Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

I just finished the second book in Larsson's Millenium Series, and once again it held me captive. This sequel focuses more on the main female character, Lisbeth Salander, providing you with more insight and understanding into her character. I don't want to give any background into the plot, because this story is better if you go into it without any preconceived ideas of the plot and the characters. It is better if you just let Larsson pull you into the story and then let it unfold in front of you as you are drawn into its complex web of intrigue. The only thing I will say is that when you finish this second in the series, you don't have a choice, you will have to pick up the third novel in this series: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which I have already done.

Sit back and just enjoy the ride!

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

If you have not yet picked up this bestseller, then you must as soon as possible. I will guarantee that you will not be able to put it down. Not only that, but after you finish this first novel in the Millenium trilogy, you will immediately run out and purchase the second in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire. I just started reading this second in the trilogy. Larsson's third in the series is entitled, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

To echo some reviewers, this is the quintessential page turner. But it is much more than your run of the mill mystery. This novel has everything, from mystery, political intrigue, industrial espionage, spies, computer hacking, murder, suspense, romance, good old fashioned revenge and two, well developed main characters that you will come to respect, enjoy and care for. In fact all of the major characters are well developed. Larsson writes in such a way that it makes you feel like you are seeing what that person is thinking.

It has been awhile since I have read a book that is this engrossing. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Get it and read it!!

Sunflowers: a novel of Vincent Van Gogh

Sunflowers: a novel of Vincent Van Gogh
by Sheramy Bundrick

Much has been written about Vincent Van Gogh, his life, his mental condition and his paintings. But no one has attempted to weave a historical novel around the facts, the paintings and documents that survive this artistic genius who took his own life at the age of 37.

First of all, Sheramy Bundrick is an art historian and professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. While she has written a couple of scholarly works dealing with classical Greek images and Roman portraiture, this is her first novel. Bundrick does a masterful job of infusing well-known historical moments (like Van Gogh's infamous self-mutilation) with vivid details, while humanizing Van Gogh and putting his famous works in context. Bundrick generates a very believable scenario of what the last two years of Van Gogh's life might have been like if he had developed a relationship with the young woman, to whom he delivered his severed ear. The young "fille de maison's" name was Rachel, and surviving historical sources reveal nothing of the real Rachel. This enables Professor Bundrick to fully develop and breath life into this character.

The way Bundrick skillfully weaves several of Van Gogh's paintings into the narrative, will have you seeking a book of his paintings to compare how each painting is described, discussed or presented in the novel. Bundrick, as an art historian, naturally has conducted extensive research into the last two years of Van Gogh's life, pulling from his letters to his brother Theo and other works, to recreate Van Gogh's experiences in the the town of Arles, the asylum of Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy, and his death in Auvers-Sur-Oise.

As a long time admirer of Van Gogh's paintings and having stood, literally within, awe inspiring inches of many of his masterpieces, this novel brings the artist and his paintings to life. Vincent Van Gogh was well known for corresponding with his brother Theo. Here is the link to a digital edition of the complete collection of his letters. http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/

This fascinating collection was created by the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute. On the site, visitors can view 902 letters from and to Van Gogh, complete with detailed annotations and illustrations from the master himself. First-time visitors should definitely click on the"Quick Guide" to get an overview of the site’s holdings, and then they should also take a look at the sections "Van Gogh as a letter-writer","Correspondents", "Biographical & historical context", and "Publication History". The letters include those from many of his contemporaries, including Paul Gauguin, and of course, those lovely pieces of writing from his brother, Theo. Users can also use the search engine here to look around by keyword.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

by Laurie R. King

A retired Sherlock Holmes takes on a young, female apprentice. While this scenario is quite plausible, and lends itself to a unique twist on the Sherlock Holmes genre. The one area I would question is the age at which King introduces her protagonist, Mary Russell. Mary Russell is just 15 years old, when she comes across a gaunt, elderly man sitting on the ground, "watching bees.'' This gentleman turns out to be Sherlock Holmes, and the resulting acquaintance evolves into a mentoring experience for the young woman. As a Sherlockian, I had difficulty accepting the premise that Holmes would have too much to do with a 15 year old with a smart mouth on her. I believe King should have made her protagonist a couple years older to make it more plausible.

However, the novel quickly ages Mary Russell and has her attending Oxford and coming of age for her inheritance. I will add that as the relationship between Russell and Holmes matures, you will find yourself naturally buying into the apprenticeship and the crime solving partnership. King has created an original and entertaining series for any Sherlock Holmes fans. The story is funny, heartwarming, and full of intrigue, with Holmes and his young apprentice, Mary Russell, matching wits with some of the finer criminal minds of the times.

The novel flows well and the suspense is building appropriately, until suddenly, King chooses to have her two main characters flee England for Palestine to escape an unknown assassin. This one chapter slows down the narrative and does nothing to carry the story forward. It is almost as if the author, King, wanted to find a way to comment on Palestine and Jerusalem and the future Jewish homeland.

Everything else about this book rings true, from the ambience of World War I England to the intriguing relationship between Holmes and Mary Russell...enough for me to seek out the second in the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes partnership.

