O Son Bakış itibaren Novella Yayınları içinde LIT biçim

Jessica Doddington capturinge23e1 — When beginning The Tudor Secret I believed this book had so much potential. Author C.W. Gortner was about to have me embark on a journey to learn of what life might have been like for a spy in Walsingham and Cecil's high intelligence systems during the reign of Edward VI. It was a dangerous time for Princess Elizabeth and also an extremely interesting time to read on. I was first excited and the first few chapters proved impressive. Our hero, Brendan Prescott, travels to Whitehall to serve Northumberland's dashing, but cruel eldest son, the infamous Robert Dudley. All the Dudleys were ruthless and it was refreshing to read a story that would portray Dudley as something far less innocent that just Elizabeth's famed "sweet-heart." Of course the story was playing along- I even dismissed the fact that Elizabeth came to Whitehall to see her ailing brother, who was instated in Greenwich. Mary was the one who had been famour for making the trip to see Edward, which was mentioned in the book, however there is no historical account that Elizabeth to went. But then that's what makes the book fiction- the ability for writers to twist it to their own liking- so I left it. In no time, Prescott finds himself in dangeous situations and is later recruited to join the intelligence service to protect Elizabeth- to become a spy. So this quickly caught my attention- I was intrigued. In fact the story, though wavering for what I hoped to be four stars to three, maintained a good story-line up until after the part when Elizabeth sees her brother in Greenwich. Now, nothing was perfect in the events leading up to this. Prescott, despite being told in his perspective, is extremely undeveloped. In fact all the fictional characters in this book were and I always hoped a historical figure would come in whenever it was just the fictional characters. But the story itself was interesting enough. However after Elizabeth saw Edward, who was slowly being poisoned to keep alive, things began to become a little bit out of control. In just moments the poisoner- Mistress Alice who was Prescott's nurse before- enters. Prescott sees that she defiled- her tongue cut out- and her entire youth carved out of her. And then Elizabeth has to escape before she is found, leaving Prescott to fend off the formidable Lady Dudley who at this point enters. He manages to escape death, in a very unlikely atmosphere, and somehow is found by Elizabeth's hound Urian. This section of the novel saw mostly fictional characters- Prescott was nursed back to health by Peregrine, the stable boy, and Mistress Stafford, one of Elizabeth's ladies carved from Gortner's imagination. The story began to de-wind furiously at this point. Prescott has to find Lady Mary Tudor before Robert Dudley's men get to her. He manages to make it time and is sent back to deliever messages from Mary. He eventually, after escaping death a few more times, makes it to Hatfield- home of Elizabeth. I was extremely disappointed at the outcome and was absolutely exhausted from having taken on such a insane read. I suppose the next book will see Prescott as a spy during Queen Mary I's reign, but I highly doubt I'll be picking that one up.

Triscope Films _riscope_ilms — Jonathan Safran Foer takes a trip to the Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather's life during World War II and to write a book about his family's history. Except there's also Alex, the Ukrainian guide who tells his own story in hilariously broken English. And a foray into magical realism via the book that Foer-in-the-book is writing. It's a little hard to summarize. Foer handles universal six different writing styles, at least three family history, lots of Jewish metaphors, and a whole slew of universal truths. This is still the best book I've read in decent years--it's beautifully written, and you can't help feeling. A whole lot.

Akshay Sadarangani supercoolakshay — I enjoyed reading this book, and this is one of those throwaway reads that I tend not to read. I kept asking myself, why do I like this book so much aside from the fact that I have a fantasy of moving to Garrison, NY one day? The reason was two-fold: it reminded me of the good times I spent at the Brendan Behan Pub and, most importantly, I loved the dialogue. There's always good banter in a pub filled with a bunch of smart asses, and Guinan's has/had a bunch of them as did the Behan.