Just finished reading Johnny One-Eye by Jerome Charyn. This is a brilliant first person perspective told by John Stocking about the American revolution. The entire novel is told in the first person and the language is fun and the pace clips along so that you never realize how far you're reading. Not all of it is historically accurate, but that's not the point. It is a completely different view on this part of American history and worth your money for a great read.

Will be posting on some other books soon.

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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paul and i just finished dan brown's "deception point".
no where near as good as his "angels and demons and davinci code", but still held our attention nonetheless.

we love the works of stuart woods. (both holly barker and stone barrington series)

andrea

Andrea J. and all,

Was going back over the shelves in preparation for my semi-annual book giveaway and came across Richard Russo's "Empire Falls." This is the story of a guy struggling with his decisions in small town Maine. Russo has all the characters down from the really good to the fairly bad, and many in between as well. The plot is the weakest part but with characters this good, it doesn't matter.

Worth a read.

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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I read this book 3 times only because it is that good: Ken Follet's - Pillars of the Earth. Depending on how fast you read, you may need to extend your Aruba vacay to get it all in, it clocks about 1000 pages.

This book has been out for at least 10 years but is an excellent tale that is all about Cathedral building in 12th century England. The sequel, World Without End is okay, too.

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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If you like slow burn mysteries with great characters, you may like Mark Mills' - Amangansett. This one takes place on long island and a fisherman finds the body of a lady. Turns out her family may have had reasons to do her in, but she was also close with him. Features some great description of this area in the period after WW II and, again, the characters are very well done.

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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Scanning this shelves late last night, I noticed Our Lady of the Forrest by David Guterson. Excellent read about a young girl, tramp actually, who thinks she sees the Holy Mother in the woods. The plot follows here, a local priest, and various other people as they come to terms with their lives and what they want out of them. Guterson captures the essence of belief, the necessity of survival, and many shades of human corruption. All this set in the Northwest US where his descriptions are vivid enough to touch. This book is not as heavy as it sounds but will challenge you just enough. An absolute keeper in the Admiral Dan Reading Room.

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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Here's another one in the "moody" line... Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. Read this one on my Kindle. This is the story of a policeman in Stalin's Russia circa the early 1950's. There's a murder at the beginning of the story but he sweeps it under the rug for political/philosophical reasons. Of course, this will haunt him for the rest of the story and he has to do something about it. What Smith does best is put the reader in Soviet Russia like no other writer I've read, including Martin Cruz Smith (in his Arkady Renko books). The book gets a little bogged down toward the final third but this is easily forgiven/forgotten as it goes on final approach.

More books to be described later...

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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One of my favorite books of all time: AMERICAN TABLOID by James Ellroy.

James Ellroy burns all the bridges in this book. He spares no one from Castro to the Kennedy-s, from the FBI to the CIA, from Cuban immigrants to blue blood American aristrocrats. The story features two men: Kemper Boyd and Ward Little. While Kemper tries to climb above his class via crooked CIA plays leading up to the Cuban Revolution, Ward learns how to be a real man by figuring a way to beat the Chicago mob at its own game and go beyond. They are on a collision course with history and each other.

Ellroy's prose is akin to machine gun fire and the pace is relentless. This is an American masterpiece about a time and certain places that were forever changed by men like Kemper Boyd and Ward Little. It leaves you wondering what was fact and what is fiction.

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Here's one I should have mentioned earlier. If you like the heavy atmosphere of occupied France at the beginning of WWII, don't miss Alan Furst's novels. He has a bunch. Here's a little about one of them.

"Red Gold" brings another episode of the life of Jean Casson, the filmmaker who fell on hard times in Furst's "The World At Night." This time, he's stuck between the resistance movement and the communists, not to mention the Nazis who wouldn't mind another crack at him. Casson soldiers on, through this complicated world that Furst recreates so well for all of us. This is Furst's greatest strength, bringing out the atmosphere, characters, and tension of a country occupied not only by a foreign invasion but a clash about how to fight it.

I recommend reading "The World At Night" before this one. You won't be disappointed in either of them.

Aruba's Novelist in Residence (sometimes)
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SanNic, you crack me up....love all the must read lists...cindy

Cindyo
View of Rennaissance Island
Daughters dining at El Gaucho

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