Bundu Reviews

Now THIS was a cracking little read. I really enjoy the easy reading style of Harlan Coben and this book was no exception… In fact I’d go as far as to say that I reckon this was probably the best of his books which I have read.

The story is a curious mix of characters where the good guys are not quite as good as they seem, while the bad guys are both really bad … but with a soft spot. The problem is you can never quite work out who is where until the end of the book.

In a nutshell the story reads a little something like this:

Eleven years ago, Julie Miller was found brutally strangled in the basement of her house New Jersey. On that day, Will’s brother, Ken Klein, became the subject of an international manhunt accused of the crime. He has not been seen since. Will has tried to get on with his life in the intervening years. He has a beautiful new girlfriend, Sheila, and a job working with the homeless. But when his mother reveals on her deathbed that Ken is still alive, and shortly afterwards Sheila disappears, the cracks start to show in his landscape again. But it is only when he finds that Sheila herself is wanted for a savage double-murder that his life actually starts to fall apart…

This book moves at a really nice pace and keeps you interested the whole way through!

Title: Gone for Good

Author: Harlan Coben

ISBN: 978-1-4091-1708-7 

This is a really cracking little read and we rated it a 4 out of 5.

You can buy this book online from retailer Loot for R92 in paperback.

Well worth it!

Yip I’ve been slacking and I haven’t posted a bestseller update for either the books or the video games so let’s quickly try and rectify it.

It looks like there is a new name which has come surging up the Amazon list and that is Rick Riordan with his Percy Jackson series. Anybody know anything about it?

Here’s the list:

Exclusive Books
1. Invictus
2. Eclipse
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
4. Breaking Dawn
5. The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest
6. Committed
7. The Girl who Played with Fire
8. Outlier
9. Do You Think You’re Clever
10. Twilight

Amazon.com
1. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
2. A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror – LarrySchweikart
3. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual – Michael Pollan
4. Percy Jackson and the Olympians Paperback Boxed Set (Books 1-3) – Rick Riordan
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
6. Dead in the Family: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel (Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood) – Charlaine Harris
7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
8. The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book 5) – Rick Riordan
9. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 4) – Rick Riordan
10. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon – David Grann

Take2
1.  Vampire Diaries, V. 1, Bks. 1 & 2 – Smith, L.J.
2.  Vampire Diaries, V. 2, Bks, 3 & 4 – Smith, L.J.
3.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Larsson, Stieg
4.  Street Game – Feehan, Christine
5.  Flash Forward – Sawyer, Robert J.
6.  Nauti Deceptions – Leigh, Lora
7.  New Moon – Stephenie Meyer
8.  Hot Rocks – Roberts, Nora
9.  Archangel’s Kiss Singh, Nalini
10.  Pleasure of a Dark Prince – Cole, Kresley
 
Kalahari.Net
1. The Metabolism Miracle: 3 Easy Steps to Regain Control of Your Weight…Permanently – Dianne Kress
2. The Struggle: Bks. 1 & 2 – LJ Smith
3. Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
4. Vampire Diaries: Bks. 3 & 4 – LJ Smith
5. Afrikaanse Woordelys En Spelreels
6. The Girl Who Played with Fire – Stieg Larsson
7. 1000 Stickers – Roger Priddy
8. Twilight – Stephenie Meyer
9. The Gabriel Method: The Revolutionary Diet-Free Way to Totally Transform Your Body – Jon Gabriel
10. Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace with Marriage – Elizabeth Gilbert

I am an avid CSI Las Vegas fan and I decided to take a chance with a CSI book. I downloaded the Don Cortez – CSI: The Killing Jar on to my Kindle and have just started to get through the first few chapters of the book.

So far so good… although it is not quite the same as watching it on TV.

It basically involves a killer who likes killing with crafty schemes that include a variety of different insects. A bit bizarre but typical CSI!

You can buy the book online for R65 from Loot.

So what else is the community reading this week?

I didn’t actually believe this was a real book when I first read the book review on A Million Miles from Normal.

But sure enough I found it listed on Loot and you can buy it for R128.

Here is the write-up on Loot – otherwise check out the review:

Penguins. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the Cute Industrial Complex, these waddling piles of adorable blubber have had a free ride for too long. F U, Penguin is about telling these brazen cute-mongers that they can’t stay on top forever.

They may think they have the world in the palm of their wing, but we can and will resist their powers. In recent years, people of all walks of life have been forced to confront animal cuteness wherever they go: in blockbuster films, on computer desktops and, as pets everywhere have become more and more emboldened, in their own homes. F U, Penguin is a cry for sanity in these mad times, when cute animals are no longer relegated to the seedy cultural belly of inspirational posters. But this campaign is not just about penguins, it’s about every animal that thinks we don’t know what they’re trying to do to us.

