THE ANSWER TO THE RIDDLE IS ME : A MEMOIR OF AMNESIA
by David Stuart MacLean

Here's an interesting premise. This guy (the author) "wakes up" on a train platform in India having no idea where he is, how he got there, or who the heck he is.
A police officer takes him to a mental hospital where he has these hallucinations. His symptoms are caused by the anti-malarial drug Lariam that he has taken. He goes back to the States to figure out what his life was like before.
Sound intriguing? I thought so,too until I got further with the book. The more I read, the more he disgusted me. David Stuart MacLean is self-destructive. He is taking medication to counteract the effects of Lariam on him, but is drinking an exorbitant amount of alcohol which is not too smart with narcotics. At the same time, MacLean is smoking way too many cigarettes and he is an asthmatic. He writes about these two vices ad nauseam.
MacLean's writing is, at times, very good, but most times irritating. He uses way too many similes to "enhance" his prose. They're definitely not needed. You get the picture the first time you read the sentence. It's just endless filler.
I probably should have stopped reading the book early on but I stuck with it because I wanted to see what happened to him. By the end, I could care less.
Not recommended.
 

 

PHILOMENA : A MOTHER, HER SON, AND A FIFTY-YEAR SEARCH
by Martin Sixsmith

When you read the FOREWORD of this book (written by Dame Judi Dench), you think you're going to be swept up by this extraordinary story. Nothing is further from the truth. The fact that the film was taken from the book is crazy. I don't believe that Dame Judi Dench even read it. If she had, she would have been stunned.
The title is a sham. Philomena barely appears; just a little bit in Part One and even less in Part Four.  Most of what is in between is about Michael Hess and the excruciating details of his homosexuality and politics ad nauseum. It's enough to make anyone uncomfortable.
The book is poorly written and reads like a trashy novel. There is very sloppy editing, missing words, and misplaced punctuation. Many times I felt as if I should stop reading the thing because it became repetitious and boring. The characters are just not interesting to even care about. There are many dialogues and conversations and it turns out that author Martin Sixsmith made them up. Is this book even true?
What I do know is that it was a total waste of time.
Not recommended.

THE DEATH OF SANTINI : THE STORY OF A FATHER AND HIS SON
by Pat Conroy

Having read Pat Conroy's previous book "My Reading Life," which I loved, I couldn't wait to read "The Death of Santini." The way he puts his verbiage together, is marvelous. Alas, that didn't happen to me with this book. It started out well enough and kept me interested, although it was very hard reading about the brutality that Pat's father doled out, unceasingly, to his family. I only reached page 132 when I decided that I could no longer stand reading the thing. By that time, he is writing about his mother's mother (known as Stanny) and it just goes on and on and on and I no longer cared. He also drops a million names all over the place which drives me nuts.
I guess if you're a die-hard fan of Conroy's, you would enjoy this book, but I'm not.
Not recommended. 

NINETY PERCENT OF EVERYTHING : INSIDE SHIPPING, THE INVISIBLE INDUSTRY THAT PUTS CLOTHES ON YOUR BACK, GAS IN YOUR CAR, AND FOOD ON YOUR PLATE
by Rose George

Everything we buy, must be shipped. Freight shipping is what brings the products. Boxes, or containers, are stacked up extremely high (way over the height of Niagara Falls) on humongous ships. Rose George takes a journey on one of these, the 20-story freighter Maersk Kendal. 
This could have been a really interesting book in, perhaps, better hands. It certainly is not captivating nor compelling as some reviewers have stated. I only read sixty pages due to boredom.  The writing is dull and empty. George spends way too much time talking about ships and not much at all about the goods. There is no need to read beyond the cover because what's inside doesn't match. 
Ninety percent of nothing is a much better title.
Not recommended.

THE SIXTEENTH RAIL : THE EVIDENCE, THE SCIENTIST, AND THE LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING
by Adam J. Schrager

Arthur Koehler was a xylotomist with the US Forest Service in Madison, Wisconsin. He was considered the most eminent expert on wood identification. After the Lindbergh's baby was kidnapped, Koehler was tasked to investigate the wood in the ladder by the New Jersey State Police in 1932.
I did not finish this book as I found it to be excruciatingly boring. Unless you're into all the nuances of wood with all of its distinctive markings, you might be interested. The most egregious thing that I thought was disturbing was the amount of times the word "kidnapping" was misspelled. That's pretty pathetic considering that is what the book is about.
It's hard to believe that the author has received numerous journalism awards because I found the writing to be plodding.
Not recommended.

ANNE FRANK : THE BIOGRAPHY
by Melissa Muller

The title of this book is misleading. You have to slough through more than half of the volume before you even have an inkling of what Anne Frank was like. Most of the book deals with her father, Otto Frank, and his businesses.  There is really nothing revelatory nor new about Anne Frank that hasn't been written before. I found the writing to be dry and plodding. The Epilogue was supposed to reveal who betrayed the family but the suspects all denied doing anything wrong and, at best, it's all speculative.
Not recommended.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED CAMELLIAS : THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MARIE DUPLESSIS
by Julie Kavanagh

Marie Duplessis was a courtesan during the 1840s in Paris. The opera La Traviata and the film Camille were inspired by her. She grew up impoverished with an awful father. Her original name was Alphonsine and when she moved to France at the age of thirteen, she totally reinvented herself.
I didn't finish the book because it became very tedious. There's too many characters that come and go and you feel as if you are reading one giant gossip column from the nineteenth century. Marie has many lovers, they shower her with gifts, she lives like royalty. Soon enough, you are completely bored.
Not recommended.