I had someone ask me recently if I reviewed each and every one of the books I’ve read in 2009.
Duh!
Not by a long shot.
Here’s a list of some of the books I’ve read this year that I didn’t review:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. This was a very popular book in 2009 and it presented a bunch of fairly unique ideas – but they were ideas that I just didn’t buy. Outliers are defined as men and women (but in the book – mostly men) who do things out of the ordinary. One of the proposals was a ten thousand-hour rule for excelling at anything and the book used the Beatles and Bill Gates as examples. (Lots of practice produces results – duh!) Gladwell writes about birth months being important to talent in hockey, and the richest billionaires and the importance of their birth years. My take: it’s an enjoyable read but I wouldn’t put too much stock in the theories.
Infected by Scott Sigler. I’d read this was a great book by a new author who presented a unique spin on aliens from outer space infecting humans. I didn’t find much new in the book – more like a reworked Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Stephen King’s Tommyknockers. I found most of it clichéd and predictable.
I read several books by Michael Connelly this year. The one I liked the most – by far – was The Brass Verdict. I enjoyed The Lincoln Lawyer after reading it a few years ago and wanted to read other Connelly novels. The Brass Verdict was a good one. There were excellent courtroom scenes and the pacing was superb. Any lawyer or lover of legal thrillers will not be disappointed in this book.
The Scarecrow, while not as good as The Brass Verdict, was better than Dragons. In this Connelly novel, reporter Jack McEvoy is laid off at the L.A. Times and given 14 days’ notice. He decides to write his final story about the arrest of a young gang member for the rape and murder of an exotic dancer. After some digging, McEvoy believes the young man is innocent. He teams up with FBI agent Rachel Walling and the real investigation takes lots of unexpected turns. While certainly farfetched, it was a fun read.
Ultra Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes was a book recommended to me because of my interest in the fabulous book that I previously reviewed: Born to Run. Ultra Marathon Man was an entertaining read about someone who has run incredible races and feats of unbelievable endurance: a 100-mile race over mountains; a 135-mile race through Death Valley and up the highest mountain in the contiguous
The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson is a book that was written in 1952 – before I was born. It’s still a powerful, gritty, dark novel about an evil man who does horrible things to people. It’s noir at its darkest. Written in the first person, this novel will stay with you quite awhile. Powerful.
The Survivors Club by
The Appeal by John Grisham was an eye-opening read at the type of politics that goes on behind the scenes in those states where judges are elected. Here in
And this is only a tip of the iceberg of other books that I read during the year. Here are some others that I’ll try to briefly review soon:
- When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris
- In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
- Just After Sunset by Stephen King
- Brimstone and Rough Weather by
- The Quickie Divorce by Linda Connel
- Beating the IRS by Roni Lynn Deutch
- Bodies Left Behind by Jeffery Deaver
- The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
- And Here’s The Kicker by Mike Sacks
And these are just the one’s I can think of right now.
While some of you might think that I spend every free moment reading, or all my money on books, you’d be wrong. Often I read early in the morning before anyone else is awake.
And I make good use of my local library. If you haven’t been to your library in awhile, give it a visit. You’ll probably enjoy yourself.
What good books have you read in 2009?
Al, thanks for taking a chance on INFECTED. Sorry it didn't meet up to your expectations. Hopefully I'll get another chance to entertain you.
I can't really see the comparison to THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, however — saying that book is like INFECTED, because it has aliens, is like saying that all the thriller novels you covered are knock-offs of Dashiell Hammett because they have crime and/or detectives. You really think all that hardcore biology with a mechanical explanation of human parasitism, self-assembling materials and the Von Neuman device concept using human cellular reproduction is comparable to a typewriter that magically creates a novel while you sleep? King is my favorite writer by far, a real master of characterization, but I focus on scientific plausibility as opposed to the magical woo-woo approach.
Enjoy your reads for 2010.
Posted by: Scott Sigler | December 24, 2020 at 12:39 AM