofield waits until he's done it and then confronts Myers. The final showdown doesn't quite go how Grofield expected.

My Thoughts:
A nice, quick little read. Nothing too special. Good for the beach or a boring weekend.

Trivia:
Richard Stark is a pseudonym for Donald Westlake.

Links:
Amazon
Alan Grofield at Wikipedia
Donald Westlake at Wikipedia
Review at epinions.com

Book 4: Duma Key by Stephen King

Summary:
Edgar Freemantle, a successful building contractor, is in a horrible work site accident near his home in Minnesota. He loses an arm and part has some initial brain damage to the point where certain words are hard to say/remember and his personality is changed. He lashes out in anger often at first, and this eventually alienates his wife who divorces him. He contemplates suicide, but his therapist warns him that even if he tries to cover it up as an accident, everyone will still know the true cause. He also suggests that Edgar find something that he used to enjoy doing and to maybe relocate in the hopes of changing his mood. Edgar does leave and finds a house to rent on the nearly empty island in Florida called Duma Key. There are only a few homes along the beach and they are all owned by one old woman, Elizabeth Eastlake, who is the only permanent resident of the island along with her caretaker, Jerome Wireman. Edgar stays in a house that he nicknames Big Pink due to its color. It has been used by artists, including Dali, in the past as a retreat to allow them to focus on their art which ties nicely in to Edgar since that is what he decides to return to as something to occupy his time. Eventually weird stuff starts happening in association with Edgar's paintings. Her gets an overwhelming urge to paint and after he does he often can remember very little, but the paintings are amazing. He learns things he shouldn't be able to know like who his wife is sleeping with and who his daughter is dating. He eventually learns that he can use his paintings to affect the real world when he paints a child killer with no mouth adn the man dies in jail because he can no longer breathe. He also uses this power to help Wireman who has a bullet lodged in his skull from a failed suicide attempt in his past. Edgar's paintings start to attract notice and one of the art galleries on the main land have a show of his work. All his family and friends from back home fly down for the show. This all turns to horror when Miss Eastlake dies the same night. There are also forces on the island which are set loose and Edgar, Wireman, and Jack (Edgar's part time assistant/gopher) have to find the cause of the evil and defeat it. It's all tied in to Miss Eastlake's past and what she and her family went through in her youth to capture and hide the evil back then. This is all done in a typical Stephen King scary way.

My Thoughts:
This is honestly the best Stephen King book I've read since at least Black House. It really pulls you in and holds you enthralled until the end. It's not quite as straight forward as Cell, but it doesn't try to do too much like I think Lisey's Story did. It's just a story, but it has enough layers and is complex enough to make it really enjoyable. If you're looking for one Stephen King book to read from the last 10 years, I'd give this one a go. You wouldn't regret it.

Trivia:
Edgar's last name is Freemantle, which is the same as Mother Abigail's from The Stand. A posting on King's message board by the moderator states that Edgar is indeed a descendant of Abigail, but not the same one as in The Stand because the stories are set in different universes.

Links:
Amazon
Duma Key at Wikipedia
A Review at Charnel House

Bibliography of the edition I read:
King, Stephen. Duma Key. New York: Scribner, 2008.

Book 3: Sword Dancer by Jennifer Roberson

Summary:
This is the story of Del, a northern sword master, and her search for her brother and the people who enslaved him. On her journey she meets Tiger, a southern sword dancer. They are opposites: she is all icy determination and focus similar to her northern land; he is easy going but fierce like the southern deserts. He falls for her and helps her through many trials to find her brother who is the last person alive from her family. On the way we learn what happened to her family and what she had to sacrifice to prepare for her quest to find her sibling. Tiger acts as her guide through the unfamiliar south and its people.

My Thoughts:
This is a good fantasy series. I read most of the books years ago when I was in college, and they hold up well enough. Nothing earth shattering, but sometimes a plain old sword and sorcery book is a fun read. I may read some more in the series before the year is up. We'll see.

Trivia:
Sword Dancer was a Belmont Stakes winning racehorse back in 1959.

Links:
Amazon
Jennifer Roberson at Wikipedia
Review at The Best Reviews

Bibliography of the edition I read:
Roberson, Jennifer. Sword-Dancer. New York:Daw, 1986.

