A History of Absolutely Everything

Christopher Lloyd’s Absolutely Everything!: A History of Earth, Dinosaurs, Rulers, Robots, and Other Things Too Numerous to Mention was published in 2018. However, the wonderful audiobook was recently released. Christopher Lloyd narrates his own book, and the audio storytelling of this rather large book is wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing the history of some many things I have heard of in the past, but never realized the timeline in which the events occurred. Lloyd presented a moment in history and then told other events going on in various parts of the world occurring at the same time.  I was especially intrigued by the way Lloyd compared the creation of the Earth to a clock and what a huge amount of time occurred prior to humans roaming our planet.

I highly recommend this audiobook for middle school readers through adults. I have seen a portion of the book via Amazon preview and believe the illustrations would be an excellent resource, but the size of the book and text might be daunting to younger readers.

*To comply with guidelines set forth by the Federal Trade Commission, the publisher has provided a complimentary copy of the audiobook of Absolutely Everything!: A History of Earth, Dinosaurs, Rulers, Robots, and Other Things Too Numerous to Mention (Spotlight Audio) for review purposes. This review is my opinion and is in no way influenced by the author or publisher.

Mistress

Whenever I see a new book by my favorite authors, I have to add them immediately to my ever growing To Read list. James Patterson is one of those authors. Mistress was published in 2013, so I am a little bit behind, but like I said my list is ever growing. Sadly I only have two eyes with which to read, so it does take me some time to get to each of the wonderful books on my list. Recently on one of my visits to the Mary Couts Burnett Library on the campus of Texas Christian University (one of my very favorite places to read), I heard Mistress calling my name. I knew I had to check it out and mark it off of my list. It took me a little time to read simply because I was away in Las Vegas for a week and I did not want to carry this large library book with me. However I just finished reading this great suspenseful book and wanted to get my thoughts down before I head off on another adventure.

Mistress
by James Patterson and David Ellis

Mistress by James Patterson and David Ellis is a wonderfully suspenseful tale told by a journalist, Benjamin Casper, for an online newspaper. The story opens with Ben going through the medicine cabinet of a woman named Diana Hotchkiss. He is in her empty apartment installing surveillance equipment. Moments after leaving her apartment she plummets six stories to the pavement below. So, needless to say, the book grabs your attention immediately, but it doesn't stop there. Throw into the mix the President of the United States, Russians, Chinese, the CIA, spies, murder, and a lot of guns and you have one very suspenseful twisted story in which you will never guess the outcome.

While growing up, Ben's father was a professor at American University in Washington, D.C. In order to develop a relationship with his father, Ben learned a great deal about the various President's. I love the way Patterson and Ellis throw in bits and pieces of trivia surrounding the President's and their terms of office. For instance, "Calvin Coolidge liked to have Vaseline rubbed on his head while he ate breakfast in bed" and "John Quincy Adams regularly started his days by swimming nude in the Potomac." I'm sure these are facts you would not expect to read about in a book entitled Mistress. I also enjoyed the inner dialogue Ben has relating to the different encounters he has throughout the book and how he compares them to actors and their movie roles. Throughout the book he quotes (during this inner dialogue) actors, such as Sean Connery in The Untouchables, "They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue!"

Besides all of the espionage going on in the book, there is a great deal of foreshadowing. One of my favorite quotes from the book was actually first used in a radio address in 1939 by Winston Churchill when describing Russia, but is spoken by Joe Pesci in the movie JFK, "A mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma". Following this statement is another great quote, this one from President Roosevelt and written to Churchill during the war, "It is fun to be in the same decade with you." The mention of Russia, Churchill, and Roosevelt so early in the story might be overlooked by some, but has a great impact to the rest of the story.

I always seem to be saying the same thing when it comes to a Patterson book. They are great. I love the suspense, the mystery, and the way the story is twisted in so many directions I simply cannot figure out which direction he will be taking the characters. He is a master storyteller and I love losing myself in his books.

