I am hugely behind on these book reviews. I figured I’d start with the ones by friends. 🙂

Tales of the Atlantic Pirates and Tales Of The Jersey Devil are both by Geoff Girard. I went to college with him, and we found these on Amazon and had to pick them up. We’re alas, not in touch anymore, but I am glad to see that he kept up with the writing! The Jersey Devil was something that I had never really read into before, so it was great to learn more about that myth; and the pirate stories range from the swashbuckling to the surprisingly sensitive. Plus the historical research is great. Continue reading »

So Time Magazine has gone through a redesign. But along with the redesign, they’ve also changed their editorial policy, and in very interesting ways.

I’ve been reading Time since I was a kid. Living overseas, it was always an interesting experience. For one, the domestic issue of the magazine is radically different from the international edition, which was far more sober, considered, and content-full. Of course, on that level it competed with Newsweek (which was somehow more sober and considered) and The Economist (which is and was the epitome of sober and considered).

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I am way way overdue for a books read post. I have such a backlog to comment on that here I am with seven paperbacks and 8 hardbacks, not counting a few business books and a bunch of graphics novels. So with no further ado, here we go on the paperbacks. Let’s get the fluffiest one out of the way first.
The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. This was one of those impulse purchases in an airport. It’s also yet another of those “historian/archaeologist/Dan Brown clone finds earth-shattering secret from early Christianity and is pursed by the Catholic Church” books. I am hesitant to say it’s a clone of The DaVinci Code because it’s not like that book invented the genre. But… OK, it’s a clone of The DaVinci Code.

The McGuffin this time is, as the book says, a secret held by the “last Templar” — who isn’t actually the last Templar (since those get exterminated quite a while later), but rather is a random Templar who hides a chest containing something of immense value. Most specifically, it’s material that would disprove the divinity of Jesus. So of course, in the modern day we have the scientist whose faith is challenged, and the one who is in it just for the science, and the priest who seems to have forgotten everything he learned about Jesus’ teachings, and so on. The mystery is barely present — there’s none of that rich historical fakery going on that is in the better clones, making you want to go read up on the history of paintings or places — but the action is lively, with the book opening with the siege of Acre and moving immediately to the present day where four robbers in Templar outfits decapitate a museum guard on live TV and ride their horses into the Met to steal stuff.

Bottom line: yeah, it’s an airport book.

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