The Overlook: Michael Connelly

Yeah, so I used three of these Connelly novels in a row to insure that I would get the 5 book quota for the first time in several months. Whatever, it worked. I read this one on Saturday after returning from my second trip to San Diego in as many days. I made a CPK thincrust, Siciliano pizza and poured two fingers of some single-malt that my roommate had out on the counter (Vard, if you read this, thanks for the single malt. I figured that you would be cool with me trying it...) and perched out on the front balcony in the shade wearing a beanie and a sweatshirt over shorts and flops for several hours. It was refreshing to be back in the world of Harry Bosch and not just his creator, Connelly. Bosch and I share a love of jazz music and abrasive honesty that was lacking in the other two characters from the novels read previously this month. They were great, but Bosch is the character that makes me a big fan of the author. No real surprises about this one. Connelly is true to form and the book is a fast paced thriller that has some twists and turns that build tension up until the inevitable resolve. Smaller than most of his novels this one wraps up after about 275.......happy reading.

Blood Work: Michael Connelly

 

Blood Work is one of the best Michael Connelly books I've read. This one is about FBI agent Terry McCaleb who has recently had heart surgery and ends up being approached by the sister of the murder victim whose heart was given to McCaleb. Graciela Rivers, the murder victim's sister, had read a report about McCaleb in the LA times and eventually realizes that he is carrying her dead sister's heart and she approaches him to pick up the murder case and finish what the LAPD have started and given up on. The story telling and twists in this one we're a bit of a surprise to me considering that the book was written relatively early in Connelly's career, but all in all it has to be one of his very best. According to wikipedia (take it or leave it and call my post un-scholarly if you feel the need) Connelly was inspired to write the book after a friend of his was the recipient of a heart transplant and suffered post-op. stress due to survivor's guilt. I'll keep it short and sweet, but if you like mystery novels, cop novels, suspense novels, and the like then I would strongly recommend this one. As always, I also recommend this book and the work of similar authors like John Grisham as "stretching." So you haven't been reading lately and you want to get back into it, but the 700 page book your cousin sent you on environmentalism in the new millennium seems a bit too daunting? Stretch out with a page burner or two and then get back into the tougher and more rewarding ones that you really want to absorb.........enjoy.

The Lincoln Lawyer: Michael Connelly

I often refer to these novels as smut or to the act of reading them as stretching. Authors like Dan Brown of Da Vinci code fame, John Grisham, Michael Connelly, people whose books are constantly being read by the suit on the plane. People who write great mystery novels that often make great movies. The Lincoln Lawyer was good and I have never read a Michael Connelly story that I felt otherwise about. Some are better than others as we will see in the post I write immediately following this one, but they are all quick reads and they are all generally entertaining. Connelly certainly has a system and a form that he follows more or less exactly in every novel, but its a great form and the attention to detail, research, and added factual information about the greater Los Angeles area and the workings of its news and police entities make for believable and dramatic tales. This was the first non Harry Bosch novel that I got entirely through, with the exception of The Brass Verdict, which was a split of Haller and Bosch where they eventually came together. Mickey Haller is the son of a famous defense lawyer of the same name who died when the young Haller was just a kid. With a great knowledge of who his dad acquired through books the son eventually follows the same career path and in this novel becomes entangled in a web of deceit while defending a rich Bel Air client on assault and attempted murder charges. Classic Connelly. If you've read any others and enjoyed them then this one should provide the same page turning suspense.

Daniel J. Levitin: This is Your Brain on Music

This is Your Brain On Music obviously has a catchy title to anyone old enough to remember those corny public service announcements from the late 80's and I suppose it would take a special kind of person to be younger than that and be interested, but it is indeed a literal title. Levitin's book is an attempt at breaking down some new findings in neuroscience in regard to cognition and brain function while listening to, and/or playing music. Said attempt is a two-fold operation in that Levitin aims to discuss both neuroscience and abstract music theory with the average educated person. I believe that he succeeds very well in doing so for the science, but not necessarily for the music. I had no problem reading through the areas where he slowly discussed the very simplest of musical ideas because I know that music as a language and in written form can be very daunting and scary to the layperson, but later on he rattles through more complex concepts as if he has described the first two years of college level music theory in his first several paragraphs on the subject. I believe this leaves the musical discussion in a bit of a strange gray area. The explanations lie in a difficult place for non musicians and musicologists, but in a bit of a redundant and over explained place for the musically educated. However, I wouldn't call this an overt problem by any stretch of the imagination. There were things here and there in the neuroscience portion that went over my head, but within context I was able to roughly grasp them and move on so I suppose it is possible that others were able to do the same with the musical examples. The explanations of scientist's and experiments including music being played for infants and real time MRI's scanning brains during music listening and playing; and top neuroscientist's- including co-discoverer of the DNA strand and Nobel Prize winning molecular biologist, Francis Crick- discussing music and cognition make for an extremely enlightening and surprisingly fast read. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the brain and it's untapped potential and most definitely am recommending it to all musician's and science lover's. 

