Just finished Jesse Venturas new book titled DONT START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME. It was pretty good.

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LUSH LIFE, by Richard Price ****



There's something Dostoevskian about Richard Price's writing for his way of ensnaring a whole atmosphere and richly turning it into an authentic aesthetic environment. He captures Lower East Side New York just as Dostoevsky does for St. Petersburg, with a full set of tensions and passions, blazing and smoldering, all full of life. And while Price lacks Dostoevsky's all-too-Russian tendency to throw prose economy out the window, the effect is just the same: this writing may floor you, and you might not want it to end.

The plot centers on the shooting of bartender Ike Marcus and the investigation of restaurant manager Eric Cash. Ike is a twenty-something writer-to-be/waiter whose artistic and cultural ambition comes off as doggedly annoying to Cash, who is Ike 10 years crustier and later, struggling to accept the denouement of his writing career, which --- as for so many young, hip, New York pseudo-literati --- failed before it began. As the investigation trudges on, Price uproots the political and socio-economic history and tensions of the neighborhood, and expands his lens to include an impressive and exciting array of characters and subplots.

There are three characteristics in LUSH LIFE that make it an amazing accomplishment. The first, it goes without saying, is the dialogue, which may be the best you've ever read or heard. If one has heard anything about Price, it's his virtuosic capacity for dialogue. Cops, hipsters, recovering hipsters, ethnic populations and every other supporting cast member sound crystal clear, saying just as much with the style of their speech as their content.

The second is his flair for tension. On the most basic level, the neighborhood is experiencing the clash of young, white gentrification, which seeks to push out the local ethnic communities enough to feel safe at night but not so much as to feel like midtown (though for some that may not be far enough). This modern arrangement sharply clashes with the Jewish-tenement history of the area (one man has converted a de-sanctified synagogue into his house --- but has another house for sleeping in). The hipsters are at war with themselves in an arms race for authenticity, which only pantomimes their fakery.

On a formal level, Price uses many of the alluring conventions of typical crime fiction, complete with a male-female cop duo that is actually original and interesting, while resisting the pull of trite genre fiction. And on a more individual scale, the lush characters of this novel are full of interpersonal tensions, and most of them are conflicted souls themselves. Price shows both sides of these stories but is more or less unforgiving as he paints few truly admirable characters and fewer heroes. But this isn't take-no-prisoners vigilante writing. There is a supple humanity in each of these souls, and while there is little heroism here, there's also little villainy.

Price's third gift is his ability to construct a city in letters. When reading LUSH LIFE, one feels transported into the thick of the Lower East Side's ugliness and beauty. This novel is endlessly expansive, and for every major plot line, there is enough character complexity and hidden narratives that demand one turns back and explores the side streets. A third of the way through, the more poetic writing slips away, but before disappointment sets in, this plot sculpted into a whole world invites the reader into its clutches. Good luck letting go; you may not wish to.

The appeal of this book is the appeal of New York itself: its beauty, its ugliness, the beauty from that ugliness, the constant change and destruction, overturning of the present that conjures ghosts from the past. Price says it best: "what really drew him to the area wasn't its full-circle irony but its nowness, its right here and nowness, which spoke to the true engine of his being, a craving for it made many times worse by a complete ignorance of how this `it' would manifest itself." LUSH LIFE destroys temporality, meshing past, present and the hopes and fears of the future. In doing so, it stretches into an infinite complexity that vibrantly photographs the landscape of our contemporary urban cultural consciousness.

Are you Max?

I like Price's work. I have read Clockers,Freedomland & Samaritan. I will put this new one on my list!

I also just finished In Dubious Battle.

Started Mr. Blue by Edward Bunker.

Good read this. Tells of his early life in various prisons and on the wild streets of L.A. circa the 1950's.

He pulls no punches and gives no excuses for his life,he just tells it as it was. Very intriguing and well worth a read.

Reminds me of James Ellroy a lot which is always good in my opinion because i think he is awesome.

