Book of the Month, May 2011

Michael Kelly, former officer with the Chicago Police Department and now a private investigator, is approached by his old partner, John Gibbons, who is trying to solve an eight year old sexual assault case. Shortly after Kelly agrees to look into it, Gibbons is found dead near Navy Pier. What seems like a coincidental death becomes just the first in a series of murders that has Kelly asking questions in all the wrong places and looking under rocks all around the city of Chicago. He finds a cover-up in the police department, tied to a death row inmate, and of course, the all pervasive Chicago political machine.

Harvey has written a book set in contemporary Chicago that gives the reader a taste of the Windy City salted with touches of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. This is a gritty crime novel that makes you feel the grime and never stops moving once you start turning the pages. This is a great crime novel replete with complicated friendships and a little romance that stays a couple steps ahead of the reader, setting you up for a surprise at the end.

This is a novel that was first published in 2007, but that I only recently discovered by happenstance. I was so intrigued by "The Chicago Way" that I also read the two sequels, "The Fifth Floor" and the "The Third Rail" in short order. Disappointed that I had reached the end of the series, I was heartened to find out that Harvey has a fourth book in the Michael Kelly series being released this summer (July 2012), titled, "We All Fall Down."

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Simba's iPad Survey Is A Bit Misleading

In the past few days I’ve come across a news story about about the percentage of people who use the iPad to read an ebook. Simba Information conducted a nationwide survey which found that 35% of iPad owners have never used it to read an ebook. Simba’s spokesperson tries to make this sound like a shocking statistic, especially with the statement that “over a million iPad buyers haven’t used the gadget for e-books shows that not all new gadgets equate to a new e-reader.”

What?! You have an iPad and haven’t read a book on it?

This is a load of carefully concealed hyperbole and makes me wonder who is behind the survey and about ulterior motives. We could easily take this report and turn it on its head saying, “65% of iPad owners have used the iPad to read a book.” This is a higher percentage than the number of adults in the United States who said they have read a book in the last year.

The problem with this survey is that it engages in making an implied comparison, which is, “While 35% of iPad owners haven’t read a book on the iPad, 100% of Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader owners have used their device to read a book.”

What makes this statistic so laughable is that the the Kindle, Nook and Sony Reader (and a slew of other devices) are dedicated e-readers. These devices do one thing really well- let you read ebooks. The iPad is a platform that happens to have an app (which you must download from the app store) to read ebooks, but also lets you to read email, surf the web, play games, listen to music, watch movies, and on and on.

Maybe Simba should also conduct a study to inform us that “100% of physical book readers have used an amazing device to read. It’s called a book.”

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From Whence Do Those Relics Come?

To whom does the past belong?

Historic landscapes around the world, once virtually littered with archeological treasures, are being looted at an alarming rate, particularly in the American Southwest. Do these artifacts belong to those who find them, to museums, or to the past? Craig Childs, in his book “Finders Keepers,” argues that these artifacts might be best left where they lie, unless the only way to protect them is in a museum. Even then, he scrutinizes museums methods of acquiring and storing these artifacts. He relates stories of how unscrupulous museum directors knowingly turn a blind eye to the questionable provenance of an item and worse yet, of so poorly storing these items that they may eventually rot away in storage spaces.

While Childs uses examples of artifact looting from around the world, he concentrates the story in his own backyard- the Four Corners region of the Southwest, centering on Blanding, Utah. Having worked with and interviewed many of the people involved in digging up and selling archeological artifacts, he tells the story of how many of these people were caught and prosecuted by the Federal Government, and how many of them don’t see a problem with selling these artifacts for personal gain, while others committed suicide rather than be prosecuted.

Childs addresses the issues of archeology, looting, museums and Native American tribal rights with a thoughtful and respectful approach, giving you his thoughts, while acknowledging that he doesn’t hold all of the answers.

“Finders Keepers” is a fascinating, true story of history, archeology, passion and greed.

Get your copy at the Campus Store and receive 30% off. Reg: $24.99 Sale: $17.49

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What Is Happiness, and Where Do I Find It

October's Book of the Month "Hector and the Search for Happiness", while technically a novel, is also an exploration into what makes people happy- a self-help novel, if you will.

Hector is a psychiatrist who is at a crossroads in his life. He is single, working in a profession where people who seem to have everything are constantly unhappy, and he is unsatisfied with himself. He decides to take a trip around the world, meeting old friends and new acquaintances, trying to understand what makes people happy.

From Paris to China, Africa to the United States, Hector makes observations and speaks with people, making a list of about what makes them happy. Along the way he spends an evening with a beautiful woman, befriends a drug lord, is kidnapped by a third world gang, and shares his findings with a world renowned professor.

“Hector and the Search for Happiness” is an international bestseller that is part novel, part self help guide. Optimistic and simple, it is a book that highlights what you may already know about being happy, but might have forgotten.

Pick up your copy at the Campus Store and save 30%. Regular price $14.00. Sale Price: $9.80.

