Bundu Reviews

For anyone with even the vaguest interest in the stockmarket, daytrading or financial markets the new Michael Lewis book is apparently an absolute MUST HAVE!

Lewis is regarded as probably the finest financial journalist in the world at the moment and his books – including Liars Poker and Panic – have been absolute hits through the global financial crisis.

This is his latest offering and I can tell you now that I’m going to be reading this one. The synopsis reads:

“The Big Short” tells a story of spectacular, epic folly. It has taken the world’s greatest financial meltdown to bring Michael Lewis back to the subject that made him famous. His international bestseller “Liar’s Poker” exposed the greed and carnage of the City and Wall Street in the 1980s; he wrote it as a cautionary tale, but people seem to have read it as a how-to guide. Now, he wants to settle accounts. In this visceral tour to the heart of the financial system, Michael Lewis takes us around the globe and back decades to trace the origins of the current crisis. He meets the people who saw it coming, the people who were asleep at the wheel and the people who were actively driving us all of cliff. How could we have all been so deluded for quite so long? Where did it all start? Was it systemic? Was it avoidable? And who the hell can we blame? Michael Lewis has the answers. No one is better qualified to get to the heart of this labyrinthine story. And no one can make it such an enjoyable ride along the way.

It looks like an absolutely awesome read!

You can buy it from online retailer Loot in hardcover for R316 

Is it just me or are the Americans obsessed with food and politics titles?!

Sunday is here and once again we take a look at what books are proving popular with the various online retailers.

It looks like LJ Smith is still dominating the local scene and I am still very tempted to get my hands on that Flash Forward book!

Take2.co.za
1.  Vampire Diaries, Vol. 1, Books 1 & 2 – Smith, L. J.
2.  Vampire Diaries, Vol. 2, Books 3 & 4 – Smith, L. J.
3.  Pleasure of a Dark Prince – Cole, Kresley
4.  The Return: Nightfall – Smith, L. J.
5.  Black Jack – Leigh, Lora
6.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Larsson, Stieg
7.  Girl Who Played with Fire – Larsson, Stieg
8.  Hot Rocks – Roberts, Nora
9.  Born to Be Wild – Warren, Christine
10.  Flash Forward  – Sawyer, Robert J.

Kalahari.Net
1. The Return: Nightfall – LJ Smith
2. Vampire Diaries: Bks. 3 & 4 – LJ Smith
3. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – Stieg Larsson
4. Vampire Diaries: v. 1 & 2 – LJ Smith
5. The Struggle: Bks. 1 & 2 – LJ Smith
6. The Gabriel Method: The Revolutionary Diet-Free Way to Totally Transform Your Body – Jon Gabriel
7. The Metabolism Miracle: 3 Easy Steps to Regain Control of Your Weight…Permanently – Dianne Kress
8. Captain in the Cauldron – Mike Greenaway
9. Pleisters Vir Die Siel: Soos Uitgesaai in Brekfis Met Derrich Op RSG – Riekert Botha
10. Introduction to business management – J. Strydom; G. du Toit; B Erasmus

Amazon.com
1. Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual – Michael Pollan
2. The Five Thousand Year Leap: 30 Year Anniversary Edition with Glenn Beck Foreword – W. Cleon Skousen
3. A Patriot’s History of the United States: From Columbus’s Great Discovery to the War on Terror – Larry Schweikart
4. World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony – Will Tuttle
5. Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted – Daniel G. Amen
6. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
7. The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet – Alicia Silverstone
8. Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight – Karl Rove
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
10. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang – Chelsea Handler

After the rather dreary Faye Kellerman I wrapped up last week, it is nice to be back to a book that’s got a bit of life and pace to it.

I downloaded: “Tell no one” from Harlan Coben and it is off to a rollicking start - REALLY enjoying it. Cracking pace, cracking story, lots of fun.

The write-up for the book reads:

For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.
Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible–that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.
Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.
But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret–and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.  

You can buy the book online from Loot for R81, well worth it!

Anybody else got any interesting reads for this week?  

We have not done a bestsellers list in a while so let’s take a look what books are proving popular with the online retailers and see if there are any inspirational purchases in there.

It looks like the Kalahari.net and Take2 listings are heavily skewed toward the various LJ Smith books and I am very keen to get my hands on the Flash Forward book… I’m just worried it might ruin the TV series for me! Here is the list:

Kalahari.Net
1. Vampire Diaries: Bks. 3 & 4 – LJ Smith
2. The Struggle: Bks. 1 & 2 – LJ Smith
3. Screw It, Let’s Do It: Lessons in Life – Richard Branson
4. Vampire Diaries: v. 1 & 2 – LJ Smith
5. The Return: Nightfall – LJ Smith
6. Breaking Dawn – Stephenie Meyer
7. The Metabolism Miracle: 3 Easy Steps to Regain Control of Your Weight…Permanently – Dianne Kress
8. SAICA Handbook 2009/2010 – SAICA
9. Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer
10. The Reunion: v. 3 & 4 – LJ Smith.