Henry VIII & Cotton Malone

The eagerly anticipated 11th book in the always thrilling Cotton Malone series, The King's Deception,  by Steve Berry will be released in a few hours. I have to say my excitement for this new book came after reading the excerpt at the end of Berry's The Columbus Affair (a stand alone novel). It's not really fair for an author to include these teasers at the end of a previous book. It's like showing a toddler a cookie (in June) and then saying, you can have a crumb now, but you cannot eat the rest of the cookie until October! It might as well be when they turn 18! Seriously, you expect readers, especially bibliophiles such as myself, to be patient and just wait for the book to come out?!? No way! I searched for the opportunity to read The King's Deception pre-pub and was thrilled beyond belief when I was approved for the advanced reader copy via electronic delivery Oh, how times have changed!! My reading addiction can be now be fed simply by opening a webpage, downloading a book, sending it to my device, and then syncing the library on my e-Reader! FREE! Now, can you say addicted? Why, yes I am. I'm not a member of Bibliophiles Anonymous (BA) I am a loud and proud member of Bibliophiles Out Loud (BOL)! I really tried to come up with a cool acronyms, but my husband really hates them!

Okay, onto my praise for The King's Deception. Like other Steve Berry books, I was captured by the first pages and had a very difficult time putting it down . The book begins in Whitehall Palace in January 1547 [For those of you not familiar with English history, this is where Henry VII lapsed into unconsciousness and ultimately died, following a reign of over 37 years] and then moves to May 2012 where Cotton Malone and his ex-wife begin to discuss the death of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, convicted murderer for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The real story begins as Cotton and his teenage son travel to London on Thanksgiving holiday.

I don't want to ruin any of the action, suspense, and adventure for you. So I will just say, if you have plans for the evening, weekend, etc. do not pick this book up because your plans will either be forgotten or cancelled because you will not want to put the book down ~ for any reason. Yes, it is a long book (432 pages), but you will be so engrossed in the story line you won't realize the world is continuing to function around you.

This novel is a wonderful marriage of historical events ~ distant past and not so distant past (because I can remember these events). The way Berry intertwines historical fact with his own story line, thus creating historical fiction, makes the reader wonder, could this really be the case? Is this what happened? If you are not questioning your knowledge of history when you finish a Steve Berry novel, then I don't think you really read the book!

I am a huge fan of historical fiction. While reading a book, such as The King's Deception, I make an effort to do my own research in order to have a better grasp of the actual history and geography of an area. It is not that I don't trust the author. On the contrary, I believe them to such an extent that I have to be able to separate fact from fiction, for my own sake. If I don't do this additional research and investigation I feel that I am not an informed reader. Now, for some this would cause you to move as far away from historical fiction as possible. I, however, love history and always want to learn more. As I have gotten older I have found that I read about times and events in history in which I never studied in school through the historical fiction books I pick up to read.. Historical fiction provides me with the opportunity to learn in an entertaining and suspenseful manner, especially when Cotton Malone has anything to do with the story!

More Historical Fiction

I honestly can not remember the first book I read in the historical fiction genre. I wish I could. I'm not sure about the title, but I can say my love of history is directly linked to two men, my father and Coach Z. My entire life, my father has worked on genealogy. Every family vacation I could remember growing up involved libraries, historical societies, research centers, and of course cemeteries (I'm sure a part of my love for mystery, suspense, and thrillers is derived from my many hours spent in various graveyards). It wasn't until after I married I discovered the joy of Disney World! As ironic as that may be that trip also included genealogy because my husband's grandfather was raised in Florida, in Orlando,so it was very appropriate that we visit the land of his birth, oh and the mouse of course. Even now at forty I find myself drawn to cemeteries. Everytime I see one I have to point it out. My husband recently said there was no denying I am my father's daughter. On a recent trip to Kansas, we made a detour to Winfield where my maternal grandfather is buried. As weird as it may be I also have paternal relatives buried in the same cemetery. As soon as we arrived I was the first out of the car because I always want to be the one to find the tombstone of the family member for which we are searching. I love walking around reading the headstones, wondering how each person died. I know it is morbid, but it is what I think about when calculating their age and reading their names. On this trip we also visited the historical society in Topeka. I don't remember the last time was given a name and date and told to find a birth announcement or death notice, but it felt like welcoming back an old friend to have the microfilm swish around the knobs as the pages of the newspaper swirled by in a flash. The thrill of discovery was rekindled in me. I wanted to find more. In fact I took it upon myself to search for my Mother's birth announcement, but sadly was not able to find one. I believe it might not have been in the paper because my grandmother was so very ill after my mother's birth. The doctors did not believe my grandmother would survive, and it was only with the miraculous care, hands, and prayers of her nurses that she did.

