The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson

It is a while now since I laughed out loud to a book, but this book thoroughly entertained me and had me crying with laughter at times.

Alan Carlson is one hundred years old when he climbs out of the window of his old peoples home, to avoid the fuss of a birthday party. This new adventure takes him across Sweden and even across the globe.

In his one hundred years, Carlson has met  almost every important figure in Twentieth Century history. From Franco to Einstein, well Einstein's less brilliant brother Carlson crosses the Himalayas, is transported to a Soviet Gulag and even has dinner with and American President or two.

Jonasson weaves a story that will hold you to the very end of this book. Some have compared the story to the movie "Forest Gump" but Alan Carlson is no Forest Gump. This story brings together a host of loveable characters, an old thief, a hot dog seller, a group of not so master criminals, a policeman two German Shepherds and an elephant together with the old man himself.

It is a stunning read, I loved it.

Buy: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and DisappearedHERE

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The Monuments Men - Robert M. Edsel

The Monuments Men

The story of "The Monuments Men" has recently been portrayed in true Hollywood fashion in the movie of the same name, starring George Clooney.

The movie for the most part was based upon this book, and though the movie told the basic story, this book tells a much more frustrating and tortuous tale of a group of nine Allied soldiers, American and British who worked their way across Western Europe with the Allied Armies from June 1944 until just after the end of World War Two .

Their goal was simply to find tens of thousands of major art works created over the centuries of civilisation in the West and to return those items to their legal owners, private collectors, museums and churches, Most of the works of art had been stolen and transported to Germany by a systematic plan to rob the major cultural icons from their owners to fill the private homes of Nazi leaders and the cream of the collection to be housed in an enormous museum built for Adolf Hitler in his home city of Lintz, Austria.

For those who have seen the movie, the story is very different than the Hollywood portrayal. The book paints the task as more dangerous and arduous than the Hollywood movie.

The monuments men faced struggles with military authority, the sheer scale of the problem, nine men to search Europe and in the end the turmoil of occupation by Soviet forces in regions holding the most important treasures.

At the beginning of the book Edsel plods slowly through the back story of the Allied realization of the importance of such a group of men. But after the men reach the shores of Normandy the story begins to flow.

Along the way they meet several characters each of whom plays a major part in solving the puzzle. Possibly the most important being Rose Valon, a member of staff at the Louvre Museum, Paris. She had secretly catalogued every art theft from the museums and private collections that passed through her office. Narrowly escaping the wrath of the retreating Germans she faced a mob of howling "patriots: who stormed her office demanding revenge on the "Nazi collaborator."

Read  the book. It tells a fascinating story of intrigue and courage.

Book available here: The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History

You can buy The Monuments Men  on DVD or [Blu-ray   here.

Used Bookstore

We have recently been working hard to set up a new second-hand book store.

The bookstore is served by amazon market place and all items are available until sold.  The stock is continually changing as we ship books to amazon.com's fulfillment centers several times per month.

The book store contains a range of books at value prices. We carry items that range from novels and other fiction to college textbooks.

We use the fulfillment by amazon service for most books, this means that if you are an Amazon Prime member you can receive FREE Two Day shipping on most of our books. If you are not an Amazon Prime member, but your total shopping cart spend on any part of the amazon.com website, not just our store is valued at $25 or more you qualify for Amazon's Supersaver shipping.

Take a look at our storefront.

Suspect by Robert Crais

I have read several books written by Robert Crais in the past, most of those were Elvis Cole novels and found them really enjoyable.




Suspect is available from amazon.com 

Suspect is, I think unique, in the world of thriller/Mystery novels in that one of the main characters is a German Shepherd dog named Maggie.

Maggie was trained as a patrol and explosives detection dog and served with her Marine handler in Afghanistan until one fateful day her company of Marines are attacked by Afghan insurgants and her handler is killed and Maggie so badly wounded that she is sent back to the U.S. to join the Los Angeles Police Department K9 unit.

There she meets Scott, a serving LAPD officer who is recovering from the trauma of being shot and seeing his human partner murdered on a otherwise quiet nights patrol.

