Category: Books-Fiction

Off the Grid – C; J  Box  – (Joe Pickett #16) The Stories Get Better and Better.

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Off the Grid - C,J,Box

Soon after finishing The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton, I received notice that C J Box’s new novel Off the Grid was available for pick-up at the library. So I hurried over to the library and then I came home and quickly devoured the book!

Yes, Off the Grid, book 16 in the Joe Pickett series is a good one! I finished Endangered book 15 in the series last April and it took me a little while to remember what happened in that one but Box as always kept revealing little bits of that storyline, which jogged my memory and brought that story back to me.

But while it is definitely better if you know the back story and the relationship between Nate Romanowski and Joe and his family it is not essential to the enjoyment of this book.

The Story

In this installment two Federal Agents approach Nate, who has been living off the grid since escaping from the hospital at the end of Endangered (Book 15 Joe Pickett), and present a proposal to him.

The agents want Nate’s help in destroying a suspected terrorist cell in Wyoming’s Red Desert. If the operation is a success the agents will make Nate’s criminal record disappear!!

So Nate soon finds himself alone in the Red Desert facing the biggest challenge of his life a group of “patriots” led by a charismatic falconer who have created a weapon that could wreak havoc, if it falls in the wrong hands, and those wrong hands may be within the group!

Meanwhile, Joe has his hands full with a grizzly bear before Wyoming’s governor sends him on a special assignment to find out what they Feds and Nate are up to in his state! So now Joe and Nate are facing down the terror cell and to make matters worse Joe’s oldest daughter and her roommate end up on old sheep ranch that serves as the base for the group.

My Thoughts

The Joe Pickett series has been a favorite of mine for a long time now and the great thing about the series is that the books are just getting better and better and Off the Grid is one of the best!

 I think what sets the Joe Pickett books apart from other books in the genre is the Pickett Family, Over the course of the series, the reader has watched the two Pickett girls Sheridan and Lucy grow up. In addition their adopted daughter April has become a central character in the series. Even Joe’s mother-in-law Missy has been key in several books!! Here’s what Booklist says……

“Is there a crime-fiction family as fully fleshed out as Joe Pickett’s? In singing the praises of Box’s series, we often praise the plotting, pacing, and the down-to-earth hero’s friendship with force-of-nature Nate Romanowski But Pickett’s supporting cast – wife Marybeth and daughters Sheridan. Lucy and April – lends a continuity to this series that sets it apart.”

My answer to that first question is maybe.The O’Connor family from William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series may be tied with them! But Joe’s family still makes this series special!

Bottom Line

Off the Grid for me is one of C.J.Box’s best books. it had a believable, scary plot with lots of page-turning action. I do believe that the final paragraph set the stage for the next book in the series and I for one can’t wait.

So join Joe and his family for this adventure, and while you wait for the next installment, go back and catch-up with the past lives of Joe and Nate and the rest of the clan!

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Goodreads:Joe Pickett Series

C J Box author of Storm Watch

About C J Box

Charles James Box Jr. is an American author of more than thirty novels. Box is the author of the Joe Pickett series, as well as several standalone novels, and a collection of short stories.

Visit the Author Page

If you like the family and character connections in this series…

You might also enjoy:

William Kent Kreuger
Michael Robotham
Michael Robotham
Peter May
  • William Kent Krueger — the Cork O’Connor series blends crime with family, history, and a strong sense of place
  • Michael Robotham — especially the Joe O’Loughlin books, where personal lives are always part of the story
  • Peter May — the Lewis Trilogy, where past, family, and landscape are tightly woven together

 

The Hunting Wind (Alex McKnight #3)- Steve Hamilton

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The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton was just as good the second time around!

One of the things that I have been doing on a fairly consistently this winter and into the spring is reading, I have set a goal that requires me to read books at a faster pace than last year and while i on a pace that is slightly slower than I need it to be, I am still reading at the same pace as last year finishing book 15 of the year just about on the same day as I finished book 15 last year!

