Didn't make the goal but had fun trying.
64. Mac Walker's Benghai*** D, W Ulsterman
63. Rolling Thunder Wings of War ***Mark Berent
62.Tumultus *** D.W. Ulsterman Not as good as the first in the series, the survivors of Dominatus Alaska set out across the former Canadian provinces to locate a mysterious priest who is said to have obtained a secret weapon that could greatly damage the military drone domination of the globalists. It is a story of hope, redemption, ever increasing danger, and the ongoing search for freedom and liberty.
61. The Perils of Pauline * Charles Goddard A spoiled brat goes on all kinds of adventures, mostly ill planned, and is saved by her cousin who wants to marry her. Damsel in distress, times have changed, leafe this on in the early 20th century.
60. Eben Holden, a tale of the North Country ** Irving Bacheller Willie Brower is orphaned at a young age. Old Eben carries the child away, literally, into a new life in upstate New York. Willie records the travels through the wilderness, their adoption into a new home, and the homespun yarns of Eben and others. As he grows up, Willie becomes Bill, tries his hand at wooing the talented Hope, gets a job as a journalist only to quit and join the army just in time for the first battle of Bull Run.
59. Father Found ***Judith Arnold Jamie McCoy is the ultimate guy: thirty years old, carefree and professionally successful as the writer of a nationally syndicated humor column called “Guy Stuff.” Nine and a half months ago, he spent a week basking on the beach in Eluthera and indulging in a fling with a woman at the resort. Never did he expect to find the unplanned result of that fling—a healthy, wailing baby named Samantha—strapped into a car seat on his back porch, along with a suitcase full of diapers and infant apparel and a note informing Jamie that he’s her father. Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. But first things first. He’s never fed a baby or changed a diaper in his life. He doesn’t own a crib or a stroller. In a panic, he phones the nearest hospital, where neonatal nurse Allison Winslow takes his call and tells him about a class she teaches called the Daddy School.
58. Night of the Assassin***Russell Blake A no-holds-barred, breakneck-paced thriller, Night charts the early years of El Rey - known as the King of Swords - a super-assassin responsible for some of the world's most spectacular and daring executions. Framed against the backdrop of present-day Mexico's brutal narco-trafficking violence, Night of the Assassin chronicles the making of a monster - a cold-blooded, ruthless killing machine.
57. 1929 Jonathan's Cross *** M.L.Gardner Stockbroker and his 3 lifelong friends and their families endure the stock market crash to start anew.
56. The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap ***Paulette Mahurin Lesbian in 1890's Nevada town try to keep their secret and wind up with 2 male friends.
55. Gone with the Wind ****** Margaret Mitchell. Just as good today was it was my senior year of HS, during midterms when I couldn't put this book down to study. No change in the result, either: the south loses. This time I read it on Kindle so I could use the dictionary and the font enlarger.
54. Fatal Exchange *** Russell Blake Tess Gideon, a female Manhattan bike messenger with an appetite for the wild side, becomes embroiled in a rogue nation's Byzantine scheme to destabilize the U.S. financial system. ... Tess is assisted by Detective Ron Stanford, a NYPD homicide specialist tracking a brutal serial killer whose ritualistic cycle of murder and mutilation targeting bike messengers is escalating to fever pitch. (Amazon summary)
53. Tornado Valley: Huntsville's Havoc ***Shelly Miller. May or may not be accurate in all data, but interesting as viewed from a resident of Huntsville.
52. Breakthrough ***Michael Grumley Deep in the Caribbean Sea, a nuclear submarine is forced to suddenly abort its mission under mysterious circumstances. Alison Shaw and her team are preparing to translate the first two-way conversation with another animal species, but they are about to discover much more than they ever expected. The dolphins help capture the bad guys.
51. Dominatus**** D.W. Ulsterman How Obamacare kills the world. A rich guy built a compound in Alaska to retreat from the world when he realized what was coming. Obama becomes the king of the world, the US is dissolved into the New United Nations. Good guys win of course, but there's a lot of fight-em-ups before the do.
50. Wool; Part One*** Hugh Howey The world as we know it has ended. Everyone lives in a silo; punishment is to go outside to clean windows with wool and die. Maybe it gets better in part 2.
49. The Illegal Gardner ***Sara Alexi Recently divorced woman befriends Pakistani who is in Greece working to save money for his native village's survival. She seems to have plenty of money; he doesn't. They help each other solve their problems.