If we don’t do something about this epidemic right now, we could be tossing yarn with big-eyed kittens and bottle nursing baby pandas forever. And, really, can you think of anything more terrifying than that? Okay, so maybe cute animals aren’t that bad. But sometimes they seem that way, don’t they? The book will be a simple translation of the blog, with lots of new material, including a full section on penguins. Loaded with black and white photographs, colour illustrations and hilarious commentary, this book will have you laughing out loud.

It will also be packaged with the utmost style and attention to detail, making it the perfect gift this Christmas. It’s hard to describe what’s so funny about a verbal assault on impossibly cute animals, but something is! You can find the blog at http://www.fupenguin.com/.

Geez – talk about a book which fell apart.

9 Dragons from Michael Connelly started really well and probably held its own for 75% of the book and then it well… lost the plot.

I am not going to go to the effort of running over the plot, the synopsis of it is below in the previous post.

Suffice to say it didn’t grab my attention:

Title: 9 Dragons

Author: Michael Connelly

ISBN: 978-0-316-16631-7

Rated it a 2 out of and wouldn’t rush to recommend it.

Matt Hunter was rebuilding his life. After nine years in jail after a fight which saw a young man killed, Hunter just wants to get on with his life.

Things seem to be going swimmingly and he is besotted with his pregnant wife Olivia. That is until he suddenly receives a video clip on his cellphone showing his wife in a seedy motel bedroom with a notorious underworld character.

Suddenly Hunter doesn’t know who to trust and he finds himself suddenly fighting to get out of an increasingly complex situation with the bodycount rising.

The Innocent is a good read. Not spectacular but its definately enjoyable and if you enjoy the Harlan Coben action writing then this will be right up your alley with some nice twists at the end.

Title: The Innocent

Author: Harlan Coben

ISBN: 978-1-4091-1703-2

There is nothing over the top about this book. It’s easy paced – you can read it over a weekend and you’ll finish up feeling sufficiently satisfied.

Rated 3 and a half out of 5.

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R94.

Death by Leisure caught my eye from the moment I read its blurb and anybody with a vague interest in the psyche of the American Consumer will also find themselves intrigued.

It sounds a little something like this:

Journalist Chris Ayres – didn’t want much – a supermodel girlfriend, a cliff top bachelor palace and a fleet of chrome-rimmed SUV’s so that he can mingle with the Hollywood elite. The only snag to these lofty aspirations is that he is flat broke and trying to pay off his original student loan on an MG he purchased many years back.

Instead of letting a minor detail get in the way, Chris moves to LA and borrows $1m dollars and sets out to fulfil his boyhood dreams. Unfortunately none of it can last and eventually he is ducking and diving as his life catches up with him and the lenders come seeking their pound of flesh.

I laughed through this whole book – the story line, the writing, the witty one liners – it just all jumped out at me as a really neat and amusing look at how American consumers got themselves into so much trouble. It is one thing to read about it in the financial media about some of the behaviour patterns that these guys indulged in but to read some of the thinking first-hand was brilliant.

A highly recommended read!

Title: Death by Leisure
Author: Chris Ayres
ISBN: 978-0-7195-6016-3

You can buy this book online for R105 or follow the banners right to online retailer Loot.

I rated this book a 4 out of 5 – it was brilliant, witty and just felt very “real”. As one person commented: “Death by Leisure is a savage and hilarious takedown of our times, and a wake-up call to aspiring Leisuretocrats everywhere.”

PS – Ayres also writes about a book called “War Reporting for Cowards” which I see is available from some of the local online retailers and I reckon I will be adding it to my shopping list this month!

Finally after three years of waiting I have wrapped up the Dean Koontz Frankenstein trilogy!

For those who don’t know the third book was due to be released a couple of years back but Koontz’ writing about the world coming to an end in New Orleans co-incided with Hurricane Katrina. He decided that it would be a little tastelesss to release the conclusive book so it was held back.

For those who don’t know the background to the series, Koontz provides his own take on the Frankenstein tale. Victor Helios – aka Frankenstein – is alive and well and busy building a super “New” Race to replace humanity. However his plans go awry as his creations begin to suffer a series of “malfunctions” and he rapidly begins to lose control.

New Orleans is on the brink of collapse and the only thing standing between the pending havoc are two police detectives and Helios’ first creation who has come back to extract revenge.

The book itself was very readable and I got through it quite quickly but I felt it lacked some of the intrigue and punch of the first two books. The conclusion wasn’t bad but felt a bit disjointed in getting there. I almost got the sense that Koontz had put in too many characters (presumably to emphasise the havoc) and it all fell apart a bit.

I was almost expecting a tale of running gun battles in the street as the Old Race defended themselves against the New Race but it didn’t quite build up enough urgency to get to that point.

Title: Dead or Alive – Book 3
Author: Dean Koontz
ISBN: 978-0-00-720311-6

Rated the book a 3 out of 5 but the first two books are essential reading.

You can buy the book online for R95 or follow the Loot banners on the right hand side of the blog.