*Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer

Simply stellar. I listened to this on CD (unabridged) and half the time I was so involved in the story that I didn't know how I made it to where I was going. To say it's engrossing is putting it mildly. I can VERY HIGHLY recommend this one to anyone.
Jon Krakauer has done it again with another true account -- this time of a young man, Chris McCandless, who lived his vision of chucking it all and going out on the road. The story originally appeared as a magazine piece for Outside Magazine. As he notes in the book, his story captured the attention of several people who had encountered McCandless on his travels, and after piecing together accounts from several of these peopke, along with Chris's journal and others who came forward to talk about this young man, he expanded the story into a book. Plus, as he notes in the book, Krakauer found a bit of common ground with McCandless, which he poignantly shares with the reader.
After graduating from college, Chris donated his entire savings to charity, loaded his old Datsun B-210 and just vanished. Although his parents hired a private investigator, they would not hear about their son again until news of the discovery of his body in an old shell of a bus reached them some 2 years later. His travels took him not only throughout the lower 48, but down into Mexico and up into Alaska, his final goal. McCandless had mentors in Thoreau, Jack London, Tolstoy and other writers and decided to take their advice and do some real living for himself, often in situations in which you wouldn't expect someone of his background to find himself. Krakauer takes us through the events of McCandless's travels, as best as he can put them together. His writing is amazing; his storytelling abilities are incredible.
I absolutely loved this book, although as a parent, it was in parts a bit difficult to read, but only due to the emotional content of the "what -ifs" through which I put myself at times. Very highly recommended, with absolutely no reservations.

APRIL: Read any good movies lately?

April: the main focus of my reading will be books that have become movies. I have what I think is a pretty good line up, plus I'm still plowing my way through my ever-growing TBR pile.

Again -- books that are in this category will be marked with *; the others are from the massive pile of books in my house (neatly shelved, of course!), or my Kindle, or my car's cd player.

(continuing March) *A Stone of the Heart, by John Brady

A Stone of the Heart is the first Inspector Matt Minogue novel, set in Dublin. Minogue was a victim in a bombing where a man he was supposed to be protecting was killed. He has been on invalid status with the police and is somewhat prone to melancholy and a bit of introspection. His worries spill over into his life and work, where he feels that he is not as valuable to the police force as he once was. And in turn, he makes some of his co-workers and superiors a bit edgy. The action begins when Minogue is sent to Trinity College in Dublin to investigate the death of a student named Jarlath Walsh. Everyone Minogue questioned except Walsh's girlfriend Agnes tells Minogue that Walsh is involved with drugs, but Minogue isn't so sure that that's really the case. Walsh's killing takes on new meaning when Minogue becomes involved in the search for a cop killer, and he finds that Walsh's seemingly random death is related. To be honest, the first part of this book is so incredibly slow that I wrestled with putting it aside and picking up something else. I stuck with it to the end, and it's only about 3/4 of the way through when the action really picks up. Most of the book deals with setting up Minogue's character, because this is the first in a series. Hopefully in the books following this one, we'll all know that Minogue is a bit of a neurotic, a victim of ptsd and we can move on to a faster-moving plot. Overall, not too bad, but beware...it is slow. If you're a mystery reader like myself, you may find it a bit tame but it's still an okay read. Recommended for those who like mysteries set in Ireland or mysteries in general.

(continuing March) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou

A very well known book by a very well known author & poet. This is book one of a series in which Angelou sets down her autobiography. The writing is very well done.

When you read this book, you'll find that the autobiographical details carefully reveal several strategies that enabled African-Americans at the time to deal with white people who felt that they were superior to blacks. Angelou grew up mainly in Arkansas (although was shuttled back and forth to St. Louis & California) in the pre-Civil Rights era, so outward resistance was not really a safe and sane option for African-Americans at the time. How she and her family dealt with white people, and what she learned by watching the examples of others seems to be the major focus in the novel, as well as the story of her life up to the time she had a child.

