A brilliant new writer.\u00a0\u00a0 Please enjoy this almost perfect First Novel.\u00a0 I found it at Vromans in Pasadena.\u00a0 A local LA thriller with a brilliant protagonist and perfect foil.\u00a0 Such mature writing and such accomplished story telling is very rare.\u00a0 It\u2019s delightful.<\/p>\n
Another brilliant read for the plane.<\/p>\n
Thank heaven I threw this into my packing at the last minute.\u00a0 \u00a0I read it last year but it had me gripped again.\u00a0 That is the great advantage of age.\u00a0 You can immediately re-read books!\u00a0 It\u2019s really fine and wonderful.\u00a0 He writes so well and is so consistent.\u00a0 Thrilling.<\/p>\n
This is the second time I bought this book and took it away with me and the second time I abandoned it after a few chapters.\u00a0 Are there two Robert Harris\u2019s?\u00a0 Some of his books I just adore and others I just cannot get into.\u00a0\u00a0 As Al Read said \u201cIs it me, or can you smell gas?\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Must be me.<\/p>\n
I brought two books away with me about Munich, this one about the horrendous 1972 Olympic Massacre \u201cand Israel\u2019s Deadly Response.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I love books about the Mossad.\u00a0 This foul attack led to reprisals and I should bloody hope so.\u00a0\u00a0 What stunned me was that the Germans did not immediately halt the Olympic Games when the hostages were taken.\u00a0\u00a0 I could not believe that.\u00a0 Also they made a terrible mess of the security arrangements for the athletes even after concerns were broached, and the rescue attempt, well the keystone cops could have done better.\u00a0 Sadly the Israelis totally misunderstood just how incompetent the Bavarian authorities were and how in their system West Germany was not allowed to intrude.\u00a0\u00a0 So a deadly farce was played out on television with deadly results and the resulting Bavarian incompetence completely hushed up.\u00a0 The resulting revenge was slow but deadly.<\/p>\n
The story of CAA, the little Californian Talent Agent that could.\u00a0 I enjoyed ten per cent of it.\u00a0\u00a0 Kidding.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a fascinating story, if not always fascinating, of how five agents broke away from William Morris to create their own Agency, poaching clients and luring others, mainly by working their butts off.\u00a0 Of course Success leads to its own problems.\u00a0\u00a0 All Power corrupts is not just a tendency.\u00a0\u00a0 It is a rule.\u00a0 Here we see what happens when Ovitz becomes the biggest and most powerful man in Hollywood.\u00a0 I loved reading about the adorable and wonderful and hilarious Bill Haber, who would go on to such great things as producing Spamalot!<\/em>\u00a0 Also Stan Meyer is a wonderful chap.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The story of Dickens writing, editing and creating (in effect Self Publishing) A Christmas Carol<\/em>, his short but brilliant novella, which sold out immediately before Christmas 1843, saving his bacon and his turkey.\u00a0 The recent film itself was fairly clumsy but then worked magnificently, almost like the book of a musical, because it is so wonderfully sentimental and moral and based on a genius book.\u00a0 And it had Christopher Plummer as Scrooge.<\/p>\n A non Maigret about the death of a Parisian restaurant owner and the three sons.\u00a0 The usual chaos and greed and infighting in the family that death seems to foster.\u00a0\u00a0 Beautifully written.\u00a0 But no crime\u2026<\/p>\n Inside the Trump White House.\u00a0 Such chaos, such court rivalries, such incompetence, laziness, arrogance and greed has not been seen since the Borgias.\u00a0 A Kakocracy, a Cleptocracy, a Nepocracy\u2026 Michael Wollf sat on a chair in the West Wing and recorded it all.\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t have made it up.\u00a0 Seems that Bannon made his move based on this book coming out. His own run for power.\u00a0 A miscalculated play.\u00a0 One thing this bald money laundering mobster knows is how to fight back.\u00a0 \u201cWhere is my Roy Cohn?\u201d he shouted recently like a Shakespearian villain.\u00a0 (Enter from Hell a Ghost in chains.)<\/p>\n Great stories of infighting between the Javanka\u2019s as he calls them, Bannon and Rince Previus.\u00a0 But this is truly a Shite House, where they are all live in fear of the next Tweet, the next firing, even lining up to escape.\u00a0 Where will it all end?\u00a0\u00a0 Will America ever become Great again?\u00a0\u00a0 Fingers crossed.\u00a0 Read on.<\/p>\n I so enjoyed the style of Michael Wollf I went back and downloaded a previous book on Rupert Murdoch.\u00a0 Again he is fair.\u00a0 No one could say this was a hatchet job, however the growth of the Ailes\/Murdoch\/ Fox News World is intensely depressing.\u00a0 His newspaper world and attempts to own the Wall Street Journal, do paint him as a man vitally involved and in love with newspapers.\u00a0 Also the growth of his love for power.\u00a0 Which as we know corrupts and which led in his case to a monstrous control over politics.\u00a0\u00a0 He is not altogether dislikeable, but his dynasty is held together by his will alone.\u00a0 It will crumble.<\/p>\n What the Trump Administration is doing to America.\u00a0 Took the download.\u00a0 Not as focused or as timely as Wolff\u2019s book but in many ways interesting, slash, depressing.\u00a0 Hashtag Follow The Money.\u00a0 If this money lending mobster gets away with this America will be over.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" January IQ\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Joe Ide A brilliant new writer.\u00a0\u00a0 Please enjoy this almost perfect First Novel.\u00a0 I found it at Vromans in Pasadena.\u00a0 A local LA thriller with a brilliant protagonist and perfect foil.\u00a0 Such mature writing and such accomplished story telling is very rare.\u00a0 It\u2019s delightful. A Man\u2019s Head\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon Another brilliant read for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Man Who Invented Christmas\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Les Standiford<\/h3>\n
The Old Man Dies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Georges Simenon<\/h3>\n
Fire and Fury\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Michael Wollf<\/h3>\n
The Man Who Owns The News\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Michael Wollf.<\/h3>\n
It\u2019s Even Worse Than You Think\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 David Cay Johnston<\/h3>\n