Now one of the things that I did do recently that is out of the ordinary is that I reread a book! When ever my wife wants me to get rid of books she always says that I should get rid of them because I never reread a book! Well, while she will have to change that to you almost never reread a book, because I reread Steve Hamilton‘s The Hunting Wind a last week!

One of the reasons that I reread the book was that when I checked my Goodreads shelf for the book it was not there! The status was “want to read”!

When I started rereading the book which is book #3 in Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight series, I didn’t remember the storyline. The adventure begins when Alex’s former minor league teammate, from his days thirty years prior as a catcher with the Toledo Mud Hens, visits Alex’s home in Paradise, in Michigan’s upper peninsula and wants him to help find a girl he dated for ten days way back in 1971!

As Alex and Randy start their search for Maria who was the daughter of a fortune-teller Madame Valeska, they discover that Maria is in hiding. Maria is hiding from her dead husbands former business partner, who Maria believes murdered her husband and now is out to get her! But soon it appears that all is not as it seems to be and maybe it never was??? I think that it took until somewhere in the middle of the book that things started to become familiar and even when they did things still weren’t all that familiar, i.e. I didn’t remember the ending, which by the way is very good!!

Steve Hamilton’s first book to feature Alex McKnight a former Detroit police officer for eight years,now living in Paradise, MI, A Cold Day in Paradise won both an Edgar and Shamus award which was an unprecedented feat! The series is now up to book number 10 Let It Burn, which I think I once checked out of the library but did not read!  Alex is a great character and the surrounding cast in the series is also very good.  While Alex’s friend Vinnie is not featured in this book Jackie and the Glasgow Inn are present.

Bottom line: The Hunting Wind is a real page-turner even when I kinda knew what was going to happen. Like I said Alex is a great character and the story line twists and turns enough to keep the pages flying by. So check it out!

As for rereading a book it was a pleasant experience. It appears that I most likely read The Hunting Wind in 2004, as that’s, when I read books 1,2 and 4. So maybe the key to rereading books is that it works real well for books I’ve read 10 or more years ago!! Let’s see that would put most of the Robert Ludlum in play and many, many more!!

The Forgotten Room – Lincoln Child

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The Forgotten Room – Lincoln Child (Jeremy Logan #4)

The Forgotten Room is the fourth book in  Lincoln Child’s series featuring enigmalogist Jeremy Logan. While I have read many of the books in the Pendergrast series, which Child writes with Douglas Preston, this is the first of his solo books, that I have read.

The setting of the book is a Gothic Mansion in Rhode Island that is the home of the elite think-tank The Lux.  Jeremy returns to the Lux, where he was a resident for many years, before he was asked to leave, to help determine what happened to one of the Lux’s top scientists. The scientist began to exhibit strange behavior several weeks prior, and ended up committing suicide in a horrific manner. The erratic behavior started soon after the scientist was asked to direct the remodeling of the forgotten West Wing of the mansion. Soon after Logan begins his investigation he discovers a room hidden within the wing. The room has no windows or doors leaving no means to enter or leave the room. In the middle of the room was a piece of equipment unlike anything Jeremy has seen! What does it do? What is the purpose of the room and does it have anything to do with the death of the scientist or the sights and sounds that others, including Jeremy are experiencing? So Jeremy and the scientist’s assistant set out to find out what’s happening before someone else dies.

While I don’t think that The Forgotten Room is one the same level as the popular Pendergrast series, I do think it’s a damn good read. Many of the things that have happened at the Lux including voices that lead people to contemplate suicide, remind me of Patrick Lee’s book Runner. Overall,I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot more than the character of Jeremy Logan. That may be because I haven’t read any of the previous novels in which he appears.So to really enjoy the series I think I’ll need to go back and read the first book! Here’s what are some others have to say about The Forgotten Room

“Reflects the best of the ‘mad scientist and locked room’ mysteries of the early twentieth century . . . Fun and intriguing.” —Associated Press

