I know I said I wasn’t reviewing any books this month because I’m concentrating on my novel but I got to 43000 words yesterday so I took some time off to finish reading an ARC I’d got from http://www.netgalley.com and another book I’d borrowed from the library. My reviews follow.
Category Archives: Non-fiction
Review: ‘When Hollywood was Right: How movie stars, studio moguls and big business remade American politics’ by Donald T Critchlow
5th November 2013
Cambridge University Press
Donald Critchlow describes the history of Hollywood from a political perspective, a conservative Republican one. Hollywood hasn’t always been a liberal place; in the first half of the twentieth century the Republican party was very strong among actors and studio bosses. This is the story of the vacitudes of fate that took the Hollywood Right from repeated decline to success between the 30’s and 80’s. The political careers of key players such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Cecil B DeMille, Barry Goldwater, and supporters like John Wayne and Hedda Hopper are interwoven in this account pf the changing fortunes of the Republican party not just in Hollywood, but in California as a whole.
Review: Comets! by David J Eicher
In 1975, at the age of fourteen, David Eicher fell in love with the Universe. until then he had wanted to be a doctor, but became entranced by Comet West and has been fascinated by comets ever since. Consequently he gave up his medical aspirations and became the editor of Astronomy magazine and author of seventeen books about science and history instead. This volume was written in early 2013 in order to be available in time for the arrival at naked-eye visibility of Comet ISON later this month. Comet ISON is expected to be a ‘Great Comet’ – a particularly bright comet that will put on an impressive show for observers here on Earth.
Criminally good books
I’ve just finished reading a couple of good books:
Silent Witnesses
Nigel McCrery
and
The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton
And Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press
Jeremy Clay
Review: ’So that others may live: A Fethulleh Gulen Reader’ Edited by Erkan M Hurt
3rd July 2013
Blue Dome Press (The Light Inc.)
This is a compilation of the Turkish scholar Fethulleh Gulan’s essays. Gulan is an incredibly influential man and his ideas are the guiding light behind a movement for peace, education and social justice – the Gulan Movement.
ARC Review: ‘Six Women of Salem’ by Marilynne K. Roach
Da Capo Press
3rd September 2013
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ARC Review: ‘Local Customs’ by Audrey Thomas
22 February 2014
Dundern
In 1838 the writer Letitia Landon married the governor of Cape Coast Castle, Captain George MacLean while the captain was on leave. It was a whirl-wind romance. They sailed for Cape Coast a few days later, arriving safely after five weeks. Eight weeks later Letty was dead. Initially her death was recorded as accidental – an overdose of prussic acid, but events surrounding her death caused a storm in London’s literary crowd, her husband was accused of neglect or cruelty, and there were rumours of suicide. The mystery remains – how did she die? Award winning writer Audrey Thomas first heard Leticia Landon’s story in 1964 while visiting Ghana. She visited Cape Coast Castle during the two years her husband taught at the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. Their guide told her about the famous English lady who wrote books and who’s death was surrounded by mystery. This is her answer to that mystery.
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Review: ‘My Brief History’ by Stephen Hawking
10th September 2013
Bantam
Stephen Hawking has written several popular science books that have been incredibly well received. And now he has written his own story. I have read an uncorrected e-book and am now able to review it.
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Review: ‘Happy women live better’ by Valorie Burton
2013
Harvest House Publishers
America’s ‘Happiness Queen’ Valorie Burton wants to start a conversation between women about why they aren’t happy and provides thirteen ‘happiness triggers’. Ms Burton is a professional counsellor I understand, from this book, and has made a career of helping others find happiness; so just the person to write this sort of book. I have a review copy, which is incomplete, so I shall confine my comments to structure and available content. I would have liked to have seen the contents of the projected appendices and conclusion; I’m sure they would have been very interesting.
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Review: ‘Did I Say That Out Loud? Conversations About Life’ By Kelly McDermott Harman
Wegost Press
2013
This e-book is 87% true, 13% blarney, according to the author; a collection of humorous personal anecdotes. I couldn’t help but laugh as Kelly described conversations with her family and friends, including the one with her sister about getting concussion from a drunk man three weeks before a further head injury in a car accident, or the time she had to help said sister explain to their parents why she had left her husband, the conversation she had with her family paediatrician about her sons being serial killers in training (creative cricket death was involved), or her mother’s story about quilt shops and concealed weapons permits.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 