Silverview by John le Carré

I just finished reading Silverview by British author, John le Carré. 

Julian Lawndsley has renounced his high-flying job in the City for a simpler life running a bookshop in a small English seaside town. But only a couple of months into his new career, Julian's evening is disrupted by a visitor. Edward, a Polish émigré living in Silverview, the big house on the edge of town, seems to know a lot about Julian's family and is rather too interested in the inner workings of his modest new enterprise. 

When a letter turns up at the door of a spy chief in London warning him of a dangerous leak, the investigations lead him to this quiet town by the sea . . . 

Silverview is the mesmerising story of an encounter between innocence and experience and between public duty and private morals. In this last complete masterwork from the greatest chronicler of our age, John le Carré asks what you owe to your country when you no longer recognize it.

I found the writing style in Silverview was totally different than any book I have read before. It took almost half the book to get used to. This isn't because the author is English as I have read many books by British writers, but I sure found it different. It is an interesting story which kept me turning pages.

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker

I have found over the years of going to the theater that I really enjoy Greek tragedies. Not sure what there is about them but I find them enthralling. Recently I was in Type Books on Queen and saw The Women of Troy on the shelf. As I love the stories told on the stage, why not try a novel?

Troy has fallen. The Greeks have won their bitter war. They can return home as victors - all they need is a good wind to lift their sails. But the wind has vanished, the seas becalmed by vengeful gods, and so the warriors remain in limbo - camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed, kept company by the women they stole from it.

The women of Troy.

Helen - poor Helen. All that beauty, all that grace - and she was just a mouldy old bone for feral dogs to fight over. Cassandra, who has learned not to be too attached to her own prophecies. They have only ever been believed when she can get a man to deliver them. Stubborn Amina, with her gaze still fixed on the ruined towers of Troy, determined to avenge the slaughter of her king. Hecuba, howling and clawing her cheeks on the silent shore, as if she could make her cries heard in the gloomy halls of Hades. As if she could wake the dead. 

And Briseis, carrying her future in her womb: the unborn child of the dead hero Achilles. Once again caught up in the disputes of violent men. Once again faced with the chance to shape history.

The author, Pat Barker, pervious winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize and the most coveted Booker, awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland and the style of writing in this novel shows why. 

I really became caught up in the story which takes place after the fall of Troy by Greek soldiers hiding inside the fabled Trojan horse. Where usually stories from this mythical period are told from the male point of view, this one is told first person, through the eyes of Briseis, the former Trojan queen who was the slave of Achilles Greek hero of the Trojan war before his death. 

The point of view was interesting, as was the story. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam

I just finished reading The Startup Wife by Tahmima Anam.

Newlyweds Asha and Cyrus build an app that replaces religious rituals and soon find themselves running one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. 

Meet Asha Ray. Brilliant coder and possessor of a Pi tattoo, Asha is poised to revolutionize artificial intelligence when she is reunited with her high school crush, Cyrus Jones. 

Cyrus inspires Asha to write a new algorithm. Before she knows it, she’s abandoned her PhD program, they’ve exchanged vows, and gone to work at an exclusive tech incubator called Utopia. 

The platform creates a sensation, with millions of users seeking personalized rituals every day. Will Cyrus and Asha’s marriage survive the pressures of sudden fame, or will she become overshadowed by the man everyone is calling the new messiah? 

In this gripping, blistering novel, award-winning author Tahmima Anam takes on faith and the future with a gimlet eye and a deft touch. Come for the radical vision of human connection, stay for the wickedly funny feminist look at startup culture and modern partnership. Can technology—with all its limits and possibilities—disrupt love?

This story presents an interesting argument. What is too much AI? How easy is it to let an algorithm take over the way a society operates. The value placed on ritual. This book not only makes the argument if it does or not, as well as leaving it to the reader.

It made me think.

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention- and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari

In the United States, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. In Stolen Focus, he introduces readers to Silicon Valley dissidents who learned to hack human attention, and veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD. He explores a favela in Rio de Janeiro where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, and an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore workers' productivity.

Crucially, Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. Stolen Focus will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.