“Chilling. . . . Child makes the most of the creepy setting, his unusual lead character, and an intricate plot.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“[A] very imaginative story for those who prefer a soft blending of mystery and paranormal.” —Booklist

An interesting sidelight of the book was that at one point in the book the  neurological phenomenon of synesthesia became a part of the story line. In one form of this phenomenon people see numbers and letters as being different colors, others see time as a 3 dimensional time-line. In others at time inanimate objects seem to exhibit emotions. The condition was studied extensively in the 18th and 19th century but interest dropped off in the 20th century. What’s interesting or odd is that one of the other books that I was reading at the same time was The Toaster Oven Mocks Me by Steve Margolis. That book was a mini-memoir from Margolis who has the disorder and throughout most of his life he never told anyone about what he saw or heard because he thought they would just think he was crazy.  I just thought I’d throw that in because I thought that it was amazing that I was reading two books at the same time that mentioned synesthesia!

Bottom Line: While I didn’t find The Forgotten Room all that chilling or creepy, I did find the intricate plot enjoyable and the pages flew by fairly quickly. The book can be enjoyed without having read the other books. The question is though would I have enjoyed it even more if I knew more of Logan;s back story? As such,  I will probably read another book in the Jeremy Logan series. Maybe first though, I’ll read a Douglas Preston’s solo books. I have read one of Preston’s solo efforts The Codex, which I enjoyed! (Book 14 of 2016)

Links for the Further Exploration of the Novels of Lincoln Child

Author’s Website
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Preston and Child

 

Orphan X – Gregg Hurwitz – Book 9 of 2016

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Gregg Hurwitz – New Evan Smoak series is off to a great start with Orphan X ****

Gregg Hurwitz is one of those authors whose books I read sporadically and when I  do read one of his books, after I finish it I usually say “Can You Tell me Edward, why you don’t read every Hurwitz book when it comes out?? To which I answer simply no – which is better than omitting I am a fool!! So when I recently saw that Hurwitz had started a new series and the first book Orphan X would be released soon, I knew I’d be a fool again not to read it!! Having just finished it the other day – I can say I am thankful I am not an old fool and bring on book 2 of the Evan Smoak series!!

In Evan Smoak Gregg Hurwitz has created a fantastic new character Evan is a…..

…. man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X……

But after many assassinations and other operations Evan broke with the program and went off the radar, when he was asked to kill another Orphan, Evan became that Nowhere Man helping those who can’t help themselves. In Orphan X, soon after saving a young girl and her sister  from an evil cop Evan attempts to  help another woman Katrin, who has a mob hit team out to eliminate her. Evan soon discovers that he, and not Katrin is the hit team’s target. He is now faced with the task of beating a hit team composed of operatives who are as good as he is!!

From then on the action is fast and furious and the pages flew by. Here’s what author Tess Gerritsen writes about the book……

“Orphan X is the most gripping, high-octane thriller I’ve read in a long, long time. Hang onto your seat because Gregg Hurwitz will take you on a dizzying ride you’ll not soon forget

The first book that I read by Gregg Hurwitz was The Kill Clause, which featured  U.S. Marshals Service operative Tim Rackley. That series was composed of four books of which I read the first two. I told you I sporadically read Hurwitz books. Actually, the third book in that series Troubleshooter has been on my TBR shelves forever!! The point is that these books were great and I was disappointed when the series ended even though I hadn’t  read all the books. It also may be a reason that I didn’t read any of Hurwitz’s stand alone books until 2007! Foolish me!

 Bottom line: I will not miss the next installment of the Evan Smoak series and you shouldn’t either! In addition, I promise to read more of Gregg Hurwitz’s stand alone novels, and maybe even go back and read those last two Tim Rackley novels and you should join me!!

Links for the Further Exploration of the Novels of Gregg Hurwitz

Author’s Website
Author’s Blog
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Goodreads
Amazon

In this short video Gregg Hurwitz talks about writing Orphan X

The Death Relic – Chris Kuzneski

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The Death Relic by Chris Kuzneski helps me pleasantly procrastinate! 

