Books

Robert B. Parker Books

I’ve written here numerous times before about my love of Robert B. Parker books, but not for quite a long time now. The other week when we lucked into a woman getting rid of her mom’s stuff and gave us carte blanche on her jigsaw puzzles, she also offered up any of the books too. Donna grabbed a few and I picked up 4 hardcovers of Robert B. Parker books. Only one of which was actually written by Mr. Parker, well one and a half.

The first book was the fourth novel of the Virgil Cole/Everett Hitch western series called Blue Eyed Devil. I had read the first two of these books, and while I enjoyed them, I didn’t seek out any more, very much unlike the Spenser series, which at one time I had a copy of every one of the books. This book was the last one Mr. Parker wrote before he passed away, but the series has continued with Robert Knott churning them out. Number eleven is due out this October.

The second book I took was a Jesse Stone novel called Colorblind. I can’t tell you how many of these books, about an ex-LAPD detective turned police chief of a small Massachusetts town called Paradise, I have read, maybe four or five of the nine he wrote. There are now twenty Jesse Stone books total, the one I just finished was written by Reed Farrel Coleman who took over the series back in 2010. Mr. Coleman wrote nine books before giving way to Mike Lupica who is responsible for the latest two books.

The third book I got was Little White Lies, a Spenser novel, that was written by Ace Atkins. Previously I had read one of the other Spenser books by Mr. Atkins, but didn’t really like it. This one was different, I enjoyed it, at least for the first half. The book was only maybe a third or so longer page-wise than the typical Robert B. Parker, but the text is denser, making the halfway point feel about the time the book should have finished.

The fourth book, which I haven’t read yet, is called Silent Night: A Spenser Holiday Novel. This book was unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by Parker’s longtime literary agent Helen Brann.

I did get something interesting from the third book, I got to add to my collection of Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules for the first time in 15 years: On the list of crime-busting techniques, talking to the nosy neighbor was always in the top five.

The More Things Change

The more they change.

I just finished reading the latest Jack Reacher book, #26, called “Better Off Dead.” And I think it might be my last Jack Reacher book. This is the second book Lee Child has co-written in conjunction with his brother Andrew with the intention to retire and hand over the reins of the Reacher books to him.

I don’t know to what extent Lee has been involved with the writing in the last two books, but there has been a slightly different feel to “Better Off Dead” and #25, “The Sentinel.” I can’t actually put my finger on what it is, but I haven’t enjoyed these two books as much as I did the first two dozen.

The same thing happened with the Spenser books by Robert B. Parker. I read a few of the books in the early 2000s and liked them so much that I started searching used book stores, eBay and garage sales trying to find the 35 or 36 novels already out. My collection of books ended up roughly half paperback and half hardcover and I read every one of them in order, from the first to the last. I even created a page here on the blog entitled Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules.

Robert B. Parker, like Lee Child, wrote a new book each year, so I bought the next three hard covers when they came out. But in 2010 Mr. Parker died of a heart attack and his estate worked with the publisher to find an author willing to take on the task of continuing the series. Ace Atkins finished the book Mr. Parker was working on when he died and then continued the once a year writing schedule. I think I read a couple of those books written by by him, but again it just didn’t seem the same, so I stopped.

Both Andrew Child and Ace Atkins were novelists in their own right when they took over from the creators of the already beloved characters, but I just think the writing slightly changed. Then again I’m willing to concede that maybe it is just me and my perception because there was a different name on the books.

I Suppose It Is the Fourth of February Already Somewhere

Earlier this evening I sat down in front of the PC, and because it is the day before the Reacher series premiers on Amazon, I might find a newer or different trailer out that I hadn’t seen yet. Well, there wasn’t any trailer, but the entire show was there waiting to be watched.

So I watched the first of the eight episodes. Watched it all the way through, even the credits. The lead actor fits the bill and I believe he is Reacher incarnate. From now on whenever I’m reading a Jack Reacher book I will picture Alan Ritchson in my head, just like I visualize Sam Heughan in any of the Outlander books.

