Skip to main content

Greenmantle by John Buchan

Catchy, readable World War One-era spy novel that really gives you a flavor of the international intrigues of the period. Takes the reader through various countries in Europe, ending up in Istanbul, as the characters try to prevent Germany from bringing the Islamic world onto their side. As such the book foreshadows one of the great global demographic and socioeconomic conflicts the world is facing now, and it reminds me for the millionth time how much history rhymes.

There are a few outlandish coincidences and meetings in the story, some of which are necessary to move the plot along. It reminds me of how Charles Dickens would do this--and just like Dickens, this author pretty much gets away with it! We chuckle to ourselves, enjoy the story in spite of the devices, and keep right on reading. 

Finally, there's a really well-done (and surprisingly affecting) scene at the end of the novel where the main characters, right when things look the bleakest, each express gratitude for their lives and for the various experiences they've had. It's a transporting scene. All in all this was a good read, a spy novel from a completely different era.

More Posts

Grow Young with HGH by Ronald Klatz and Carol Kahn

Most readers will get 90% of the value of this book just from reading chapters 16-19, which deal with things you can do you increase/enhance your own GH levels naturally via diet, exercise, (non-pharmacological) supplements and other practices.  The bulk of the rest of the book covers "studies show" theories, explanations and speculations of how and by what mechanism GH works in the body, and since the book was published in 1997, I'm certain most of these studies have been either debunked or better explained by more recent research. Notes:   1) Key supplements to keep in mind:  Melatonin: for sleep/recovery from training Glutamine: up to 2,000 mg/day plus weight training L-Carnitine: one to two grams a day Ubiquinone (Co-enzyme Q10): 60 mg up to 100 mg. Chromium (binds to insulin) 200 micrograms per day Creatine: 45 g per day after heavy exercise Ginseng: for cognition and recovery from stress, 200 to 400 mg a day Dibencozide (coenzyme B12): 1000 micrograms a day Gamma Or...
Read more

How to Make Money in Any Market by Jim Cramer

Not Cramer's best, although there are insights here. I recommend instead two of Cramer's earlier works: Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World  and Getting Back to Even . The central idea in  How to Make Money in Any Market  is to structure your portfolio with roughly half of your assets in a low-fee S&P 500 index fund, and roughly the other half in five or so carefully researched "hero" stocks that are meant to be long-term secular growers and compounders over time. A remaining sliver of your portfolio should be in some sort of hedge: gold or Bitcoin [1] . Chapter 7 walks readers through this elegant portfolio structure. [A quick  affiliate link to Amazon  for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site  Casual Kitchen , I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!] The books' weaknesses show u...
Read more

Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman

I've now read three of Thomas Friedman's books, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, The World Is Flat, and now, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. And Hot Flat and Crowded is--by far--the weakest book of the three. In fact, a cynic might consider it more of a brand extension than a book--a recycling of The World is Flat to include well-meaning and repetitive chapters on energy policy, the environment and global warming. And despite his earnest and palliative writing tone, Friedman's political message has become shrill, and that shrillness debases many of the potentially intriguing ideas and arguments he makes throughout the book. According to Friedman, everything is the Americans' fault. We're supposed to be leaders of the free world, yet we should only act with the consensus blessing of all the rest of the world's countries. We invaded Iraq, which was wrong. We invaded Afghanistan, which was sort of right, but we're making far too many mistakes there. We don't educat...
Read more