evaB

• Rated 4 stars

“Hysterical. If you love Oscars and couture and laughs, run dont walk to read it.”

evaB wrote this review Saturday, September 5 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“Unflinching and troubling. A gripping read. How will they get out of this? And you realize, they cannot. ”

evaB wrote this review Monday, June 8 2009. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“I had to shield my face with the book so that people on public transit would not see how hard I laughed. One of the funniest laugh out loud books EVER!”

evaB wrote this review Sunday, May 24 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“Interesting but tedious. There is such a thing as too much plodding detail.”

evaB wrote this review Thursday, March 19 2009. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Gripping in unexpected ways, this is precision crime journalism about a precision criminal. A heist, a heister, his crew, his moves sometimes recounted angle by angle second by second. Huddy does know his stuff and can navigate the reader across crime territory better than any camera, whizzing you through every nail-biting moment across to Cuba, Angola, Afghanistan and then Vegas, through the eyes of cop and con. And you learn stuff. Do you know why Brinks guards always keep the engine running with one foot hovering over the gas pedal? Also, it is set in Vegas so nuff said. Read it: it's a page turner and TRUE, not reality journalism.”

evaB wrote this review Sunday, December 14 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Is this the best and saddest book ever? You will be grateful you can cross the street in peace. A most beautiful book about beauty amidst a brutal irrationality of war. This is one trascendent book.”

evaB wrote this review Wednesday, October 8 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Ok, so this is a haunting book about some bittersweet characters choked up with longing. Not sure how realistic they are as bar characters in a small American town (for one thing, they are infinitely tolerant), but they are certainly realistic as human beings stranded, well, the bar, tempted, by its possibilities of sincerity and emotional honesty. This is a lovely book.”

evaB wrote this review Wednesday, August 20 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Not a book I would have chosen. It was chosen for me so I read it dutifully and now have decided to keep it, against my own expectations. I learned a lot from this book about the Ivory Coast, transnationals, consumption, negotiation, crossing, double crossing and the perpetuation of corporate interests and because it is a about a subject dear to my heart, it resonated with me in ways I did not expect. It's seasoned with an understanding of the unwavering principles animating capitalism and the impossible contradictions of business: "the tricky balance between morality and acquisition" as exemplified by the Quaker ideas of Mr. Cadbury who could not acknowledge the slavery of Sao Tome until the Gold Coast plantations were "ready to meet their needs for the new raw product." And so beneficent intentions founder on the rocks of interest and if anything, this is a tale of entwining interests and criminal rapacity told with urgency. She believes the "gulf must be closed between the hand that picks the
bean and the hand that unwraps the candy bar," but sadly, little in her tale of cocoa greed suggests this can ever happen in a world so hungry for chocolate.”

evaB wrote this review Saturday, August 16 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 2 stars

“A well-researched book with terrific Chicago history: a potent blend, but the writing serves only to move the plot along, and it shows. There is enough information here to service two books, actually, and the book is busting at its seams. But I learned a lot about Chicago from one book, more than I ever knew--and I know Chicago--so this is a solid and I mean solid read for that reason and for the character of the determined female journalist of the nineteenth century.”

evaB wrote this review Monday, August 4 2008. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“This is a book of love and adventure in petticoats in the nineteenth century and a daring woman on a daring trip across an unforgiving, stark landscape, alone, with four men to avenge her dead husband's name. We are all wusses compared to her, wusses, I say. Bogs and blackflies and portages and all done in a skirt and moccasins. The novel is an imaginative reconstruction of a true event and worth the time spent discovering a thankless land called Labrador.”

evaB wrote this review Saturday, June 28 2008. ( reply | permalink )