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

The Death and Life of the Great American School System:
How Testing and Choice are undermining Education by Diane Ravitch

From the subtitle of this book, you would think it was written by some liberal former educator. But actually Diane Ravitch is a former Assistant Secretary of Education under President H. W. Bush, and a one time strong supporter of NCLB, charter schools and choice. But Ravitch also is a Research Professor of Education at New York University, who believes in researching and examining whether these decades long methods have actually succeeded. Ravitch, once a passionate advocate for these conservative policies of testing and accountability, school choice, privatization, and business-style management, powerfully shows that these reform methods actually leave students trained to take tests but not prepared to participate in the 21st-century economy.

Changes she suggests include curricula that emphasizes all subject areas and not just reading and mathematics. She stresses the importance of having a comprehensive curriculum that teaches students to think, analyze, question and research the content in social studies, literature, science, music and art. Ravitch emphasizes that students need to be taught these subjects from professional educators rather than politicians, business leaders, and philanthropists, who currently are running and controlling the education system.

She systematically blows holes in the effectiveness of NCLB with the emphasis on testing and accountability. She states that no single policy has warped classroom life more than the NCLB testing regime. And she skewers the Obama Administration and Secretary Duncan for their obsession with charter schools, in spite of a 2009 study, funded by pro-charter groups, that show that 83% of charter schools do not perform any better than the public schools, in fact 37% had learning gains that were significantly below those of local public schools.

The most frightening chapter in the book is called, the 'Billionaire Boy's Club". Ravitch focuses on three major corporate foundations in education (Gates, Walton and Broad Foundations). These three have the money to "buy" and dictate whatever they want. Ravitch illustrates that even when the results of their more than adequately financed education approaches fail, they choose to ignore these negative results, and shift their money elsewhere. But the public never hears about the failures.

While this book is definitely worth reading by any person who cares about public education and would like to know the truth behind the effectiveness of NCLB, testing and charter schools, there are three shortcomings in the book.

First, Ravitch states that “American education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so?” However Ravitch fails to point out that this current obsession is not the making of the public school system or educators, instead it is the creation of the corporations that will profit from this approach, and the politicians that are beholding to those corporations and not to their constituents, who actually use the public schools.

Second, Ravitch fails to specify that not all public schools are failing. It is primarily the urban schools with low-income kids that need help and improvement. Thousands of kids throughout this country go to good public schools, many of them are excellent.

Third, her suggestions of what should be done to improve the country's education system and the "low performing schools" are offered without a prescription of how to implement these changes, especially when the current education system is controlled and dictated by politicians, business leaders, and ideologically driven philanthropists. My question is how do you get the people in power, like Obama & Duncan, to start listening to the people that truly understand education? People like Diane Ravitch, Linda Darling-Hammond, Jonathan Kozol and others.

As I stated earlier, you should read this book in spite of these three shortcomings.

Brendan by Morgan Llywelyn

Brendan: The remarkable life and voyage of Brendan of Clonfert by Morgan Llywelyn

Being a student of Irish history, I naturally was drawn to this new book by Morgan Llywelyn. I have read several books by Llywelyn, and I will add that I have loved each of them. She is a tremendous historical story teller. She really brings legends, history and Celtic mythology to life.

This is the story of Saint Brendán the Navigator, whose legendary quest to find the Isle of the Blessed is one of the most remarkable and enduring of early Christian tales. Among Irish saints, Brendán the Navigator is second only to St. Patrick. Llywelyn bases her story on the medieval text “Life of St. Brendan,” and retells it in the form of a personal journal written by an elderly Brendan, as he reflects on his life and his constant wanderlust to travel and explore new worlds. (Just a footnote on Brendan, there is speculation that it was Brendan who actually first discovered North America.)

We follow a restless, headstrong, and curious Brendan, who embarks on dangerous pilgrimages first by land and then several different voyages by sea. He travels with his pet raven, Préachán, who becomes a character in himself through Llyweln's beautiful prose. In fact you mourn with Brendan when he finally has to bury his fine feathered friend.

Llywelyn's narrative is laced with fifth-century Irish history and lore, and climaxes with a fantastic voyage of mythical proportions, when Brendan sets out with 14 other monks in handmade Irish vessel, called a currach, to cross the Western sea in search of the earthy paradise, the "Isle of Blest".

Llywelyn has been referred to as a modern day Bard of Ireland. A few of her other books, well worth picking up and reading include: The Lion of Ireland, The Last Prince of Ireland, her Irish troubles series: 1916, 1921, 1949, 1972 and 1999.

Murder on the Eiffel Tower

Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude by Claude Izner

To be honest with you, I was disappointed in this mystery. For a couple of reasons. First you never really know why the protaganist, Victor Legris, a bookseller, decides to "investigate" a series of murders that take place on or around the Eiffel Tower. Second, in spite of a muddied plot, I guessed who the murderer was without any real clues being left.

The review from Barnes and Noble had this to say about this first in a series of novels with the bookseller, Victor Legris, as the amateur sleuth. "the mystery has its share of problems -- among them: thinly drawn characters and wooden dialogue...." Perhaps the best part is the historical setting, the 1889 Paris World Exposition.

I would avoid this mystery series and focus on the various other mystery series mentioned on this blog, like: Death at La Fenice or any of the Mistress of the Art of Death novels, or Blind Justice. And of course you can never go wrong picking up any of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.