Book 52 - The Bourne Ultimatum

Title: The Bourne Ultimatum
Author: Robert Ludlum
Pages: 662
Grade: A-/B+

Summary: (From the back of the book)
At a small-town carnival two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre killing. The telegrams were signed 'Jason Bourne.' Only they know Bourne's true identity and understand that the telegrams are really a message from Bourne's mortal enemy, Carlos, known as the the Jackal, the world's deadliest and most elusive terrorist. And furthermore, they know what the Jackal wants: a final confrontation with Bourne. Now David Webb, professor of Oriental studies, husband, and father, must do what he hoped never to do again -- assume the terrible identity of Jason Bourne. His plan is simple: to infiltrate the politically and economically omnipotent Medusan group and use himself as bait to lure the cunning Jackal into a deadly trap -- a trap from which only one of them will escape.

My thoughts: This is not the best of the series, which is slightly sad considering it is the end of the trilogy, but I don't think it's a completely inappropriate send off. I didn't finish this one as quickly as I did the other two, and that was sadly largely due to a few failings. This book was just not nearly as exciting for me. Saying that though, I really thought David/Jason came across really well...even in all his slip ups. He's struggling to be two different people at the same time without killing one in order to make use of the skills of the other. And he's not young anymore. He's 50, with a family, and is more than a touch mentally unhinged. A lot of people found fault with Jason's inability to take down Carlos when he should have, I'm not disagreeing completely but I still felt it as oddly in character. However....I do find it an incredible let down to not end it with one killing the other. It just feels wrong in some way. In the same way that those helping him constantly died to save him. Which just leads back to my theory. By the end...I think David was just acting off of Jason's remembered skill than actually acting as Jason...which I feel explains his lack of well complete skill. And it was just slowly driving him mad, which if anything is completely clear in the epilogue. The Bourne series did come full circle in the fact that in the manner David had to be broken down to become Jason...Jason had to be dismantled completely in order to return David. So again, not the best of the series but I did enjoy it on various levels....and I felt comfortable with the characters and I liked coming back to them. And a small part of me still wishes the movies...love them as I do...had stuck a bit closer to the books in some ways. If only so I could keep Marie around.

Up next: I'm thinking The Good German or The Ruins....

Book 51 - Ruffian: Burning from the Start

Title: Ruffian: Burning from the Start
Author: Jane Schwartz
Pages: 322
Grade: A+

Summary: (From Library Journal)
Ruffian: the name stands out among a handful of great racehorses. Ruffian: the name conjures memories of a tough competitor, a tomboy. Ruffian: the name synonymous with the pinnacle of glory and the nadir of tragedy. Schwartz ( Caught , Ballantine, 1987) eloquently captures the spirit and style of this undefeated filly who beat all comers save death. In the 1975 match race against the colt Foolish Pleasure, viewed by a televised audience of 18 million, Ruffian broke down while leading and later had to be destroyed. Schwartz tells Ruffian's story from her birth, breaking, training, and racing, to the day of the ill-fated "battle of the sexes" through the eyes of her handlers, grooms, jockeys, and trainer.

My thoughts: This book broke my heart. I knew what was coming. I knew it was real. And with every page, a small tiny part of me still hoped it wouldn't. Ruffian was a miracle horse...everything she did was magic. And then it just ended, abruptly, for reasons I still think are ridiculous in retrospect but it's an 'if only'. Ruffian was not a horse who had anything to prove. She was and undoubtedly always will be, one of the most amazing fillies to grace horse racing. And I think the book more than did tribute to her and those who cared for her.

