It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. For this meme, bloggers post what they finished last week, what they're currently reading, and what they plan to start this week.

My comments are not meant to be recaps of the story lines as I include a link to Goodreads for their synopsis of the book. I am merely stating how I felt about the book without giving any spoilers.

My 2013 reading list can be found here (not up to date at the moment).

It's a new year and I need to come up with my reading goal, I didn't meet last year's, too many other things going on.

We are currently in Mazatlan Mexico so I tend to read two books at a time, a "soft" one on my e-reader and then a "hard" book when lying in the sun.

FINISHED:

Synopsis here.

Rather a dry account of life at The New Yorker in its heyday.

I knew many of the real characters she writes about as I had read everything about Maeve Brennan who worked there.This started off as an interesting insight from a receptionist of 18 years but it soon pales as we are subjected to her embarrassing personal life.

I skimmed just to finish it.

Taming the Alien is the second book in a planned trilogy. It is just as populated by the lowlifes, wideboys, and old fashioned villains of south-east London that are found in the first novel, A White Arrest. Detective Sergeant Brant and his boss, Inspector Roberts, of the Metropolitan Police are as sleazy and ruthless as the villains they are out to get. Taming the Alien takes us on an unforgettable crawl through the mean streets of London, Dublin, and New York. Ken Bruen's trademarks are his wickedly dark sense of humor, punchy dialogue, and characters that are as real as toothaches. Here they are all present in spades.

I'm a huge Bruen fan of a long time. I love his chapter headings—Bruen uses quotes from different books/authors.
I love his morbid sense of honour and humour. He has the accents and idioms of the irish, English and Americans down pat.
I probably should have read the first book in the series first...
That said, I am going to read it shortly!!


STARTED:

Behind the well-known U.S. security organizations-- the FBI and CIA among them--lies a heavily guarded, anonymous government agency dedicated to intelligence surveillance and to a highly specialized brand citizen protection. Shock waves of alarm ripple through the clandestine agency when Washington, D.C., police detective Ryan Kessler inexplicably becomes the target of Henry Loving, a seasoned, ruthless "lifter" hired to obtain information using whatever means necessary. While Loving is deft at torture, his expertise lies in getting an "edge" on his victim--leverage--usually by kidnapping or threatening family until the "primary" caves under pressure.

The job of keeping the Kessler family alive falls to a man named Corte, a senior federal protection officer known as a "shepherd." Uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a passionate board game aficionado, he applies brilliant gaming strategy to his work. For Corte, the reappearance of Loving--the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and killed someone close to him--is also an opportunity to avenge his friend's death. The assignment soon escalates into a fast-paced duel between Corte and Loving, a dangerous volley of wits and calculated risks.

As he shepherds the Kesslers to a concealed safe house, Corte must anticipate Loving's every step as the lifter moves in on his prey, and with the help of razor-sharp investigator Claire DuBois and his longtime ally, FBI agent Paul Fredericks, pinpoint which of Kessler's seemingly insignificant cases has triggered Loving's return. As the team digs deeper, each of the Kesslers comes under close scrutiny, and in captivity their family bonds are stretched to the breaking point--as the lifter draws near, Corte must ultimately choose between protecting his charges and exposing them to a killer in the name of long-awaited revenge.



Toast is Nigel Slater’s truly extraordinary story of a childhood remembered through food. In each chapter, as he takes readers on a tour of the contents of his family’s pantry—rice pudding, tinned ham, cream soda, mince pies, lemon drops, bourbon biscuits—we are transported....

His mother was a chops-and-peas sort of cook, exasperated by the highs and lows of a temperamental stove, a finicky little son, and the asthma that was to prove fatal. His father was a honey-and-crumpets man with an unpredictable temper. When Nigel’s widowed father takes on a housekeeper with social aspirations and a talent in the kitchen, the following years become a heartbreaking cooking contest for his father’s affections. But as he slowly loses the battle, Nigel finds a new outlet for his culinary talents, and we witness the birth of what was to become a lifelong passion for food.  Nigel’s likes and dislikes, aversions and sweet-toothed weaknesses, form a fascinating backdrop to this exceptionally moving memoir of childhood, adolescence, and sexual awakening.