Crime Blotter: Reported offenses in the Tri-parishes
July 9, 2013
Gumbo contributor partakes in rodeo, nabs unique catch
July 11, 2013
By RAY SAADI
JOYLAND
By Stephen King
Simon & Schuster $12.95
King lures us in with the sweet tale of a college-bound and love-struck boy and girl, who are separated during the summer, during which time she drops him. Devin takes a job at Joyland to forget her but finds something even harder to forget, a gruesome murder in the Funhouse, where the victim’s ghost appears on occasion. Soon, Dev is acknowledged as a hero for saving a young girl’s life and befriends a 10-year-old boy confined to a wheelchair who has the “sight.” He warns Dev of the danger in the Funhouse and leads him to the killer. King saves the scary part almost to the end, but the anticipation is frightening enough.
NOS4A2
By Joe Hill
William Morrow $28.99
Unlike his dad, Hill wastes no time in giving readers a scare just three pages in, when the hideous Charlie Manx, a vicious child killer, awakes from a coma in the Supermax prison infirmary, grabs nurse Ellen Thornton and threatens to take her son to “Christmasland,” his place where he tortures and kills children. Soon, we meet Victoria McQueen, aka the brat, a little girl blessed, or cursed, with the power to find things, no matter what or where, as she rides her bike through a rickety covered bridge to wherever it takes her. After Manx lures Victoria to Christmasland, she escapes; the only one ever to do so, and Manx is obsessed with finding her.
BECAUSE I SAID SO!
By Ken Jennings
Scribner $19.99
Subtitled “The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warning Every Generation Passed Down to its Kids,” Jeopardy! Champion Ken Jennings’ book relates how the clichéd warnings we give kids are mostly false: “Don’t swim for an hour after lunch—you’ll get cramps!” (False) “Don’t cross your eyes, they’ll stay like that.” (False.) “No double-dipping, you’ll spread germs.” (True!) You’ll learn a lot from, and laugh a lot while reading, his delightful book.
KENTUCKY BOURBON WHISKEY
By Michael R. Veach
University Press of Kentucky $24.95
Congress in 1964 designated bourbon as a distinctive product of the USA, and although it required that it be made in the United States, 95 percent comes from Kentucky. Veach includes historic photos, recipes, ads and even prescriptions for long-ago medicinal whiskey and explains how prohibition contributed to the great depression. So, sit back and enjoy a good book while sipping one of the great Kentucky bourbons.
OBAMACARE SURVIVAL GUIDE
By Nick J. Tate
Humanix Books $19.95
ObamaCare. Congress passed it; the Supreme Court declared it constitutional and now, we know what’s in it. Or, do we? A brief summary of “the essentials” of the act offers a quick glimpse of the law’s effects on virtually every individual and business are followed in greater detail. Read the book, and then talk to your accountant or CPA.
BASEBALL AS A ROAD TO GOD
By John Sexton w/Thomas Oliphant and Peter J. Schwartz
Gotham Books $27.50
The title is not, “THE” road to God, but “A” road to God. Although mainly about great baseball stories, you’ll discover the relationship between the ineffable truths of both; what we know by experience rather than by logic and analysis “As Louis Armstrong once said of jazz: If you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know.”
– Raymond “Ray” Saadi is a longtime local radio station owner/operator who’s moved from broadcasting to books. Now retired, he has been writing book reviews for more than 12 years.
