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[Daveo]

Summer of Fear by T. Jefferson Parker.

 

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When reporter/crime writer Russell Monroe finds his former lover brutally slain in an apparently ritual style, he suspects a connection to other recent murders in the county.

Somehow, the case never appears on the police blotter, although Russell saw his former colleague, homicide chief Marty Parish, leaving the scene of the crime and soon all evidence of the death disappears.

Meanwhile, a string of killings continues in the same gruesome style, and Russell becomes the contact of the deranged man responsible.

As Monroe gets dangerously entangled in this deadly intrigue, he must fight for his life while watching his wife fight for hers against a terminal brain tumor

[Daveo]

The Lost Life by Steven Carroll.

 

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A story about love, chance and T.S. Eliot.

 

England, September 1934. Two young lovers, Catherine and Daniel, have trespassed into the rose garden of Burnt Norton, an abandoned house in the English countryside.

Hearing the sound of footsteps, they hide, and then witness the poet T.S. ('Tom') Eliot and his close friend Emily enter the garden and bury a mysterious tin in the earth.

Tom and Emily knew each other in America in their youth; now in their forties, they have come together again.

In the enclosed world of an English village one autumn, their story becomes entwined with that of Catherine and Daniel, who are certain in their newfound love and full of possibility. From one of Australia's finest writers, this is a moving, lyrical novel about poetry and inspiration, the incandescence of first love and the yearning for a life that may never be lived.

[Daveo]

WOOL AWAY, BOY! A Ripping Memoir of Life in the Shearing Sheds, By Alan Blunt.

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A firsthand account of the shearing sheds of the 1950's and 60's.
The son of a shearer, Alan Blunt spent his teenage years in the woolsheds of the 1950s and 60s. 
As his father laboured, Alan would imagine himself opening the batting for Australia or boxing for the world middleweight championship, only to be startled out of his daydream with a cry of: ‘Wool away, boy. 
Wake up!’

In this colourful memoir Alan chronicles all the larger than life personalities he met: the misfits, romantics, larrikins and psychopaths. 
From the cooks who ruled the sheds, those solitary, often crazy men who could make or break a team's stay, to the gun shearers and maverick managers.
With an irrepressible wit, he captures the voices of the men he worked with and brings to life a golden era of shearing.

[Daveo]

The Messenger by Markus Zusak.

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The Messenger is a novel full of intrigue, plot twists, witty humour, and so much more. 
The story begins in a bank, one that is being held up by a useless but stubborn robber.

Ed inadvertently stops him after arguing with Marv over his car. 
The robbers ride has to leave so he goes for Marv's car. Luckily, it doesn't starts and Ed stops the man dead in his tracks. 
He is hailed a 'hero' of some sorts.

Then the first Ace turns up, the Ace of Diamonds. 
He is given three addresses, 45 Edgar Street, 6 Macedoni Street, and 13 Harrison Avenue. 
To each of these addresses he must find and deliver a message. 
But there are 4 more cards, and 10 more messages, the last, the most interesting of them all.

So Ed begins a journey that he cannot quit, one that will see him loved, harmed, and welcomed, but one that will change his life.

The first message is a hard one, a rape case, so he decides to try Harrison Avenue, slightly easier, but still hard. The house is owned by a war widow named Milla. 
Ed reminds her of her lost husband, James 'Jimmy' Johnson. He lets her care for him and he likes it, he enjoys her smile and the word 'marvellous'. 
But he must move on, to Macedoni Street, and the barefoot girl, named Sophie.

Sophie is a girl who, every morning, goes for a run barefoot. But when she competes she wears a terrible looking pair of runners and she always comes second. 
So Ed brings her a shoebox and gives it to her father, who is puzzled as to why the box is empty, but Ed knows. 
Then, at the next athletics meet, Sophie is up, but this time, barefoot, just like every other morning. 
She falls early, but recovers, takes the lead, her feet bleeding, and, at the last second, is beaten by the other girl. 
But it doesn't matter, not a bit, because she feels great, and her face shows it.

[Daveo]

Murder at the Horny Toad Bar: & Other Outrageous Tales of Thailand; by Dean Barrett.

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Among several exotic and erotic tales of Thailand, readers are introduced to Bangkok's sexiest, most daring and least principled detective, Harry Boroditsky, who solves not one but two bizarre cases including, Murder at the Horny Toad Bar. Hard Bones Haggerty makes his appearance in a haunting tale of the Vietnam War, and, in Obsession, a man obsessed with his Thai girlfriend seeks revenge. 
In the non-fiction section of the book, the author writes of searching Bangkok for his Vietnam War era barracks; he describes his encounters with the Khmer Rouge in western Thailand including a meeting with a beautiful Cambodian woman searching a refugee camp for her mother, and his need to flee a Vietnamese Army; and what happens when a traveler boards the wrong train in southern Thailand.
In the section, "Memoirs of an Oversexed Farang," the author writes of his several decades of encounters with the often enigmatic but, always lovely, ladies of Thailand.

