You know how the school-to-prison pipeline is a thing that people are finally talking about? Welp, back in 1992, this book about a gang of very young men trying to stay alive in Oakland was published, and I totally missed it, and I suspect almost everyone else did, too. It’s a really important topic, and thank goodness people are finally supporting discussion about it in a bigger way. I’m mostly thinking of Anna Deveare Smith’s current Off-Broadway show, but also about it being more prevalent […]
What did I just read?
So, I finished this book this morning and I might have liked it? Maybe? I’m not really sure how I felt about it. It might have been good, but I think I might have simply been trying to figure out WTF was going on. Instead of good, maybe intriguing would be a better description. I’ll try to explain. The book has many viewpoints/location points. There’s some sort of interplanetary organization (John and Quinn work there)where the Chair has died, a successor has been announced […]
Jack Reacher in Europe, with an unexpected twist
While I won’t claim it’s his best, or even that great, I found this latest (19th) Jack Reacher story an intriguing enough premise, a rapid page-turner (including the ballistics details which others found boring but which I enjoyed), a truly scary bad guy, and an unexpected punch-to-the-gut ending. Someone has taken a long-distance shot at the French president, but special bullet-proof glass protected him from assassination. The CIA decides, along with Europe’s top intelligence agencies, that this was just a practice run aimed at […]