Now I know that people rave about the book, but to me it was just okay. The writing, as I noted, was very good, and I almost had the feeling that I was reading a novel. The major problem with reading any autobiography is that true memories are often filtered through the eyes of others -- and I often caught myself wondering things like "how could a kid that age actually remember what she felt at that particular time?"

Overall, just okay, but recommended.

(continuing March) The Last King of Scotland, by Giles Foden

From what I've seen in the reviews of this book, either people really really liked it or they really really disliked it. Personally, I liked it (not really really) and created opportunities to be in my car to continue the story (this edition is the unabridged audiobook). Let me note here that I did see the movie prior to reading the book -- a definite plus in this case since the screenplay of the movie was changed quite a bit from the book.

The narrator is one Dr. Nicholas Garrigan, a Scottish doctor who is somewhat disillusioned with life under his father and life in general -- so he ends up in Uganda, where he is helping out at a clinic there, until a chance meeting with Idi Amin changes his life forever. When Nicholas had arrived in Uganda, Amin had not yet cemented his power, but after the freak accident that put Nicholas in Amin's path, Nicholas found himself in the position of Amin's personal physician and moved to the capital. On one level the story is about Nicholas and his dealings with Amin, but on another level, it turns out to be about his examination of his own soul as he wonders why he has failed to see the truth about Amin, and what it says about him that he let himself become so immersed in and remained somewhat in denial of the evils of the entire situation and of Amin himself until it was nearly too late. As Garrigan said at one point to a reporter, "You've never known real fear," but it's really obvious that he was somewhat fascinated by Amin at the same time he was afraid. It wasn't until some time after he eventually found himself on the other side of Amin's generosity that he realized that he was probably a marked man and tried to find a way out; yet in the meantime, he stayed put while others were cruelly tortured and while whole villages & peoples were destroyed.

This is fiction, so if you're looking for a book to fill in holes in your knowledge about the reign of Idi Amin, this may not be what you're looking for. However, if you want something really good to take your mind off things for a while, this book is perfect. And don't expect the movie between the covers. I can definitely recommend this one to anyone interested in the topic. The writer did a great job.

(continuing March) Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob, by Dick Lehr & Gerard O'Neill

The scene is Boston, starting in the 1970s. The FBI has made it a top priority to clamp down on organized crime (in this case, the Mafia, populated by the Italians of North Boston). John Connolly, a very young FBI agent, is called to the Boston office to work in the Organized Crime unit. The idea was that if he could find someone to rat out the Italians, the FBI's job would be made much easier. Connolly begins to cultivate James (Whitey) Bulger, a former acquaintance from Connolly's old neighborhood in South Boston. Bulger was a career criminal, beginning his future occupation as a young boy, and he and one of his associates, Steve Flemmi, had ties to the Italian mob in Boston. Whitey was also part of a gang in Southie. He became an informant for the FBI, and in return, he was given protection by the FBI. His information was very helpful and did help to put away some of the Mafia guys, but in the meantime, he also gave info on anyone in South Boston that he considered might be standing in his own way as he rose up through the ranks of the criminal underworld. The authors, Lehr and O'Neill, used a variety of first-hand sources to not only write this book, but to break the entire story in the Boston Globe. What they examine here is basically the true cost of the information provided by Bulger. While he's giving them good information, he's also being allowed to literally get away with murder. I won't go further into this book, but I picked it up the other night and could hardly put it down once I started. I guarantee you that if you have an interest in organized crime, this is a no-miss story. I would like to say that I was appalled by the sheer abuse of power from members of an institution created to protect the American public, but frankly, it's getting harder and harder to be surprised any more. Very well written and very taut; I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in organized crime, the FBI, in the so-called Irish Mob in the United States or in true crime in general.

oops! I got behind for March!!!!

I just recently realized I'd quite forgotten to finish up my booklist for March. So here we go.