Bookshelf

20 Books in 2020: The Racketeer

Friday March 20th 2020

I’ve now read quite a few John Grisham books and enjoy his detail and plausible, finely crafted delivery of the plot. That said, he does have a habit of keeping something so far up his sleeve that you just have to persevere blindly and trust that it’ll all come together in a satisfying conclusion.

The Racketeer tells the story of a lawyer serving 10 years in jail after the feds pinned a racketeering charge on him by virtue of association with a client. With a burning sense of injustice, he keeps his nose clean and ends up in a lenient, open compound style of jail where he concocts a mechanism of leverage to secure his release and give the feds a bloody nose in the process.

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Bookshelf

20 books in 2020: I am the messenger

Friday February 21st 2020

This was yet another recommendation from a friend at work and when I saw it was on sale I picked it up for my Kindle.

The book, by Markus Zusak, unfolds in the form of a first-person narrative from the reluctant hero of the book, Ed Kennedy. At the start, we join Ed as he lies on the floor in the midst of a bank heist that he unwittingly manages to foil.

Being deemed a hero for his actions only briefly paints Ed’s life in a favourable light. He’s pretty much a dead beat, driving cabs around the town he grew up in to make a living, with no real purpose in life. When he’s not doing that he’s spending time with his friends playing cards or living alone with his smelly dog, The Doorman.

However, following the events of the bank heist, Ed receives a playing card in his letterbox with three addresses marked on it. Driven by curiosity initially, Ed’s life changes dramatically as he endeavours to complete the barely defined tasks presented to him.

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Bookshelf

20 books in 2020: Flowers for Algernon

Friday February 21st 2020

I thought I’d challenge myself to read 20 books in 2020 because I felt I’d gotten out of the habit of reading and 20 was a reasonably high bar to set, considering even in a good year I’ve only read about a dozen.

First up was the classic science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys. It’s the tale of a retarded adult, Charlie Gordon, who undergoes an experimental operation designed to make him smarter. The operation has been performed on a mouse in a lab, named Algernon, with seemingly positive results. However, the childlike naivety of Charlie means he’s ill-equipped to deal with the emotions and changes in perception that lie ahead.

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