August Books

Blame it on the Olympics. I had more TV time than book listening time in August but I still managed 7 books. I think my favorites were The Seamstress and Lee, both non-fiction. The non-fiction books are all continuation of series that I like.
Football watching season starts this weekend so I expect my book run rate to stay about the same as August for the next few months.

The Seamstress
​by Sara Tuvel Bernstein

This book was published in 1999 so I might be the last person to read it but it was worth the wait. It's the true story of Seren (Sara), a Jewish girl born in Romania and her fight for survival through the war and during her time in the Nazi camps. It's about the human ability to adapt and believe everything will be OK no matter the clues all around us. It's the story about the human ability and will to survive against all odds. It's about the human ability to survive all that and compartmentalize it enough to move on and build a happy and productive life. This books ranks up there with Unbroken as one of my all-time favorite books.

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Her Final Breath
by Robert Dugoni

Tracey Crosswhite, a Seattle detective, is back in the second installment of the series. This time she is investigating a serial killer known as The Cowboy. He preys on exotic dancers. Her superior seems to be doing everything he can to thwart the investigation, including arresting the wrong person.

This is only the second Crosswhite book but I'm enjoying the  series so far.

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Great Mythologies of the World
The Great Courses

If you are interested in mythology then this is the book for you. It's a heavy "tome" of 31 hours. What I loved about it is that it's not just about Greek mythology. It's in 4 parts with 4 different lecturers. The first part covers Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The second part takes us to Africa. part 3 covers Asian and pacific myths and the last part covers the Americas. It's really fascinating since most of us aren't taught much beyond Greek mythology but it is a lot to absorb. But if you can get through it all it is an excellent comparison, especially of the different creation myths but you must be prepared that you are really getting a college course with this one.

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Copu d'Etat
by Ben Coes

After the college course I needed a book with some action and Dewey Andreas fit the bill. This is the second book in the Dewey series and it is action packed. We left Dewey on a station (ranch) in Australia. His nemesis from the first book is still hunting him to vindicate his son's death. Then the US comes calling to as him to force a Coup in Pakistan to save the region from nuclear annihilation. This is fast paced action from beginning to end. I liked it even better than the first one.

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Lee: The Last Years
by Charles Flood

It turns out that this is the second book by Flood that I've read. Fortunately I didn't check my review of the first one before reading this one because I didn't care much for the book on Lincoln. This one, on the other hand, is very interesting.

The book opens with the surrender at Appomattox and follows his life until his death, not many years later. Most of that time was spent at Washington College (now Washington and Lee) and discusses the things he did to try to heal the rift between North and South and the ground-breaking changes that he introduced to education as president of WC. It's a very interesting book and I know that's a fact because the narration is rather weak. I wouldn't have been about to tolerate the narrator for a bad book.  

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The Skin Gods
by Richard Montanari

I would not want to meet Richard Montanari. I think he would totally creep me out. He takes psychopathic behavior to a whole new level and I wouldn't want to know how he dreams this stuff up.
The Skin Gods is #2 in the Byrne and Balzano series. This time the killer is recreating some of the most recognizable crime scenes from movies and he's doing it on the streets of Philadelphia.
If you like psychopathic killer stories you will want to read this series.

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.Raven Black
Ann Cleeves

I wanted to love this book because the author is apparently an award-winning crime writer in Britain. I think the books has been oversold as a "thriller". It's not. It's a pretty good mystery, but it's not a thriller.
It takes place in the Shetland Islands and starts with the discovery of a dead teenager in a field on a cold and snowy winter day. What follows is a pretty good and typical mystery that eventually has you thinking that almost anyone, except suspect #1, did it.
What I loved about the book is that it's centered around a big annual even called Up Helly Aa. That would have meant absolutely nothing to me except for the fact that the Up Helly Aa Jarl Squad purchased fabric from me a while back for their squad banners. It was fun to read something about the event. It's like a big Ren Faire just for Vikings. Here are the banners from last year.

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