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Hot Mysteries In Ice Cold Northern Michigan

September’s Book of the Month is a duel selection, introducing readers to the fictional northern Michigan town of Starvation Lake and big town, turned small town newspaper writer Gus Carpenter. “Starvation Lake” and “The Hanging Tree” are the first two books of a fascinating new mystery series written by Bryan Gruley, the Chicago Bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Gruley brings the things he knows well to these stories- newspapers and hockey- and winds them together with quirky characters, dark secrets, and small town gossip boiling over with both love and hate.

“Starvation Lake” introduces Augustus “Gus” Carpenter, a journalist who has recently left the Detroit Times under circumstances that he would rather forget about and has gone to work for his hometown paper, The Pine County Pilot. The twice weekly paper normally reports the goings on in town- city council meetings, store openings, Cub Scout meetings- but Gus, the once big city reporter, sees journalism differently than reporting on only the things people want to hear. When the snowmobile of former hockey coach Jack Blackburn, who died when it broke through the ice on Starvation Lake, turns up on the shores of another lake five miles distant, Gus begins to question the history of Blackburn’s death, and even Blackburn himself. Figuring out what actually happened pits Gus against nearly the whole town, where everyone would rather let sleeping dogs lie.

In “The Hanging Tree,” we see Gus resign himself to settling back into life in Starvation Lake, the town he tried to escape by going to college and getting a job as a reporter for the Detroit Times. His old girlfriend, now deputy Darlene Esper, has left her husband giving him the opportunity he squandered years before while his problems at the Detroit newspaper seem to have gone away. It’s not where he’d thought he’d be, but it’s better than where he could have ended up. Unfortunately Gracie McBride, Darlene best friend during their teen years and Gus’ second cousin is found hanging in a tree in an apparent suicide. Gus suspects that there is more than meets the eye and although the town wishes he would leave well enough alone and let Gracie rest in peace, Gus can’t do that. Especially when he discovers a connection between Gracie, big shot lawyer Laird Haskell and the new hockey rink that Haskell is trying to build to replace Starvation Lake’s old, run down rink. Gus left Detroit, but it appears that crime from Detroit is following him all the way to Starvation Lake.

Well written and suspenseful, Gruley has given us two great reads about Gus Carpenter and Starvation Lake and I certainly hope he gives us a few more. Towns like this always have secrets floating beneath the surface.

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Don't Call This "Just Another Vampire Story"

When the publisher rep for Random House suggested I read "The Passage," I was a little put off by her description. All I needed was another corny vampire novel in my massive stack of to-be-read books on my bedside table (at times I'm afraid the pile will come crashing down in the middle of the night and bury me alive). I began with a promise to myself that if this book was corny, light, and went nowhere fast, I was going to put it down and start something else. Four days later I had finished the nearly 800 page volume. It was that good. I think those of you who like suspenseful, post-apocalyptic novels will love this one. And...

If you are not afraid of the dark, you soon will be.

When the army secretly engineers a virus to create a super-soldier, things go wrong- horribly wrong. Instead of an invulnerable soldier, they end up with mutated human subjects that have a taste for raw meat and blood, particularly human, are blindingly fast, and are deterred only by bright light. As the experimental subjects escape the secret compound in Telluride, Colorado, they begin either killing or infecting everyone they come in contact with. Within days, the entire state of Colorado is under quarantine, and weeks later, the entire United States has been cut off by the rest of the world.

Fast forward...

One hundred years after the outbreak a small group of uninfected people eke out an existence, protected within a fortress of towering walls and bright lights that turn night to day. They have established harsh rules and order to keep them safe from the "virals" (just one of the names for the mutated humans that roam the earth). But their order is thrown into chaos when a human teenager appears outside the walls of the compound, seemingly unaffected by the virus. Added to the appearance of Amy, several of the compound residents discover that the technology that keeps the lights on at night is failing and they don't have the equipment to repair it. A group of compound residents is determined to find out where Amy came from and if there are any more uninfected human alive out there. But, to do that, they must leave the safety of the compound and journey back to where it all started- Telluride, Colorado.

Dark and entertaining, "The Passage" will have you wanting to turn the page and dreading what you will find there.

"The Passage" by Justin Cronin is an amazing story driven by great characters and page turning suspense. Halfway through 2010, this is my favorite book to date.

"The Passage" is available at the University Campus Store during the month of July for 30% off, or at our online partner, Powells Books.

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You Don't Always Get What You Think You Want

He placed a notice in a Chicago paper, an advertisement for "a reliable wife." She responded, saying that she was "a simple, honest woman." She was, of course, anything but honest, and the only simple thing about her was her single-minded determination to marry this man and then kill him, slowly and carefully, leaving her a wealthy widow, able to take care of the one she truly loved.

What Catherine Land did not realize was that the enigmatic and lonely Ralph Truitt had a plan of his own. And what neither anticipated was that they would fall so completely in love.

Filled with unforgettable characters, and shimmering with color and atmosphere, A Reliable Wife is an enthralling tale of love and madness, of longing and murder.

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