Book 2: Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker

Summary:
This book centers around a lower demon named Jakabok Botch and his life story. It covers how he came out of the lowest level of hell onto the earth. He talks about all the things that happened to him and the trouble he got into. It's written interestingly. Jakabok is trapped in the book and is talking directly to the reader. Every few pages he goes on for a while trying to get the reader to burn the book. He has been trapped in it for hundreds of years and wants it to be over. In between these pleadings, he tries to use his story as a bribe to get the reader to destroy the book. Eventually he starts threatening the user or making grand promises. The story ends with how he was trapped in the book.

My Thoughts:
I liked it well enough. I'm not a big Clive Barker fan. His Books of Blood were awesome, but most of his other books have been so-so for me. The whole demon speaking to the reader aspect of this book was neat, but annoying. It actually draws you in a little to where you feel like the threats he starts making are a little scary. But at the same time it feels like he's overdoing it. It happens almost every other page where the story is broken and he's pleading with the reader. Maybe if he had used the technique less, it wouldn't have pulled you in as much? I don't know, that why I am just a reader and not a writer, I guess. Overall I'd recommend it. It was short enough; I actually read it on a plane trip to Dallas via Chicago. I can only imagine what anyone sitting next to me would think if they were reading it over my shoulder.

Trivia:
Nothing off the top of my head, or on Wikipedia for this one.

Links:
Amazon
Mister B. Gone at Wikipedia
Review at Bookreporter.com

Bibliography of the edition I read:
Barker, Clive. Mister B. Gone. New York: Harper Collins, 2007.

Book 1: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Summary:
The book is about a teenager named Alex who is depraved. His gang of friends or "droogs" runs around and commits various crimes including robbery and rape. Eventually this all turns on him and he gets betrayed by his gang and captured by the police. While in jail another unlucky accident occurs and Alex is selected to be the first prisoner to undergo the Ludovico treatment. This rehabilitation method forces the person to watch graphic videos of violent crimes and at the same time uses an injection that will make them sick as they watch it. Eventually, like Pavlov's dogs, they begin to associate any violence or criminal behavior with getting sick even without the drug. After he is "fixed", Alex is set free. He returns home to find a lot of things have changed, but he is still recognized by several people including his previous victims and he has to deal with the repercussions of those acts. At the same time, he gets too ill to defend himself when attacked.

My Thoughts:
Of course I had seen the movie, but it never really occurred to me to read the novel. The movie is one of those things that make me feel dirty after seeing it. The book, on the other hand, didn't give the same feeling. It is actually a difficult read. Burgess has filled it with a made up slang that is a combination of Russian and nonsense words. And he uses them extensively which gets to be difficult after awhile. Mostly you can pick up the gist of what the characters are saying, but luckily the edition I read had a useful glossary. I'm not one for reading into books or movies a lot, but it's clear what Burgess is trying to say. Today's society is turning people into Clockwork Oranges, which are almost robotic versions of themselves. We are made to feel bad for having certain feelings and most of our lives are constrained to what the world considers normal. If you don't conform to these notions, you are an outcast. Of course, Alex is the extreme in this view. His actions are criminal and can't be condoned, but Burgess writes him as the protagonist so you eventually see him as being wronged by the government who takes away his right to decide how to act in certain situations. Anyways, it was an interesting book. Short enough to recommend, but if it was much longer, I probably wouldn't. If you get turned off when reading difficult texts, you probably wouldn't want to try this one.

Trivia:
An interesting fact is that the third section of the book originally had a seventh chapter which makes it match the same number that the first two sections had. For some reason, the American publisher decided to omit that final chapter. I believe it was eventually restored, but the version I read was still missing it. Stanley Kubrick was not even aware of the missing chapter until he was filming the movie and so he didn't include it in the film.

Links:
Amazon
A Clockwork Orange at Wikipedia
SparkNotes on A Clockwork Orange

Bibliography of the edition I read:
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982.

Starting off

OK, so I made a resolution to read 30 books in 2008. I plan on using this blog to write reviews of them and keep track of my progress. It's February already, but I have 3 books down and am a good ways into the fourth. I'll write individual reviews in separate posts and hopefully I can accomplish a resolution for once in my life!