Guest Review: The Defector by Daniel Silva

Guest review submitted by Shirley Ayres. Thanks, Shirley!

The Defector by Daniel Silva

     The bad guy from Silva’s last spy novel, Moscow Rules Russian arms dealer, Ivan Kharkov, has defector Grigori Bulganov kidnapped and taken back to Russia. Grigori has saved Gabriel Allon’s life before defecting to the U.K. and his former employer, the KGB, wants him back to face punishment.
     When Allon’s new wife Chiara is also kidnapped, Gabriel knows both kidnappings are part of an elaborate scheme of Kharkov to force Gabriel to return to Russia so that Ivan exact revenge on Allon by  torturing before killing him.
     Another exciting spy novel from Silva proves the author is an excellent writer who does his research extensively.

Guest Review: Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

Guest Review of Moscow Rules (2008) by Daniel Silva [Review by Shirley Ayres]

       In this next continuing saga of Gabriel Allon, art restorer and spy, he goes to Russia to try to stop arms dealer, Ivan Kharkov, from selling deadly missiles to al-Queda agents.
      As usual, this book is crammed full of action as our hero travels from London to Tel Aviv and every city and country in between.  And, as usual, this book kept me reading late into the night until I either finished it or fell asleep, which ever came first.
 

Thank You, Gentlemen!

If you're reading this blog, it's safe to assume you "get it" in regard to libraries. Recently two of our most popular writers spoke eloquently about what libraries meant to them:

DAVID BALDACCI IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"Libraries are the mainstays of democracy. The first thing dictators do when they take over a country is close all the libraries, because libraries are full of ideas and differences of opinion, all the things we want in a free and open society. So keep 'em, fund 'em, embrace and cherish 'em." 

NEIL GAIMAN AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

"I was terrified of librarians -- at first -- because these were people who wanted their books back. But I learned that they answered questions and hey would find books for me. The librarian went off and investigated and I realized 1. these people are as mad about books as I am and 2. books in libraries have to be ordered by someone."






What do you think?

I heard this poem on The Writer's Almanac and knew it was just right for this time of year. 

It's by Jonathan Galassi and appears in his book Left-Handed (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). 

The last swim of summer 

ought to be swum

without knowing it,

afternoon lost to

re-finding the rock

you can stand on

way out past the

raft, the flat one

that lines up four-

square with the door

of the boathouse.

Freestyle and back-

stroke and hours on

the dock nattering

on while the low sun

keeps setting fin-

gers and toes getting

number and number ...

how could we know

we were swimming the

last swim of summer?

Another Round of Super Short Book Reviews!

1. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

This book deals with the ethical debate surrounding euthanasia while acquainting us with an unforgettable, Bridget Jones-like main character who finds herself caring for quadriplegic man whose misery seems insurmountable. This book will run you through the gamut of emotions.

2. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

A beautifully written story with well-crafted characters. Tom Sherbourne is a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a small island nearly half a day's journey from Australia's coast. He falls in love with a girl on the mainland, and the two start their life together on the isolated island. They weather several miscarriages before the day a boat washes ashore carrying a dead man and a baby. What happens next will alter their relationship and change the course of their lives forever. Stedman's characters are three dimensional, and I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

3. Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks

This is your typical Sparks novel- he explores heartbreak, hope, and forgiveness while weaving the story of two middle-aged individuals who fall madly in love during a weekend stay in Rodanthe. Sparks has a bad habit of telling as opposed to showing and of creating characters that are caricatures. The plus side: his novels are a guaranteed warm-fuzzy escape from reality.

4. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

This novel is set in the South in 1964 and tells the story of Lily Owens, a young white girl who has had her share of tragedy. When Lily's nanny, a proud black woman named Rosaleen, is arrested after insulting a group of racist white men, she decides to take matters into her own hands by springing Rosaleen from jail. After the escape, the unlikely duo are taken in by a tight-knit trio of sisters who own a beekeeping operation. This is a heartwarming story about womanhood and empowerment during the civil rights movement.

