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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Light bringer: a Red Rising novel” by Pierce Brown
Kate’s 2¢: “Light bringer: a Red Rising novel” by Pierce Brown
“Light bringer: a Red Rising novel”
by Pierce Brown
This was one of seven stories on a cartridge the NLS sent, so, I read it.
It took a while of listening to get into who was where and doing what in the universe.
I enjoyed listening to Tim Gerard Reynolds Read this lengthy story.
Pierce Brown – Wikipedia
Pierce Brown (born January 28, 1988) is an American science fiction author who writes the Red Rising series, consisting of Red Rising (2014), Golden Son (2015), Morning Star (2016), Iron Gold (2018), Dark Age (2019), and Light Bringer (2023).
PIERCE BROWN
From #1 New York Times bestelling author Pierce Brown, the Red Rising Saga is the story of Darrow, a rebel forged by tragedy, battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom. LEARN MORE “Brown writes layered, flawed characters… but plot is his most breathtaking strength.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Light bringer: a Red Rising novel DB116610
Brown, Pierce Reading time: 30 hours, 12 minutes.
Tim Gerard Reynolds
Science Fiction
Bestsellers
War Stories
“Darrow returns as Pierce Brown’s New York Times bestselling Red Rising series continues in the thrilling sequel to Dark Age. “Brown’s plots are like a depth charge of nitromethane dropped in a bucket of gasoline. His pacing is 100% him standing over it all with a lit match and a smile, waiting for us to dare him to drop it.” NPR, on Dark Age. “The measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.” Virginia au Augustus. The Reaper is a legend, more myth than man: the savior of worlds, the leader of the Rising, the breaker of chains. But the Reaper is also Darrow, born of the red soil of Mars: a husband, a father, a friend. The worlds once needed the Reaper. But now they need Darrow. Because after the dark age will come a new age: of light, of victory, of hope.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller.
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Best Friends Forever: A Novel” by Margot Hunt
Kate’s 2¢: “Best Friends Forever: A Novel” by Margot Hunt
“Best Friends Forever: A Novel” by Margot Hunt
NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…
Oh Dear Gussie! You’ll have to read this novel to believe the awesome story with a pivotal plot twist ending. Well done Margot Hunt.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Best friends forever: a novel DB88983
Hunt, Margot. Reading time: 10 hours, 39 minutes.
Read by MacKenzie Beyer.
Suspense Fiction
Psychological Fiction
Florida suburban mom Alice Campbell is surprised when detectives want to talk to her about the death of her wealthy friend Kat Grant’s husband, Howard, who fell off their balcony while drunk. And why isn’t Kat taking Alice’s calls? Strong language, some violence, and some descriptions of sex. 2018.
Downloaded: October 6, 2024
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Kate’s 2¢: “Breaking Lorca” by Giles Blunt
“Breaking Lorca” by Giles Blunt
Bruce Roney did a good job of reading this difficult narrative. It was hard enough to listen to it; it must have been hard to professionally read it without breaking down.
I thought the ending was dramatic and fitting.
From Wikipedia:
Giles Blunt (born 1952 in Windsor, Ontario ) is a Canadian poet, novelist and screenwriter. His first novel, Cold Eye, was a psychological thriller set in the New York art world, which was made into the French movie Les Couleurs du diable (Allain Jessua, 1997).
He grew up in North Bay, Ontario, a small city similar to the Algonquin Bay of his John Cardinal novels. He describes his parents as being “so English that the space on their passports for citizenship could only be filled in ‘British Beyond Belief.'”.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Breaking Lorca DBG06871
Blunt, Giles. Reading time: 6 hours, 29 minutes.
Read by Bruce Roney..
Historical Fiction
Human Relations
Psychological Fiction
War Stories
In 1980s El Salvador, a young woman is detained in a government torture squad’s head-quarters, suspected of supporting guerrilla forces. A new recruit, Victor Peña, is assigned to assist in her interrogation, but before they learn so much as her name–Lorca—the squad relentlessly break her, body and soul. Years later, this terrifying journey into human cruelty and courage still haunts the tormentor as dramatically as it does his victim. Explicit descriptions of violence, strong language and some descriptions of sex. 2009. Marrakesh title.