Dean Barrett first arrived in Asia as a Chinese linguist with the American Army Security Agency. 
While living in New York, Dean was a member of Dramatists Guild, a board member of Mystery Writers of America and a librettist/lyricist with BMI. 
He lived in Hong Kong for 17 years where he was managing director of Hong Kong Publishing Company Ltd. Dean has written several books on China and Thailand. 
His musical, Fragrant Harbour, set in 1857 Hong Kong, was selected by the National Alliance for Musical Theater to be shown to producers and directors on 42nd Street, NYC. 
His play, Bones of the Chinamen, set in Swatow (Shantou) in 1862, won the South Asian prize of the BBC International Playwriting Competition, coming in among the top 8 selected out of 1200 entries. 
Dean specializes in writing on the late Qing period of Chinese history and now lives in Asia. 
He has written two novels set in Hong Kong in 1857: Hangman's Point and Thieves Hamlet. His latest novel on China is A LOVE STORY: THE CHINA MEMOIRS OF THOMAS ROWLEY, a romantic and erotic work set in the 1800's. POP DARRELL'S LAST CASE, a detective novel, was published in 2014.

[Daveo]

Adam Spencer's Time Machine.

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Following the runaway success of his Big Book of Numbers and World of Numbers (2015), Adam Spencer is back with a fascinating and fun! romp through history.

Starting with the big bang and ending in the present day (with a few glimpses of the future for good measure) 
Time Machine is a history book unlike any other. 
Jam-packed with quotes, quizzes, anecdotes and trivia, Adam's latest book is a full-colour treasure trove for ages 8 ... all the way to 108.

Did you know that some of the earliest mathematicians and astronomers were indigenous Australians? 
Or that Lord Byron's daughter, Ada Lovelace, was a pioneer of computer programming ... despite dying in 1852? Can you believe that pinball was actually illegal across much of the US until the 1970s? 
Will time travel ever be possible? 
And who (or what) is the Witch of Agnesi?

Time Machine is 2016's ultimate compendium for curious minds.

[Daveo]

The Principles of Thai Cookery by Chef McDang.

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While pounding together white pepper, garlic, and woody cilantro root in the mortar and pestle, their spicy, tannic smells unfolded with the first loud thwock. 
Chili peppers 15, in fact and garlic set my nose tickling and my eyes watering. 
And as an entire fish sizzled in a wok full of oil, two neighborhood cats appeared, yowling their demands for a share of the meal. 
The food I cooked today, from Chef McDang’s new book The Principles of Thai Cookery is the best-smelling I can remember.

[Daveo]

Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Scorched Earth, 2016

by George Galdorisi.

 

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General Bob Underwood, a special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL is en route to the Syrian city of al-Bukamal when a rocket propelled grenade strikes the side of his Humvee and the heavily armored convoy comes under attack.

The general’s bodyguard is brutally murdered, and Underwood himself is kidnapped.

Hours later, the President and top officials watch in horror from the Oval Office, as the general is viciously beheaded by an ISIL leader, broadcast on live television through a direct feed from Al Jazeera.

 

The world is stunned by the bloody scene, but even more so that this supposedly loose knit terrorist organization was able to orchestrate a lethal attack on the world’s most powerful military.

American forces goes into high gear on land and sea to retaliate, but when the ISIS leader's son is killed in an American bombing raid, his rage knows no bounds and he determines to wreak vengeance on the American homeland itself.

 

With everything in the balance, Op-Center must assemble both its domestic strike force, as well as its international intervention force, built around a seasoned squad operating out of the secretive unit that captured Osama bin Laden to stay one step ahead of a ruthless enemy.

[Daveo]

THE ABC OF FISTING Hardcover – 1964

by Colin Willock.

 

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[Daveo]

Return To The Field: by Alexander Fullerton.

 

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Spring of 1944. Rosie Ewing, a 'pianist' (radio operator) in Special Operations Executive, is returning to German-occupied France, carrying a radio, half a million francs, a pistol and two cyanide capsules.

Her destination is Finistere, in north west Brittany.

D-Day is not far ahead, and the Maquis is still dangerously under-armed; part of her brief is to organise immediate para-drops of weaponry.

