80. The Firemaster's Mistress

Rated 4.5 Stars
From Jani

England in the early reign of James I: an unsteady nation adapts to its new king; Shakespeare labors over the tragedies of Othello and Macbeth; bearbaiting is a popular diversion . . . and Guy Fawkes, with a small group of desperate men, hatches a terrifying plot to assassinate the king and all of Parliament by explosion.Francis Quoynt is a firemaster who would rather make fireworks than war. Kate Peach is a poor glovemaker and a mistress to the powerful Hugh Taylor, who is forced to hide her Catholicism as she spends her days looking out on noisy, teeming London streets crowded with prostitutes and drunks.Once Francis and Kate were lovers before the firemaster abandoned her and the plague destroyed her family. Now they will meet again-as enemies-caught up in the maelstrom of treachery and violence surrounding Fawkes's malevolent plot. In the midst of chaos and madness, the flame of their romance will be dangerously rekindled, as their lives and the London they know are changed forever.

79. 8.4

Rated 5 Stars
From Library

Scary, scary book for someone who lives right next door to the New Madrid Fault.  The stories are the stuff of legend, and they are all true. In 1811 and 1812, three earthquakes measuring 8 on the Richter scale ruptured an area spanning twenty-four states and a third of the land mass of the United States. Lakes formed in Tennessee, church bells rang in Boston, and the mighty Mississippi ran backward.But today it is all a distant memory. Until the underground force reawakens. Kentucky farmers say animals are acting strange: cows butt each other with unheard-of aggression and a few hundred rats race across a road in broad daylight. In the Ozark Mountains, leaking subterranean gases flash bursts of red and green across the midnight sky. Suddenly the earth beneath a sleepy Tennessee town "liquefies" in a fountain of mud and foul-smelling water.A man and a woman, both seismologists, find themselves in a race against the clock to convince the world that their daring mission is the only way to stop the last monstrous earthquake to come. History is about to repeat itself. It's Mother Nature calling.

77. American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld
Rated about 3 Stars - maybe
From: Library

I still haven't made up my mind what I think of it. The story is based on Laura Bush and it was obvious that the author admires her and definitely does not admire her husband. It was, or my take on it was, that this was an attempt to explain why such a nice woman loves such a jerk and sticks by him when (according to this book) she hates everything he stands for politically.

It would have been a very interesting book had it not been based on the Bush's but that part was hard for me to get past. There are so many things about the lives of these fictional characters that are are a matter of public record as happening to the Bush's and then some pretty controversial things attributed to the fictional character that are not a matter of record that I think some readers will not draw a distinction between what is fact and what is fiction. Unless this was written with the cooperation or permission of Laura Bush then I think that it was an invasion of her privacy. So at the end I was left hanging about whether or not I liked it.

And heaven knows how hard it is for me to defend the Bush's. *LOL* But the fact is that I have never had a problem with Laura herself.

Copied from Amazon:


From Bookmarks Magazine
While critics couldn’t say for sure whether or not Sittenfeld captures the exact thoughts of Laura Bush, they did agree that she creates a realistic and highly sympathetic portrayal of the (soon-to-be former) First Lady. (The author supposedly based the novel on Ann Gerhart’s 2004 biography, The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush.) Sittenfeld asks provoking questions about marriage, loyalty, and responsibility. But many reviewers couldn’t fundamentally understand why the very decent Alice had supported her husband despite her doubts about his capabilities; Sittenfeld’s pat, unsatisfactory answer is that Alice leads a life “in opposition.” That, combined with the author’s obvious contempt for Charlie, brought the reviews down a notch. Still, there’s nothing as titillating as a look, albeit fictional, inside the White House—especially during an election year.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

76. Killing Rommel

By: Stephen Pressfield
Rated 4 1/2 Stars
DVD Recording
From: Library

This was a rousing WWII adventure story. British Eighth Army, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps are advancing on the valuable oil fields of the Middle East. If the Desert Fox and his panzers gain control of these reserves, Hitler will have all the fuel he needs to power a successful offensive against the Soviets. The British government gambles with a desperate plan: send a small, highly skilled team of commandos, the Long Range Desert Group, behind enemy lines to assassinate Rommel. Told from the point of view of a young tank officer and second in command of the team, R. L. Chapman, this gripping novel is chock-full of evocative, historical details that readers of military fiction will voraciously devour.

75. The Fall of Eagles

By C. L. Sulzberger
Rated: DNF

I just couldn't make myself keep reading this book. However I loved the content so it was probably that the writing style and I were not compatible. I did want to finish it so much that I reactiveded my netflix membership and ordered the 1974 BBC production of it. The blurb from netflix is below.

This superb BBC production chronicles three European dynasties that ultimately crumbled: the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary, the Romanovs of Russia and the Hohenzollerns of Germany. Set in the late 1800s, the miniseries recounts how the convergence of autocracy, social strife and World War I led to each family's downfall. The outstanding cast includes Patrick Stewart, John Rhys-Davies, Gemma Jones, Gayle Hunnicutt and Tom Conti.