Book picks similar to
Reading the Illegible by Craig Dworkin


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BRAIN DAMAGE: A Juror's Tale: The Hammer Killing Trial


Paul Sanders - 2014
    It seemed like a simple case of murder, but questions remained. Was Dale Harrell a hapless, innocent victim of a brutal killing, or was this the final act of a desperate woman who had suffered through years of domestic violence? The fact that the incident took place in a middle class suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, with the couple’s three children within the property at the time, meant nothing. The questions for the jury were simple. Was the killing premeditated or was it an act of self defense? Was it done for financial gain? Should the defendant pay for her crime with her life, should she be incarcerated for twenty-five years to life, or should she receive a life sentence with no chance of parole? Author Paul Sanders was Juror #13 in a trial packed with twists and turns. He sat every day in court, in a trial which got deep inside the day-to-day lives of a family and eventually delivered justice to a victim. Read this remarkable true story now and make up your own mind as to the truth behind the Hammer Killing Trial. Amazon reviews: “Mr. Sanders is a brilliant writer. You feel like you are right in the courtroom with him…” “This is a must-read for any avid trial watcher!” “Brain Damage is a very interesting journey through a death penalty trial. It made me want to be a juror!” Also by Paul Sanders: "Why Not Kill Her: A Juror's Perspective - The Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial" "Banquet of Consequences: A Juror's Plight - The Carnation Murders Trial of Michele Anderson" (March 2017)

Sean of the South: Volume 2


Sean Dietrich - 2015
    His humor and short fiction appear in various publications throughout the Southeast.

An Altogether New Book of Top Ten Lists from Late Night With David Letterman


David Letterman - 1991
    Can sit naked in front of book without fear of radiation 9. Reader not distracted by Dave's awful haircut 8. Can be readily enjoyed in Amish households 7. If you fall asleep while reading the book you won't wake up to fat weather guy wishing Happy Birthday to one hundred-year-olds 6. Can use your imagination to picture lists being read aloud by handsome actor George Peppard 5. Origami! Origami! Origami! 4. Can be enjoyed by inmates who have lost their TV privileges 3. Carrying book around proudly announces to rest of world, "I can read large print!" 2. Easier to shoplift than 26-inch Trinitron Stereo Sony 1. Any book is better than Dave's TV show

The Time Bubble Box Set #1-5


Jason Ayres - 2021
    For the four spin-off novels, search for the Second Chances box set.1 The Time BubbleThe story begins as Charlie and Josh discover a time portal in a railway underpass which transports those who enter forward in time.2 Global CoolingTen years after the events of The Time Bubble, the world is gripped by a catastrophic climate event. Can time travel provide an escape?3 Man out of TimeA victim of The Time Bubble finds himself thrust twenty-two years into a future where he's been declared legally dead.4 Splinters in TimeJosh has perfected the art of time travel - until an accident sends him backwards in time on a nightmarish journey through a series of alternate universes.5 Class of '92A man from the 21st Century finds himself stranded in the pre-internet culture of 1992. Meanwhile, historical figures from the past are starting to turn up in Oxford.For more information on each individual book, plus reviews, please check out the individual product pages on Amazon.

Living at the Movies


Jim Carroll - 1973
    His power and poisoned purity of vision are reminiscent of Arthur Rimbaud, and, like the strongest poets of the New York School, Carroll transforms the everyday details of city life into poetry. In language at once delicate, hallucinatory, and menacing, his major themes—love, friendship, the exquisite pains and pleasures of drugs, and, above all, the ever-present city—emerge in an atmosphere where dream and reality mingle on equal terms. It is an astonishing debut by an important American writer and artist.

Available Light


Marge Piercy - 1988
    They celebrate the wonders of nature and explore the nature of love and friendship.

Freighter Captain


Max Hardberger - 1998
    Capt. Max Hardberger and his crew fought a non-stop battle against crooked charterers, treacherous agents, and the sea itself. They came face-to-face with bandits in Jamaica, violent stowaways in the Dominican Republic, and warring gangs in post-Duvalier Haiti. It was a world of desperation and danger, where only the captain's will and the loyalty of his crew stood between the ship and disaster.

The Lockdown Diary of Tom Cooper


Spencer Brown - 2020
    Stuck inside a small flat with sole responsibility for his two single-digit children, Tom is plunged into a world of home schooling, supermarket feuds and alfresco workout sessions, not to mention keeping tabs on ageing parents who won’t stay home.Faced with the problems of cash-strapped tooth fairies, buying a rat trap online and an NHS-supporting arms race with an elderly neighbour, Tom realises he must rise to the occasion, but when his girlfriend asks for an erotic photo of his rapidly deteriorating body, it may be one step too far...Join Tom as he navigates lockdown in this hilarious stand-alone novel from the author of The Rebuilding of Tom Cooper.