Downloaded: July 22, 2024
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Kate’s 2¢: “Breaking news: a novel” by Robert MacNeil“Breaking news: a novel” by Robert MacNeil
I enjoyed listening to Gregory Gorton read this story.Reading about times I’ve lived through was entertaining and thought provoking in hind-sight.
We used to listen to the MacNeil news reports, so although fictionalized, it makes one wonder how close to the truth this narrative is.
Wikipedia
Robert Breckenridge Ware MacNeil OC (January 19, 1931 – April 12, 2024, at the age of 93), often known as Robin MacNeil, was a Canadian-American journalist, writer and television news anchor. He partnered with Jim Lehrer to create the landmark public television news program The Robert MacNeil Report in 1975. [ 1 ] MacNeil co-anchored the program until 1995.
MacNeil became a naturalized American citizen in 1997, and became an Order of Canada officer that same year. [ 4 ][ 24 ] He was married to Rosemarie Coopland, Jane Doherty, and Donna Nappi Richards MacNeil. [ 25 ] With Coopland, he was the father of award-winning theatre scenic designer Ian MacNeil.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Breaking news: a novel DB48391
MacNeil, Robert. Reading time: 11 hours, 44 minutes.
Read by Gregory Gorton.
Psychological Fiction
Veteran news anchor Grant Munro is appalled that the “bottom line” is causing tabloid journalism to take over the serious business of reporting. Munro is also threatened by his stalled contract negotiations and by competition from two younger colleagues, celebrity interviewer Ann Murrow and ambitious and ethically questionable Bill Donovan.
Downloaded: July 22, 2024
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Kate’s 2¢: “Breaking Her Fall”
by Stephen Goodwin
by Stephen Goodwin
Oh, what a parent’s nightmare! Most of us do the best we can to teach our children right from wrong and pray they internalize the difference.
Good win’s description of the burial ceremony of the Admiral in Arlington Cemetery was very moving, awe inspiring and viscerally resonating.
The description of Lilie playing tennis after her father’s memorial was priceless.
Gregory Gorton did a good job of narrating this story.
From the web:
Stephen Goodwin is the author of several novels, including Breaking Her Fall (Harcourt, 2003), and two nonfiction books. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
Goodwin, Stephen 1943-PERSONAL: Born October 20, 1943, in PA; son of Claudius Lee and Jeannette Goodwin; married Lucia Stanton, June 16, 1964 (divorced, 1977); children: Eliza. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1965; University of Virginia, M.A., 1969. ADDRESSES: Home—Washington, DC.
Stephen Goodwin’s Official Website
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Faculty and Staff: Stephen Goodwin – English
Stephen Goodwin Emeritus Faculty. Creative Writing: fiction; non-fiction; online writing and publishing. Stephen Goodwin (M.A., University of Virginia, 1969) is the author of three novels, Breaking Her Fall, The Blood of Paradise, and Kin.
Steve Goodman – Wikipedia
On September 20, 1984, Goodman died of leukemia at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Washington. [9] He had anointed himself with the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Cool Hand Leuk” (other nicknames included “Chicago Shorty” and “The Little Prince”) during his illness. He was 36 years old.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Breaking her fall DB59087
Goodwin, Stephen. Reading time: 17 hours, 48 minutes.
Read by Gregory Gorton.
Psychological Fiction
Tucker Jones has survived a divorce, started a new business, bought a house, and relocated his children. Then a late-night telephone call about his fourteen-year-old daughter, Kat, changes the lives of his family and all who touch them. Strong language, some descriptions of sex, and some violence. 2003.
Downloaded: July 22, 2024
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis” by J. D. Vance
Kate’s 2¢: “Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis” by J. D. Vance
“Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis” by J. D. Vance
Clay Teunis did an admirable job of reading “Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis” by James David Vance. I found this engaging and entertaining, yet poignant story of the man running for Vice-President of our United States of America on the Republican ticket with Donald J. Trump.
How fortunate to have had a staunch grandmother to pick up the pieces when his mother fell apart, leaving him stranded.
Most of what I found on the web dealt with the campaign for election. The book is his auto-biography.
From NLS/BARD/LOC”
Hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis DB85796
Vance, J. D. Reading time: 8 hours, 38 minutes.
Read by Clay Teunis.
