October 2005
Monthly Archive
Mon 31 Oct 2005
New York Times best-selling author Michael Connelly delivers his first legal thriller, an incendiary tale about a cynical defense attorney whose one remaining spark of integrity may cost him his life.
Mickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn’t recognize innocence if it stood in front of him. Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense pro who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, to defend clients at the bottom of the legal food chain. It’s no wonder that he is despised by cops, prosecutors, and even some of his own clients.
From bikers to con artists to drunk drivers and drug dealers, they’re all on Mickey Haller’s client list. But when a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for brutally beating a woman, Haller has his first high-paying client in years. It’s a franchise case, and he’s sure it will be a slam dunk in the courtroom. For once, he may be defending a client who is actually innocent.
But an investigator is murdered for getting too close to the truth, and Haller quickly discovers that his search for innocence has taken him face to face with a kind of evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, Haller must use all of his skills to manipulate a system in which he no longer believes.
Tags: the lincoln lawyer, michael connelly, audiobook, fiction, thriller, mystery, mickey haller
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Sun 30 Oct 2005
You know that cartoon character that runs off a cliff and keeps running, falling only when it realizes that it’s walking on thin air? Well, reading Zuckoff’s interesting and entertaining book, Ponzi reminded me of that character… Except that in Ponzi’s case he managed to convince thousands of other people to run off the cliff with him and, when he finally started falling, Ponzi still continued running.
A spendthrift immigrant from Italy, Ponzi comes to the US to strike it rich only to fall on hard times from the start. With an optimism and a belief in himself verging on the pathological, Ponzi lives a rough life in Canada and the US while continuously dreaming up new money making ideas.
Ponzi’s eponimously named scheme was initially based on his belief that massive profits could be had through arbitrage in postal coupons. Unfortunately for Ponzi, his optimism took over long before he could figure out how to turn theory into practice. People just started lining up outside his office to hand him their cash for the promise of earning a 50% return in 45 days.
Zuckoff ably brings a fascinating character to life. On the one hand Ponzi is clearly a crook misleading his investors. On the other hand one can’t help but admire the man as he holds his course with such sang froid, running on thin air with style and bravado.
I enjoyed this book tremendously, starting each commute thinking “the investigators have to catch up with him now” and incredulously ending each commute shaking my head as Ponzi was still going. (Spoiler: justice does catch up with him in the end! :-)
Tags: ponzi scheme, mitchell zuckoff, audiobook, nonfiction, history, biography, ponzi, pyramid scheme, get rich quick
Thu 27 Oct 2005
Posted by Katrine Clip under
Fiction ,
History ,
Romance1 Comment
Here’s an intesting book! Step into the medieval cities of Paris and Brussels, learn about the trades of a painter and a weaver, and the life and privileges of the rich and powerful commissioning artwork from them. And get to know about the passion and love, sometimes rather graphic, of these times.
Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different character in the book and the story is read by two narrators. Robert Blumenfeld performs the male voices and Terry Donnelly the female ones. They interpret each character and give them very different voices. I like this first person narrative, the characters have their own voices and they come alive and tell their stories with each a unique perspective.
A court painter, Nicolas des Innocents, is summoned by the nouveau riche aristocrat Jean Le Viste to design some tapestries for one of his great halls, celebrating his rising status at Court. Nicolas meets the oldest daughter Claude and it is a “coup de foudre” between them. But this passion is of course impossible due to the class difference. She is well guarded by servants or nuns, he is sent to Belgium to oversee the tapestries’ completion.
The tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn that inspired Chevalier to write this novel are currently hanging in a museum in France. They depict the senses: Taste, smell, touch, vision, hearing - each represented in separate panels. In the novel, Nicolas is giving all the different female figures in the panels the faces of the women in his life: Claude and her mother, the weaver’s wife and her daughter. The author paints an interesting love story behind the mysterious medieval tapestries, and the different strands of the story - the voices - are masterly woven together.
I have heard that an earlier novel by Chevalier, Girl With a Pearl Earring, is an even better read than this one, and if that’s true, I can’t wait to read it!
Tags: lady and the unicorn, tracy chevalier, audiobook, fiction, history, france, tapestry, paris, brussels
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Wed 26 Oct 2005
This novel was one of the first audiobooks I listened to. It was absolutely captivating, it’s such a dramatic, intense love story. And it is a true story, based on a correspondence between a beautiful English-Italian woman, Giustiniana Wynne, and a Venetian nobleman, Andrea Memmo. Researched and assembled by his descendant, their love letters were found partly in the family’s old palazzo on the Grand Canal and in libraries’ collections. Their forbidden love was kept alive through their letters and secret meetings arranged by trusted servants or friends - a stormy relationship of joyful love and nasty jealousy.
What heightened my listening experience, was a recent visit to Venice: I could envision the whole story as it unfolded. The Venetian setting evoked images of a city that hasn’t changed that much in a few centuries… the canals, its bridges and pedestrian or waterway traffic, the mansions along the Grand Canal. Except that in our days, the ruins of a glorious past are sinking into the sea.
Historical characters such as Casanova appear in the story, and it’s interesting that the author found out even more about his ancestor’s love story from Casanova’s own memoirs. The lives of Andrea and Giustiniana are intervowen with Italian and French history, their fates decided on by their heritage.
The narrator, Paul Hecht, does a marvelous job in pulling you into the story. When remembering the story now, it is as if there are several voices narrating the story: I can “hear” Giustiniana’s voice distinct from Memmo’s. This might be attributed to the story’s dramatic character as well as a very well rendered narration!
Tags: venetian affair, andrea di robilant, audiobook, history, romance, biography, venice, italy, love story
Mon 24 Oct 2005
Rowling’s books have definitely changed over time. In the first four, there was a usually a quest, challenge, etc. that Harry spent most of the book overcoming. As we’ll see when the movie comes out in November, Harry spends most of his time in “The Goblet of Fire” (#4) trying to win the Tri-Wizard Tournament. In books five (”Order of the Phoenix“) and six (”Half-Blood Prince”), Harry is less driven by a specific quest and more by his desire to find out why his life is intertwined with Voldemort’s.
I found book five on the low end of enjoyable. Book six however is a whole lot better. For one thing Rowling doesn’t bother us with a character like Umbrage (who serves as Harry’s temporary nemesis in book five). In “The Half-Blood Prince” we’re dealing with the old favorites: Harry & his friends, Dumbledore, Malfoy, Snape, the Weazleys, etc. At the same time we learn more about each of them, thus strengthening the characters.
Another improvement is that the action’s just better in book six, which doesn’t potter along (pun intended :-) as much as its predecessor. We’re thankfully not treated to a non-stop set of magic battles but when action does occur, it’s a lot more meaningful to the outcome of the series’ tapestry. The different strands of this story are woven together more deftly.
Jim Dale’s narration is great. His voices are still spot on and he conveys the emotions of each character very effectively. This is the first of Rowling’s books that I’ve regretted coming to the end of… I want to know what happens next… NOW! :-)
Tags: harry potter and the half-blood prince, harry potter, jk rowling, audiobook, fantasy, fiction, magic, ron weisley, hermiony granger, jim dale
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