Rendezvous With Raman by Arthur C. Clarke

Today I finished reading Rendezvous With Rama, an Arthur C. Clarke novel published in 1973.

At first, only a few things are known about the celestial object that astronomers dub Rama. It is huge, weighing more than ten trillion tons. And it is hurtling through the solar system at an inconceivable speed. Then a space probe confirms the unthinkable: Rama is no natural object. It is, incredibly, an interstellar spacecraft. Space explorers and planet-bound scientists alike prepare for mankind's first encounter with alien intelligence. It will kindle their wildest dreams... and fan their darkest fears. For no one knows who the Ramans are or why they have come. And now the moment of rendezvous awaits — just behind a Raman airlock door.

It's an intriguing story throughout. Not one of your alien vs mankind novels, but one of exploration of a massive alien created spaceship or maybe, an alien created world. As it was written 48 years ago I found it interesting that some of the technological challenges the crew faced in the 2130s have already been solved. 

The novel won the 1974 Nebula Award and the 1974 Hugo Award, both for Best Novel.  It's such an engrossing read, I can see why. 

V2: A World War 2 Story by Robert Harris

Today I finished reading V2: A Novel of World War II. It was written by English author, Robert Harris, who has written many historical fictions set in World War Two. 

It's November 1944--Willi Graf, a German rocket engineer, is launching Nazi Germany's V2 rockets at London from Occupied Holland. Kay Connolly, once an actress, now a young English Intelligence officer, ships out for Belgium to locate the launch sites and neutralize the threat. But when rumors of a defector circulate through the German ranks, Graf becomes a suspect. Unknown to each other, Graf and Connolly find themselves on opposite sides of the hunt for the saboteur. 

Their twin stories play out against the background of the German missile campaign, one of the most epic and modern but least explored episodes of the Second World War. Their destinies are on a collision course.

V2 is an excellently written novel. Harris obviously did many hours of painstaking research in order to write this novel. I really enjoyed how he told the tale from both sides of the war. 

Graf, originally worked with Wernher Von Braun, a German Aerospace Engineer, who was one of the innovators of rocket development and wanted to send rockets into space. Instead, he and Graf end up working with the Nazi's creating their missile program. Graf feels the war is lost, but does his job anyway.

Kay, works in the Woman's Auxiliary Air Force, WAAF, searching for German missile launch sites. She has first hand knowledge of the effects of a V2 strike, having survived one. Each chapter rotates between the two.

It's not your typical World War Two novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

Today I sat outside and finished Blue Ticket by UK author, Sophie Mackintosh.

Calla knows how the lottery works. Everyone does. On the day of your first bleed, you report to the station to learn what kind of woman you will be. A white ticket grants you children. A blue ticket grants you freedom. You are relieved of the terrible burden of choice. And, once you've taken your ticket, there is no going back. 

But what if the life you're given is the wrong one? 

Blue Ticket is a devastating enquiry into free will and the fraught space of motherhood. Bold and chilling, it pushes beneath the skin of female identity and patriarchal violence, to the point where human longing meets our animal bodies.

I enjoy stories which take place in dystopian societies. Although no places or countries were named in this novel, I'm sure it takes place in Wales, England or some other imaginary place like it. Not surprising, as Ms. Mackintosh is from South Wales. It is not a futuristic novel as this society's technology seems very 1980ish to me. 

Calla's blue ticket, one she hoped for, was supposed to give her freedom. As she goes off on her own, though, she feels a loss, a heaviness inside her. Finally she does something about it.

Her story is told in first person, past tense, which is her telling the reader of what and how she remembers the past. It's a type of narrative which allows a reader to get inside the characters mind and to feel her emotions and Mackintosh does this very well. What I did find it distracting at first, but quickly became used to, was the book contains no quotation marks, which, of course, it wouldn't as the character of Calla, is telling her story in her own words.

It's an interesting, deep and dark tale. One I enjoyed reading. I can see why the authors debut novel, The Water Cure, made the long list for the Man Booker Prize.  

Licensed to Sell

Today I finished License to Sell, a book on the history of pubs in England.