So yesterday morning I was all set to write a nice post about how it was the first day that I had done my Kundalini, Weights and Band morning exercise routine in about a month. I was going to writing about how I made it through the routine with a minimal amount of coughing and even was able to end with a nice 15 minute meditation. Then I’d write how I was able to make a nice strawberry, blueberry, banana smoothie and sit down and read with no grandchildren to babysit! The reading part was what did me in The Death Relic  by Chris Kuzneski took over and wouldn’t let me breakaway. Even though the pages were flying by time was still marching on, and I was not writing!! I finished just before lunch and I still hadn’t written anything….I’d done some laundry and the dishes, but no writing!! Then it was afternoon and I rationalized that I shouldn’t really write about the morning now! Before I knew it, it was four o’clock and time to go pickup up Oliver at the sitters and take him to his mommy, who works in Cherry Hill.  Bottom line was that I had successfully put off writing all day and I continued to procrastinate all night until it was time to turn in. So while I am not going to write any more about the exercising or meditation from yesterday morning, I will tell you a little about The Death Relic.

The Death Relic (Book 8 of 2016) ****

The Death Relic is book seven in the Jonathan Payne and David Jones series from Chris Kuzneski and it’s a good one! Well all three of the ones that I’ve read so far a have been excellent!! I love the way that Kuzneski always blends history into his novels. In this adventure the reader learns a little about the Spanish conquistadors and the Mayan and Aztec civilizations. and is treated to a modern-day mystery!

The action starts when Maria Pelati an Italian archaeologist whose specialty is early Christianity is offer a job with a famous archaeologist who has made a recent find in Mexico. Soon after meeting her new employer Terence Hamilton he is kidnapped from the hotel where Maria is staying. When Maria returns to her room see finds that it has been vandalized and her passport has been stolen. Frightened and alone she turns to old friends Payne and Jones for help. Jonathan and David are soon on their way to rescue the fair Maria and if things go well maybe David can rekindle his hot romance with Maria!! But soon the question becomes who kidnapped Terrence and why?  Searching the back of Terrence’s car they find, various Mayan artifacts and a crate full of weapons, including AK-47s! Stuck between them is an envelope with a diary telling of the destruction of the Mayan’s world by  the Spanish!! But the question is how does it all tie together??

Bottom line: The Death Relic is a strong four-star book for me. I love the characters of Jonathan Payne and David Jones but of which are vividly drawn. Maria Pelati is a character who Payne and Jones have met before in the book The Sign of the Cross (Book #2 of the series) and many loose ends tied up from that book are wrapped up in The Death Relic. You don’t really need to read The Sign of the Cross to enjoy The Death Relic. I had read  the book, but it has been so many years since I had read it that I only have vague memories of the book, but Kuzneski does a good job of filling the reader in on what happened. Anyway, the book and the series comes highly recommended so – check it out!! As for me I have not yet read The Plantation book one in the series so yesterday I bought the e-book at Amazon for $4.99 – how could I pass it up!!

Author Lisa Gardner pretty much sums up the way I feel about Chris Kuzneski’s books….

“Chris Kuzneski has mastered the art of the quest novel, bringing to life lost treasures, exotic locales,and fresh conspiracies”

 

Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish

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Preparation for the Next Life – Atticus Lish (****)

 

One of the Reading Challenges that I created for 2016 was to read more literature the goal I set was 24 books. The challenge includes books classified as general fiction, along with classics that I should have read, New York Time Bestsellers and Award-Winning books.   Since there are four subcategories I made it six books for each subcategory!  Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish is the seventh book I’ve finished in 2016 and it’s the first in the subcategory of award-winning books. The book won the 2015 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In addition to that award the book was also among the ….