Book 50 - A Beautiful Mind

Title: A Beautiful Mind
Author: Sylvia Nasar
Pages: 390
Grade: B+

Summary: (From Publishers Weekly)
Nasar has written a notable biography of mathematical genius John Forbes Nash (b. 1928), a founder of game theory, a RAND Cold War strategist and winner of a 1994 Nobel Prize in economics. She charts his plunge into paranoid schizophrenia beginning at age 30 and his spontaneous recovery in the early 1990s after decades of torment. He attributes his remission to will power; he stopped taking antipsychotic drugs in 1970 but underwent a half-dozen involuntary hospitalizations. Born in West Virginia, the flamboyant mathematical wizard rubbed elbows at Princeton and MIT with Einstein, John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener. He compartmentalized his secret personal life, shows Nasar, hiding his homosexual affairs with colleagues from his mistress, a nurse who bore him a son out of wedlock, while he also courted Alicia Larde, an MIT physics student whom he married in 1957. Their son, John, born in 1959, became a mathematician and suffers from episodic schizophrenia. Alicia divorced Nash in 1963, but they began living together again as a couple around 1970. Today Nash, whose mathematical contributions span cosmology, geometry, computer architecture and international trade, devotes himself to caring for his son. Nasar, an economics correspondent for the New York Times, is equally adept at probing the puzzle of schizophrenia and giving a nontechnical context for Nash's mathematical and scientific ideas.

My thoughts: This enthralled me in a way I didn't actually think that it would. I picked it up out of pure curiosity, I knew vaguely what it was about, but was not biased by the film which I still haven't seen. But the portrait of John Nash's life was well done. I knew the scene...the state of the world and the state of John himself...which always makes a biography more complete. The motivations and actions of the person more understandable and easier in which to relate. The mathematics was neatly woven throughout and while not a particular fan...I could understand at least vaguely most all that was talked of in that respect..or at least connect it to something I could understand. I think the author did a wonderful job. I thoroughly recommend it.

Up Next: Ruffian: Burning from the Start by Jane Schwartz

Book 49 - Cursor's Fury

Title: Cursor's Fury
Author: Jim Butcher
Pages: 442
Grade: A+

Summary: (From Jim Butcher's website)
Since the Second Battle of Calderon, only the courage, determination and sacrifice of loyal subjects of the realm of Alera have prevented the unthinkable—a civil war that could leave Alera in ruins, devestated and vulernable to its enemies. Loyal Alerans have given their blood and lives to preserve the realm.

It was not enough. Though the insurrection of the High Lords against the First Lord, Gaius Sextus, has been delayed for several years, it has only been the calm before the storm.

Civil war shatters the realm.

Now, the power-hungry High Lord of Kalare has launched a merciless, devastating rebellion against Gaius. Caught off guard by the sheer power of Kalare's attack, Gaius Primus and the loyal forces of Alera must fight for the survival of the realm, beside the most dangerous of allies—the equally rebellious and power-hungry High Lord and Lady of Aquitaine.

Trapped in the besieged city of Ceres, Isana of Calderon survives the attack of Kalare's assassins, and must fight to save the life of the wounded slave, Fade, poisoned while defending Isana from her attackers. The secrets of her past loom large in deed and memory, as she at last confronts the dark truths of her own past.

Countess Amara, Cursor to the First Lord, must carry out a desperate rescue operation, freeing hostages taken by Kalare and held against the military neutrality of loyal High Lords. The survival of the realm could hinge on the success of her mission: but is her ally, Lady Aquitaine, sincere in her efforts to assist—or will she betray the young Cursor and the First Lord she serves?

Sent away from the theater of the civil war by a protective First Lord, young Tavi of Calderon joins the newly formed First Aleran Legion as its juniormost officer under an assumed name as a spy for the First Lord—but when civil war erupts, Tavi's captain learns that Kalare has done the unthinkable; allied himself to the Canim, a merciless, terrifying enemy of the realm, who have arrived in numbers more vast than any in history. When treachery from within its ranks destroys the command structure of the First Aleran, the young Cursor finds himself in command. The First Aleran is friable, undertrained, poorly equipped; and it is the only force standing between the Canim horde and the heart of war-torn Alera.

My thoughts:

When I look at my favorite authors list, I can understand how many can wonder. But with every book, I'm more confident that Jim Butcher's place there is well deserved. His books won't be classics...or likely be read 100 years from now... but his voice is distinct. The worlds he creates are fleshed out....and with each book, more information is given. The world gets larger. I love his writing style. His books always make me feel comfortable. I don't know if it's just that I'm getting used to his style or if its the fact his writing in some way reminds me of my own. Or if it's some odd mixture of the two. But Jim always makes me laugh. The books make me laugh, they grasp my attention. I will stay up until the wee hours of the morning to finish one. If you enjoy fantasy-like books. He has two distinct series that I think at least one will appeal to everyone. Please go out and pick one up! (This turned a bit more into Jim pimping than Codex Alera pimping...let's just say. This book is possibly my favorite in the series yet. I did stay up until almost 4am finishing it because I couldn't put it down. And my love of Tavi and his back story just continues to grow.)

