Books I've Read

Published after the author died, but written in the 80s. Radicals kidnap a popular comedian to get prisoners released. Things go wrong.

A famous writer without a book with a bad divorce going on runs into an old friend who is a writer with a book and no publisher. Good story.

Well, I've seen the movie several times, I've read the book AT LEAST once before, at least, but I guess it was before I started this data base. Great story, five stars!!

The Dortmunder Gang tries to steal a collection of valuable cars.

A collection of Dortmunder tales, mostly. I can't have too much Dortmunder!

Dortmunder saves the O.J. and tries to burgle a penthouse.

Dortmunder steals a gold chess set. Very good.

Dortmunder goes to Las Vegas to get his ring back. Very funny! But no cigarette jokes this time!

An image of a gas gauge on "E" illustrates the book jacket. Ten years from now the world is running out of petroleum, and this is how it impacts the lives of high school students in a small valley in New York state.

Not great reader reviews on Amazon, and I agree with their points. I was thinking, "No one has heard of solar cell phone chargers?". And some of the tech seems sketchy, especially that wonderful perpetual motion generator.

Published in 1935, this is about some girls who are acting in a movie western. They have a hot time while doing so! Then they go to Radio City in New York City to do some promotional radio work for the movie. A mystery is solved in the climatic finish. It is NOT, however, about amateur radio.

An orphaned English girl (who was born in Africa) is forced to impersonate a girl who died of influenza, so the dead girl's parents can get hold of an inheritance. Really good.

Great story of a little country that declares war on the United States back in the 50s. Peter Sellers played several of the parts in the movie.

Franny is an Air Force kid who lives near Andrews AFB. She is coping with growing up, an uncle with issues from WWI, and the threat of nuclear annihilation in the 60s. Profusely illustrated. It took me until page 276 to realize that Uncle "Otis" was actually spelled Uncle Otts. Ain't old eyes great?

Comfort's family lives in a large house that is also a funeral home, so she is familiar with dealing with death. Except when it's too close.

Ruby lives in a very small town in Mississippi. She love her grandmother, and she loves the chickens they rescued. But she hates Melba Jane. Dealing with a death in the family seems to be a theme of the author.

House Jackson is trying to get his arm back in shape for pitching the annual (and only) baseball game against the kids from the neighboring county, but a Pageant is scheduled for the same time. Ruby wants to be catcher (No Girls!), and even Comfort makes a cameo. And of course, someone dies.

An un-named fellow goes to a distant un-named city in an un-named country to house-sit for his college friend Oskar. Stuff goes wrong. Blurb on the back from the Daily Telegraph says "Fawlty Towers crossed with Freud." Well, shit gets real on page 90, but I didn't guffaw till page 221. All that blood!
Lou Reed Sunday Morning mention on page 14, always a plus.

In a world where the privilege to use color must be purchased as a "Pleasure" (and there are many other "Pleasures" one must purchase, too), a young apprentice artists discovers a secret world in paintings that he can enter into. First of a series, good stuff!

Three sisters go to Oakland in the 60s to visit the mother who abandoned them when they were babies. Interesting view of Black Panthers from the children's viewpoint.

A collection of wonderful stories with a Christmas theme. Five star!