Duke's book club

[General Duke]

I am reading the Motorcycle Diaries; Notes on a Latin American Journey.

Fantastic book, makes one want to travel to remote parts of the world.

[Jacaylbaro]

Intense and grisly but impressive and moveing story. Weerane is a record of an injustice being done to a whole community and is being told in a dignified manner by Mohamed Barud.

 

[nemo]

I wanted to get this book any idea how to purchase a online somali books?

 

http://www.redsea-online.com/modules.php?name=slbooks&func=display&recno=26

[nemo]

D/P

[Jacaylbaro]

I will let you know ,,,

[Muriidi]

Infinity Beach

by Jack McDevitt

 

A review by Greg L. Johnson

 

Are we alone in the universe? Scientists take both optimistic and pessimistic views. Arguments that life must be common are countered with arguments that our situation is improbable and may very well be unique. In Jack McDevitt's Infinity Beach, human beings have interstellar spaceflight, they have colonized several worlds, and they have found no evidence of other intelligent life in our galaxy. Many people have come to believe that they never will.

 

Dr. Kimberly Brandywine is in charge of public relations for the Seabright Institute, which is engaged in a spectacular feat of stellar engineering in an attempt to signal hypothetical aliens. Her life begins to change when a phone call from an old teacher causes her to re-examine the circumstances of her sister's death. Emily had disappeared twenty years earlier, shortly after the early return of an exploratory voyage. As Kim starts to investigate, questions arise over what really happened. Was someone on the crew a murderer? Did they find evidence of alien life?

 

From this point on, the question of whether or not there are aliens becomes slowly secondary to the story of Kim's search for the truth. Indeed, the pace of the plot changes with Kim's state of mind. It starts out slowly, as she is indecisive about whether to proceed. The story gathers momentum as Kim resolves to go ahead, even at the possible risk of her job. Other characters get involved, from Solly Hobbs, an old friend who helps out, to Ben Tripley a corporate magnate and leading candidate for villain, who, in Tolkien's classic phrase "seems fairer and feels fouler" than anyone else in the book.

 

Infinity Beach is, in the end, a kind of story that Jack McDevitt does very well. There are mysteries to be solved, both personal and scientific, and the background is well thought out, both in the human society depicted and in the astronomical details that play a part in the narrative.

 

Still, it's hard not to think that McDevitt had a different sort of book in mind when he first started writing Infinity Beach. The opening chapters -- with their portrayal of a society built on exploration that has started to lose its edge, that has started to doubt the worth of it all -- have a different atmosphere than the rest of the novel. There's a world-weariness in the characters here that pervades the opening scenes, and is then pushed aside as Kim's story and the force of her personality take over the book.

 

That's not a bad thing. Kimberly Brandywine is one of those rarities in science fiction: a character who is believable both as a scientist and as a woman. Infinity Beach is her story and as such it delivers both as a novel of character and as a science fiction novel with interesting speculations, plausible science, and a good adventure story. That it might have been a different sort of book altogether, with a deeper exploration of the culture Kim lives in, suggests that the author has it in him to write more good books, with themes that he has only touched on tangentially until now. Meanwhile, we can enjoy Infinity Beach for what it is, and look forward to the next novel from Jack McDevitt as well.

 

[Jacaylbaro]

Nice Read so far ,,,

 

 

[Kamaavi]

 

[General Duke]

 

Love Story is a 1970 romance novel by American writer Erich Segal. The book's origins were in that of a screenplay Segal wrote and was subsequently approved for production by Paramount Pictures. Paramount requested that Segal adapt the story into novel form as a preview of sorts for the film. The novel was released on February 14, 1970, Valentine's Day.[1] Portions of the story originally appeared in The Ladies' Home Journal.[2] Love Story became the top-selling work of fiction for all of 1970 in the United States, and was translated into more than 20 languages. A sequel, Oliver's Story, was published in 1977. The film (Love Story) was released on December 16, 1970.

[Somalina]

Children at Work

Child labor practices in Africa by Anne Kielland and Maurizia Tovo

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African Soccerscapes

How a continent changed the World's game by the great Peter Alegi

[General Duke]

Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy

[Gheelle.T]

Someone once mention the Futux-Al Xabash/Futuh Al Habas.. JB and co, do you know where the Somali version will be found?

[Alpha Blondy]

[oba hiloowlow]

The trial, Franz Kafka

[5]

I read a lot, just not books anymore.

 

But SOLers seem to have great taste in books mA. I'll get back to this book club when I've got some more time to read for pleasure iA - and maybe even contribute.