The Open Book Review Forum

12/23/2022

Sit down with this story and be prepared to be reminded that every person’s life is intertwined with the lives of others and sometimes in sinister ways. An American consular officer in modern day Istanbul with secrets of her own manipulates the lives of a wealthy couple whose fragile marriage is teetering upon issues of their physical incompatibility complicated by their cultural differences from his Turkish and her American perspectives. Add to that a bisexual artistic museum director with love interests that intersect with theirs and an artist who is the unwitting dupe in the great game of one nation using individuals at all costs while things are not at all what they seem. This book describes what a love story is not and the painful futility of infidelity made even more unbearable when it is used by others as a means to their selfish ends.
Elliot Ackerman writes with intricate descriptions of both the city that is Istanbul and the people who come alive on these pages. A well crafted story. I recommend this book without reservation.

12/23/2022

The backdrop for this story begins in 1930’s fascist Italy in the run up to the Second World War and winds it’s way to the movie industry in Los Angeles. A brilliant Italian criminal defense attorney finds his life ruined and sentenced to permanent exile in a tiny village because of a foolish decision by his teenage daughter. She makes her way to America and finds a job as a secretary at a B-movie studio where her hard work endears her to her muddle-headed boss who is constantly fighting with his brother. (Think the old Warner Brothers studio.) She fights against the sexism of the day while her Chinese actor lover struggles against the racial stereotyping that confines him to villainous roles of Japanese soldiers- the very people who are waging war against his country. Mercury Pictures Presents gives the reader a glimpse into the hopelessness of lives caught up in the madness of war and the compromises people make to overcome the barriers put before them.
A vivid well-paced book that will pull at your heart.

12/06/2022

I wrote this book for the sheer joy of the writing. It’s a pure thriller with spies, villains, tough guys, guns, old N***s and Neo N***s. Good versus evil fighting all the way through the narrative. This story begins in Sunspot, New Mexico and has it’s moments in Richmond, Kentucky, Bisbee, Arizona, Havana, Cuba, France and Germany. Take a moment and read the back cover summary.
Reich Stop a Brock Donegan novel goes on sale on Amazon at noon on December 23rd.
Buy it. Review it. Tell your friends about it. Suggest a book signing location. I’ll sign your book.
This was a tremendous amount of fun and I’m still living the experience.

09/27/2022

09/27/2022

FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR - Oh my goodness! Within minutes of opening this page it was flooded with “suggested pages” by the Facebook algorithm. Just overwhelmed the page. So… I have changed the setting to permit only me to post on the page. Don’t despair those of you who want to post a review. Just send me a message and I’ll open the page for 24 hours to give the post time to land.

09/24/2022

The first post

I’ve posted book reviews on my personal page for years. I decided it’s time to start this page as a gathering place where people who love books can share the books and their thoughts about them with other book lovers. Feel free to put your reviews on the page. Please, no profanity and no personal attacks.

09/23/2022

An earlier review.

At the outset let me say this book will make some people very uncomfortable. It also doesn’t say all that much about John Wayne. What it does discuss in great detail is how white male patriarchy church leaders and outright grifters infiltrated the thinking of certain evangelical churches and denominations and set them on a course of a male-dominated culture that endorses the very worst of white nationalism and oppression. People like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham do not come off at all well in this book. Neither do Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, Eric Metaxas and Al Molher. Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family are discussed as oppressive and manipulative institutions. Complementarianism gets a great deal of discussion here. If you don’t know what that term means then you absolutely need to know before you let your children or grandchildren darken the door of a church that believes in that practice.
This is not an easy book for conservative evangelicals to read if they endorse those folks and organizations. I will say the professor who wrote the book lays out the facts. (The book is heavily footnoted. Truth is an absolute defense against libel.)
I read this book and saw the same tones of arrogance and intolerance in these people and churches that occurred in the South in the run up to the Civil War.
The book gives a great deal of attention to the subservient role women are told to play in this evangelical world of Dobson and Pressler’s churches. I found myself wondering just how many women would actually put up with being treated like this. Maybe they do. I grew up in an evangelical home. All I know is if my father had tried this stuff on my mother she would never have stood for it and my brothers and I would have given him a whipping if he had tried. So, read it if you dare. A challenging and thought-provoking piece of work.

09/23/2022

At the outset let me say this book will make some people very uncomfortable. It also doesn’t say all that much about John Wayne. What it does discuss in great detail is how white male patriarchy church leaders and outright grifters infiltrated the thinking of certain evangelical churches and denominations and set them on a course of a male-dominated culture that endorses the very worst of white nationalism and oppression. People like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Franklin Graham do not come off at all well in this book. Neither do Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, Eric Metaxas and Al Molher. Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family are discussed as oppressive and manipulative institutions. Complementarianism gets a great deal of discussion here. If you don’t know what that term means then you absolutely need to know before you let your children or grandchildren darken the door of a church that believes in that practice.
This is not an easy book for conservative evangelicals to read if they endorse those folks and organizations. I will say the professor who wrote the book lays out the facts. (The book is heavily footnoted. Truth is an absolute defense against libel.)
I read this book and saw the same tones of arrogance and intolerance in these people and churches that occurred in the South in the run up to the Civil War.
The book gives a great deal of attention to the subservient role women are told to play in this evangelical world of Dobson and Pressler’s churches. I found myself wondering just how many women would actually put up with being treated like this. Maybe they do. I grew up in an evangelical home. All I know is if my father had tried this stuff on my mother she would never have stood for it and my brothers and I would have given him a whipping if he had tried. So, read it if you dare. A challenging and thought-provoking piece of work.

09/23/2022

Savannah is one of my favorite cities. It’s architecture and cuisine make for a great little getaway. Add to that it’s twisted history of wealth built upon slavery and more recent murders and scandals and it’s quite a place. George Dawes Green has written a first rate novel about the dirty little secrets the Savannah upper crust carry around with them. The wealthy hold secrets upon one another. It’s this threatening leverage that’s the real currency of politics and business there. Add to that a mixed race family that is the absolute center of high society, a centuries old scandal that threatens many with ruin, a homeless lawyer living in a tent, corrupt cops, decapitations and dungeons and you have quite a story. Green writes with a modern hip vibe. He’s irreverent but faithful to the inherent goodness we all like to believe exists in everyone.
Give it a read.