Dan Brown: The Lost Symbol

I was reluctant to pick this novel up when it first came out. Sure, The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons were both great, but I didn't feel the immediate need to join our beloved Professor Langdon on another far fetched adventure including secret societies and easily solved impossible puzzles. Eventually, I did encounter a dear friend reading this book and it just so happened that I was up against a wall with this project, so......I decided I was ready to throw my opinions out the window and once again use Dan Brown to remind me that a big book can fly by in a few days and work like a nice stretch before a long run. Did I rush out and buy it at my local book warehouse? No. If there is one author that I am completely convinced of being so popular that his expensive hard-back novels are always located at the local Goodwill for a dollar; it's Mr. Brown. I was right. The Lost Symbol was a quick and fun read and the fact that it took place in the capitol of the old U.S. of A. as opposed to Paris or Rome made it extra intriguing. If Brown's books do nothing else they certainly promote tourism and art history and to have him remind us that there is in fact amazing culture and art right here in the U.S. was a nice little change of pace. The only thing that bothered me about this book was Langdon still being so doubtful and skeptical when he has obviously encountered some myths turning into reality in the past novels. Sure, the Illuminati uprising turned out to just be a kook, but his eyes were certainly opened a bit in France. All in all, if you enjoyed either of the other two books then you should definitely like this one as well. Standard Brown, standard Langdon, fast paced and intelligently written. Two more books are bagged and reviews will follow....thanks.

The California Surf Project: Eric Soderquist and Chris Burkard

Chris Burkard and Eric Soderquist have created a beautiful tale of two friends living out a life-long dream and combining their talents to share excellent photography, art, video, and print of the entire journey. The friends set out with a grant from the Follow the Light Foundation- which was founded in memory of legendary surf photographer Larry Moore who tragically passed in 2005 from brain cancer (R.I.P.)- to start at the Oregon border and make their way to the Mexican border surfing, bumming, and collecting parking tickets on Soderquist's 1978 VW Bus. The 50 day trek hits breaks at everyone's favorite spots in CA including Humboldt, San Onofre, and my own back yard on the sharkey Sonoma coast. One of the best aspects of the book other than the epic photography of Burkard and the art and funny descriptions  from Soderquist is the lack of what my hard-core surfing, San Diego native roommate would call "Brolosophy." Soderquist's descriptions are a fun read and sound intelligent despite his often laid back approach. He doesn't get into some 5th grade take on eastern philosophy or tell you how they were one with the waves. It's just two big kids in the candy store of life on the left coast where magic remains eternal. Thanks guys.

Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy

Hmmmmmm......Well. Have you read this? Will you ever read this? No. I'm going to go ahead and say probably not. Did I enjoy it? No. Did it remind me of the pain and torture that I felt as a kid being forced to read books for junior high and high school english when I tried to forge on despite being blind with bordom? Pretty much. Sure, Tolstoy writes with some lovely similes, metaphors, and analogies, which all in all adds up to some lovely style and prose, but this book could be about a thousand pages shorter. By the time she finally committed suicide I was just sitting there thinking, "Wow, there it was. The one thing that could have saved this book if it happened months ago." I would have killed her myself if I had to read her cry-baby garbage for another ten pages. I know Tolstoy was purposefully pointing the finger at hypocrites in Russian high society, but it reads like five seasons of "The Days of our Lives." The characters that I liked at the front end of this monster, Levin and Oblonsky, became so tiresome and annoying by the end that I could no longer bear them either. Can we revisit the same arguments again Mr. Tolstoy? I haven't heard them drag on about the state of the Russian class system or share-cropping quite enough. Maybe Anna can say the exact same thing for the 37th time? Part of this project is to try and read these masters, but this book makes me think that an attempt at War and Peace could be the end of me. I'm sure there are a million critics who would write me off as an idiot from now on if they somehow stumbled upon and read this, but I just have to be honest. This book drags like a dog's dirty butt across a freshly cleaned shag carpet and has less entertainment value then watching such an act. Keep reading.