As I was saying at the beginning my love of history actually came from two men, my father and Coach Z. Coach Z was one of my history teachers in high school. I think my junior year. I remember how he would bring history alive for us. He would tell a story. It was not just dates and facts, he would make the events come alive and almost make you feel like you were there experiencing the events with the people of the past. He is one of the reasons I took so many college hours of history and ended up with a minor in history. What a wonderful gift of storytelling he had and I am so thankful to have experienced history through his class.

My favorite time period in history is actually the Revolutionary War. I also love reading about the Civil War. Through the many family vacations we have taken during my youth i have had the great fortune to visit many of the battlegrounds for both of these wars. It is amazing to me to read a story about the places you have seen and think about to the details of why happened on those same land we now walk without any real though to previous events. So many people never think about history. They don't wonder what happened on this spot on this day, at this hour one hundred years ago.

I have read a number of time travel books, and I guess my love of history has made genre one of my very favorites. I love the idea of traveling back in time to visit the different places and times I have only read about. To meet some of the great men and women of hiotry would be fascinating, although I believe it would also be very overwhelming. Yes, I am educated (two college degrees and aspirations of working on a doctorate someday) but to think of being in the same room as Abigail and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin is terrifying. I would hate to think these great people of history would see me as a bumbling fool.

The Distant Hours
by Kate Morton

My intention when I started writing tonight was to give insight into my latest discovery, The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. This was one of those books that just fell into my lap. It wasn't the cover that caught my attention necessarily, but the blurb's description of the main character, Edie's "love of words and mystery." I found a number of quotes that I simply fell in love with while reading, including (from page 16), "I'm just not the type of person who accumulates friends or enjoys crowds. I'm good with words, but not the spoken kind; I've often thought what a marvelous thing it would be if I could only conduct relationships on paper. And I suppose in a sense, that's what I do, for I've hundreds of the other sort, the friends contained within bindings, page after page after glorious page of ink, stories that unfold the same way every time but never lose their joy, that take me by the hand and lead me through doorways into worlds of great terror and rapturous delight." I was also grabbed by this wonderful quote on page 25, "After all, it is the librarian's sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader." I tight I. It have been reading about myself when I came across, "It's natural in times of great perplexity, I think, to seek out the familiar, and the high shelves and long rows of neatly lined-up spines were immensely reassuring.amid the smell of ink and binding, the dusty motes in beams of strained sunlight, the embrace of warm tranquil air, I felt that I could breathe more easily. I was aware of my pulse slowing to it's regular pace and my thoughts drilling their fenders."

I have never claimed to be a writer. The only reason I write this blog is to help me remember and express my opinions of the books I have read, the adult books and not the children's picture books I read for my professional life. This is all about my enjoyment of the written word, like Edie's. That being said, I claim to be a reader.

I was completely enamored by the author's use of time. I love the way the book begins with the prologue of The True History of the Mud Man. As you read through the book, you find what an important role this book has on so many of the characters. Although the Mud Man is a fictional character I am so very glad Ms. Morton provided us the readers with the story so we could be privy to the emotion brought about by this book on all of the characters. We are then thrust into a kitchen in England where a letter is delivered 50 years late. Through the characters reading we find ourselves engrossed in their private letters and then transported back in time to relive their experiences. What begins as a summer reading on the history of this great castle ends with the discovery of a great mystery and deep secrets held in the walls of the fortress. Just as reading a letter or journal transitions into a new chapter where the writer is no longer writing but actually experiencing the events recorded on paper. The writing evolves into the story with such wonderful detail.  It is a beautiful, way to bring the reader closer to the characters in a unique manner. The way the story is woven together through letters, manuscripts, journals and books is one of the most enduring elements to me as a lifelong reader. I look forward to reading Ms. Morton's other books and simply want to say to her, Thank You. The Distant Hours did not make me a reader, like The True History of the Mud Man made Edie a reader, but I am grateful I found this book and this wonderful story.