Three Cheers For Me

 

By Donald Jack

5 Stars

Historical/Humour

Adult

I discovered this book and the accompanying series while I was a student in high school. At that time, I devoured books at a phenomenal rate. I discovered quite a few great authors and read some terrific books. This series was my favourite. This book is the opening salvo in the series and won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. I’m not sure how popular The Bandy Papers were outside of Canada.

Bartholomew Bandy is an anti-hero. The son of a preacher, bland looking, physically and socially clumsy. He will make you laugh at some of the situations he gets into, but he is incredibly human and relatable at the same time. We meet him as he prepares to ship off to war in Europe. He starts WW1 as an infantryman in the trenches. Chaos follows him into the chaos that is already there. This book is top-notch comedy, but at the same time, it doesn’t minimize the war that is the backdrop of this story. He survives the trenches and joins the Royal Flying Corps. He proves to be a natural pilot. While training, his engine fails, and he makes a forced landing on an estate called Burma Park. He falls in love with the place and Katherine Lewis, the young woman living there. His encounter with the plumbing there is memorably hysterical. The rest of the book is split between flying at the front and then spending leave in England.

On reading the book a second time, I still heartily recommend it. I look forward to rereading the next four books in the series and eventually reading the four that I never knew about after graduating from high school.

Gray Mountain

By John Grisham
4 Stars
Legal Thriller
Adult

This book arrived in my library courtesy the local used book store. My daughter found it and knew that I had previously enjoyed one of his books. What she didn’t know was that I read a Reader’s Digest version of one of his novels if that actually counts.

This is a legal thriller. The heroine is Samantha Kofer a New York lawyer working for Big Law who starts the story getting furloughed for a year without pay because of a major economic crisis. She is told to work as an intern for free and after a year maybe she would get her job back along with all her benefits. She ends up finding an internship in a little hick village in the Appalachians, deep in coal country for a free legal clinic. She’s a big city girl and she’s a fish out of water, not sure of what she wants and not sure of her future.

The antagonists in all this is the big coal corporations. They are taking advantage of the little people. The story revolves around this conflict. She finds herself getting sucked deeper and deeper into a fight she doesn’t really want to get involved in. She is more of a people person than she gives herself credit for. She finds herself caring about the clients and what becomes of them.

Some of the reviews I read of this book were harsh. Outside of the main character’s vacillations which became a little wearisome, I liked the book.

When the Dikes Broke

 

By Alta Halverson Seymour

5 Stars

Historical Fiction

Children’s/Young Adult

I got a copy of this book through school before I was a teenager. I’m not sure if my copy survived all my changes of address. I had it in my personal library for many years. I am of Dutch decent and that is one of the main reasons I was interested in the story. The events are real. My parents, I believe, moved to Canada just before this happened. The flooding did not reach the areas where my family is from.

The story revolves around the van Rossem family. The family wakes up to find their house flooding. They are rescued but some members of the family get separated from the rest of the family. The story outlines the family’s ordeal.

Loved the book. Read it several times, even though I know how the story goes.

The Guns of Navarone

 

By Alistair MacLean

5 Stars

Action/Adventure/Suspense

Adult

Keith Mallory has been chosen to lead a small team of commandos to destroy an impossible target in an effort to clear the way for the Navy to rescue more than a thousand soldiers who are in peril. His team includes Dusty Miller, an explosives and sabotage expert, Casey Brown, an engineer, Andy Stevens, a mountain climber like Mallory, and Andrea, a seemingly indestructible Greek soldier who seems to get bigger and stronger as the story unfolds.

They encounter setbacks and obstacles at every turn. Physical barriers, enemy soldiers, and enemy spies. Once it gets going, the book is a page turner and is very hard to put down. For me, this is a reread. I read it when I was in high school. Now I have my own private copy for my personal library. 

This book made me a fan of Alistair MacLean. I would happily read all his books if I had the time. This one comes highly recommended.

Needful Things

By Stephen King
2 Stars
Horror/Suspense
Adult

I hear that Stephen King is a better writer than this book would seem to indicate. I’m not into horror, and this book gives me no desire to seek out any more of his work. I got the book from a thrift store for next to nothing, because I wanted to see how he writes. I was disappointed.

There is a scene where he rips off Edgar Allan Poe. Okay, I’m sure he did that as some kind of tribute, and maybe that makes it all right. Meh. Every single English literature and creative writing professor I ever had would have crucified me for doing something like that.

Second, he would throw in random sexual references in at least one scene where that was unnecessary unless you wanted to add some interest to a scene that really wasn’t very good. I understand the technique, and I don’t view it as a mark of good writing.

The climactic scene required a leap in logic. I’m not ashamed to say that I did not see that coming. I did not feel smarter after reading that.

That being said, I did read the whole thing, which means the writing was not completely atrocious. Stephen King fans seem to like it. I don’t feel any guilt about rating it a two. I usually don’t review or rate anything less than three, but I think Mr. King is tough and can take it.

His Majesty's Yankees

 By Thomas H. Raddall

5 stars

Adventure/Historical Fiction

Adult

This book sat apparently untouched in my parents' library while I was growing up. In my teens, I decided to pull it out and read it. I’m not sure anyone else in my family ever did. The book turned out to be far better than I was expecting. Someone in my family still has the family copy of this. I don't know who, but suspect someone. No worries, I hope it gets read by many.

The book is set in the maritime provinces of Canada, mainly Nova Scotia, during the American Revolution. The main character is David Strange, the youngest member of his family, and the story revolves around him and his family. The family is torn between loyalty to Britain and loyalty to the cause of their fellow colonists. The research on the history in this book is superb, and the story is memorable enough. I read the story about forty-five years ago and remember it well enough to review it without having to find a copy and rereading. The rebel assault on Fort Cumberland is particularly well written. I have visited the site and have written an article on this site that might be of interest. The host for the site this is on is going to shut down, and if this link is not working, let me know. I’m trying to host it on one of my own blog sites so that it will still be accessible. https://hubpages.com/education/Homeschooling-Lessons-of-Opportunity-Fort-Beausejour

This book did win the Governor General’s Award when it was published, and if you can get access to a copy and Canadian history is something that interests you, this book should be well worth your while.

The Silent Corner

By Dean Koontz
5 Stars
Action/Adventure/Suspense
Adult

In my opinion, this is one of Dean Koontz’s best. I wish I’d discovered his work sooner.

The heroine is Jane Hawk. She is an FBI agent who goes rogue. Her husband committed suicide under questionable circumstances. When she digs into the case, she is warned off, and she and her son are threatened. She goes on leave, hides her son somewhere safe, and continues her investigation underground. What she finds is chilling. The bad guys are truly evil. As usual, I will not give away the story. This is the beginning of a series, so while the ending is satisfying, there are things left unresolved for the next saga in the series. I’m truly tempted to devour the whole rest of the series before I read anything else, but that will work at cross purposes to why I’m reading these books in the first place.

The writing is, of course, excellent. It will keep you on the edge of your seat. I was not tempted to flip ahead in the book because I didn’t want to miss anything. I also didn’t want to put it down. At the beginning of the book, you will spend most of your time in Jane’s head. There is what felt like a head hop at one point, but I didn’t find it very confusing. I also felt that one of the helper characters didn’t acquit himself quite as well as I expected from the buildup. These are minor quibbles that didn’t really bother my enjoyment of the book at all.

Great read. Highly recommended.