Alcoholic beverages have long formed a part of British culture and over the centuries the authorities have made strenuous efforts to control the form and operation of public drinking establishments (with varying degrees of success!). 

The Golden Age of pub-building was at the end of the nineteenth century and many of the finest examples are illustrated here. It was brought about by a combination of forces which are all explored – the influence of the Temperance Movement, competition from rival forms of entertainment, and efforts on the part of magistrates and government to improve the pub stock. 

The book contains a stunning photographic survey of our pub heritage and lists most of the finest and interesting surviving examples. This new edition also explains the changes that have affected pubs, their culture and appearance during the past seven years.

This book does cover everything one would like to know about the history of pubs in Britain, seemingly right from England's earliest years. It even expands to short history's of pubs in Wales and Scotland. My favorite part was all the gorgeous photography. Interior shots, exterior shots and closeups of the many artifacts, pictures, artwork and other items which make up a pubs atmosphere.

Makes me want to head back over to England for a pint or two.

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

I just finished reading an excellent science fiction by Alastair Reynolds called Permafrost.

Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost.

2080: at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment. Their goal: to make a tiny alteration to the past, averting a global catastrophe while at the same time leaving recorded history intact. To make the experiment work, they just need one last recruit: an ageing schoolteacher whose late mother was the foremost expert on the mathematics of paradox.

2028: a young woman goes into surgery for routine brain surgery. In the days following her operation, she begins to hear another voice in her head... an unwanted presence which seems to have a will, and a purpose, all of its own – one that will disrupt her life entirely. The only choice left to her is a simple one.

Does she resist... or become a collaborator?

At 192 pages, this is more a novella than a novel, it is, however, a fast paced, well thought out Sci-Fi thriller.

The future world of 2080 is more than bleak. The earth's residents know they are the last generation. Valentina Lidova is the ageing school, somewhere in her seventies, recruited as the best possible candidate to go into the past to find seeds genetically modified so they could grow anywhere in any situation. As it says above, there will be changes to the past, hopefully insignificant, so the time line is only nudged, not severely altered.

It was an enjoyable ride and book I had a hard time putting down.

Book Review - So, Anyway ... John Cleese

I am old enough to have enjoyed Monty Python's Flying Circus when it first came on the air here in Canada back in the early 1970s. John Cleese was my favorite of all the Pythons and I became a big fan of Fawlty Towers, a series that starred him and his wife, Connie Booth. In September 2013, Teena and I went to see him at The Wintergarden Theater here in Toronto during his, Last Time to See Me Before I Die tour. He was hilarious!

So I was quite excited when he came out with a new book, So Anyway ...

Candid and brilliantly funny, this is the story of how a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare went on to become a self-confessed legend. En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python.

Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.

Boy, was I disappointed. Mind you, I never read the description of the book but thought much of it would focus on the Python and Fawlty Towers years. He touched on those subjects but concentrated on his life before that. That is all well and good and I would have enjoyed it except he writes in great length about rather trivial stuff and I mean pages and pages. There is some interesting stories of his life and some very funny material in the book, but if he had whittled his 400 pages down to around 200, the story would still have been told, just done much better.

The only reason I finished the book is the fact that I'm a huge fan of Cleese and would not recommend this book. A big Cleese fan might enjoy it but others should give it a pass.

Book Review - "The Humans"

This is a very difficult review to write as The Humans is one of the best books that I have ever read and want to do it justice. Perhaps the best way to start is to use author Matt Haigs own words from his website.

This is the book I am most proud of. I have never written anything like it and probably never will again. I have no idea if you will like it. I really hope you do. 

I am a nervous wreck about this one. I don’t really know why. Well, I do. Because it is personal. I put absolutely everything I had into it so if people don’t like it then they don’t like me, because all the best things I have to offer the world are inside its pages. 

I don’t want to tell you it is a book that features an alien in it, because you might not like books with aliens in it, and I don’t really. It is a love story and a murder story and a what-are-we-here-for? story. It is about humans. That is why I came up with the title. The Humans. See?

On Goodreads, I gave it a five out of five and that is so rare for me. 87 reviews on that site give it an average of 4.14 out of 5 and being that high with so many reviews is rare.