DUMA KEY, by Stephen King ****

I read this in Florida last month, which was very apropos, considering that most of the novel is set in southwest coastal Florida (the fictional town of Duma Key, hence the book's title).

Any northern "snowbird" can empathize with Edgar Freemantle's instant fascination with the west coast Florida sunset.

"As that light skied upward, orange faded to a breathless Maxfield Parrish blue-green that I had never seen before with my own eyes...and yet I had a sense of déjà vu, as if maybe I had seen it, in my dreams."

Whether it's the novelty of a sunset over water or being closer to the equator or further west in the time zone, there's no denying the light really is different in Florida and King perfectly captures the newcomer's wonder. It doesn't seem the least strange or foreboding that Edgar runs for his colored pencils and works feverishly to capture the color.

Edgar has come to Duma Key from Michigan to revitalize himself after a horrific accident in which he lost an arm, badly damaged a leg and suffered a head trauma which months later still causes aphasia, headaches and bouts of depression and anger. He had nearly died and often wishes he had. His marriage is over and he feels suicidal and out of control. A self-made man who is used to propelling the world in the direction he wants it to go, Edgar hates his new helplessness.

But Duma Key almost instantly works its magic. Every day Edgar walks the beach, growing stronger, and every evening he attempts to capture the sunset on paper, though it's a while before he succeeds as well as he did on his first night.

Although he hasn't done more than doodle in 20 years - too busy building the contracting business which has made him a wealthy man - Edgar's artistic ability grows in leaps and bounds, keeping pace with his insatiable drive.

But this is Stephen King and while the reader enjoys, even participates in Edgar's renewal, we know there's a bogeyman somewhere in paradise. The first inkling Edgar gets is after an email from his favorite daughter, Ilse. Seized by the drawing urge that grips his right arm (the missing one), Edgar draws the boyfriend he's never met and the heartache that awaits his daughter.

Other psychic pictures begin to come to him, scarier ones. The tension builds like a slow drumbeat in the distance, insistent but far away. Then Edgar learns that he's not the only one on the island with special gifts and the island itself may have secrets it doesn't intend to share. At least not until it's good and ready.

Bouts of drawing, and later painting, leave him insatiably hungry, as if he's been emptied of what fuels him. His productivity rockets in tandem with the talent that bowls over everyone who sees his work; from the local caretaker to the respected art critic and knowledgeable gallery owner.

Edgar is a bit bemused by the wow factor but he takes his new talent in stride. He is a powerful, determined character with a big, healthy ego. Edgar comes across as just the sort of driven, self-made man he's supposed to be, dropped in his tracks, but not out, more active than introspective, making a start on a whole new life.

The Duma setting, crucial to the plot's success, essential to the scare factor, is so vivid you can smell the brine and see those mesmerizing sunsets. It's beautiful, exotic, wild and sinister. "Overhead a heron glided across the darkening sky, a silent long-neck projectile."

It's a place with dark secrets and darker plans and Edgar may not be as in control of his gift as he thinks he is. King has another big winner; in my opinion, his best in years.

Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton 328 pgs. A truly fascinating look at Clapton's life from the man himself. Clapton starts with his childhood and what it was like growing up in Ripley, England. All the bands and projects that he was a part of, starting with the Yardbirds and moving on to Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos are covered and given separate chapters. His struggles with drugs and alcohol and the tragedy of losing his son Conor are also explored with striking detail. I highly encourage Clapton fans to give this a read.

I'm borrowing this from my college's library and reading it basically until I leave. So far a great read and very detailed.

Since I've started watching A Clockwork Orange again, I went out and got the novel. I finished it in about 3 hours. It's a lot more brutal then the movie and a lot more descriptive as most novels are.

I loved it, but I hate it when you get a great book and you finish it in one sitting.

THE MISUNDERSTOOD JEW, by Amy-Jill Levine ****

Relations between Jews and Christians have improved significantly since Louis Brandeis was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Woodrow Wilson in 1916, an action that sparked widespread hatred against Jews across the country. In fact, one of the sitting justices, a Christian, shunned Brandeis by not talking to him and even leaving the room whenever the new justice spoke.

