Keep Quiet-review

KEEP QUIET by Lisa Scottoline published by St. Martin's Press in 2014. This book is a very fast read, why? First you just want to smack the characters in the head and then you want them to do the right thing and you are hoping that they do it sooner rather than later. I did not want to put the book down because I wanted desperately to find out the above things.

This book starts out with two characters Jake the father, financier and workaholic, picking up his son Ryan, high school basketball player and good student, who is somewhat estranged from his father. This is because his father is a workaholic and hardly has time for his son's academically or with sports. That seems to be the job of the mother Pam. Pam wants them to bond more so she sends Jake to pick up Ryan from the movies. Jake wants to be the cool parent so when Ryan begs to let him drive his new car, Jake says yes. Then on a blind curve they hit a body, one not seen by either person. Ryan had been smoking marijuana, so instead of calling 911, they leave the body. They do not tell anyone, including Pam who is a judge. They decide to keep quiet.

However, our author decided to put some twists and turns in the book, that come out slowly, which makes you want to read faster. At my book club we discussed the style of book, what our emotions were and whether we would do what Jake did to protect his son, especially when that son had to deal with the fact that the body was a classmate and he had to go to school where everyone was mourning her. Maybe my book club is not risk takers, but we would not have left the body there. We, unanimously, said we would have called 911. I said why not hide the weed, they may have checked if he was drinking, but with the father in the car, they probably would not have been so suspicious of the event. But, then we would not have a story with blackmail, murder, guilt, ruin and deceit.

Overall, an emotional account that makes you think "What would I do?" Good book.

Hamlet review

HAMLET by William Shakespeare?, my copy was in THE COMPLETE OXFORD SHAKESPEARE, III-Tradgedies, published by Oxford Press in 1987. The book play starts on page 1121 with an introduction and backstory why the play was written and some questions about the multitude of copies with additions and subtractions to the story. In the back of this play are the scenes that had been left out in the copy that I read. I have to be truthful, I have never sat down and read all of Shakespeare, I do prefer to see it acted out. The thing is I have this series all which is divided into sections: Histories, Comedies and Tragedies, so I think I will read some of them maybe not all of them.

One of the difficulties I had was getting into a rhythm to read the account of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. I would be rolling along and it was if Shakespeare, went hold on lets trip them up a bit, I'll add some rhyming sections and then throw them into the wind. That is why I thought the part: Act 3 scene 2, line 273, Hamlet is talking to Horatio and has just finished saying
           " A whole one, I.
           For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
             This realm was
           Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
             A very, very -pajock"
Horatio: You might have rhymed.,
was rather funny, because I was thinking the same exact thing.

Anyway we have lovely passages in this tragic story of murder, betrayal, madness and revenge. In the end well, if you have ever seen the play or had to read snippets in English class, you know how it ends. IF you have not done any of those things, then read the play. It is not that difficult and you may be surprised at the number of passages you have heard people use around you. Things like "Get thee to a nunnery" or "To be or not to be; that is the question:" It is so much fun to read things in context and see how much Shakespeare contributed with his plays. O

You may ask, "Why did you put a question mark next to William Shakespeare," well there has always been some little controversy about whether he did or did not write theses plays. and the introduction says that in 1598, this play was not attributed to Shakespeare, and there is a person named James Roberts that was recognized as the playwright in 1602 for one called The Revenge of Hamlet Prince [of] Denmark. Just like Shakespeare's plays, his life was full of controversy.

Back to the other books

I have started reading HAMLET again and I need to check out A FINE BALANCE again at the library. I think I may just find a used copy, so that I do not have to keep rechecking out the book. I did find a used copy of LOLITA and several other books that I was having difficulty being able to check out at my local library. TROPIC OF CANCER, seems to be in the where the heck is this book, because I have had it on order at the library for several months. They think it maybe lost. That means I have at least 5 used books coming in the mail in the next couple of weeks. This should speed up the review process. In the meantime, I do have some book club books I can review, but I am going to wait until Monday to see what other people thought of the book. I have written my own notes as comparison.

If I finish HAMLET this weekend I will write a review by Sunday.

Happy Earth Day.

Review: Catch-22

CATCH-22 written by Joseph Heller in 1961, though the copyright was 1955 and 1961. My copy was a re-release in 2011 by Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. in this copy there is an introduction by Christopher Buckley. I did not read the introduction, preferring to read it after I have written a review. There are also notes in the back that goes over Mr. Heller's notes and reviews from various people. I did not read those either, choosing to come up with my own thoughts on this book. I will read them after I write this review. Maybe I will add some new notes after reading them, but that will be a different page.
The phrase Catch-22 is still in use today. I have used it several times to explain the way the world works to my children. In this book there are some crazy uses, such as Catch-22 used when someone says they are crazy to get out of service, the catch is that if you think you are crazy then you are not really crazy because you want to get out of the service because you are trying to preserve your life which is clearly not a crazy thing to do. The book goes on and on dumping the Catch-22 when ever they want to explain something away. Even if that is all they say, " Well, it was because of Catch-22," leaving the hearer trying to figure out what it means.
The characters are terrific and terrifying. We have the main character Yossarian, who is tired of flying missions, only to have the number of flights increasing every time he is within three flights of going home. Then Colonel Cathcart who is the one increasing the missions, for a couple of reasons, one he gets mad at something the men do or he is afraid to order in new replacements because he has to train them. Milo Mindbender who is making money on both sides of the war effort, with his syndicate, even bombing his own men to make a buck. The Chaplain who is questioning God and whether he saw a miracle of a naked man in a tree. Plus a whole host of other characters which make this story come to life.
The setting like the characters are fictitious, an island in the Mediterranean Sea which serves as the Air Force base where excursions to Rome to meet prostitutes was the norm. Mindbender used resources to fly everywhere to help the syndicate get supplies. He wanted to bilk the military of 1000's of dollars and give it to members of the syndicate, which was everyone.

I loved this book, being a military spouse there were several times our orders changed just because of what was needed at the time. I related to you can't do this because of that, then the change where they did it anyway. A very comical, dramatic and well written book. GREAT.