This story is based on a book set in Georgia and the scenery looked the part, from the countryside to the small town square. I checked IMDB and the only filming locations mentioned are in Ontario, Canada. I guess it is a good thing they filmed it in the summer.

Also on the IMDB page there were several user reviews already there and they were dated February 4th even though it was early evening here. It wasn’t even past midnight on the east coast.

But then I remembered the credits I watched. I had noticed at the end of them the voice actors were listed for all the different countries that will be seeing this show. I realized, at least from the languages I recognized, many were in Europe and it was actually February 4th there.

There’s a New Jack in Town

I’ve written here before about being a big Jack Reacher book fan and now there is going be an Amazon adaptation. It will be based on the the first book, The Killing Floor.

And if it does well they will probably make more. There is plenty of source material to draw from, 26 and counting novels and over a dozen short stories or novellas. The series will start on February 4th so I’ve just finished reading the Killing Floor again to get ready for it.

There is a lot familiar about the trailer and there are also some things that I don’t recognize in there too. I know there are always compromises made when adapting a book into a movie/show, so I should be able to get over most of them. Mainly because I am already beginning to visualize Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher just from the trailer. Unlike the previous person how played him in a couple of Hollywood productions, Mr. Ritchson is the right size.

I guess if you had never read any of the books maybe those movies aren’t bad, but I have steadfastly not watched the 2012 Reacher, nor 2016’s Never Go Back because of my size bias against the lead actor. Maybe after I see this Amazon adaptation I may go back and give them a try if I can find them free somewhere, because the first movie is based on the book One Shot which was my first discovery of the character and the second film is based on one of my favorite of the series, Never Go Back.

Random Little Library

Back in the days of sunny skies and breathable we were on a walk around the neighborhood when just a couple blocks from home we stumbled on a couple boxes of books on the front wall with a sign that read “Free. Take Some.”

It was a varied assortment of kids to young adult books. Donna picked through and selected several books that she thought were appropriate to send along to the nieces and nephew in Washington and I selfishly picked out three books, that spanned 3 centuries in publication dates, I might like to read. All of them were made into movies, only one of which I have seen, so maybe I’ll read the books, then watch the movies, just to compare them.

Published in 2010 was I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore and all I knew of this book was that it had been made into a movie. A not very successful one if I recall correctly. It was fairly entertaining book about an alien race that looks just like us living on earth until they can return to their home planet and reclaim it. But it turns into teen romance with monsters and hero aliens. Because it turns out to be the first book in a series of seven it doesn’t so much as conclude, buts just stops. The movie is available on IMDB for free (with adds), but after I watched the trailer, I won’t watch the movie because I’m not a teenager any more.

Published in 1968 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, AKA Bladerunner, was the source material for one of my favorite movies of all-time, but I have never read the book on which it was based. I am a voracious sci-fi reader and have actually never read anything by PKD. Though I have seen more than a half dozen or so of the movies or TV shows based on his writings. While the book is different from the movie in many ways, the core plot is the same and I can see where the cinematic choices made for a better movie.

First published in French in 1864 A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne wasn’t translated into English for publication in 1871. According to IMDB there are three movie versions, 1959, 1988 & 2008 to go along with numerous TV series, TV mini-series, TV movies and a video game based on this material. I have seen none of them and I have also not read the book. Now is my chance. Wow. I couldn’t read it. The language was, well, different. Was it the translation, was it the language of the time, was it a combination of the two? I don’t know, but I couldn’t finish through the second chapter.

But as I was hungry, I sallied forth to the dining room, where I took up my usual quarters. Out of politeness I waited three minutes, but no sign of my uncle, the Professor. I was surprised. He was not usually so blind to the pleasure of a good dinner. It was the acme of German luxury- parsley soup, a ham omelette with sorrel trimmings, an oyster of veal stewed with prunes, delicious fruit, and sparkling Moselle. For the sake of poring over this musty old piece of parchment, my uncle forbore to share our meal. To satisfy my conscience, I ate for both.