Despite the overall decline in anti-Semitism in America, occasional incidents, including attempts to convert Jews to Christianity, still occur. However, they should remind us that we must continue to be vigilant against its reappearance. For example, two years ago, an inebriated Mel Gibson, surrounded by three adoring women at a bar in a California city, was quoted by a reporter mouthing angry attacks against Jews who, he claimed, were causing many geopolitical problems in the world. In the fall of 2007, the conservative author and political activist Ann Coulter, told a TV news reporter that Jews need to be "completed," a code word for being converted to Christianity. Similarly, on Martin Luther King's birthday in January of 2007, a conservative Republican state legislator to the Virginia legislature, after having nonchalantly told black Americans to "get over" slavery, repeated the erroneous view still held by some fundamentalist and bigoted Christians that Jews killed Jesus Christ. A few weeks after this unfortunate incident, the Richmond Times-Dispatch featured a story in which it showed a Jewish delegate giving the Republican legislator a warm birthday embrace after he entered the floor of the Virginia House of Delegates. So much for the oft-held belief that Jews lack the capacity to be forgiving and compassionate!

Fortunately, there are serious scholars in our midst who can help us challenge the lingering prejudices and hatreds against Jews and point the way to a possible dialogue to gain a better understanding between our two faiths. In her excellent book, THE MISUNDERSTOOD JEW, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine writes eloquently about the importance of Christians seeing Jesus as the Jew that he always was. She is concerned that some Christians view Jesus as a Jew only in a superficial sense. In fact, she writes, Jesus was a Jew from his birth to his death. Moreover, he ate, talked and dressed like a Jew and obeyed the laws faithfully during his entire lifetime.

Dr. Levine's book offers excellent advice to believers who are troubled by the gospel writer John's statement that "the only way to the Father is through his Son," a statement that clearly implies to me that Dante's circles of hell may lie ahead for those who do not accept Christ as their Savior. Importantly, she provides a view of the Good Samaritan that is historically at odds with the way in which most Christians see the story, but which offers, I believe, a credible and suitable ending for both faiths.

Some Christians may have forgotten that the ancient Hebrews gave them many gifts, including the idea of monotheism, the wisdom and learning of the great Hebrew prophets, the Psalms, the Ten Commandments and lastly, and very importantly, Jesus himself who became their Christ. Importantly, as evidence of his Jewishness, Dr. Levine writes that Jesus' reference to the two commandments cited in the gospel of Mark 12:28-34--love God with all your heart and soul and love your neighbor as yourself--are in the Old Testament books of Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18. Thus, they were not original to Christians, but provide compelling evidence that Jesus embodied the teachings of the ancient Hebrew prophets which some Christians often forget or do not choose to acknowledge.

In fact, similar verses as these should help establish the basis for constructive dialogue between the two faiths. "If possible," she writes, Christians and Jews need to "read the Scriptures in an interfaith setting." Furthermore, Dr. Levine writes that the "elimination of anti-Jewish readings must come from theologians, from those members of the church who conclude that anti-Judaism is wrong and who insist on Christian sensitivity on the issue." Above all, she says that "we must make every effort to see through each other's eyes, hear through each other's ears, and interpret with a consciousness of each other's sensitivities." Perhaps if we can begin the serious dialogues such as Dr. Levine advocates, we can further eliminate more instances of anti-Jewish feelings that continue to lurk in the minds of some people.

As a lifelong Catholic, I highly recommend this book.

I have just read the autobiography of famous guitarist Slash. Whilst i am a big fan of him and his music this was just a by the numbers account really!

Next up is Bill Clintons auto "My Life"

Is anyone on the Board a vampires book fan?

I read a few Anne Rice books some years ago and have read Bram Stokers Dracula.

A decent update on the Dracula story that i read last year is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.Worth checking out!

Comic books don't count, Yogi.