Biography
Social Sciences
Bestsellers
Memoir of growing up in the Ohio Rust Belt in a family culture rooted in Scots-Irish Appalachia. Explores political themes affecting these community cultures through the lens of personal and familial experiences. Discusses what it took to go from nearly failing high school to graduating from Yale Law School. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2016.
Downloaded: July 26, 2024
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Kate’s 2¢: “Bradstreet Gate: a novel” by Robin Kirman
“Bradstreet Gate: a novel” by Robin Kirman
It was interesting to read about the characters and how the author inter-wove them. The killer was implied, but I don’t feel the book actually had an ending.
From the web:
Robin Kirman earned a BA in philosophy from Yale College and an MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where she served as a writing instructor in the English department. Robin lives in New York City and Tel Aviv.
Her curiosity about human psychology has led her to combine work in psychoanalysis with writing fiction. Her first novel, Bradstreet Gate, was published by Crown in 2015, and her television series The Love Wave is currently in development.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Bradstreet Gate: a novel DB82108
Kirman, Robin. Reading time: 11 hours, 50 minutes.
Read by Cassandra Campbell.
Suspense Fiction
Psychological Fiction
When a Harvard student is murdered, professor Rufus Storrow is the prime suspect. Three of his students–Georgia, Charlie, and Alice–are in disbelief. Their own relationships are a tangled mess, and as they sort through their lives, they bear witness to each other’s and Storrow’s highs and lows. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2015.
Downloaded: July 22, 2024
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Kate’s 2¢:” Code name Blue Wren: the true story of America’s most dangerous female spy–and the sister she betrayed: by Jim Popkin
”Code name Blue Wren: the true story of America’s most dangerous female spy–and the sister she betrayed: by Jim Popkin
This was one of seven stories sent on a cartridge from NLS, so I read it.
This apparently well researched documentary certainly showed the seemier side of an evil woman. The answer of why someone would turn so against everything she’d been brought up with, is still unanswered.
I’d like to find more information on what Anna is doing, if she did indeed get out of prison in January, 2023.
Wikipedia
Jim Popkin is an American investigative journalist and author. He won a 2007 Gerald Loeb Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, and the George Polk Award.
Popkin is an investigative journalist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, WIRED, Newsweek, Slate, The Guardian, Washingtonian, and on National Public Radio. He started and ran the NBC News Investigative Unit, where he was a Senior Producer as well as an on-air correspondent.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Code name Blue Wren: the true story of America’s most dangerous female spy–and the sister she betrayed DB114279
Popkin, Jim Reading time: 10 hours, 29 minutes.
Jim Popkin
Biography
True Crime
U.S. History
“Just days after the 9-11 attacks, a senior Pentagon analyst eased her red Toyota Echo into traffic and headed to work. She never saw the undercover cars tracking her every turn. As she settled into her cubicle on the 6th floor of the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, FBI Agents and twitchy DIA officers were hiding in nearby offices. For this was the day that Ana Montes—the US Intelligence Community superstar who had just won a prestigious fellowship at the CIA—was to be arrested and publicly exposed as a secret agent for Cuba. Like spies Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen before her, Ana Montes blindsided her colleagues with brazen acts of treason. For nearly 17 years, Montes succeeded in two high-stress jobs. By day, she was one of the government’s top Cuba experts, a buttoned-down GS-14 with shockingly easy access to classified documents. By night, she was on the clock for Fidel Castro, listening to coded messages over shortwave radio, passing US secrets to handlers in local restaurants, and slipping into Havana wearing a wig. Montes didn’t just deceive her country. Her betrayal was intensely personal. Her mercurial father was a former US Army Colonel. Her brother and sister-in-law were FBI Special Agents. And her only sister, Lucy, also worked her entire career for the Bureau. The highlight of her distinguished 31 years as a Miami-based language specialist: Helping the FBI flush Cuban spies out of the United States. Little did Lucy or her family know that the greatest Cuban spy of all was sitting right next to them at Thanksgivings, baptisms, and weddings. In Code Name Blue Wren, investigative journalist Jim Popkin weaves the tale of two sisters who chose two very different paths, plus the unsung heroes who had to fight to bring Ana to justice. With exclusive access to a “Secret” CIA behavioral profile of Ana, family memoirs, and Ana’s incriminating letters from prison, Popkin reveals the making of a traitor—a woman labelled “one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history” by America’s top counter-intelligence official. After more than two decades in federal prison, Montes will be freed in January 2023. Code Name Blue Wren is a thrilling detective tale, an insider’s look at the clandestine world of espionage, and an intimate exploration of the dark side of betrayal.” — Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Kate’s 2¢: ”Brain Fever” by Valerie Sayers
”Brain Fever” by Valerie Sayers
I suspect this story highlights the behavior of what a mentally ill person might display. Manifestations of mental illness are observed in most of these characters, but especially, in the main character.
