Survival In Auschwitz: If This Is A Man – Primo Levi

I have read several of these Holocaust novels and i don’t mean to take away anything from these survivors but they are all pretty much the same. They all deal with the same issues of maintaining hope or giving up and withering away. So why do i read them? My grandfather was in a concentration camp for several years and i read these books to understand how his life was during this time. He flat out refuses to speak of it. Granted he wasn’t a Jew but merely a ‘Russian” prisoner. Well technically he is Ukrainian but back then he was classed as Russian. So he didn’t have that fear of the gas chambers but still life wasn’t easy. Books like these don’t offer anything new and are pretty much always written by Jewish survivors. But what they do offer me is a connection and an insight into the life of my grandfather from a dark chapter of his life he doesn’t wish to speak off. I read these books in the hope that one day i might find one that speaks of the camp “Dachau” he was interred in and to catch that glimpse into that life for a moment.

Gone for good – Harlan Coben

Felt the need for another crime/thriller after all my Sci-Fi and Action lately. So i went to my favorite for this genre Harlan Coben. This story is about Will. 11 years ago his ex was brutally murdered and his brother was accused of doing it and went into hiding. Now his current girlfriend has gone missing and is later found murdered, are the 2 connected?.and why does his brother choose this time to resurface after 11 years on the run. Harlan takes us on a suspenseful ride with many twists and turns as we try and figure out who really killed his ex. The truth isn’t quite what he expected and what he uncovers on the way is nothing short of shocking.

Harlan delivers his usual twists and turns along the way and for once i didn’t pick the ending in fact how i was thinking it would pan out was far from it. And i think that’s what makes a great thriller. Another one of Harlan’s great reads.

Temple – Matthew Reilly

What i have come to love about Matthew Reilly novels is the pace. Its just non stop action. This story even more so than his previous works, as we have 2 story lines. Both pumping at breakneck speeds. Firstly we have the story of a Spanish monk during the conquest of the Incas. He gets caught up with an Incan prince trying to evade capture and hide a priceless relic from the Spaniards and then in modern times we have the story of William Race, racing against time to find the final resting place of the relic as it can be used as power-source for a special nuke.

The hidden treasure part of this story really reminds me of some Clive Cussler novels. For the most part I love the backstory put into this story bar one exception. The author states the distant planetary system the meteor that the relic is made from came from. How could he possibly know this? I understand if the meteor is spotted in the sky to some extent we can calculate its trajectory but this meteor crashed hundreds of years ago how could they know where it came from? this concept just doesn’t sit well with me

Bar this over sight its another great read by Matthew and quite a lengthy one at that.

Contest – Matthew Reily

Another great Matthew Reilly novel here. In fact this was his first every story, no one wanted to publish it so he had to do it himself – not an easy thing. Then a publisher saw his book in a book store and boom the rest is history. This story really sets the tone for his later novels. Its non stop action, what would later become a signature of Matthew.

We find ourselves following Dr Stephen swain, who gets teleported along with his daughter into the national history museum in New York. There he is throw into a millennium old contest by which participants from 7 different worlds a forced to fight to the death. Yes i said teleport and yes i said other worlds – it is most definitely a sci fi story after all.

What follows is a fast paced adventure as he outwits his adversarys on mostly luck . This story really shows what Matthew is about, fast paced non stop action, there are no budget restraints with a book unlike a movie and so the action can just keep being raised.

This book is literally a “i cant put it down” story, mainly because there are no natural pauses in the action in which you would normally put it down.  Considering he was only 19 and fresh out of high school when he wrote this, it still stands-up extremely well against his later stories

Definately well worth a read, as long as you don’t mind some out there sci fi

The 6th Extinction – Elizabeth Kolbert

Quite an interesting read, The author instead of shouting from the rooftops that the sky was falling or in this case that the planet was heating up. Does something a little different. She talks about 12 different animals that are extinct and links their causes to modern issues.

She goes further to show how we might very well be on the cusp of another big extinction quite possibly accelerated due to man. Now this isn’t something i haven’t heard before, in fact i have read a few papers and books about this. But this is probably the first i’ve read structured in such a way.

For instance we hear of the mammoth and other mega fauna which were allegedly wiped out by early man in both north America and Australia. We hear of the rhino and the Panamanian golden frog which are disappearing like flies, we learn of the dilemma faced by bats in North America being wiped out by a fungus.

We are given a thorough understanding on the causes of the previous 5 extinction events and given a history on the topic as well.  I didn’t expect the book to be that informative and expected it to read more like a text book. but it just didn’t feel that way. it really did feel like a collection of 12 stories  integrated by the theme of extinction.

From rising temperature, increasing acidity in the oceans and diseases being spread by the movement of man. This book covers it all. Definitely a must for someone looking to grab a better understanding of what is happening to the world around us