Finished (E-Reader): "Ocean at the end of the lane" - Neil Gaiman

I read "Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman as a recommendation from my daughter, so I had no expectations, high or low.


It was a very fast read - start and finish in two days (without really trying).

It was an interesting read, I hadn't expected the supernatural aspects of the book - much of what I get from my daughter are the John Green stories of young/teen biographical stories.

I did like the mix of supernatural into a small town environment, with a young boy seeing what is happening through naive eyes.  The basic storyline is that a border in the young boy's house is found a few km away at the end of a lane, having stolen the family car and committed suicide.

The boy accompanies his dad to recover the stolen car, a seeming joyride dropoff.  However, they discover the dead man in the car.  A young girl (a few years older than the boy) comes out to take him away from this crime scene and into the house near the abandoned vehicle.  The first evidence of supernatural is the amount of details this girl, her mother and her grandmother know about the victim - the seem to know his "story" (he apparently took his money and money he was holding for others and gambled it all away in an evening of poor choices), and referred to a note in the vicitim's pocket which hadn't yet been found (and even implied that they "pushed" the investigating officer to look in the correct pocket).

The boy then becomes involved for a short while with the family and their unusual existence, becoming immeshed in one of their adventures.

Not sure if this book is part of a series, or "world" where the details might be more relevant or revealing, but the book did stand alone as a quick summer read.

Finished (E-Reader): "White Lines" - Tracy Brown

I ran across the book "White Lines" by Tracy Brown as a woman at work was engrossed in it and recommended it.


The book is basically a biographical story about the crack epidemic in the U.S. in the '80's.  The book covers several characters (dealers, users, recovered and relapsed users) in a couple of NY neighbourhoods.

When looking for this book (there are two with the same title) I ran across a few reviews.  One of which I fully agree with:  the characters in the book seem to have it "too easy" in the way they seem to have little remorse for the terrible things they have done, and have experienced.  For example, in one scene, the main dealer's girlfriend has been stealing crack from him and using (secretly).  He suspects, and he accosts his intermediate distributors, beating one nearly to death, mainly to see if she'll admit to stealing to save this innocent guy (a lifetime friend).  She doesn't, the guy survives and goes to the competition - no remorse, no attempt to explain/payoff/apologize to the innocent party, and no lasting recriminations.

Similarly, the key female character is abused, becomes an addict, is turned into prostitution by her mother's "boyfriend", recovers, has a good relationship/wealth/security, relapses and loses it all.  Still, not much in the way of angst.

The book does show the paths that lead to horrendous outcomes (e.g. the move into prostitution to feed addiction) but to some degree normalized this behaviour and, perhaps in order to make the characters likable, avoids some of the responsibility for choices and actions.  Though, to be fair, I don't have any experience with these issues, so maybe the only way to survive is to adopt a relatively guilt-free existence to avoid going down even darker and more pessimistic paths.

All in all, I did enjoy the book, but perhaps had too high an expectation for the book to achieve.

Finished (E-Reader): "Girl Gone" - Gillian Flynn

"Girl Gone" by Gillian Flynn proved to be a much more interesting book than I imagined.  I had thought the book would be about an abduction and the detective story to find the victim, either just in time or a little too late.

However, this book was much more interesting.  Told from two perspectives, the missing woman and her suspect husband, the book goes back and forth about who is guilty, what the crime is or was, who the police suspect, who the public favours...

The only drawback from the book is that you sometimes find out information from one character that might have been better kept secret for a little while longer.

I did enjoy the book, and ripped it off in a couple of days as I really wanted to finish.  The twists and turns are somewhat unexpected and worth the read.  A nice summer pic.



I picked up a "hard copy" of the paperback for a recent vacation and gave it to my wife.  She didn't read it on that trip, but was quite absorbed for a weekend to kill the book once we got back.

Finished (E-Reader) - "The Cuckoo's Calling" - JK Rowlinga as Robert Galbraith

Enjoyed "The Cuckoo's Calling" by JK Rowling as Robert Galbraith, but it certainly wasn't anywhere near the scope-changing that accompanied the Harry Potter series.

The book is a basic whodunnit and the main character "Strike" is a war-veteran detective, hampered by a partially missing leg, down and out, who gets a chance to investigate a headline suicide (or murder???).

Rowling/Galbraith does a good job creating likable characters, with faults and strengths and has a fairly interesting storyline.

Not a "must read", but not a bad story for a summer's day.

Finished (Audiobook) - "On China" by Henry Kissinger

I finished listening to Henry Kissinger's "On China".  It was a relatively long tome, but I liked the personal connection he had made with Chinese leaders from just before the opening of China with Nixon's visit in 1972 through the ascension of the current crew.

What I really liked most was the divergence of framing between the Americans and the Chinese.  China has a long and continuous history, the U.S. only a few hundred years.  China was the undisputed champion of their world for much of that time - the largest economy, largest landmass, largest navy (until they let it erode) and the most stable region.

As such, China developed a very zen-like view of the world stage.  The language is a little harsh, but they tended to deal with other countries as "Barbarians" and basically used divide and conquer and time to settle disputes.

Even a "thorn in the side" issue of Taiwan (which, for the historically challenged, is the home of the regime in China prior to the Communist takeover between 1927 and 1949).  Mainland China was ignored and the "real" China existed on Taiwan by most international organizations (e.g. UN) and by the United States.  Nixon's visit to China was huge, though pre-dated by Pierre Trudeau of Canada who opened relations in 1970.

China was willing to work with the U.S., a country which supported their "lost province" of Taiwan (Formosa) because they considered the issue one which could wait for 100 years or so.

Much of China's wise and unwise moves (from either Chinese or non-Chinese perspective) can be traced to their willingness to look longer term instead of focusing on shorter term goals.

This might be a model the U.S. needs to be considering while it still inhabits the "sole superpower" position. Constant short-term focus opens avenues for erosion of goodwill, erosion of support and a perceived lack of focus, all of which shorten the term the U.S. can keep a consistent domestic or foreign presence.