“I was not Professor Andrew Martin. That is the first thing I should say. He was just a role. A disguise. Someone I needed to be in order to complete a task.” 

The narrator of this tale is no ordinary human—in fact, he’s not human at all. Before he was sent away from the distant planet he calls home, precision and perfection governed his life. He lived in a utopian society where mathematics transformed a people, creating limitless knowledge and immortality. 

But all of this is suddenly threatened when an earthly being opens the doorway to the same technology that the alien planet possesses. Cambridge University professor Andrew Martin cracks the Reimann Hypothesis and unknowingly puts himself and his family in grave danger when the narrator is sent to Earth to erase all evidence of the solution and kill anyone who has seen the proof. The only catch: the alien has no idea what he’s up against.

This book has not only a great story but great developing characters. I found myself becoming involved with all of them, Professor Andrew Martin, or the alien who has taken over his body, Andrew's wife Isobel, their son Gulliver, and even, or especially their dog Newton, who graces the books cover.


The Humans is at the same time humorous, dramatic, insightful, thoughtful and thought provoking. It's about murder, math (especially prime numbers ), poetry, death, love, and the world we live in.

Matt Haig has wanted to write this book since he came down with some personal problems in 2000, but it took five books and a dozen years before he could. I'm glad he waited as he sure got it right!

To say more would be to give too much to give away. Just read the book! I can see myself reading this one again!

Book Review - A History of the World in Six Glasses

The idea of this book, A History of the World in Six Glasses, intrigued me. In fact the first quote of the book grabbed me:

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life" - Karl Popper, philosopher of science (1902-94)

I have read about how rum has changed the world, the history of beer, England and the IPA, but this book tells the entire history of the world through six different beverages, beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and the last one surprised me ... Coca-Cola.

Whatever your favourite tipple, when you pour yourself a drink, you have the past in a glass. You can likely find them all in your own kitchen — beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, cola. Line them up on the counter, and there you have it: thousands of years of human history in six drinks. Tom Standage opens a window onto the past in this tour of six beverages that remain essentials today. En route he makes fascinating forays into the byways of western culture: Why were ancient Egyptians buried with beer? Why was wine considered a “classier” drink than beer by the Romans? How did rum grog help the British navy defeat Napoleon? What is the relationship between coffee and revolution? And how did Coca-Cola become the number one poster-product for globalization decades before the term was even coined?

The book was an interesting and a fast read. It starts, of course, with beer, one of the first man-made drinks, discovered thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia, how it likely was discovered, its supposed medicinal powers and how it was used in celebration back in that period.

The book then brings in wine as the next discovered beverage and how it affected the next period of human history. The book goes on like this, telling the history of the each drink and how it brought along the next period of human history. Ingenious really!

The final chapters are on the 20th century and how Coca-Cola became the first global product. I found that chapter the most interesting of them all.

Six drinks, three of them alcoholic, three of them caffeinated, each becoming a part of a period of history in the thousands of years of mankind.

The book has an extra chapter on the beverage that will tell the story of the next period of our history, but I won't spoil it for you.

I really enjoyed this book and finish with a quote from the start of a chapter

A billion hours ago, human life appeared on earth,
A billion minutes ago, Christianity emerged,
A billion seconds, the Beatles changed music,
A billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning.
-Robert Goizueta, chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company, April 1997

Book Review - Three Sheets to the Wind

The first book that I read by Pete Brown was Hops and Glory, which I found funny and entertaining.

After I finished, I knew that I would be reading another of his, and when I saw Three Sheets to the Wind on sale and available for my Kobo, I bought it right away and am glad I did.

Meet Pete Brown: beer jounalist, beer drinker and author of an irreverent book about British beer, Man Walks Into A Pub. One day, Pete`s world is rocked when he discovers several countries produce, consume and celebrate beer far more than we Brits do. The Germans claim they make the best beer in the world, the Australians consider its consumption a patriotic duty, the Spanish regard lager as a trendy youth drink and the Japanese have built a skyscrapter in the shape of a foaming glass of their favourite brew. At home, meanwhile, people seem to be turning their back on the great British pint. What`s going on? 

