Zipping Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – This is the story of the only African American to have an opportunity to teach in a mental institution (before the Civil Rights era). The Librarian’s Black Book – One librarian’s job is to collect and report on his fellow librarians who have behaved badly. But when two of them get into a violent confrontation on his watch, he comes to suspect that there’s more to their stories than they’ve let on. Murder in the Heartland – A young woman, accused of murder, is taken to a mental institution for observation and diagnosis. As she gets to know the place, she sees how people can be drawn into the system. And another list. The Lobster is banned – A man wins a competition to spend the week with a woman he has been emailing – so that he can experience first hand what it’s like to be in a long-term relationship with her. But he discovers he has been set up by the organizers of the competition, who want him to kill her. The Quiet Room – A man wakes in a private mental hospital. When he tries to leave he finds that the entire hospital has vanished into a void – to be replaced by a hellish version of reality. Wonderland – A woman has been found lying unconscious on a beach. A doctor informs the police that she has suffered from a severe case of acute paranoid schizophrenia. But he has also noticed that her hair has been cut off. And as he checks her out more closely, he realizes that it was no ordinary case of paranoid schizophrenia. Share this: Like this: Homicide detective Joe Brody is called in to investigate the death of a high school student who was a promising athlete. The autopsy shows no sign of physical trauma, and Brody suspects that the boy was poisoned. But with no clues or leads to follow, he gets little help from the school’s administration or the police department, and when another teen is found dead, he can’t help but suspect that he is following in the footsteps of another dead boy. When two more teens die, Brody starts to believe he may have the most dangerous weapon in law enforcement’s armoury in his very hands. I had a real problem with the murder mystery aspect of this book. This was largely due to the fact that it was almost impossible to believe that nobody connected the deaths. Brody was suspicious about his wife from the start because his wife was “too good”, and she seemed too involved in the community. So it’s difficult to believe that she didn’t notice the string of murders that were occurring. Also there were way too many instances where a couple had been murdered and they couldn’t remember the event. I don’t understand how they couldn’t remember their deaths, but what we saw in this story was a couple who had a child together, and then when one of them married someone else, they’d start having flashbacks. One time they had a party at the house and the guy was murdered in front of the whole crowd. And the wife couldn’t remember anything about him except that he was dead and a friend had to explain what had happened to her. All in all the crime mystery aspect was very frustrating. I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in this book. I liked the idea that Brody was being pulled in different directions, to take certain people on, and others off. But this is a book where it is always a good idea to keep your fingers crossed. Because if you’re in any way connected to the murdering family and you don’t do something, you might very well get your own personal death certificate. If you’re not sure about this book I would recommend waiting for the next one in the series. They’re not exactly short reads, so I would suggest starting with the first one. The story gets better as it goes on and the ending is excellent. I have found out that this series is becoming an even better read the more you read it, so once you’ve read the first book I suggest moving on to the other titles. As you may have noticed, I’ve only done one book review so far this year, which is way too few. But I have also decided not to do my list of books to read for the year until February. So if you have a book you’d recommend, please send me a message on my FB author page. Thanks again for reading, I hope you enjoy it and see you next week. Share this: Like this: Today’s book is called The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’m not sure how I have never heard of it before. I love to read, but I don’t do a lot of reading for pleasure, although I read a lot of non-fiction. But as a rule of thumb, I have to really love the book to actually make myself read it again and then review it on my blog. It is the second title I’ve read by the same author (also Fitzgerald). The first one I’ve read was The Beautiful and Damned, but I also enjoyed this one. I think the title pretty much says it all. As Fitzgerald puts it: Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning– I will wake and hear the lark sing, and the first gull note, and the waves roll in to the shore, and I’ll turn over and go to sleep. I don’t know what Fitzgerald means by the green light. In his time I think it probably meant something along the lines of modern day green technology. But I’ve come across that word quite a few times in other places and it seems to have various meanings. I think it could be related to the fact that we are born with a tendency to look forward (and see something as having a green light). However, we are also influenced by our surroundings, so to people living in different surroundings, they would see things differently. So when someone thinks about a green light, it could mean two different things. Fitzgerald might be meaning that he believes in the possibility of this future, which is something that can’t be achieved just by chance. And he might be implying that he sees something that we all need to learn to make a positive difference in our lives. It’s kind of a utopian view. What does all of this have to do with writing? Well, I believe in a utopian future, but I don’t believe it’s achievable by chance. If we get to that future we have to work hard and put all our energy into making it happen. What’s more, if the green light is there and it’s possible to see it, we should all go for it. The future will come about because we worked at it and achieved it, rather than by chance. And even if you fail, you’ve tried. And by trying you’ve achieved something. So even if you fall short of your goal, you still managed to move forward. And you still took a step. The only thing you can take away from your failure is experience, and the more failure experiences you’ve had, the more likely you are to succeed in the future. Now of course I don’t really believe in any of the things I just said. But I think it’s good to look at life and believe in a positive outcome. So what was this book about? Well, the book is set in the 1920’s in the town of Long Island, New York. A young man called Gatsby has made his fortune by gambling and manipulating stock values, and is now quite wealthy. Gatsby decides to give his money a more stable home by purchasing a house called West Egg. It was a huge success and it is this that attracts the attention of everyone in town. And yet there are holes in Gatsby’s story. Gatsby says that his wealth is based on having made it from nothing. And yet people who knew Gatsby back in his days as a student at Oxford University recall him as a confident and intelligent young man. And we also find out that Gatsby was a spy during the war (because he worked for the US Government, although he didn’t actually know it). So he definitely wasn’t an unknown or an immigrant. I thought the writing was fairly good in this book. It was descriptive but not overly flowery. There was a