David Palmer did a good job of narrating this story for us.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Valerie Sayers (born 1952) is an American writer and the author of six novels: The Powers (2013); Brain Fever (1996); The Distance Between Us (1994); Who Do You Love (1991); How I Got Him Back, or, Under the Cold Moon’s Shine (1989); and Due East (1987). Brain Fever and Who Do You Love were named New York Times “Notable Books of the Year”, and the 2002 film Due East is based on her first two novels. Reviewing Who Do You Love, The Chicago Tribune declared: “To say that Valerie Sayers is a natural-born writer wildly underestimates the facts…. She has carved out for herself a corner of the South as clearly delineated as Faulkner’s famous Yoknapatawpha County, a sense of the importance and holiness of place that calls to mind Eudora Welty’s writing on the subject.”[1]
Biography[edit]
Sayers was born and raised in Beaufort, South Carolina. She was educated at Fordham and Columbia. She lived in New York for many years.[2] Her writing has considered the experience of Irish Catholics in the American South, the forces of segregation and Civil Rights, and the place of pacifism in domestic politics.
Sayers is most often read in the lineage of Mary Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, Pat Conroy, and Walker Percy.[3] Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in such publications as The New York Times, Washington Post, Commonweal, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Image, Witness, and Prairie Schooner, and have been cited in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays.[4] Her short story “The Other Woman” is published in Cabbage and Bones: An Anthology of Irish American Women’s Fiction (1997).
The Powers, which the Washington Post described as “brilliantly realized…in brutally elegant prose” opens in the summer of 1941, and holds the war fever then sweeping across Europe in tension with the contemporary baseball mania sweeping up the United States, a fever fueled by the Yankees’ Joe DiMaggio.[5] The journal Image: Art, Faith, Mystery featured an interview with Sayers on “Baseball and Fiction”.[6]
Northwestern University Press plans to reissue her first five novels during 2013. Since 1993, Sayers has been a professor of English and the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame.[7]
Critical discussions of Sayers’s work appear in Mary E. Reichardt’s Catholic Women Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Sourcebook (2001) and in Bryan Giemza’s Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South (2013).
Sayers’s essay “The Word Cure: Cancer, Language, and Prayer” appears in the journal Image.[8]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Brain fever DB42974
Sayers, Valerie. Reading time: 10 hours, 42 minutes.
Read by David Palmer.
Psychological Fiction
Middle-aged professor Tim Rooney feels another breakdown looming when he leaves his fiancee, decides to find his former wife, and heads for New York with fifteen thousand dollars stuffed in his shoes. Tim’s mind slowly unravels as he contends with past and present troubles. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex.
Downloaded: July 22, 2024
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Angels of September” by Andrew M. Greenley
Kate’s 2¢: “Angels of September” by Andrew M. Greenley
“Angels of September” by Andrew M. Greenley
I was happy to find out that the author, The Reverend Dr. Andrew Greeley, was an insider and knew of what he wrote.
“The four principal angels of September are priest, lover, psychiatrist, and patrol officer representing the church at its most caring best.”
I enjoyed this story read by Pam Ward.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Reverend Dr. Andrew Greeley (February 5, 1928 – May 29, 2013) was an American Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and popular novelist. He was a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and the University of Chicago, and a research associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC).
For many years, Greeley wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times and contributed regularly to The New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, America, and Commonweal.
Life and career[edit]
Greeley was born into a large Irish Catholic family in Oak Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) in 1928.[1] He grew up during the Great Depression in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, where he attended St. Angela Elementary School,[2] and by the second grade, he knew that he wanted to be a priest.[3][4] After studying at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, Greeley received an AB degree from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago in 1950, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology (STB) in 1952, and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in 1954, when he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago.
