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Shady Cross" has three things going for it that kept me hooked: constant tension that is delivered at an almost exhausting pace and intensity; a plot with so many unexpected turns and frustrations that you feel you have to keep reading so you can find out how it all works out; and the character of Stokes a fundamentally flawed man who is quite hard to like and almost impossible to trust but who I still found myself rooting for from time to time. The novel covers the next twenty-four hours, as someone is always on his trail, putting a kink in his plans, no matter where he turns. His plans change from one minute to another. The little girl Amanda has been kidnapped, and the killers demand the ransom, or they are going to kill her. They tell him they have someone on the inside (cops) and he cannot get them involved.
There are still a lot of gotchas. Though to be fair the narrator kinda warns about them when they happen From Pete Souza, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Obama: An Intimate Portrait, comes a powerful tribute to a bygone era of integrity in politics. He also didn’t give interviews or explain his motives to anyone publicly. Many said he was “throwing shade” on the sitting president. When he googled the expression, Merriam-Webster explained it as a “subtle, sneering expression of contempt for or disgust with someone—sometimes verbal, and sometimes not.” I mean, I can't comment much on the mystery element, because, there wasn't much to solve in the first place AND out main character is not the brightest and he's quite the liar and the criminal. Well, he died a hero, a guilty criminal, and still quite stupid. Pretty good book but I'm not sure this is something I'd want to keep around, as reading it made me both bittersweet and sad.
The secret life of punctuation
Punctuation is not a mere ornament or a curiosity — it is essential, and we need to know about it. Keith Houston’s history is entertaining and readable. Ian Sansom, The Guardian I recommend this book as a friendly haven, a reminder of sanity and law, and a reminder that there ARE stark differences between good and evil, much as most in our time do not like those words. I am not saying that Obama was a saint, only that he lived with, by and under the law, tried to work with all branches of government as the Constitution would have him do. And he managed to be a family man and apparent loving husband at the same time. Well enough said. Quite possibly, too much! I didn't love all aspects of the book. I started to tire of all of the problems that Stokes kept running into. It seemed that no matter what he tried thing would go wrong. It became a bit predictable and the excitement of the story suffered as a result. I also never really connected with the characters. I didn't dislike him but I didn't like him either. I never fully believed that he would really risk so much to save the girl. I enjoyed reading through these but have to admit after how great the documentary was, I was left wanting more. If Eats, Shoots & Leaves whetted your appetite on the subject of punctuation, then you have a treat in store. Shady Characters is an authoritative, witty, and fascinating tour of the history and rationale behind such lesser known marks as the ampersand, manicule, the pilcrow, and the interrobang. Keith Houston also explains the octothorpe — otherwise known as the hashtag — and my final comment on his book is #awesome. Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad
Shady denies the claim: “They do not have a single land title. The owner of the land is the Peruvian state.” There is no doubt Souza has deep feelings for President Obama. In this book he expresses some of those, ranging from dissatisfaction to outrage at what the following President attempted to do to Obama’s legacy and the “alternative facts” that were offered in support of the new Administration’s actions. He decided this was an accurate description of what he had been doing, and he kept it up for the first 500 days of the new administration, which is what we find profiled in this book, though he says he has every intention of keeping throwing shade at President T for a good while to come still. I loved this book. So much. If you’ve seen any of Peter Souza’s photos of President Obama in the last couple of years and thought they offered an interestingly sane contrast to one of Donald Trump’s latest demented tweets, that was no mere coincidence. Shade is a portrait in Presidential contrasts, telling the tale of the Obama and Trump administrations through a series of visual juxtapositions. Here, more than one hundred of Souza's unforgettable images of President Obama deliver new power and meaning when framed by the tweets, news headlines, and quotes that defined the first 500 days of the Trump White House.Shortly after his release from jail, he causes the death of a man by his careless driving and, after finding a windfall of over a quarter of a million dollars in the dead man’s car, steals it. But as the story evolves, he realizes that he has stepped into the middle of a kidnapping, and that a little girl’s safety - - and perhaps her life - - are in the balance. Images of his own little girl, who he hasn’t seen in 13 years, since she was two years old, keep intruding on his thoughts, and his decisions. I hope we can continue to investigate and continue to recover our history because it has such an interesting message,” she added. “It was a very, very peaceful society. We have not found even a single walled settlement.” This falls somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. I liked that it was a different kind of hero but by the end of the book he had run into so many problems that they stopped being exciting. The narration was great. For this book, he’s chosen to give the reader more context, so he’s included the president’s specific tweets or the news articles which led him to respond to with his own photographs of the former administration with pointed snarky captions. For those who’ve more or less kept up with both his feed and the daily news, this makes for lots of sighing and nods of recognition, and inevitable nostalgia. Engaging typographical journeys […] Houston brings to life a history of ingenuity and imagination. Rose Wild, The Times
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