Nala's World

 

By Dean Nicholson with Garry Jenkins

5 Stars

Non-Fiction/Adventure

Adult 

We found this book in the Sackville, New Brunswick, book exchange box and took it home with us. Nala is a cat, and the book is basically the story of how this long-distance bicycle traveler found her and adopted her. They have been touring the world together ever since, raising money for animal shelters and the like. They can be followed on their YouTube channel 1bike1world and their Instagram account @1bike1world. I do follow them myself. You can subscribe to their community at https://www.1bike1world.com/community. There is a cost.

The initial appeal of the story to me is that I have traveled by bicycle myself and would love to be doing it again. I won’t list my excuses here. Reading about it is quite enjoyable. I can sit and exchange stories with fellow riders for hours. I also grew up with cats. 

The author meets an abandoned kitten while cycling in Bosnia and takes it with him. He names her Nala and then goes through the adventure of learning how to care for her and take care of the paperwork involved with traveling with a pet and crossing international borders. The story became an Internet phenomenon, and they’ve been able to contribute a great deal to animal shelters along the way. It’s a feel-good story, and I quite enjoyed it.

The Journey - A History of the Church of God (Seventh Day)

By Robert Coulter

5 Stars

Religion/History

Adult

For me, this is an important historical work as I have been a Sabbath-keeping Christian for more than fifty years. The subject matter is something I have studied in the past, and when I became aware of this book, I sought it out and bought my own copy. Once it was delivered, I read it cover to cover.

Other works that I have read on the subject are: “History of the Church of God (Seventh Day)” by Richard C. Nickels, “History of the Church of God (Seventh Day)” by John Kiesz, “A History of the True Church” by Andrew N. Dugger and Clarence O. Dodd, “The Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong Volumes I and II. In addition, I have listened to a number of sermons touching on the subject as well as some lectures while I attended Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, back in the 1980s. Most of these works can be obtained online for anyone interested. I got free PDF files of all except the Autobiography, which I have in hard copy.

For a reference work, I found this quite easy to read. That is not the case with some of the books in the above paragraph. This is well researched, and it does reference some of the works above. What impressed me the most about it was its simple, logical, chronological organization. I also appreciated the author's efforts at complete honesty on the subject. He is critical of some of the other books, and he supports his points.

One point I’d like to make is that the separate organizations were not as separate as some of the writers seem to indicate. Herbert Armstrong started “flying solo” with the Radio Church of God, but I do recall a high ranking minister in a lecture at college mention that in the early days, when they were traveling, sometimes they would find themselves in an area without a directly affiliated congregation and would sometime visit Church of God Seventh Day congregations and at times deliver sermons while visiting. So I don’t think organizational borders were very rigid. 

This is a valuable reference to anyone within the broader Church of God community and anyone interested in studying the subject.

 

Flight of Eagles

By Jack Higgins

4.5 Stars

Action/Adventure/Suspense

Adult

This is my first written book review in a very long time. I might write an entry in my dormant blog explaining that. It doesn’t belong here. My daughter, knowing that I’m a Jack Higgins fan, found this at the local used book store and brought it home for me. This book is everything you would expect from a Jack Higgins novel. Masterful storytelling and well-written.

We follow Harry and Max Kelso, who are identical twins who follow in the footsteps of their World War I fighter pilot ace father. They are separated as boys, one living in the United States, the other in Germany. They fought on opposite sides during World War II. If that sounds a little corny, don’t worry about it. Higgins handles this well. It doesn’t come off that way.

I grew up completely enamored with airplanes, especially fighter planes and the pilots that flew them. As a writer, I understand “the suspension of disbelief” concept, and as a reader, because of my background, I struggled some with this at the beginning of the book. If you don’t have the background, I have you likely will not notice. The maneuver where a fighter pilot slams the “brakes” to get his opponent to overshoot or even crash, to me, is a trope. I think every fictional fighter pilot I’ve ever read pulls that stunt like it’s somehow genius (okay, Firefox was an exception). I’ll give him a pass on that partly because it is actually a thing. It does have the disadvantage that if your enemy is expecting it you’ve bled off too much energy and now you’re a sitting duck.

I feel I have to dock him a half point for something, though, and as a big fan, I almost feel guilty doing it. Erich (Bubi) Hartmann is a character in the book, and he is completely off on the actual historical person. I’m not sure I understand why. Maybe the personality is perfectly matched, but he was spending his time fighting on the Eastern Front, not working for Himmler. He captures Adolph Galland’s charisma, and he seems to be spot on with all the other historical characters. Higgins did his homework. I can’t help but think this was done on purpose. It is possible they met, and Higgins didn’t like him one bit. Only saying that because there is one ace, who will remain unnamed, who is considered a hero, but as a person, he is not a nice man. I’ve written people I don’t like into villains in my writing. Not saying that that is what is happening. I think we should try to be true to actual history, and I think the character could have been given a different name. Hartmann could have been left out of it.

Without Fail

By Lee Childs

5 Stars

Action/Adventure/Suspense

Adult

I read my first Lee Child/Jack Reacher novel sometime last year. I got it out of the library. I did enjoy the read and in the name of making her pappy happy my daughter kept an eye out for similar books in the used book piles she visits now and then. She found a couple for me and this is the first one that gets my review.

