One may find dates and short descriptions in a text book, or you could sit through a lecture to get a bit more personality, or even watch a documentary to see some moving pictures... but you wouldn't get the depth and insight that you do in an Erik Larson book. In The Splendid and the... Continue Reading →
The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World’s Most Notorious Terrorists Book by Tracy Walder
This memoir follows Tracy Wilder's life as she is recruited out of her USC sorority house into the CIA. She joins the service just before 9/11 and goes into counterintelligence where one of her jobs is to analyze satellite pictures of terrorist encampments looking for evidence of Bin Laden and other key leaders. Tracy is... Continue Reading →
The Rome of Fall by Chad Alan Gibbs
Hits all the right notes, all the inside jokes, all the nostalgia of the 1990s. I was gripped by The Rome of Fall for a quick day and a half. Told in two threads, thirty years apart, in the life of Marcus Brinks, high school senior/ washed up rock star... 1994: Marcus is forced to... Continue Reading →
Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier by Jim Ottaviani & Maris Wicks
Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks have written a book in Astronauts that is educational, inspirational and entertaining. The narrative is told through the point of view of Mary Cleave, astronaut and Science Mission Directorate as NASA. Astronauts begins by describing the initial push to send women into space, including Valentina Tereshkova in the USSR and... Continue Reading →
The Raven’s Toll: Episode 1, The Raven’s Dream. R.E.M. Verberg
Epsiode 1 – The Raven’s dream: The Raven tries to deal with a recent loss, but receives a rude awakening at the hands of his old friend, The Sparrow. Writing: R.E.M. VerbergNarration: Diana MooreMusic: Alex Lew The story opens with Raven entering a dream... a dream of what the world once was. But he's met... Continue Reading →