Up Next: I think.... A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar.... but we shall see.

Book 48 - Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates

Title: Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates
Author: David Cordingly
Pages: 244
Grade: B

Summary: (From Publisher's Weekly)
Widespread piracy began in the Western world in 1650 and ended abruptly around 1725. Cordingly, formerly on the staff of the National Maritime Museum in England, describes who became pirates (mainly volunteers who joined up when their ships were captured); what they wore (scarves or handkerchiefs around their head, just like in the movies); and how they were armed (literally, to the teeth). Pirates, says the author, were "attracted by the lure of plunder and the desire for an easy life." They were not the clean-cut heroes of the Errol Flynn films either, but cutthroat murderers. Some of the famous pirates are portrayed: Sir Francis Drake made his name by plundering silver on the Spanish Main; Sir Harry Morgan is famous for his ransom of Portobello to the President of Panama for 250,000 pesos; and Captain Kidd remains mysterious because of his buried gold and silver on Gardiners Island, near New York City. Fictitious pirates are also surveyed, such as Long John Silver and Captain Hook, and the allure they still have over us is explored. Even if you don't know a corsair (a Mediterranean-based pirate) from a buccaneer (a Caribbean pirate), this book will delight and inform.

My thoughts: It was a nice informative read. I appreciated the background given on what was behind many famous piratical novels and movies. And I enjoyed a taste of the factual past of pirates. It's short enough that it is not over bearing in information but at the same time I felt I was indeed learning things.

Up Next: We shall move away from the non-fictional take on pirates and delve into the best example of fiction possible - fantasy. I'm thinking Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher.

Book 47 - The Locket

Title: The Locket
Author: Richard Paul Evans
Pages: 361
Grade: B+

Summary: (From the author's website)

After the death of his mother, Michael Keddington finds employment at the Arcadia nursing home, where he befriends Esther, a reclusive beautiful elderly woman who lives in mourning for her youth and lost love. Michael faces his own challenges when he loses his greatest love, Faye. When Michael is falsely accused of abusing one of the Arcadia's residents, he learns important lessons about faith and forgiveness from Esther, and her gift to him of a locket, once symbolic of one person's missed opportunities, becomes another's second chance.

My thoughts: I've had this book in my to read pile for ages. My mother bought it for me at a garage sale...and it just didn't look that appealing. But my mother is typically so good at picking out books that I enjoy that I left it. Thinking one day I would get to it. Well, that one day was today. And with the exception of the 30 pages I read last night before bed, I read the entire novel in one sitting. The story is right out of a hallmark movie, which it's been made into one, but it broke my heart. I cried. I laughed. It's oddly empowering and hopeful, even if the overall message is a mixed one. When Esther asks Michael if he thinks life gives second chances. He replies that we would probably just make the same mistakes over again. And in the end, that is probably exactly true. Because your reasons would still be your reasons. But Esther believes life gave her a second chance...to fix her wrongs. Sadly, not in her own life, but in Michael's life. It's sweet. It's sappy. It's a quick, easy read. And it made me smile.

Up Next: Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly or possibly that thing on the 21st...it's getting closer.

Book 46 - Portrait in Sepia

Title: Portrait in Sepia
Author: Isabel Allende
Pages: 304
Grade: B

Summary: (From the back of the book, typed by my loving, caring hands)

In nineteenth-century Chile, Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that erases all recollections of the first five years of her life. Raised by her regal and ambitious grandmother Paulina del Valle, Aurora grows up in a privileged environment, but is tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she explores the mystery of her past.

My thoughts: The summary built it up for me as something it wasn't, but in the end I still liked the read. The writing style was something I really appreciated. As well as use of the title to portray the way we see memories. Very little to give this time but I shall leave with the end quote that I think captures this novel effectively.

"Each of us chooses the tone for telling his or her own story; I would like to choose the durable clarity of a platinum print, but nothing in my destiny possesses that luminosity. I live among diffuse shadings, veiled mysteries, uncertainties; the tone for telling my life is closer to that of a portrait in sepia."

Up Next: Either The Locket, something of a fantasy nature that I already own...or I'll hold out for that silly book that's supposedly 'leaked' and comes out on the 21st.