HOLD TIGHT, by Harlan Coben ***

Harlan Coben is a master at writing novels with twists you didn't see coming and when they arrive, you never feel cheated. His current novel, HOLD TIGHT, is a page turner. My only criticisms are that there are so many sub plots that it is sometimes distracting and occasionally frustrating.

Coben starts fast and makes sure he's got you at the edge of your chair. A woman (Marianne) is sitting in a bar. Her internal dialogue is about her ability to screw up anything good in life. She's drawn into a conversation with a man and a woman sitting on either side of her, and the next thing you know, she's brutally murdered.

The novel switches to Dr. Mike Baye and his family; wife Tia and their two children. The Baye's teenage son, Adam, has become withdrawn, sullen and difficult, following the suicide of a friend. The Bayes are concerned and use a computer monitoring program to see what is going on in his life. While they are uncomfortable about spying, they believe it is their job as parents to keep Adam safe. The Bayes learn that Adam may be in some trouble.

The threads of the book begin fanning out as we meet Hester Crimstein, Tia's no-nonsense boss who demands work be number one in her employees' lives, The Lorimans have a critically ill son, Lucas, and it seems Susan Loriman has been keeping secrets from her husband.

Jill Baye is eleven and friends with Yasmin, who is being raised by a single father. Yasmin's been targeted by an unthinking teacher, and the result is devastating. We visit the local police and get involved in department struggles and whew! it is a lot to work with.

After Adam Baye disappears (he was supposed to see a hockey game with his father), his father Mike searches for him and is assaulted. Mike knows there is more going on than a missing son who is going through a troubling adolescence. It's his job as a parent to find out the truth. But the truth may cost some lives.

There is a lot of entertainment in HOLD TIGHT, but there is also much to think about.

Just finished a Penthouse mag ooohh yeah!!

Try to read the novel “[deleted]” at [deleted].com
Just go to website and click on Free Full Text Online.

I am about to start a John Grisham - The Innocent Man.

My wife bought it at the supermarket for me!

Yogi -

Let us know (or PM me) how you liked it. I had soured on Grisham since "The Partner." I read "The Street Lawyer," the one right after and hated it, not wanting to read anything else. But his first few were so good that the bar was set high.

Absolutely. "A Time to Kill" was an awesome novel. I read somewhere that he had written most of it while struggling with fianances, etc. The story was finished in a short time after he got an advance against the story, and you can clearly "see" the change of pace in the novel (at that point).

Still, his earlier works are much better than the later ones (IMO).

A Time to Kill is one of my favorites. I also liked The Street Lawyer. I just read about 85% of The Appeal, and when you don't even want to know how a book like that ends, that's fairly telling, isn't it?

I just read The Devil Wears Prada, and found it quite amusing - a fun summer read. I also finished World Without End, although I thought that physically holding the darned thing was going to give me permanent nerve damage in my wrists. It was an excellent follow-up to Pillars of the Earth, and if you're a Follett fan, I would recommend it.

I also got the latest Patricia Cornwell "Scarpetta" installment. Not great so far. I took a biography of Simon Wiesenthal out of the library as well, but haven't gotten to it yet.

Will do Goombah!

The extraordinary story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis-2003 (Alanna Nash)



I about half way through this and if anybody is interested in the legend Of Elvis and his management team them i recommend this book to read..

Finally read "Boys of Summer" by Roger Kahn.

One of the best sports books i have ever read. The simple act of catching up with the players after their careers are over gives the book that extra edge!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Cool. It IS a great book, but I'm somewhat biased because of my love of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I'm glad you enjoyed it too.

I most certainly did SC.

I seem to remember you recommending it to me ages ago?

Well i finally got round to reading it and i'm glad i did.

I give ya credit, Yogi. I would think the game of baseball is SOMEWHAT foreign to you, just as soccer is somewhat foreign to me. If you recommended a book about some soccer stars to me, I really don't think I'd be interested in reading it (because the sport is "strange" to me).

I'll have to check this one out.

Thanks DE NIRO.

No probs, I finished this book and i thought it was a interesting story. Col Parker really was a legend in his own write..