48. The Super User**Collin Moshman When a punk poker superstar loses millions in a mysterious game, he hires disgraced champion and ex-cop Grisham Stark to investigate. As Stark confronts cold-blooded players in Monte Carlo and Las Vegas, he realizes his one shot at redemption is to catch the most dangerous poker cheat of all time: the Superuser.
47. The Lance*** Alex Lukeman Nazis gather strength when they find their talisman in Antarctica, but the good guys win before the bad guys get too strong.
46. Foreign Deceit** Jeff Carson David Wolf's brother gets killed in Italy. He figures out who dunit in less than a week. He should have spent more time proofing reading. site and site are different words; so are chock (full of ) and chuck; peak and peek. Story was OK; proofing was horrible.
45. In the Blood **A Geneological Crime Mystery Steve Robinson--Set in Cornwall, England, past and present, Tayte's research centres around the tragic life of a young Cornish girl, a writing box, and the discovery of a dark family secret that he believes will lead him to the family he is looking for. Trouble is, someone else is looking for the same answers and they will stop at nothing to find them.
44. The Gringo ** J. Grigsby Crawford Diary of a Peace Corps worker in Equador shows that's probably not a good use of government money.
43. Death by Honey Bee ***Abigail Keam Josiah Reynolds, a former art history professor, was once a celebrity with wealth, social position, and a famous husband. Now all of that is gone. The professor finds her circumstances drastically altered. Retired, Josiah is now a full time beekeeper trying to stay financially afloat by selling honey at the local Farmers Market. She finds her world turned upside down when a man is found dead in her bee yard, only to discover that the victim is her competitor and nemesis. The police suspect the brutal death is murder and Josiah is their number one suspect. She is determined to find out who is trying to frame her, along with her assistant, Matt, who is twenty years her junior and gay.
42. Conditions are favorable*** Tara Staley Madeline's one-sided love affair with Orville Wright
and life in 1900 in Kitty Hawk. The best part of this book is the poem used in the funeral benediction of Bill's 2 babies:
- Do not stand at my grave and weep,
- I am not there; I do not sleep.
- I am a thousand winds that blow,
- I am the diamond glints on snow,
- I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
- I am the gentle autumn rain.
- When you awaken in the morning’s hush
- I am the swift uplifting rush
- Of quiet birds in circled flight.
- I am the soft stars that shine at night.
- Do not stand at my grave and cry,
- I am not there; I did not die.
Wright Brothers might have been on the autism spectrum! Fair book if the reader isn't interested in autism; I suspect it's much better is one is interested in that behavior.
41. Out In The Country*** Hewitt, Kate Widowed woman and best friend open a B&B in her husbands family home. Light weight reading: words are put together well, but it's all sunshine and fairy dust even through some difficulties like a broken water pipe.
40. The Other side of the ice ***Sprague Theobald *** The father gathers his adult children who he hasn't lived with in many years to pick their way thru the ice floes of the Northwest Passage in a 57' trawler. The kids keep him together but there was way too much whining to make a good movie, which was part of the adventure; probably better read where one can skip the whiney parts.
39. Americashire: A field guide to a marriage **Jennifer Richardson An American woman and her British husband moves from NYC/London to the Cotswolds. This is a humorous story of their introduction to country life including too much on why she doesn't really want to get pregnant and her into to MS as he battles depression. Wouldn't read it unless it was free.
38. Emory's gift *** Bruce Cameron A soldier killed in the civil war is reincarnated as a bear. He returns to help charlie hall break through his mother's death, his father's withdrawal in grief, and the tortures of middle school. this one doesn't have the power of his other 2 books.
37. Lad, a dog ****Alfred Payson Terhune As great a story now as it was in 1922. It make me think about what Gambol might be thinking.
36. A Child's Walk in the Wilderness: An 8yo boy and his father take on the Appalachian Trail****Paul Molyneaux Venado's family supports his 7 month long hike. He's homeschooled: what a way to learn about science and math.
35. Bite Me*Mike Faricy Too much drinking and deviant behavior to be at all believable. Although I was glad when it ended, it just did-- with no wrapping up of loose ends. A waste of electrons.
34. All that ails you: the adventures of a canine caregiver *** Mark J Asher Wrigley is the house dog at Sunridge Assisted Living. He is loved by all, but has a special interaction with a few old folks. He turns a sour curmudgeon into a nice old man when he saves the old guy from abuse at the hands of a private caregiver.
