The Godfather. What needs to be said about this book. While it has been made famous because of the movie, the book is just as good. It has more details about the periods in general as well as more references to the sexual prowess of Sonny (that's a bad thing). It just covers the time during The Godfather without really going into The Godfather Part II. I think it's one of those ultra-rare situations where the movie and the book are on the same level. The biggest difference for me as a result of seeing the movie before reading the book is that I pictured Al Pacino, James Caan, Marlon Brando, and so on as the characters in the novel even if Puzo's descriptions weren't exactly those actors. Such is the inherent problem with movie novels and so on. Nevertheless, it didn't distract from the book at all. If you can handle all the talk about Sonny during his time in the novel, pick this one up. It was a nonstop read for me - I started somewhere over the Atlantic and was about done when I arrived in Salt Lake, and this was with a 6 month old in my lap most of the time.
Ah Tom Clancy, how awesome a novelist you are. I think it's pretty safe to say that if there was only one author that I could read for the remainder of my days, it'd be Tom Clancy. I love my nonfiction and my Dan Brown and all, but Tom Clancy is the best. It had been a while since I last read his books, mainly because he hasn't written a novel for several years now, and I picked this off my shelf and flew through it. I'm in the middle of Red Rabbit right now, which is good, but not this good, and it's reminded me just how amazing vintage Clancy is. His characters pop, his writing crackles, and his Rice Krispies pop. I think that a lot of non-Irish/British people have forgotten just how heated "the troubles" were, but this is a blast from the past. It was realistic to have a splinter group of the IRA attack Prince Charles and Princess Di back in the day and it was also realistic that Charles wasn't a laughingstock and Di wasn't dead (admittedly, a bit of a low blow) but that they were instead a happy and heroic addition to the British royal family. I was hooked on this book from the opening page and lost quite a bit of sleep getting to the end. Because of the nature of Clancy's books, I would venture to say that this is the most action-packed book he's made (well, maybe not including Red Storm Rising). I'm rambling here, but if you're giving Clancy a try, read this first.
I have very mixed feelings about The Cobra Event. On the one hand, it's compellingly written and a pretty good mix of thriller, non-fiction, and prophetic semi-warning. On the other hand, it's extremely disturbing. The long and the short of it is that there's a madman who wants to wipe out a good part of humanity using a bio-engineered virus that is pretty darn gruesome. It replicates the effects of Lesch-Nyhan syndrome in the infected people. Some things seem somewhat tacked on, like a good solid token romance, pivotal in all novels for some reason or another, but there's some solid historical research that serves to put the present of the novel in context with our actual past. While the vast majority of the novel isn't too disturbing, once you get past the fact that people eat themselves, there is one section that really kind of sent me over the edge, and that has to do with something (and I don't want to truly spoil it here) involving an autopsy. It still sends chills down my spine just thinking about it. Take a gander if you like a good read and won't suffer from the glavin! reflex.
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