books – Page 3 – Rants and Raves

Alone : The Classic Polar Adventure – *****

Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure by Richard Evelyn Byrd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A relatively quick read and very interesting even though I was worried I wouldn’t like the book’s story (it was a gift). The afterword was a welcome addition which helps provide some historical context and insight after the tale had ended.

I think it was interesting timing that I read this given what is going on in the world right now with Covid-19. In particular, this account of the author being alone in the Antarctic had a few passages that seemed very relevant to today.

eg: being solo and trapped inside and keeping to a schedule -the author was to be taking weather readings at regular times and had to maintain his hut/base- extreme WFH? Even Scott Kelly (astronaut) wrote about this recently in the NY Times.

Another example was a passage about a previous expedition with a healthy crew in isolation, but one day they opened a crate of old clothes and all of them got sick.

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Drug of Choice – **

Drug of Choice by John Lange

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the 1st half and then I started to lose interest in the second half, or last third really. I still enjoyed it, but not as much as the others of late.

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Zero Cool – ****

Another pulp romp. A dangerous dame in Spain. A doctor in over his head. Treasure and treachery…

Turns out this was written by Michael Crichton. I didn’t know Michael Crichton wrote pulp under a pseudonym. It doesn’t surprise me, but I didn’t know.

Decent fun.

The Water Dancer – ****

I really enjoyed this. Tough time, tough subject, but a good tale. It reminded me in a way of a comic/graphic novel set during pre-Civil War.

Coates writes really well. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43982054-the-water-dancer

So Nude, So Dead – ***

So Nude, So Dead by Ed McBain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Every time I finish a Hard Case Crime book I wonder how and when I got in to pulp. I guess it’s officially my guilty pleasure. I have a bunch of them on my e-reader and if I’m on the bus and can’t balance my paper book then I tend to churn through these. Can I recommend them all? Probably not- the women are usually props- sometimes they’re the main character but not all the time. And then there’s the race angle from the period. That said – jazz, drugs, murder, dames, revenge… what’s not to like with that?

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