New York Times Best of 2014
Wall Street Journal’s Best of 2014
Vanity Fair’s Best of 2014
Publishers Weekly’s Best of 2014
BuzzFeed’s Best of 2014

Needless to say, it is a damn good book. Christopher Kennedy author Ennui Prophet provides a much better summary of the book than I can…..

An illegal Chinese immigrant meets a broken American warrior, and the great love story of the 21st century begins. The intersection of their paths seems inevitable, irrevocable. Their story: tender, violent, terrible, and beautiful. Atticus Lish’s prose, lyrical and taut, sentences as exact and indisputable as chemical formulas, is trance-like, evangelical in its ability to convert and convince its reader. Preparation for the Next Life is that rare novel that grabs you by the shirt and slaps you hard in the face. Look, it says. It isn’t pretty. Turn away at your own risk. In case you haven’t noticed, the American Dream has become a nightmare. Atticus Lish has your wake up call. He has created a new prototype of the hero, and her journey provides us with a devastating perspective on the “promised land” of the post 9/11 U.S., where being detained is a rite of passage and the banality of violence is simply part of the pre-apocalyptic landscape. 

Yes the story of Zou Lei and Brad Skinner was at times horrifying. In Zou Lei’s case it was a WAS a wake up call to read about the way that illegal immigrants to our great nation have to live and the private hell that many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans live in. Neither life is a bed of roses but somehow these two found love and with it hope for a new beginning. But the more you read of Zou Lei’s troubles to become a legal citizen and Skinner’s deteriorating mental condition you know that new beginning may just not happen!

Bottom Line: If you like typical love stories then this book is not for you because as the New York Times says Preparation for the Next Life  is “perhaps the finest and most unsentimental love story of the new decade”.  I kept hoping that love was going to conquer all and our two heroes would live happily ever after, but the new nightmarish American Dream got in the way. But if you want a glimpse into the worlds of illegal immigrants and veterans suffering from PTSD, you will be hard pressed to find a better book. Frankly, I wouldn’t wish there lives on anyone and you have to admire anyone who can survive the ordeal of living in the poorest sections of 21st century New York City.

Review for the Further Exploration of Preparation of the Next Life by Atticus Lish

New York Times: Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish

The Guardian: Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish review – a debut of unsettling power

Weekly Update – Jan 30, 2016 – The Reading…

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While Sick Most of the Week – A Book was Finished and Some Started…..

So I have been pretty much wiped out this week. I babysat for Zoe on Tuesday and at the end of the day I felt lousy! I was coughing pretty badly even though I didn’t feel that bad. Anyway it got progressively worse during the night and by morning I knew two things one that I would not be babysitting Oliver and the other I would have to visit the doctor. By late morning both my wife and I were sitting in MedExpress waiting to see the doctor. My wife has been sick longer and worse than I have been. She has had a wicked sinus infection with extreme pain! Anyway she had another sinus infection and I have bronchitis! Since then we have both gotten progressively better and hopefully by tomorrow or Monday I should be back close to normal!! Anyway through it all I have kept reading and even added to my to be read (TBR) pile!

What I’ve been Reading and Plan to Read…..

So what have I been doing with myself when I am not coughing my lungs up! I was able to finish In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara. It is book 4 for 2016 and I’m about a book off the pace required to meet my goal of 60 books!! I must say that after reading the book I have a new respect for the man. While he certainly believed that we were doing the right thing in fighting the war he realized that it was a no win situation and that believe lead to an ultimate rift with the administration and his leaving office. McNamara left office in February of the tumultuous year of 1968 so his leaving pretty much corresponding with me just becoming more politically aware, as I would turn 17 in October of ’68! So reading about all of what was going on in the Johnson years from someone who as on the inside was very enlightening!

I also started reading Michael Robotham‘s Edgar nominated book Life or Death. I love Robotham’s Joe O’Laughlin series but this is the first stand alone books of his I have tried! So far so good and if it lives up to the praise from Stephen King on the back of the book – it should be quite a read…..