Obviously, the only way to find out was to on the biggest pub crawl ever. Drinking in more than three hundred bars, in twenty-seven towns, in thirteen different countries, on four different continents, Pete puts on a stone in weight and does irrecoverable damage to his health in the pursuit of saloon-bar enlightenment.

Hops and Glory was Brown's third book. Three Sheets to the Wind is his second. I seem to be working backwards. Like the first book I read of his, this one is very entertaining, humorous and an easy read. It was interesting to find the different drinking customs of various countries and how those customs has changed over the years.

He admits in the beginning that he is not an experienced traveler when he started and, in fact, disliked traveling, so it was fun to see him develop his traveling skills throughout the book, although he continually seemed to be barely getting placed on time and sometimes late to some big events.

The last chapters, when he returns to Barnsley, the English town he grew up up in was quite thoughtful. He speaks about what a perfect pub feels like ...

"It might look like an English or Irish pub, or it may think of itself as a bar. It might even be one of those pretend pubs you come across stuck deep inside big hotels - I found a perfect example in the corner of a terminal at Milwaukee airport (this made me excited as I will be fencing in Milwaukee in December) But underneath you can feel it's a pub. It's something to do with the role it plays. It's something to do with the smell. It's something about the staff, who are more relaxed and friendly than in any shop, bar or restaurant."

That is my thought too.

A very good book that makes me want to now read his first book, A Man Walks into a Pub, which means I will have read his series backwards. Backwards or forwards, or out of order, his books are fun reading.

Book Review - Hops and Glory

IPA is perhaps my favorite style of beer. No, of all the beer styles I enjoy, IPA is the king. So when I first saw Hops and Glory for my Kobo, I knew it would be mine.

There are many versions of IPA these days, IPAs, double IPAs and American IPAs but what about the original IPA? Author Pete Brown, named Beer Writer of the Year in 2009, wondered that too and took on, as the title on the book claims "One man's search for the beer that built the British Empire!"

For the first time in 140 years, a keg of Burton IPA has been brewed with the original recipe for a voyage to India by canal and tall ship, around the Cape of Good Hope; and the man carrying it is the award-winning Pete Brown, Britain's best beer write. Brazilian pirates and Iranian customs officials lie ahead, but will he even make it that far, have fallen in the canal just a few miles out of Burton? And if Pete does make it to the other side of the world with 'Barry' the barrel, one question remains: what will the real IPA taste like? Weaving first-class travel writing with assured comedy, Hops and Glory is both a rollicking, raucous history of the Raj and a wonderfully entertaining, groundbreaking experiment to recreate the finest beer ever produced.

The book is a fun read with very few flat spots. One chapter Pete Brown describes what he is doing in the present, be it brewing the original recipe or sailing a tall ship, the next chapter tells part of the story of the history of the IPA. Although most people know Indian Pale Ale (IPA) was brewed to survive the trip to India to quench the thirst of the troops there, but it's history had never really been told.

Both stories lines are entertaining. Pete Brown writes with a great sense of humour. Hops and Glory is part adventure, part travel log and part history. It is one of those books you hate to see end. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Can't wait to read my next Pete Brown book.

Book - "Operation Mincemeat"

When I saw Operation Mincemeat on the library e-book list and read what it was about, I knew I had to read it. 

"In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated-- Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose. Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were the perfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait." 

They say truth is stranger than fiction and, if this story was told as a fiction, some would say it is improbable and far fetched. The story, however, is true. Now that the facts of the operation have finally been declassified, the story can be told in full. It was partially told in the 50s story, The Man Who Never Was, but now the story is complete. Even the life story of the corpse is told. It seems the identity of the corpse has finally been identified in just the last couple of years. The author, Ben Macintyre, did not miss out on any detail. The characters and their flaws are brought to life and I loved that even James Bond author, Ian Fleming, had a part in the plan. Anyone who loves a good spy story or a book on World War II would love this book. It is an excellent read.

Book - Racers by Richard Williams

Martin at work is a big Formula One fan and, knowing I am a race fan, lent me "Racers" to read. 

