Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Land of Opportunity--#30 finished

A very good book about a family from dirt poor Arkansas that several brothers & relatives move to Detroit in the '70s & '80s and become big time drug dealers.  Well researched and well written book with a lot of the history of drug dealing.  Easy to take what was happening in Detroit & see that it was happening in all the big cities back then too.  Just terrible to think about the hundreds of people just working for cash for these couple big dealers and how they just can see how their work is destroying neighborhoods and families, and then eventually cities.

I had to google the one brother Billy Joe Chambers and it looks like he got out of prison after serving only 22 years.  Maybe he was reformed & no longer doing criminal works but still seems kind of short for some of the bad things he did.

Very good read, I think for now this is going to be a keeper for me.  No reason to ship it off, at least at this time.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

The Attack--#29 finished

An interesting book about a Palestinian man that is an Israeli citizen and a decorated surgeon in Israel.  His whole world is set upside down when he learns his wife that he adores was a suicide bomber that killed dozens including children.  Author does a good job of putting the man into a hole that he cannot get out of, he just cannot understand how or what drove his wife to do this.  The book doesn't really have any answers but does show a side that doesn't seem to be often heard.  Not that suicide bombings are ever right but shows a kind of desperation some have but nothing really about the people that train or maybe brainwash these individuals.  A book that has to make you think and just wish there was a way to a solution but it just doesn't seem like there is one that is close.

There are 0 copies on PBS so I will probably post it and see if it moves, I would expect that it will.