Also there's a chateau that's used as a rest-home for U-boat crews and where naval top brass periodically foregather; Bomber Command needs only a date and a few days notice. Rosie knows that the man who'll be meeting her on the ground tonight may be a traitor, that a frighteningly large number of agents have been arrested recently, and that the likely end of the road for women agents is Ravensbruck, l'enfer des femmes, the Resistance calls it.

 

Nothing like a safe bet.

But - hold tight...

[Daveo]

Robert Carrier's Entertaining by Robert Carrier.

 

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[Daveo]

Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe

by Roger Phillips.

 

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[Daveo]

The Best of Thai Dishes Sisamon Kongpan.

 

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[Daveo]

A history of Europe 1870-1950 Hardcover – 1 Jan 1960

by Maurice Laurece Reginald Isaac.

 

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[Daveo]

The Greatest Trade Ever: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of How John Paulson Defied Wall Street and Made Financial History by Gregory Zuckerman.

 

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In 2006, hedge fund manager John Paulson realized something few others suspected, that the housing market and the value of subprime mortgages were grossly inflated and headed for a major fall.

Paulson's background was in mergers and acquisitions, however, and he knew little about real estate or how to wager against housing.

He had spent a career as an also-ran on Wall Street.

But Paulson was convinced this was his chance to make his mark.

He just wasn't sure how to do it.

Colleagues at investment banks scoffed at him and investors dismissed him.

Even pros skeptical about housing shied away from the complicated derivative investments that Paulson was just learning about.

But Paulson and a handful of renegade investors such as Jeffrey Greene and Michael Burry began to bet heavily against risky mortgages and precarious financial companies. Timing is everything, though.

Initially, Paulson and the others lost tens of millions of dollars as real estate and stocks continued to soar.

Rather than back down, however, Paulson redoubled his bets, putting his hedge fund and his reputation on the line.

 

In the summer of 2007, the markets began to implode, bringing Paulson early profits, but also sparking efforts to rescue real estate and derail him.

By year's end, though, John Paulson had pulled off the greatest trade in financial history, earning more than $15 billion for his firm a figure that dwarfed George Soros's billion dollar currency trade in 1992.

Paulson made billions more in 2008 by transforming his gutsy move.

Some of the underdog investors who attempted the daring trade also reaped fortunes.

But others who got the timing wrong met devastating failure, discovering that being early and right wasn't nearly enough.

Written by the prizewinning reporter who broke the story in The Wall Street Journal, The Greatest Trade Ever is a superbly written, fast-paced, behind the scenes narrative of how a contrarian foresaw an escalating financial crisis, that outwitted Chuck Prince, Stanley O'Neal, Richard Fuld, and Wall Street's titans to make financial history.

[Daveo]

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes.

 

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A big, powerful saga of men in combat, written over the course of thirty five years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran.

 

Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line.

It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain Jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood.

Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition.

Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers.

But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat.

The experience will change them forever.

 

Written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war.

It is an unforgettable novel that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice: a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.

 

A graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals.

This is his first novel.

He lives in rural Washington State.

[Daveo]

Anthony Blair, Captain of School: A Story of School Life by an Old Boy by John Morrison.

 

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Reader review;

Young Anthony is at school at St Stephen's College, which (behind him in the cover illustration) bears a striking resemblance to a well-known place by the Thames (hint: pointed tower with clock called B.. B..).

On his very first day he makes the acquaintance of his study companion, a Scottish lad named Brown.

"His new study companion had plunged his nose into a book, and was writing furiously. He seemed much older than his years.

'The mater's done us proud,' Blair said as he pushed a slice of cake across the desk.

The dark-haired boy put down his pen and took the cake with his inky fingers.

'It's not bad.'

Blair detected a Scottish accent. 'I'm sort of Scottish too,' he said. 'How ripping that we should be sharing a study. Do help yourself.'

'You don't sound Scottish,' Brown replied. 'You could be a Sassenach impostor.' For the first time, Blair could detect the hint of a wintry smile. Perhaps he and the dour Scottish boy would be chums after all."

I'll leave it to you to guess what wonderful chums Blair and Brown become. Or how they get on with school pals Mandelson, Murdoch, and Campbell, with religious-maniac headmaster Dr Bush, with ice-cream and jam-puff salesman Berlusconi, or with the town grocer's daughter who, working in the Thatcher family shop,

"sat in a mahogany booth, operating a giant American cash register of polished brass."

Suffice it to say that the plot thickens as rifles go missing (sort of) and Captain of School Blair leads (sort of) the assault on Fat Sam's lair, the Saracen's Head in Mesopotamia, the dicey part of the local town...