From 1954 to 1964, Greeley served as an assistant pastor at Christ the King parish in Chicago, during which time he studied sociology at the University of Chicago. His first book, The Church in the Suburbs (1958), was drawn from notes a sociology professor had encouraged him to take describing his experiences.[4] He received a Master of Arts in 1961 and a PhD in 1962. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the influence of religion on the career plans of 1961 college graduates. At various times, Greeley was a professor at the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago. He was denied tenure by the University of Chicago in 1973, despite having been a faculty member there for a decade and having published dozens of books; he attributed the denial to anti-Catholic prejudice, although a colleague said his cantankerous temperament was more to blame.[4] In 1991, he was granted a professorship in social science at the University.
Sociology[edit]
As a sociologist, he published a large number of influential academic works during the 1960s and 1970s, including Unsecular Man: The Persistence of Religion (1972) and The American Catholic: A Social Portrait (1977).[1] Over the course of his career, he authored more than 70 scholarly books,[1][4] largely focusing on the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. His early work challenged the widespread assumption that Catholics had low college attendance rates, showing that white Catholics were in fact more successful than other whites in obtaining college undergraduate and graduate degrees, which he attributed to what he called the high-quality education Catholics received in parochial schools.[4] He also studied how religion influenced the political behavior of ethnic Catholics, and he was one of the first scholars to document the sociological effects of the Second Vatican Council’s reforms on American Catholics.[1][4]
In the early 1970s, the U.S. bishops commissioned him to write a profile of the American priesthood.[1] He completed a two-year survey in 1972, reporting that dissatisfaction among the priests was widespread; but the bishops rejected his findings.[4] Greeley said, “Honesty compels me to say that I believe the present leadership in the church to be morally, intellectually and religiously bankrupt.”[4]
Greeley’s sociological work was also viewed with suspicion by some of his fellow clerics, and his archbishop (later cardinal), John Cody, denied Greeley’s request for a parish ministry.[4] Greeley criticized Cody, calling him a “madcap tyrant” when Cody closed a number of inner-city schools.
Interpreting American Catholicism[edit]
Greeley’s biographer summarizes his interpretation:
He argued for the continued salience of ethnicity in American life and the distinctiveness of the Catholic religious imagination. Catholics differed from other Americans, he explained in a variety of publications, by their tendency to think in “sacramental” terms, imagining God as present in a world that was revelatory rather than bleak. The poetic elements in the Catholic tradition–its stories, imagery, and rituals–kept most Catholics in the fold, according to Greeley, whatever their disagreements with particular aspects of church discipline or doctrine. But Greeley also insisted on the disastrous impact of Humanae Vitae, the 1968 papal encyclical upholding the Catholic ban on contraception, holding it almost solely responsible for a sharp decline in weekly Mass attendance between 1968 and 1975. He believed that lay Catholics understood far better than their bishops that sex in marriage was intended by God to be joyous and playful, a true means of grace.[5]
As described by John L. Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, Greeley became fascinated with what has been called the Catholic “analogical imagination”, the idea that “visible, tangible things in the created order serve as metaphors for the divine, as opposed to the more textual and literal religious sensibility of Protestants and others.”[1] Greeley believed that it was this viewpoint that had led the church to be a pre-eminent patron of the arts through the centuries, allowing it to communicate through artistic imagery spiritual concepts that doctrinal texts alone could not.[1] Greeley’s appreciation for the spiritual power of art inspired him to begin writing works of fiction.[1]
Fiction[edit]
Greeley’s literary output was such it was said that he “never had an unpublished thought”.[3][6] He said, “The only way I can write fiction is to keep those hours from 6:00 to 9:00 A.M. sacred.”[7] He published his first novel, The Magic Cup, in 1975,[1] a fantasy tale about a young king who would lead Ireland from paganism to Christianity. A second novel, Death in April, followed in 1980.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Angels of September DB23008
Greeley, Andrew M. Reading time: 15 hours, 2 minutes.
Read by Pam Ward.
Mystery and Detective Stories
Psychological Fiction
Bestsellers
Ann Reilly, an attractive, superficially successful career woman plagued by many insecurities, reluctantly seeks professional counsel. During the course of her therapy, she unleashes a host of painful memories and repressed emotions triggering a series of bizarre telekinetic episodes. A policeman, a priest, and a psychiatrist join forces to prevent Ann from succumbing to her dark side. Strong language and some explicit descriptions of sex. Bestseller 1986.
Downloaded: August 4, 2024
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