“Life or Death is a nerve-racking thriller with the heart and soul missing from lesser crime and suspense novels. I couldn’t stop reading it, yet I didn’t want Audie’s story to end. Robotham is an absolute master.

Of course when I went to pick up the book at the library I couldn’t just walk in an get just one book, no I had to look around and come home with several additional books. Those added to my TBR pile include: Bloodline from Warren Murphy, Let Me Die in His Footsteps– Lori Roy and Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister. Why these books?

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Warren Murphy’s book caught my eye because I don’t think that I have read a book by Murphy since The Grandmaster, which he wrote with his wife Molly Cochran, way back in the mid 1980s! When I went to his website, I see that Warren pasted away back in September of  2015. Murphy was an amazingly prolific writer if you go to Goodreads you can check out the fifteen pages worth of books he has written or co-written. He is probably best known for as the creator of the Destroyer series. It appears that series is now about 150 books strong! The first 73 appear to have been written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir! Oh by the way, The Grandmaster won the 1985 Edgar for Best Novel!!

Let Me Die in His Footsteps like Life or Death is nominated for the 2016 Edgar Award for best novel. Both should be pretty good reads! Finally, I am a fan of the Algonquin wits, – George Kaufman, Robert Benchley, et al and Dorothy Parker e only woman of the group – In this novel like its predecessor Farewell, Dorothy Parker finds the ghost of Dorothy….”haunting the halls of the Algonquin with her wit, wisdom and timeless irreverence. I thought Ms Meister did a good job of capturing the essence of Dorothy Parker in the first book so can’t wait to dive into this one!!

Finally, I don’t watch much TV my wife and I  watch The Blacklist and Elementary and a few other shows but that’s about it. Last week between coughing fits, I did start to watch The Shannara Chronicles based on the books by Terry Brooks. I think the series is great and can’t wait for the next episode next week!  While I have been aware of the Terry Brooks books since the 1980s when I saw his books fly off of the shelves at Waldenbooks where I worked part-time, I have never read any of them! Anyway, the first book The Sword of Shannara was only eight dollars for the Kindle version, so that one is now on the Kindle and I have read  20% of it!

So right now I’m reading Life or Death and The Sword of Shanarra with the other three books waiting!! Wish Me Luck as I try to catch up!! Right now I think it’s time for a nap!!

A Sunday Music and Reading Challenge Update!

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A Busy Week – A Trip to Princeton Record Exchange, Two Books Finished and Books added to my Reading Challenges!

Last week was a busy one. My wife has been sick all week, most likely the result of kissing sick babies! Anyway I worked my two weekday and weekend shifts at Target, but since Oliver’s momma was home recovering from thyroid surgery I only babysat  on Friday!

On Wednesday afternoon, Nick and I went to The Princeton Record Exchange, where I bought ten new albums! I have listened to several of them since then and they have all been really good! I wrote a post the other night about five of the albums and will be writing soon about the other five. On Friday three of the albums were the soundtrack for my commute to Paulsboro. They were The Wallace Roney Quintet, the Mack Avenue Super Band Live at Detroit Jazz and the latest release from Ben Paterson For Once in My Life. All three were great. I particularly like the Ben Paterson album its an organ trio album!

So what else has been happening!

I have finished two books in 2016 The first was Linda Fairstein‘s Entombed. This 2005 release is book #7 in Fairstein’s Alexandra Cooper series. It is the first Alex Cooper book I’ve read but it won’t be my last! The book fits into two reading challenges. First its author is obviously a women and secondly it was on a TBR shelf!! The second, which I actually finished this morning was David Guterson’s The Other. I hope to write about them later today or tomorrow.

So to stay on pace to reach my goal of 60 books I need to finish three more books this month. I am almost 40% through In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara.and almost half finished Boost Your Brain: The New Art and Science Behind Enhanced Brain Performance by Majid Fotuhi, M.D. Ph.D. Both have been highly enlightening!

