As a writer, I read Louise Penny for the pure
enjoyment of a great read and because there is so much to appreciate and
learn from in her narrative.
She is a great storyteller, with remarkable
characters and a delicate plot that unravels bit by bit, piece by piece, into a
complete and fascinating tale. She has a talent for grabbing readers by the
neck and pulling them forward, curiosity blazing, which is partly why A World
of Curiosities is such a telling title. The world she creates is both authentic
and impressively imaginative, and I enjoy her stories every time.
I need to
find out how the mystery is solved, but also to find out what happens to the
Three Pines crew! Another hit for Ms. Penny.
Book 18 in the acclaimed and number one-bestselling Three Pines series featuring the beloved Chief Inspector Armand Gamache.
It's spring and Three Pines is re-emerging after the harsh winter. But not everything buried should come alive again. Not everything lying dormant should return.
But something has.
As the villagers prepare for a special celebration, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir find themselves increasingly worried. A young man and woman have reappeared in the Surete du Quebec investigators' lives after many years. The two were young children when their troubled mother was murdered, leaving them damaged, shattered. Now they've arrived in the…
The
Wizard of Menlo Park tells the Thomas Edison story frankly and compellingly,
combining the tale of America’s most famous inventor with the story of a man who
worked extremely hard to achieve what no one else could.
I learned a lot from
his book about an amazing idea man, but also about someone who knew how to translate
ideas into reality, break through barriers to achieve a goal, and persevere when success seemed impossible.
When we pay our electric bills, many
of us send them to “Edison” because he set a new standard of brilliance and productivity. This is a brilliant read to get to know the man behind the electric company.
At the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as “the Napoleon of invention” and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light and the first motion picture cameras, Edison’s name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels.
But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison’s…
Every year, I try to read The Razor’s Edge, which
was published in 1943, because it’s a reminder to me of why I write. This book
captures the dichotomy between everyday life and a spiritual life, describing a
character who is able to live in both worlds.
Maugham is a character in his own
tale, providing just enough information about the extraordinary main character
to suggest the possibility of integrating the mundane with the infinite in our
own lives. Or maybe there isn’t any difference after all.
While the book is
old, the ideas are revolutionary, and infusing daily life with spirituality is
something that I believe we can all use.
Larry Darrell is a young American in search of the absolute. The progress of this spiritual odyssey involves him with some of Maugham's most brillant characters - his fiancee Isabel, whose choice between love and wealth have lifelong repercussions, and Elliot Templeton, her uncle, a classic expatriate American snob. The most ambitious of Maugham's novels, this is also one in which Maugham himself plays a considerable part as he wanders in and out of the story, to observe his characters struggling with their fates.
Rachel Carson was the foremost nature writer in the United States when
she stumbled upon the realization of what the use of insecticides and
pesticides was doing to water systems, plants, animals, and, ultimately, the
health of the American people.
A soft-spoken and introverted person, Carson
sacrificed a successful career to campaign against this short-sighted
contamination of the earth, while she herself was dying of cancer. This is book
is a very personal look at the writer of Silent
Spring and an American heroine.
Review by Lawrence Lihosit: “Bravo, Bryant Wieneke!
He has written a premier historical/biographical novel. In so doing he has
breathed new life into the genre of real-life hero tales, the source material
for hope in an age of despair.”