"The 1996 Grand Prix season was a battle between three highly different personalities: Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve. This book gives an account of the season as it unfolded in episodes of increasing tension and unexpected developments. On the surface formula one is about technology - the winner is the boy with the best toy. In fact it's all about character and the conflict between men of such different temperaments. This book examines the media of the sport and the characters within it as well as the role of commerce in sport, the role of sport in global entertainment and the role of women in such an environment." 

This was a very interesting read. Richard Williams followed the F1 season around the world in 1996 and wrote this book immediately after the season. This is not a book about what happens on the track but everything that happens off it. It gives great backgrounds on the 3 main drivers involved and explores the inner workings of a race team, plus the politics of Formula One in the worlds most famous racing series. I found the authors exploration of the 3 main drivers personalities in the series that year, Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve, quite involved. Although the book is hard to get now, for any race fan it would be an enjoyable read. Thanks, Martin!

Book: The King's Speech

Last September during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Teena and I managed to get tickets the for the Gala North American premiere of The King's Speech, which opened at Roy Thompson Hall. We both thoroughly enjoyed the film. When I discovered that there was a book written too, I was anxious to read it. I had hoped it would not just be written from the plot of the film and was happy to discover that the book was written by Lionel Logue's grandson, Mark, and Peter Conradi. 

The King's Speech is the previously untold story of the extraordinary relationship between an unknown and certainly unqualified speech therapist called Lionel Logue and the haunted young man who became King George VI. Drawn from Logue's personal diaries, The King's Speech is an intimate portrait of the British monarchy at the time of its greatest crisis. It throws extraordinary light on the intimacy of the two men-and on the vital role the king's wife, the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, played in bringing them together to save her husband's reputation and his career as king. 

The book follows both Lionel Logue and Albert, the future King George VI, from birth through to both their deaths. I enjoyed how the book would quote letters between the two, which helped describe how their working relationship as patient and doctor became a friendship and how the friendship was a very formal one, as it still involved friendship between a King and a commoner. Having seen the movie and read the book, I have come to greatly respect King George VI, the reluctant king. He overcame a serious social impediment to help lead his country through the second world war, which definitely was the counties "darkest hour" I highly recommend both the book and movie and was glad I saw the movie, before reading the book, although each can be enjoyed entirely on their own.

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Awhile ago, I found myself in the unusual position of not having anything that I wanted to read. Then I remembered that a friend of mine, Eric, had recommended Casino Royale as a great read. Although I have seen most of the James Bond movies, I had never read any of Ian Flemings books. I figured this was a great place to start. 

In the first of Ian Fleming's tales of 007, Bond finds himself on a mission to neutralize lethal, high-rolling Russian operative called "Le Chiffre". Monsieur Le Chiffre ("the cypher"), the treasurer of a Soviet-backed trade union in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, is running a baccarat game in the casino at Royale-les-Eaux, France, in order to recover union money he lost in a failed chain of brothels. This was originally released in 1953, a year before an older fella like me was born. 

Forget all the high tech spy tool from the movies, this is basic spy stuff. I was surprised by how simplistic the plan was for Bond to take on Le Chiffre but then the plot evolved. What I also found interesting was Bond's view on woman while he worked. He didn't like it. Totally different from the movies! Ian Fleming was the personal assistant to the Director of British Naval Intelligence during World War II and trained at the famous Camp X in Oshawa as a spy. No wonder when he started to write he wrote about a subject he was well-versed at. 

Two interesting notes from the book. First, Ian Fleming celebrated the completion of the "Casino Royale" novel's first draft by purchasing a gold-plated typewriter. Pierce Brosnan who played Bond in a few movies bought the typewriter a few years ago for $52,000US. The second was that Vesper Lynd's character was based on a WW II resistance fighter, Christine Granville, whom Fleming had met in real life and supposedly had an affair with. Her nickname was Vesperale and was said to have been Churchill's favorite spy. She was murdered in a London hotel in 1952. Hmmm! Looks like I have another book to find and read. She sounds like she has an interesting story. Casino Royale is a good work of fiction, well-written and I can see myself reading the entire series in the future. Thanks for the recommendation Eric!