The Deep Blue Good-By by John D. MacDonald

Mournful, mid-1960s-era mystery with an even more mournful ending. This is the first "Travis McGee" novel (of twenty-one!), and it's diverting enough to make me read maybe a few more.

I think of Travis McGee as a sort of proto-Jack Reacher (see Lee Child's novels and short stories), although McGee is less perfect, less imposing and more believable.

The author also has a knack for dropping a cute noirish quote here and there ("Never sit in the first row at the ballet" and "Let's just start by assuming it's hopeless and go on from there"), and he occasionally sings out in passages showing how life really grinds people down, especially the young and unlucky:

This novel is competently done with good pacing, accelerating right to a surprise ending.

To Read:

Mark Harris: The Southpaw; Bang the Drum Slowly; A Ticket for a Seamstitch; It Looked Like For Ever (four part "Henry Wiggin" novel series)

A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young

It's a rare pleasure to find so many insights in such a short book. A modern reader can't help but notice the stark contrast between A Technique for Producing Ideas and most modern books, which might have a few paragraphs' worth of insights, but yet always seem to be fluffed and padded out to at least 200-300 pages. The author gives away a formula for creativity and idea generation that is simple, but not easy. And as a result almost no one will follow it. In the author's own one-paragraph summary, his process is: * First, the gathering of raw materials--both the materials of your immediate problem and the materials which come from a constant enrichment of your store of general knowledge. * Second, the working over of these materials in your mind. * Third, the incubating stage, where you let something beside the conscious mind do the work of synthesis. * Fourth, the actual birth of the Idea--the 'Eureka! I have it!' stage. * And fifth, the final shaping and ...

Confessions of a Medical Heretic by Robert S. Mendelsohn, MD

"I have written this book precisely to scare and to radicalize people before they are hurt. Let this book be your radicalizing experience." The more I come into contact with modern medicine, the more I've watched my elders' lives intersect with it, the more I've observed the field's neomania and accompanying iatrogenic harms, the more I realize that everyone--everyone!--should read the following four books: H. Gilbert Welch: Less Medicine, More Health Ivan Illich: Medical Nemesis Dr. John Sarno: The Divided Mind Robert S. Mendelsohn: Confessions of a Medical Heretic While reading these works, it will be worth noting your internal reaction to them. Do you agree? Do you strongly reject? Why? And what might this indicate about your attachment to your existing beliefs about medicine? In Confession of a Medical Heretic , author Dr. Robert Mendelsohn frames up modern medicine as a type of religion, complete with priests (read: doctors), sacraments, rituals, and even...

Before the Dawn by Shimazaki Toson

A fascinating, stately novel about idealists who get chewed up and spit out by the very social changes they seek. Before the Dawn takes place in the decades following Japan's 1853 "Black Ships" event, when the USA's Commodore Perry arrived, unannounced and uninvited, to force Japan to open itself to world trade. Perry's arrival, one of history's more blatant examples of gunboat diplomacy , sent shock waves throughout the island nation, resulting in a complex political and social revolution, civil war, and, eventually, a radically changed Japanese state. [A quick affiliate link to readers to the book here . You can support my work here by buying all your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or my sister site Casual Kitchen . Thank you!] The main character, Hanzo, is the son of a village leader on the highway between Edo and Kyoto. He is sensitive, idealistic, and he dreams of a restoration of traditional Japanese values, both intellectual a...

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