Beyond The Fray: Paramalgamation


Shannon LeGro - 2020
    Michael Hopf; comes a collection of unexplained, nearly impossible to classify encounters with the strange, terrifying, and life-changing. Run-ins with goblins, creatures, and human-looking copies that don’t fit into a neat little box like Bigfoot or ghosts. This is a collection of some of the strangest and scariest stories ever told by the people who experienced them. Sit back, relax and we suggest you keep a light on.

The Celtic Cross


T.J. Walter - 2018
    The ensuing murder investigation is plagued with interference from above and several false leads frustrate the investigators. But slowly they unravel the mystery and unveil a story of resentment and greed. The detective team is led by DCI. Matthew Prior and his partner, Siobhan Williams. He is a gritty and determined veteran and she his perfect counterpart. He is happily married and she, despite being physically attractive, frightens most men off with her sharp brain and wit. Despite all the hurdles put in their way they gradually get to the truth. In the process they uncover a world of deviance and cruelty rooted in the deep past.

The Uses of Literature


Italo Calvino - 1980
    His fascination with myth is evident in pieces on Ovid's Metamorphoses and the separate odysseys that make up Homer's Odyssey. Three intertwined essays on French utopian socialist Fourier present him as a precursor of Women's Lib, a satirist and visionary thinker whose scheme for a society in which each person's desires could be satisfied deserves to be taken seriously. In other pieces, Calvino brings a fresh, unpredictable approach to why we should reread the classics, how cinema and comic strips influence writers, and the cartoon universe of Saul Steinberg. His message is that writers need to establish erotic communion with the humdrum objects of everyday reality.

All the Light We Cannot See: Sidekick


Bibliomaniac - 2016
    The novel is full of interesting symbolism and intriguing characters, but his intricate web of lives and events can be tricky to follow as Doerr constantly shifts between time periods.   This Sidekick to All the Light We Cannot See is sure to effortlessly guide you through the novel, point out what you might have otherwise missed, and broaden your understanding of the novel!   Inside you’ll find:   Chapter Summaries   Symbolism and Imagery   Individual Character Analysis   Questions to Consider   Important Quotes   Disclaimer: This book serves as an accompaniment to the bestseller "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr. It is meant to broaden the reader's understanding of the book and to offer some insights which can easily be overlooked. You should order a copy of the actual book before reading this.

The Angel of Auschwitz: [Extended Version]


S.A. Falconi - 2014
    I vow to you and to the leaders that you set for me, absolute allegiance until death. So help me God!”The SS Oath of Loyalty – words that became the very death sentence for millions of Jews and Germans alike. Six decades later, we still ask ourselves why and how did it happen? "The Angel of Auschwitz", a tragic epic of historical fiction, explores these inquiries through the eyes of an unlikely antagonist-turned-protagonist – the Nazi soldier."The Angel of Auschwitz" chronicles the life of Wolfgang Bremmer, an adolescent boy from the hills of Hamburg during the Nazi occupation of Germany. As a Hitler Youth, Wolfgang is captivated by the prowess of the Nazis and thrust into the ideologies of Adolf Hitler. With an adoration for the new Fűhrer and the Third Reich, Wolfgang enlists as a young man in the SS-Death’s Head Division, the gatekeepers of the regime’s most lethal concentration camp, Dachau. It is here he is introduced to Theodor Eicke’s “School of Violence” and becomes one of the most ruthless guards the SS has ever seen. After joining Hitler’s Mobile Killing Units, he participates in the invasion of Poland and the evacuation and extermination of its Jewish inhabitants. Wolfgang is the ideal Nazi warrior: vicious, ruthless, and entirely intolerant.But evil erodes even the hardest of hearts and Wolfgang grows weary in the midst of all the death and destruction. His conscience begins to return and with that a gnawing guilt for what he and his fellow Germans have done and are about to do. But with the fear of punishment for treason, Wolfgang is trapped in the cyclone of violence. That is, until he is promoted as a guard at the Reich’s most sophisticated concentration camp, Auschwitz. In the belly of such a beast as Auschwitz, Wolfgang discovers a secret that will not only save his own life and salvation, but the lives of so many prisoners as well.

Cold Paradise / The Short Forever


Stuart Woods - 2005
    But before he can dig into this latest case, he comes face to face again with Arrington Calder, the one woman who still holds a key to his affections. Stone and his partner, Dino, comb the glittering streets of Palm Beach and begin to suspect that more than one person might be after Allison: one so clever he manages never to show his face, but even more frightening, another man everybody has long forgotten. The Short Forever: Stone's new client, John Bartholomew, asks Stone to fly to London in search of a young woman whom he suspects has taken up with a mysterious character. Bartholomew asks Stone to see what he can find to discredit the man, Cabot. What Stone finds is more bizarre than he had expected. The woman in question isn't related to Bartholomew in quite the way he had implied. And it appears that Bartholomew and Cabot, who once worked together on a secretive assignment, now have very different versions of what went wrong. When Stone himself is implicated in a shocking double murder, he and his partner, Dino, know they have stepped into a strange case unlike any other.

The Downing of TWA Flight 800


James Sanders - 1997
    The Downing of TWA Flight 800 is the first and only complete account and analysis of what really happened on July 17, 1996.