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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
Tometoad has commented on (3) products
Pandoras Clock
by
John J Nance
Tometoad
, August 05, 2014
Review contains no spoilers. Pandora's Clock is another book by Nance concerning an impending disaster on board an airplane, and no one does those plots better than Nance. This one involves a doomsday virus that may be loose on-board an international flight. Forbidden to land by every country on the planet, the story alternates between the action on the plane, as the crew tries to maintain order among the passengers, and the CIA headquarters at Langley, where personnel work to find a location where the plane can land and the passengers kept isolated from other people while they wait to die. Then, as if all of this wasn't enough to deal with, the plane's crew finds themselves pursued and under missile attack by a plane which may or may not have been sent by the CIA director to shoot them down. After getting off to a bit of a slow start, the story quickly picks up speed, with new plot twists in almost every chapter. While Nance's plots are always complex and tightly developed, the same can't be said for his characters. He never seems to have all that much interest in them - they're just there because the plot requires them. All his female characters are one-sided and minimally developed, no matter how much page space they take up in the book, and most of the male characters have all the social skills - especially around women - of self-conscious, tongue-tied teenage boys. The book isn't a stay- up- all- nighter, but it does hold your interest and moves along at a brisk clip. The battle between the commercial airliner's captain and the terrorist pilot attempting to shoot them down is worth the price of the book. If Nance paid attention to character development, the book would have merited a '5'.
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Trespass
by
Fletcher Knebel
Tometoad
, August 01, 2014
NO spoilers This is definitely a period piece. Those who were of age in the 60's will probably be immediately transported back in time, when there was high anxiety across the nation about the intentions of the increasingly liberated and demanding black folks. To summarize the story, a black liberation organization (B.O.F.) takes over 6 homes of wealthy white high profile individuals with various demands. The only family we actually get to know is the Crawfords of New Jersey who live on an estate called Fairhill which Tim Crawford, a well to do attorney, inherited from his ruthlessly capitalistic father. The father had obtained much of his wealth in the 1930's by buying up foreclosed homes of black people for pennies on the dollar. The Crawfords are captive of a band of B.O.F. members led by an educated, charismatic black man named Benjamin Steel, who would like the coming black revolution to be as bloodless and non-violent as possible. Steel wants Tim Crawford to sign over the deed to Fairhill in exchange for his and his family's freedom. The three other members of B.O.F. include a nervous, eager to please little dandy dude of a lawyer named Wiggins, a rather dumb but sweet young man named Marsh, and the really scary nightmare of white folks, an angry, white hating militant named Chili. He even hates the Crawfords adorable young children Holly and Scott. Besides Fairhill, much of the novel takes place in the White House situation room. President Randall, a young man who fancies himself to be hip and with-it and who rode into the White House with 86% of the black vote, has a plan to bring the races together via a national group encounter, with truth telling and sharing and hugging among the races. The plan gets jettisoned when B.O.F. takes over the 6 homes of the wealthy supporters of Randall's. His crisis team includes a Sec of the Treasury who sees everything through the prism of the financial markets, a humorless FBI agent, the black Sec of Transportation, who is there to tell the group What Black People Think, and both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Sec of the DOD, both of whom believe wholeheartedly in efficacy of paratroopers and tanks.. There's very little action in the book. The author clearly intended it to be a book of ideas. People sit around and talk, negotiate and argue with each other. Tim Crawford and Ben Steel, Tim and his wife Liz, the innocent colorblind Crawford children and the BOF members, the president and his advisors. With the exception of Tim and Ben, who are the only complex, and therefore interesting, characters, having every person approach the problem from a different perspective leaves all the characters feeling flat and one dimensional. People who didn't come of age in the 60's may find themselves soon thinking that this would all make a great ongoing Saturday Night Live skit with afro and medallion wearing blacks, liberal do-gooder, patronizing white folks, a president more interested in being liked than leading, dull bureaucrats and crazy military people. For the rest of us who were there at the time, all I can say is, we've come a long way baby.
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Final Approach
by
John J Nance
Tometoad
, July 23, 2014
Review contains no spoilers. Pandora's Clock is another book by Nance concerning an impending disaster on board an airplane, and no one does those plots better than Nance. This one involves a doomsday virus that may be loose on-board an international flight. Forbidden to land by every country on the planet, the story alternates between the action on the plane, as the crew tries to calm and maintain order among the increasingly frightened and impatient passengers, and the CIA headquarters at Langley, where personnel work to find a location where the plane can land and the passengers kept isolated from other people while they wait to die. Then, as if all of this wasn't enough to deal with, the plane's crew finds themselves pursued and under missile attack by a shady Middle Eastern terrorist organization determined to down the plane in order to kill a US Ambassador on board. After getting off to a bit of a slow start, the story quickly picks up speed, with new plot twists in almost every chapter. Nance is an airline pilot and aerospace attorney, and his interests clearly lie with the plot and the workings of airplanes. You'll learn a lot about what goes on in a cockpit. While Nance's plots are always complex and tightly developed, the same can't be said for his characters. He never seems to have all that much interest in them - they're just there because the plot requires them. All his female characters are one-sided and minimally developed, no matter how much page space they take up in the book, and most of the male characters have all the social skills - especially around women - of self-conscious, tongue-tied teenage boys. The book isn't a stay- up- all- nighter, but it does hold your interest and moves along at a brisk clip. The battle between the commercial airliner's captain and the terrorist pilot attempting to shoot them down is worth the price of the book. If Nance paid attention to character development, the book would have merited a '5'.
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