33. Humphrey was here: a story of love, lost and letting go. ***Mark J. Asher chronicles the pain of losing a dog.
32. Freedom Bridge *** Erika Holzer Caught in a web of dangerous intrigue, Dr. Kiril Andreyev plans his desperate escape from Soviet tyranny to freedom in the West. But when his friend's escape attempt ends in flames, Kiril finds his life threatened by a ruthless KGB officer. Kiril's last chance rests on a visiting American heart surgeon and his journalist wife. But even as Kiril plots his escape, he finds that his life depends on his materialistic mistress, on the rivalries of Soviet and East German intelligence agents, and on accidental betrayals by those he trusts most. The story builds to a climax in a deadly confrontation on Glienicker Bridge, linking East Germany and West Berlin. (Amazon summary)
31. Post Commander ****#2 in the Aubrey./Maturin series A lot of time spent on land or at port when Aubrey can't leave the boat for fear of being thrown in debtors prison.
30. Master and Commander ****Patrick O'Brian Hard to read (not a Kindle)because of the sailing and 18* vocabulary but a great insight to their lives.
29. The Hangman's Companion *** Joseph Flynn Always a good sport, Jim McGill, the first private-eye to live in the White House, agrees to accompany his wife, the president, to London to be her escort at a dinner given by the queen-yes, the one who lives in Buckingham Palace. Problem is, he'll have a week in England beforehand, while the president attends a G8 meeting, with nothing to do. Then a client comes to McGill, the daughter of a former Chicago cop McGill knew but didn't like when he was a captain on the CPD. McGill's former colleague went to Paris to scatter the ashes of his late, French-born wife in the Seine. While tending to that solemn obligation, the former cop managed to get into a brawl with and kill France's national sports hero. The guy from Chicago claims he was only saving a blonde woman from being beaten by the Frenchman, as French law actually required him to do. Only problem is, the blonde has disappeared. The former cop's daughter asks McGill to find the woman and save her father. Beats glad-handing the locals in nearby London, he decides. He just has to wrap up the case in time to get to dinner with the president and the queen. (Kindle summary)
28. Seven Days from Sunday (An MP-5 CA Thriller)*** Another (yawn) good guys win, this one in Iraq. They save the world from a ricin attack.
27. Noble Beginnings: A Jack Noble thriller ***L.T. Ryan Bad guys kill and Iraqi family and blame it on Jack.. That doesn't sit well so he kills a few more bad guys and clears his (and his partner's) name.
26. A Deadly Distance***L. T. Ryan The POTUS drops dead leaving succession open to questions so kill the successors and control the world. Not likely with Jack Noble in charge.
25. Ice Hunter: A Woods Cop Mystery *** Joseph Heywood Yooper Conservation Officer fends off an assault on "his" Tract by diamond hunters.
24. Sedition: a political thriller ***Tom Abrahams The country is headed in the wrong direction so a couple of men think they can do a better job. They get caught, only after killing much of Congress and the former Cabinet; a woman becomes president.
23. Better: a surgeon's notes on performance **** Atul Gawande Don't complain, Ask a unscripted question, Write, Count, Change to get better.
22. The Checklist Manifesto****Atul Gawande Checklists in aviation, medicine and financial fields prove beneficial in crises and in increasing efficiency.
21. A Dignified Exit**** John J. Asher Take care of your own death or let other people help? That is a question we should probably all ponder.
20. M-16 Agenda*** James P. Wilcox A man is not apt to forget the instant he becomes a killer; that one fateful instant when he takes another's life. It would not matter that Jack Granger has killed, all soldiers train to kill, except that he is the Democratic nominee in the presidential election of 2020. Having secured the nomination as Governor of Missouri and on the strength of his M-16 Agenda, his political platform developed in the killing sands of Iraq, Jack is days away from the White House when the situation in Iraq and in Washington D.C. changes everything. Now it is a race against time, and his own past, as he makes a last ditch effort to save his bid for the presidency, and possibly the world. From the war torn battlegrounds of Iraq to the halls of power in Washington D.C., M-16 Agenda follows one man's rise to the heights of political power, as he struggles to live up to the promises he made to his fellow soldiers, his family, and himself.
