Friday, August 7, 2009

Dude, look ... the weekend's coming ....


Today's Blog/Website of the Day is That's All She Read found at http://allsheread.blogspot.com/. "A log of books I read and my personal impressions of them, and thoughts about the accessibility of reading materials for people who are print impaired like me."

I finished THE YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSTORE by Lewis Buzbee. It was nice; a memoir of his life first as a bookseller then a bookrep as well as the history of the development of the bookstore. My only wish was that he included more about books he loved.

I'm about to start one from the library: THE LAST EMBER by Daniel Levin. Here's the description:

An Italian antiquities squad discovers a woman's preserved corpse inside an ancient column. Pages torn from priceless manuscripts litter the floor of an abandoned warehouse. An illegal excavation burrows beneath Jerusalem's Dome of the rome, ground sacred to three religions.Jonathan Marcus a young American lawyer and a former doctoral student in classics, has become a sought-after commodity among antiguities dealers. But when he is summoned to Rome to examine a client's fragment of an ancient stone map, he stumbles across a startling secert: a hidden message carved inside the stone itself. The discovery propels him on a perilous journey from the labyrinth beneath the Colosseum to the biblical-era tunnels of Jerusalem in search of a hidden 2,000-year-old artifact sought by empires throughout the ages. As MArcus and a passionate UN preservationist, Dr. Emili Travia, dig more deeply into the past, they're stunned to discover not only an anicent intelligence operation to protect the artifact, but also a ruthless modern plot to destroy all trace of it by a mysterious radical bent on erasing every remnant of Jewish and Christian presence from the Temple Mount. With a cutting-edge plot as intricately layered as the ancient sites it explores, The Last Ember is a gripping thriller spanning the high-stakes worlds of archaeology, politics, and terrorism in its portrayal of the modern struggle to define--and redefine--history itself.

It was published this month and has 432 pages. Yes, there is the inevitable comparison to THE DA VINCI CODE but believe it or not, there were books written like this BEFORE that book came out and I loved to read them. I have always loved Vatican conspiracies and political intrigue and archeological discoveries and biblical stuff. So I'll give this a try.


Director John Hughes has died -- far too young at 59. He defined a generation -- my generation. If you're a kid of the 80's (that is, in junior high/high school), especially the mid-80's, his movies were us. I remember my friend and I seeing Sixteen Candles in the theatre; she loooovvved the guy who was Samantha's dream guy, I just thought the screenplay was brilliant. The Breakfast Club became an icon of that era. Ferris Buehler. It is amazing how many acting careers he launched.


It's dark and stormy-looking again. Wee ha! Be nice for another thunder-boomer. Oh, and I'm hearing from low grumbles start.


Tomorrow Steve has a shooting tournament to run and I'll pick my battles in cleaning: maybe vacuum downstairs. My leg/ankle/infection is feeling rather good today but I won't overdo it.


Driving home from the library, I passed a hand-written sign saying "Fresh local corn" so I pulled over and bought some from this cute older couple. It's corn on the cob time!! For about two weeks of the year this is magic time. And it looks good. So tonight for dinner we're having corn ... and something else I haven't figured out yet.


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

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