The other night as I was looking for new books to read I thought about the Body Farm Series from Jefferson Bass It seems that I’m always reading a new Bill Brockton book in the early months of the year, at least over the last several years. I did a search at the library and found that a new book titled The Breaking Point had been released back in June of 2015. So I requested it at the library and picked it up on Tuesday!

After that I was looking at award winning books and found Preparation for the Next Life  by Atticus Lish which won the Pen/Faukner Award for Fiction so I requested that book also and picked IT up on Friday!

Finally, I spotted an article at Philly.com Report: DASH Diet Best Overall Eating Plan…..

TUESDAY, Jan. 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) — For the sixth year in a row, a panel of health experts has named the heart-healthy DASH diet the best overall eating plan, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2016 Best Diets ranking.

The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was designed to lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels by limiting fats, red meat and sugar in favor of healthy grains, poultry, low-fat dairy and nuts, the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says.

“Our rankings put hard numbers on the belief that no one diet is ideal for everybody, but the best food plans overall are sustainable,” Angela Haupt, senior health editor at U.S. News & World Report, said in a news release from the media company.Read more

Hmm, lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels sounds good to me…..so it was off to the main branch of my library system to find The Dash Diet for Hypertension: Lower Your Blood Pressure in 14 Days – without Drugs by Thomas Moore,M.D. There are also several ebooks with recipes and eating plans for the diet that are cheap on Amazon that I will be exploring!!

So these are the five books that I will be reading for my reading challenges over the next several weeks……

Currently Reading Reading Challenge From
In Retrospect – Robert McNamara Nonfiction Library
Boost Your Brain – Majid Fotuhi Nonfiction Ebook
Preparation for the Next Life – Atticus Lish Award-Winners Library
The Breaking Point – Jefferson Bass RGranddad’s Mysteries Library
The Dash Diet – Thomas Moore Nonfiction Library

Hopefully, I can finish three books before the end of the month! Wish Me Luck!……

P.S, Oh, and two nights this week and one afternoon I did a new yoga sequence “New Beginnings” that I found in this month’s Yoga Journal (A subscription to Yoga Journal was a Christmas gift from my wife). For most of the week I have felt really good! Today I feel a little funky but hopefully. I can avoid catching the virus that my wife and daughter caught!!

Reading Challenges for 2016

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Renaissance Granddad’s 2016 Reading Challenges!

Well last year was the first time that I set a goals for both the overall number of books that I was going to read in the year and the types of books. I signed up for three reading challenges: Cloak and Dagger, Historical Fiction, and Nonfiction and created one of my own Science Fiction. While I kept track of the number of books I had read for each challenges I never posted at the websites where I had signed up for the challenges. I guess I should have but I was one of the few men who signed up for the challenges, so I felt kinda alone and funny posting! Also I’m lazy and a loner so it was easier just to post about the books I was reading here!

Anyway this year I have created my own reading challenges. There’s no way I want to make a commitment to read a large number of any one time of book i.e. I am not going to read thirty or forty classic books because that will cut down on the number of mystery books that I have time to read!! So I decided to create several reading challenges.

As I started to create my reading challenges I knew I wanted to read more literature and general fiction and maybe less murder and mayhem books! I also wanted to read more classic literature. Earlier in the month I came across this post at List Challenges  300 Books Everyone Should Read at Least Once. When I checked the books that I had read on this list I discovered that I have only read 30 of the listed books. So I feel that I need tp read books from this list. Therefore, I created my 2016 Literature Reading Challenge. The subcategories that I created are: General Fiction, Classics, NY Times Bestseller list and Award-winners. These categories allow me to read some contemporary fiction, some books that are on the current bestseller lists and some that have won awards like the Pen-Faulkner Award or the Pulitzer Prize. I also want to read some of those classics that I have avoided all these years!! I want to read 6 books from each of the 4 subcategories for a total of 24 books in the reading challenge!!