David Alan Hopkins' Edwardian-style illustrations are just right, and author John Morrison has the manner of the English boarding-school story of yesteryear down to a T. The book is howlingly funny, and -- like the best parody -- has an underlying note of seriousness. Because our young hero's fibs and caddishness have consequences (none that he notices, you'll be relieved to learn), when things at the Saracen's Head (as in the real-life Mesopotamia) get nasty.

By the time I'd read "Anthony Blair, Captain of School", I was surprised to find I'd gained a new perspective on the shallows, and the depths, of Westminster politics.

[Daveo]

The Gate by Francois Bizot.

 

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In 1971, on a routine outing through the Cambodian countryside, the young French ethnologist Fran-ois Bizot is captured by the Khmer Rouge.

Accused of being an agent of 'American imperialism', he is chained and imprisoned.

His captor, Douch - later responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, interrogates him at length; after three months of torturous deliberation, during which his every word was weighed and his life hung in the balance, he was released. Four years later, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. Fran-ois Bizot became the official intermediary between the ruthless conqueror and the terrified refugees behind the gate of the French embassy: a ringside seat to one of history's most appalling genocides.

Written thirty years later, Fran-ois Bizot's memoir of his horrific experiences in the 'killing fields' of Cambodia is, in the words of John le Carr-, a 'contemporary classic'.

[Daveo]

A Voyage For Madmen: Nine men set out to race each other around the world. Only one made it back by Peter Nichols.

 

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In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop.

It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing.

Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory.

For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.

 

In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems.

A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms in the Southern Ocean, and of those riveting moments when a split second decision means the difference between life and death.

[Daveo]

Echo of the Elephants: Story of an Elephant Family Hardcover

by Cynthia Moss.

 

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The elephants of Amboseli park in southern Kenya have been the subject of a unique study for many years.

This book, which covers a period of 18 months, is written in the form of a journal which documents the saga of a particular family of elephants whose lives have become central to that of their observer, Cynthia Moss.

Far from taking the formal and conventional approach of scientist or researcher, Cynthia adopts a more personal view, so that with her we enter the fascinating and often dramatic events surrounding these most remarkable and complex of animals.

Echo, the matriarch of the herd, gives birth to Ely whose tragic start in life and miraculous recovery will touch the reader with its emotional intensity.

Ely becomes one of the central figures of the book as we watch his day to day growth and development. In the 1990's human beings are at last beginning to be aware of how much we have to learn from other animals in their natural habitat. There is increasing worldwide concern for the safety and protection of these magnificent yet highly vulnerable creatures.

Cynthia Moss's testament and Martyn Colbeck's superb photographs are both a tribute to the enduring appeal of elephants and a reminder of their vulnerability in the modern world.

[Daveo]

Beyond The Limits: The Lessons Learned from a Lifetime's Adventures Hardcover by Ranulph Fiennes.

 

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Sir Ranulph Fiennes has been hailed by the GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS as the world's greatest living explorer. Now in his late fifties and still recovering from his latest expedition, an unsupported attempt to reach the North Pole which nearly cost him his life, he looks back on three decades of adventures in all corners of the globe and what he has learned from them.

 

Reflecting on such diverse themes as the importance of choosing the right team, monitoring the opposition and dealing with the media, Sir Ranulph presents a breathtaking collection of photographs from his personal archive and discusses the, sometimes painful, lessons he has taken away from each expedition.

From the famous and successful Transglobe voyage in the early 1980's to his life threatening attempt on the North Pole in 2000, this is a riveting and enlightening insight into the life of an extraordinary man.

[Daveo]

The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time Hardcover – 1954

by Aga Khan III & W. Somerset Maugham.

 

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[Daveo]

Clementine Churchill by Mary Soames.

 

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Clementine Churchill; shy, passionate, and highly strung, shunned publicity but was in the limelight throughout her adult life.

As a young woman, her character, intelligence, and good looks won the attention of the impetuous Winston Churchill. Their courtship was swift, but their marriage proved immensely strong, spanning many of the major events of the twentieth century.

Written with affection and candor by the Churchills’ daughter Mary Soames, this revised and updated biography of a lionhearted couple’s life together is not only of historic interest but deeply moving.

[Daveo]

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis.

 

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In Michael Lewis's game changing bestseller, a small group of Wall Street iconoclasts realize that the U.S. stock market has been rigged for the benefit of insiders.

They band together, some of them walking away from seven figure salaries, to investigate, expose, and reform the insidious new ways that Wall Street generates profits.

If you have any contact with the market, even a retirement account, this story is happening to you.

[Daveo]

Coming to the Last: A Tribute to Peter O'Sullevan

by Sean Magee & Peter O'Sullevan.

 

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