5. The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand

Dabney Kimball Beech, a well-known matchmaker on Nantucket Island, is dying of pancreatic cancer, but, before she goes, she's determined to find the perfect matches for the people that she loves the most including her husband, her daughter, and, wait for it, her lover! This is not Hilderbrand's best work. The characters are nearly as ridiculous as their names!

6. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman

This is a memoir and a surprisingly good one. I watched the TV series (which I loved) prior to reading this but had low expectations for the book. Memoirs can be self-indulgent, but Kerman spends less time over-analyzing herself and her situation and more time exploring the relationships that she forms with her fellow inmates. Kerman is engaging, great at highlighting instances of white privilege, but is sometimes too careful, too polite. Overall, this is an interesting read that will give you a glimpse into America's prison problem.

Have you read anything lately? Tell us how you felt about it by emailing sharlene@bradleybeachlibrary.org. We'll post your review on our blog!

Sharlene  Edwards

In a recent Brainpickings post , Maria Popova celebrated Robert Dawson's recent book, The Public Library: A Photographic Essay: 

“A library is many things,” E.B. White once wrote in a letter to the children of a little town to inspire them to fall in love with their new library. “But particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books… Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had.”

"As the daughter of a formally trained librarian and an enormous lover of,collaborator with, and supporter of public libraries (you may have noticed I always include a public library link for books I write about; I also re-donate a portion of Brain Pickings donations to the New York Public Library each year) I was instantly enamored with The Public Library: A Photographic Essay by photographer Robert Dawson— at once a love letter and a lament eighteen years in the making, a wistful yet hopeful reminder of just what’s at stake if we let the greatest bastion of public knowledge humanity has ever known slip into the neglected corner of cultural priorities. 

"Alongside Dawson’s beautiful photographs are short reflections on the subject by such celebrated minds as Isaac Asimov, Anne Lamott, and E.B. White. From architectural marvels to humble feats of human ingenuity, from the august reading room of the New York Public Library to the trailer-library at Death Valley National Park, braving the glaring sun at one of the hottest places on earth, from the extraordinary vaulted ceilings of LA’s Children’s Library to the small shack turned into a book memorial in the country’s only one-person town, the remarkable range reveals our elemental need for libraries — as sanctuaries of learning, as epicenters of community, as living records of civic identity, and above all as a timelier-than-ever testament that information and human knowledge belong to everybody; not to corporate monopolies or government agencies or ideological despots, but to the people."

It's a beautiful book. You can explore it through Brainpickings  or take it out from your friendly neighborhood library. Either way, it's a chance to celebrate one of our nation's most invaluable and distinctive institutions: the free public library! 

Guest Review of "A Death in Vienna" and "Prince of Fire" by Daniel Silva (Gabriel Allon, Book #4 & #5)

This guest review is by Shirley Ayres.

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva
(2004)

Israeli spy/art restorer Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to investigate a bombing that killed an old friend, Max Klein.  It seems that Max had seen a very prominent Vienna citizen but recognized him as an SS killer from the death camps.
Now Max is dead and Gabriel is trying to prove that Herr Vogel the businessman is really Erich Radak, the Nazi killer.
Again, Silva looks into a disgraceful and horrible past and points fingers at everyone involved or at least complicit in the murder of millions by the Nazis.

Prince of Fire by Daniel Silva
(2005)

 Gabriel Allon, Israeli spy, is working in Venice restoring a Bellini altarpiece when a powerful car bomb in Rome takes out the Israeli Embassy.  Then, four men in a follow-up car shoot survivors coming out of the wreckage.  The PLO takes credit for the mass killings.  Later, in a raid on a PLO flat in Milan, evidence is found that they know Gabriel’s identity and where he worked in Venice.  Gabriel is ordered back to Israel immediately, never to finish the Bellini restoration.
            In this book, Yasir Arafat, leader of the PLO is shown to be behind most of the worst terrorist-based murders, including the murder of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich, Germany in 1972.  The author gives the reader the geography and history of the area once known as Palestine.
Silva writes with an exciting style that keeps the reader interested and informed.