This time around Jack Reacher is actually hired to troubleshoot vice-presidential security by M. E Froelich, who is a former flame of Reacher's dead brother. He has a female helper Neagley and they make a devastating team. Someone is out to assassinate the vice-president and Reacher has to find out who they are and stop them.

The story pulled me in from the very first line. Superbly executed. Child is a bestselling author for a reason. He is good at his craft. I did have to read the ending several times over because I do have a bone to pick there. Neagley is military trained like Reacher and all through the book her competence is highlighted. She ends up inexplicably defenseless in the climax of the story and plays damsel in distress. I see it and I don't see it. I like it and I don't like it. I was tempted to deduct half a star but after rereading it several times, I can't really justify it. Child gets a pass on that and my full recommendation of the book. 

*Amazon link will be added when I can sort out an affiliate agreement with them.

The Dark Frigate

By Charles Boardman Hawes
5 Stars
Action/Adventure/Suspense
Adult

This was a classic book that was recommended reading for my children's homeschooling literature course. My daughter hated the book. I don't believe the problem was the story line. This book was published nearly a hundred years ago and it was set even earlier. For young people, I would say the language and expressions are difficult because that is not how people talk today. She might enjoy the book more now as an adult although it really isn't her favoured genre. I liked the story a lot. Action, adventure and great characters. I liked Shakespeare as well.

The hero of the story is a dashing young sailor named Philip Marsham. He gets himself into a bit of hot water at the beginning of the story and has to flee London. He ends up finally shipping out of another port with a companion he met along the way on the Rose of Devon. That ship picks up survivors from a sinking ship off Newfoundland. They turned out to be pirates who took over the ship. Marsham was forced to join them or die.

I recommend the book but not for children. Sure some of them would like it but the majority will react like my daughter did. It is a good book. Sad that the author only lived long enough to write two books.

The Soul Catcher

By Alex Kava
4.5 Stars
Action/Adventure/Suspense
Adult

I read this book in snippets of spare time between everything else I worked at this week. It's a best selling thriller and it lived up to its billing.

The good and the great was that it was well written and hard to put down. It didn't drag anywhere. I didn't spot any lapses in the narrative where something didn't seem to make sense. A good mix of predictable and unpredictable. The characters were all very real and human. Even the villians had understandable motives. Maggie O'Dell is the heroine and she works as an expert criminal profiler. Her partner R. J. Tully clearly is secondary which works fine for me. She gets to deal with the autopsy of an FBI agent who happened to be a friend and several young women apparently killed by a serial killer. The cases are all linked to Reverend Joseph Everett a charismatic religious leader/nut job.

There wasn't much that I disliked. The first, I'm not sure is the author's fault. The back of the novel cover finishes with "Maggie realizes the only way to find out is by using her own mother, a member of Everett's church, as a pawn in a deadly trap." That didn't happen in the copy I read. Her mother was definitely a pawn by not because of anything Maggie did or didn't do.

The climax was dramatic and surprising but I felt the heroine came off as a helpless spectator. I don't know why but I didn't come out of that completely satisfied as a reader. I found the villains to be a little over the top whacked out, but in all honesty that is more personal taste than anything else.  Don't let it put you off reading the book if this type of story is your cup of tea. Definitely an adult book though. I wouldn't recommend this for younger readers.

Vector

By Dr. Robin Cook
5 Stars
Action/Adventure/Suspense
Adult

This book was a New York Times bestseller, so my expectations were very high. It did not disappoint. The story is about a Russian immigrant, Yuri Davydov, who once worked in the Soviet Union's biological warfare program. He's not a happy man because the American dream is just not happening for him. He, along with some American neo-nazis plan a bio-terrorist attack in New York. The hero is Jack Stapleton, a basketball playing, cycling nut, medical examiner. That's my kind of hero.

There is a whole list of things I really appreciated about Dr. Cook's writing. First off the entire plot was believably written. His research was obvious and detailed. There was disturbing violence both on and off stage but all of it was important to the development of the story. No killing anyone to prop up a sagging chapter. Last to be mentioned, there was no graphic unnecessary sex scene. I'm not against sex but I truly think a really good writer doesn't need to throw that in if it isn't needed. I've read too many books where it wasn't needed and they threw it in anyway.

I was gratified to find an atrocious spelling error that the proofreaders missed. Sorry if you read the book you'll have to find it yourself. There was a point in the story where Yuri yanks the telephone wire out of the wall to prevent his wife from potentially making a call for help.  Later he is making calls from home without there ever being a mention of two phones or anyone repairing the line. Maybe there is a sentence in there that didn't register that explained that.

The only thing I didn't like was that near the beginning the description was at times a little more than necessary. Maybe I'm an impatient reader because I did at times have to stop myself from skipping on ahead.  That was not an issue once the story gathered momentum Otherwise this book is topnotch. I would not dock any points and give it full marks. If you're thinking about reading it, it is worth the time. It is believable to the point of being disturbing, but that is the point of it.