Take2
1.  Vampire Diaries, Vol. 1, Books 1 & 2 – Smith, L. J.
2.  Vampire Diaries, Vol. 2, Books 3 & 4 – Smith, L. J.
3.  Pleasure of a Dark Prince – Cole, Kresley
4.  The Return: Nightfall – Smith, L. J.
5.  Girl Who Played with Fire – Larsson, Stieg
6.  Black Jack – Leigh, Lora
7.  Born to Be Wild – Warren, Christine
8.  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Larsson, Stieg
9.  Hot Rocks – Roberts, Nora
10.  Flash Forward – Sawyer, Robert J.

Amazon.com
1. Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight  – Karl Rove
2. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
3. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang – Chelsea Handler
4. Change Your Brain, Change Your Body: Use Your Brain to Get and Keep the Body You Have Always Wanted – Daniel G. Amen
5. Final Fantasy XIII: The Complete Official Guide – Piggyback
6. Rework – Jason Fried
7. Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College – Doug Lemov
8. Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic – Mark Starr
9. American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells Us – Jesse Ventura
10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

Another relaxing Saturday is here and it is time to kick back and tuck into another good book.

So what is the Bundublog.com community reading this weekend?

My wife downloaded the latest Faye Kellerman book: “Blindmans Bluff” to the Kindle so I have just started on that. A little bit of a slow start in the book but then I am not the biggest Faye Kellerman fan so that might just be me.

Here’s the synopsis for the book:

Lazarus Guy Kaffey thought his wealth could acquire anything- including the best security money can buy. When his family are gunned to death on their vast Butterfly Ranch estate, it’s clear that he was tragically wrong. Lieutenant Peter Decker of the LAPD is given the task of piecing together what happened. From the start, he suspects an inside job and that the answer lies with Kaffey’s fortune. The daunting scale of Kaffey’s business empire produces no shortage of suspects: from members of his bodyguard, to business partners, rival tycoons, even family members. But as LA’s ferocious street gangs hire themselves out to unknown paymasters in a cycle of revenge and death, Decker’s own family is threatened. And if a billionaire like Kaffey can’t protect his own, what hope does Decker have?

You can buy the book online from retailer Loot for R252.

Post your reads and recommendations for this weekend below.

I was a little bit wary about reading a CSI book. I’ve always enjoyed CSI Las Vegas and the Gill Grissom character but was worried that a book would disappoint me.

Fortunately my concern was mis-placed and I really enjoyed reading CSI: The Killing Jar from Don Cortez.

Below is the write-up attached to the book:  

A teenager is found dead in his motel room, the cause of death: millipede poison…Now crime scene investigator Gil Grissom must aid CSI’s Nick Stokes and Riley Adams against a serial killer whose knowledge of entomology rivals his own — a brutal murderer who is not only using insects as the tools of destruction, but actually modeling the attacks after their behavior…. In the meantime, CSIs Catherine Willows and Greg Sanders must investigate a bizarre death, where the victim had gotten mixed up with two very different groups of people — one involved in using and dealing crystal meth, the other an avant-garde group of artists — a collision of subcultures where everyone is a suspect and nothing is as it seems…. 

The book made for a really good read and at no stage did you feel like it was going to under-deliver compared to a CSI episode. In fact, the only difference was that you got a bit more time for character development – it was a goodie.

Title: CSI: The Killing Jar

Author: Don Cortez

ISBN: 978-1439153703

You can buy the book online at Loot for R65.

A really enjoyable read – rated it 3 and a half out of 5.

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?

As a parent to a 12-year old girl, one of the toughest tricks I find is buying books which will appeal to her whole “pre-teen” persona. It is helluva difficult trying to strike a balance between appealing to the little girl in her and a plot which is still “cool” to her age group.

One of the books which does seem to have met the criteria is “Empty Quarter” fr0m Julia Golding. The daughter enjoyed it and I even had a quick read of it this afternoon and found myself getting into the plot. It’s a nice little book.

As an adult you can see the “holes” in the story but if you are not looking at it overly critically you will find a nice story which appeals to kids who like things like drama, espionage, spys and protecting the troublesome daughter of the President of the United States.

You can buy the book online from Loot for R87 and it is definately not a bad little gift.

Having just finished Stieg Larssons: “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest” I have now started the new book from Michael Connelly called “9 Dragons”.

I am 19% of the way through it – according my Kindle – and it is proving to be quite a good read.

Here is the write-up on it from Loot:

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life.
Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store’s owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li’s family that he’ll find the killer.
The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation–not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li’s life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S.

And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch’s life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he’s lost. In a place known as Nine Dragons, as the city’s Hungry Ghosts festival burns around him, Bosch puts aside everything he knows and risks everything he has in a desperate bid to outmatch the triad’s ferocity.

I have to say that I am quite enjoying it. Pacy, nice read without being too mentally taxing.

So what are you guys reading? Anything exciting?