The old cook and housekeeper was nearly out of her mind. After taking so much trouble, to find her master not appear at dinner was to her a sad disappointment-which, as she occasionally watched the havoc I was making on the viands, became also alarm. If my uncle were to come to table after all?

Probably not going to watch this movie either. The 2008 movie with Brendan Faser is three bucks to rent on Amazon and the 1959 movie with James Mason & Pat Boone is a dollar more at $4. The 1988 version is free on Amazon, it has 3 one-star ratings only because they couldn’t give it a zero. But to top it off, here is a quote from the listed director, Rusty Lemorande: “Only the first eight minutes of this film were directed by me. The rest of it is the sequel to the Kathy Ireland vehicle Alien from L.A. (1988) directed by Albert Pyun, which was tacked on by the producers and renamed “Journey to the Center of the Earth” in order to fulfill contracts with foreign distributors.”

A Walk in the Woods

For the first time in over a year, we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods today. We started at Fulmer’s Stables and headed basically uphill to Mystery Field and then worked our way back downhill to the start for a nice little sweat inducing 3.1 mile walk. There was one couple in a truck with a horse trailer and one Miata with us in it in the parking area when we started. There were about a dozen trucks with horse trailers and one Miata in the parking area when we got back. The natives were up.

We have taken to listening to podcasts of the BBC4 interview show Desert Island Discs while having breakfast or lunch on the screened porch. The premise is simple, a host interviews a famous (or if they are British, somewhat famous to us) person and at the end will cast them away on a desert island. During the interview we get the list of the 8 songs they will be allowed to take with them and why they are picking them. The guests are then asked to pick just one to save in the event a wave is going to wash their collection out sea. They also get to pick one book and one luxury item to be stranded with them.

The show has been running for the last 76 years! They have almost 2,000 shows, some from as far back as 1946, available to listen to online. Right now we are cherry picking from people we know and want to hear, but sometimes I will just scroll real fast in the podcast app and stop on a random show and they too have been very entertaining. A couple days ago I happened on the author Bill Bryson that way and he talked about his book called A Walk in the Woods about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Both Donna and I thought we had read it before, but couldn’t be sure, so I found the kindle version. We both finished reading it and now we are still not so sure, but we both did enjoy the book, be it our first or second reading.

Outlander

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkizwJUiVjA

This started almost as a quid pro quo with a co-worker that I got to watch Orphan Black, but now I’m kind of waiting impatiently to see this.

In our conversations of TV shows to watch she mentions that she is excited to see that one of her favorite book series is finally coming to the screen. Starz is producing a TV series of the Outlander books written by Diana Gabaldon. She tells me it is about an English Army nurse from WWII who gets transported back to the mid-1700’s Scotland.

I’m a sucker for time travel, books or movies, so I’m interested. I check out the trailer(s) and now I’m intrigued. I read a bit of the blog that the author writes and I like her style and sense of humor, so now I think, maybe I should read the book. Jamie has a copy of the book on her Kindle, but can’t seem to find her, you know, ink on paper with a glued binding, circa sometime last century version, so I will have to see if I can find a copy of a book that was published in 1991.

Turns out it was pretty easy. My local supermarket has a paperback copy on their book aisle because book No. 8 of the series is just out in hardback and the paperback was re-issued because of the upcoming TV series (even has the two main actors, in character, on the cover.

Now my favorite book series will always be Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, tough guy private-eye with his own moral code that always gets his man, usually in a one on one violent confrontation. The writing is direct with short sentences in short chapters, double spaced on pages with large margins. A couple hundred pages of the literary equivalent of a can of sour cream & onion flavored Pringles.

Outlander is the polar opposite. There are densely packed pages filled with minute, detailed descriptions of the surroundings and stuffed with personal observations, sort of the literary equivalent of a Martha Stewart Poppy Seed Grapefruit Torte. Think Stephen King length, this baby is 850 pages. I’m not a big fan of period pieces, but I’m still with this one at the 500 page mark. I think I recognize the seed in all the flowery, descriptive text as the writing I liked in her blog. Still, I’m not sure I’ll read any more of the books, but if the TV series turns out as good as it looks in the trailers, I’ll be watching.