19. Then Like the Blind Man: Orbie's Story***Wegela, Freddie Owens
18. Pandora's Succession ***Russell Brooks
17. The Ninth District *** Douglas Dorow
16. Rusty Nail: A thriller (Jack Daniels Mysteries) ***J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn
15. Death on the Wolf **G.M.Frazier
14. Goshawk **** T.H. White What is it that binds human beings to other animals? T. H. White was a young writer who found himself rifling through old handbooks of falconry. A particular sentence—“the bird reverted to a feral state”—seized his imagination, and, White later wrote, “A longing came to my mind that I should be able to do this myself. The word ‘feral’ has a kind of magical potency which allied itself to two other words, ‘ferocious’ and ‘free.’” Immediately, White wrote to Germany to acquire a young goshawk. Gos, as White named the bird, was ferocious and Gos was free, and White had no idea how to break him in beyond the ancient (and, though he did not know it, long superseded) practice of depriving him of sleep, which meant that he, White, also went without rest. Slowly man and bird entered a state of delirium and intoxication, of attraction and repulsion that looks very much like love. White kept a daybook describing his volatile relationship with Gos—at once a tale of obsession, a comedy of errors, and a hymn to the hawk. It was this that became The Goshawk, one of modern literature’s most memorable and surprising encounters with the wilderness—as it exists both within us and without.(Kindle review)
13. Blueblood **Matthew Iden Four apparently unrelated murders in DC are in fact all cops. Retired cop Marty Singer who has cancer figures out the gang killing.
12. Unauthorized Access ***Andrew McAllister TechGeek working for a bank takes down the bank as a cyberterrorist invorder to win his best friend's girl. He loses.
11. Flight Behavior: A Novel ***Kingsolver, Barbara Millions of monarch butterflies appear on a hill in a southern Appalachian town in the late fall. They've gotten off course in their migration to Mexico and have to over winter. A biologist sees the end of their species. A small boy and his mother see the beginning of the rest of their lives as scientists.
10. Solomon's Throne*** Jennings Wright a former military man and his Portugese speaking archaelogist wife trace clues across 400 years from a Jesuit priest turned business man to the throne.
9. Homesteading: a 21st Century Beginning of Self-Reliance** Greg Pavosky Why one should and how he did. (free Kindle)
8. Freshwater Road***Nicholas, Denise (Kindle free) Black student form Detroit/Univ of Michigan spends the summer of 1964 teaching Freedom School (children) and black adults to prepare for voting tests in Mississippi. It's a summer of fear, deprivation, and self-awareness.
7. Bones Would Rain from the Sky: Deepening Our Relationships with Dogs digital library
Clothier, Suzanne** Interesting take on knowing the body language of dogs but wordy and goes off on tangents to explain. I should probably only count half a book here.
6. East Wind: a True Story (Kindle free) Lessil Richards and Jacqueline Richards***This is the amazing true story of the ten years that the authors spent in the country of South-West Africa, now known as Namibia. During the last three years of their stay, Jacquie Richards co-owned a restaurant and boarding house in the sea-side resort town of Swakopmund. This book follows the owners and boarders of J.J.'s through heartfelt trials and tribulations.
5. This Life is in your hands digital library Melissa Coleman ***In the fall of 1968, Melissa Coleman's parents pack their VW truck and set out to forge a new existence on a rugged coastal homestead. Inspired by Helen and Scott Nearing, authors of the homesteading bible Living the Good Life, Eliot and Sue build their own home by hand, live off the crops they grow, and establish a happy family with Melissa and her two sisters. They also attract national media and become icons of the back-to-the-land farming movement, but the pursuit of a purer, simpler life comes at a price. In the wake of a tragic accident, idealism gives way to human frailty, and by the fall of 1978, Greenwood Farm is abandoned.
4. When You Come Home: The True Love Story Of A Soldier's Heroism, His Wife's Sacrifice and the Resilience of America's Greatest Generation (Historical Romance) (Kindle free) Nancy Pitts *** Interesting peek into the life of a young woman married to a WWII soldier as she becomes a widow.
3. The Marseille Caper digital library Mayle, Peter*** As a travel or a culinary guide through Provence, this is a fun book. As a mystery, it's plodding.
2. Wearing the spider (Kindle free) Susan Schaab***A lawyer's identity is hijacked and misused by a ruthless partner of her Manhattan law firm who engages in email impersonation, political gamesmanship and electronic forgery to set her up as the mastermind of an illegal scheme that ultimately leads to murder.
1. The Delta chain (Kindle free) Iain Edward Henn*** The body of a young woman is washed ashore on a secluded beach. She does not fit the description of anyone on Missing Persons lists. Fingerprints, dental records and DNA provide no leads. Detective Adam Bennett discovers a pattern of similar cases - unidentified bodies found along the coasts of Australia and the United States.