Maggie and Scott then become a new partnership. Scott helps Maggie to recover from her fear of loud noises and Maggie helps Scott uncover the truth behind the murder of his partner.

Crais writes great characters, from the moment I started reading  this book I cared what happened to the characters. The character of Maggie is particularly well written, Crais has learned about how dogs think, what motivates them and how they interact with their human handlers. I owned German Shepherds for thirty years, I love the breed and Crais certainly describes many of the facets of the breed which I came to love. Maggie is as real a dog as it is possible to bring into literature and she is also a heroic character in the book.

This is a taught and dynamic thriller that I could not put down from start to finish.

Suspect is available from the My Favorite Books amazon.com store.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand was my local library's favorite book of 2012.

This is my video review of this funny and enjoyable book.

 

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese

Cutting for Stone is a novel by Abraham Verghese. Verghese, a respected internal medicine  doctor and professor, has created a modern epic which takes the reader through all the emotions and leaves you wanting more of the story. In my opinion Cutting for Stone  is the book of the year.




Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese



 

The story covers about fifty years from the middle of the 1950's until just after the turn of the Twenty-first century.. It is a story of love, betrayal, loss and reconciliation as seen through the eyes of Marion Stone. Marion is one of a pair of twins born to Sister Mary Joseph Praise, an Indian Carmelite nun and Dr Thomas Stone a British Surgeon both of whom work a  at a small Mission Hospital, Missing Hospital, in the heart of Adis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Marion and his twin brother Shiva are born as their mother dies. Throughout their childhood, Shiva is the quiet and examining brother, Marion is the talker of the two. Through Marion's eyes we see the turmoil of military coups and political fighting as well as the horror of disease in a world where a visit to the doctor is all too often a last resort before almost certain death.

At my local library book club, there was just one negative comment. The books beginning is full of the back stories of many of the major characters. The reader can soon become dismayed at these back stories, which while they do flesh out the characters later seem too many, too soon slowing the story to a very slow snails pace.

Work your way through part one and the story soon picks up pace, you love and dislike the characters at all times. There are many humorous and laugh out loud portions in this book and also many sections where your stomach will curl as you endure the tension of a medical procedure.

In the end the conclusion of the story will surprise you. No-one at our book  club predicted the stories turn of events. But no-one was disappointed. The book leaves you pondering the way life can turn on a series of events. The things we do matter as do the things we don't do.

Cutting for Stone is a great and powerful first novel.

If you have already read Cutting for Stone, share your opinion of the book by leaving a comment.

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies - Ben McIntyre

Ben McIntyre has created  a great series of books in his trilogy of histories of British Intelligence operations during World War Two.

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, tells the stories of a small group of spies who operated from the UK and at time the USA for Nazi Germany.

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Unknown to the Germans however all their most prestigious spies were in fact double agents. The information they supplied was given to them by British Intelligence officers working from Room XX (the Roman numeral for 20 and the double cross of the title.)

Among the stories told are those of "Garbo" one of Germany's most important spies, who commanded a network of over twenty recruits to his spy ring. These recruits ranged from Liverpool dock workers to a group of revolutionary Welsh coal miners bent on the destruction of the British Empire. Each one though was really a figment of "Garbo's" imagination. Every character had a life which the ingenious Spaniard created for his Nazi controllers and so convinced them as to their reality that even after D-Day had occured (June 6, 1944) Garbo's reports were avidly awaited in Berlin.

This book also describes the lives of four other major spies, two other men, and two brave women who  risked all to ensure the ultimate success of the Allied cause in World War Two.

Read the story of a female spy, who asked her German handler for a photgraph for a lover's keepsake. Or the spy who when faced with exposure flew to meet his master's and challenged them, accusing them of taking the cream off the top of his espionage allowance.

Ben McIntyre provides us with vivid personalities, he is wonderfully adept at intertwining several stories to allow you to see both detail and the grand picture.

If you have any interest in World War Two in Europe this book will add to your knowledge. If you are fascinated by the world of spies and James Bond stories, this book will enthrall, Ian Flemming worked closely with some of the XX team.

If you have read any of Ben McIntyre's other books in the series "Agent ZigZag  or Operation Mincemeat, this book is a necessary addition to your library.