My second challenge is my mystery/thriller challenge. The two subcategories in this challenge are RGranddad’s Mysteries or the mysteries and thrillers that are books in the series that I read or books from my favorite authors. The second subcategory is Women Mystery Book authors. I have many books by female authors like Linda Fairstein, Sara Paretsky and Dana Stabenow on my TBR shelves that I haven’t gotten around to reading. I thought this would be a good way to make myself read these books. I know I will enjoy them!! I plan to read 10 books from each subcategory or 20 books total!

My final two challenges are a nonfiction challenge and a science fiction challenge. I would like to read ten nonfiction books. After reading The Politics of Deception my current read is In Retrospect by Robert McNamara both deal with history of the 1960s, I have enjoyed both books so I think that many of the nonfiction books I plan to read will deal with the history or politics from 1960 to the present! Of course there will also be some self-help, anti-aging and happiness books mixed in among those reads! Finally, I really did enjoy those Science Fiction books I read in 2015 so I would like to continue to read a few books from that genre! So the 16 books in these challenges added to the books from the other two challenges bring the total for the 2016 Renaissance Granddad Reading Challenge to 60 books!! Whoa!!

Here’s the breakdown! Wish Me Luck!! Bye – I’m off the read now!!

The 2016 Renaissance Granddad Reading Challenge TBR Library Total Goal
2016 Literature Reading Challenge
General Fiction 0 0 0 6
Classics 0 0 0 6
NY Times Bestseller List 0 0 0 6
Award-Winners 0 0 0 6
2015 Mystery/Thriller Reading Challenge
Rgrandad’s Mysteries 0 0 0 10
Women Mystery Book Authors 0 0 0 10
2016 Nonfiction Reading Challenge 0 0 0 10
2016 Science Fiction /Fantasy Challenge 0 0 0 6
Totals 0 0 0 0
0 60
2016 TBR Pile Challenge 0 25

P.S. I love to hear about anyone else’s proposed 2016 reading challenges!!

 

Reading Challenge Update – Late December 2015

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With 51 Books Read RGranddad Reaches His Overall Goal!

With the end of 2015 two days away, last night I finished the 51st book I’ve read for the year The Politics of Deception JFK’s Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights and Cuba, thereby reaching the lofty goal of 5I books I set at the beginning of the year! Overall, it is the most books that I have read in a year since 2009!

Now while I did meet the overall goal for books read, I did fall short on two reading challenges. I only read nine of eleven nonfiction books and nine of twelve books for the science fiction reading challenge!! But considering last year I only read seven nonfiction books, and only one science fiction book. So I did read more books from those two genres!!

Now the other reading challenge I had was the TBR reading challenge, I fell short on that challenge also reading only 16 books from my TBR pile.The goal was to read 25 books from the pile! But I do think that in 2014, I  didn’t read any books from my TBR pile. Well on second thought I may have read one or two books that I had lying around!

Overall I thought it was a pretty awesome reading year. At the end of the year I will create a page with all of the books! Book 51’s review will be coming shortly and maybe I can find a short book to read so that I can hit 52!!

2015 Reading Challenge Stats

Reading Challenge From TBR Pile Buy/Library Total Goal %complete
2015 Nonfiction Reading Challenge 3 6 9 11 82%
2015 Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge 7 20 27 23 117%
2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 3 2 5 5 100%
2015 Science Fiction/Fantasy Challenge 4 5 9 12 75%
No Reading Challenge 0 65 1 0 100%
Totals 16 51 51 100%
2015 TBR Pile Challenge 16 25

The question is now, what will the four challenges be for 2016 – I’m thinking that the core three Cloak & Dagger, Nonfiction and Science Fiction may stay the same, with maybe an alteration to make the challenge more specific. Maybe the Science Fiction will be Nebula or Hugo award winners, while the Nonfiction may be biographies! The Cloak & Dagger Challenge may be female authors!

The fourth category  I think is going to be a Classics Reading Challenge. You know all those books that I was supposed to read in English class, but somehow managed to avoid!! Anyway, I have a few more days to think about them. For now I can enjoy the fact that I had a really fine reading year!!