BiblioHistoria

Codex 632 - Book Review

2009-07-09T16:19:00.001-04:00

Codex 632 - The Secret Identity of Christopher Columbus
By Jose Rodrigues Dos Santos
Originally published in Portugal by Gradiva 2005
English translation published by William Morrow 2008
Author's website (in English)

This is a novel. But on the very first page is this Author's Note.
All of the books, documents and manuscripts mentioned in this novel do exist...including Codex 632.

When Tomás Noronha, a professor of History and expert cryptographer, is called upon to finish an unresolved investigation involving an aged scholar who is mysteriously found dead in his hotel room, his life takes several unexpected and dramatic turns. As Tomás slowly begins to unravel the cryptograms and enigmas that shroud the old professor’s work, he finds a code that could possibly change the course of historical scholarship:

MOLOC NINUNDIA OMASTOOS

In his quest to decipher this mysterious code, Tomás travels around the world, from Lisbon to Rio, New York and Jerusalem. He quickly immerses himself in the fascinating history of the discovery of the Americas, and the one enigma that no historian has ever been able to solve: the true identity of Christopher Columbus.

The mystery begins with the great explorer’s name. Columbus never introduced himself as Columbus, but as Colom or Colón. People who knew him personally called him Colom, Colón, Colona or Guerra. But never Columbus. Why, then, do we call him Columbus, a name he never went by?

Tomás finds that one mystery only leads to another. Take Columbus’ language. The great navigator tried only twice to write in Tuscan, and both his efforts are full of Portuguese and Spanish words. Why is that? Being an Italian, could he not write in Tuscan? Columbus wrote some letters to Genoese friends, but, amazingly, these letters were not written in Tuscan or Genoese, as might be expected in letters between Genoese people, but in Spanish.

Now, doesn’t that strike you as a little bit odd? Actually, say the Spanish philologists, it wasn’t really Spanish. It was Portuñol, the hybrid language Portuguese people talk when they try to speak Spanish. (similar in many ways to Yiddish)

Codex 632 tells the true story of a supposed Genoese weaver who left his town at the age of 24 and, yet, could not speak a word of Genoese or Tuscan, and whose Spanish was full of Portuguese words.

Another mystery is Columbus’s marriage. The Genoese Cristoforo Colombo was a poor and ignorant wool weaver, according to reports and documents from that time. And, yet, he supposedly married Dona Filipa Moniz Perestrello, a Portuguese woman from high nobility and related by family ties to the Portuguese crown. And this marriage took place in a 15th century full of class divisions, when social classes behaved like castes, with no intermarriage whatsoever. No noblewomen would ever marry a poor weaver. It was unthinkable. So why did this noblewoman marry this man? The answer could only be that he was not poor, and that he was not Italian.

Another question. Where did the name of Cuba come from? Is it an Italian word?
Is it a Spanish word? What if it is a Portugese name? And if it is a Portugese name - why would an Italian sailor employed by the Spanish crown, ever name a new discovery after a Portugese village?

It is reasonably well known that the Viking sailors and the Irish monks discovered Iceland, Greenland and Canada way back in the mists of time. The Chinese may also have discovered other continents and even mapped them. So in 1492, Columbus really did not discover America. He Re-Discovered America.

There are so many questions provided by history, and so many answers not being delivered by historians....Until now.

This was an excellent novel based on facts and real documents. exactly the kind of novel I like. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I could not put it down.

The Shape of Mercy - Book Review

2009-07-07T19:33:00.010-04:00

The Shape of Mercy
by Susan Meissner
Waterbrook Press, Colorado 2008
Author's website
Author's Blog

Lauren is a 20 year old college student at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB for short) doing an english and literature degree. Lauren is an heiress. Her father's family has been very wealthy for several generations and Lauren is not short of ready cash.

But Lauren wants a job. So she answers a job advert to do some transcription. Being an only child Lauren is a rebel - choosing a state school rather than a private one, and choosing to English Lit instead of Business.

Lauren is also upset that she is not a boy because now her father has noone to pass the family business onto. But there are 4 male cousins - all of whom have done degrees related to business in some way. These cousins are the sons of Lauren's uncle.

Abigail Boyles is an wealthy elderly lady in her 80s living in a large house in Santa Barbara. She has a diary from a relative (8 times removed) which was written in Salem (formerly part of Boston) in the 1600s durung the Salem witch trials. The ink has faded from a number of these pages, and Abigail wants the diary transcribed before it is all lost for ever. The diary was written by 19 year old Mercy Hayworth.

The Shape of Mercy is about three very different women: Mercy Hayworth, a nineteen-year-old charged with the 17th century death penalty crime of being a witch; Lauren Durough, the young college student who more than three hundred years later is asked to transcribe the barely legible words from Mercy’s diary; and Abigail Boyles, the elderly ex-librarian in whose family the diary has been passed from generation-to-generation.

Lauren immediately identifies with Mercy Hayworth and the innocent love story recounted in Mercy’s diary while she reluctantly approaches the brutal truth of Mercy’s final days that she knows will be revealed in the diary’s last entries. But Lauren is surprised to find that Abigail, through her own life story, can teach her as much about love, critical choices, prejudice and regrets as Lauren can learn from the much shorter and more tragic life described in Mercy’s diary.

Again this was an excellent story and I could not put it down. I loved the contemporary setting and the ties to the historical past. I think I like these kinds of novels best of all.

My Sister's Keeper - Book review

2009-07-04T08:37:00.012-04:00

My Sister's Keeepr
by Jodi Picoult
Simon & Schuster 2004
Authors Website
Movie Website

I went to see the movie yesterday afternoon. And I purchased the book off a book shelf at the same time. So I hadn't read the book when the movie ended.

I brought the book because on her website, Jodi says that the ending of the movie was different from the ending in the book.

Having now read the book and seen the movie, I understand why they changed the ending, and I actually do prefer the movie ending rather than the book ending. There were a number of other changes as well.

I dont want to spoil the movie for you so I will try not to put any spoilers in this review.

In the book you have the Fitzgerald family living in Rhode Island, In the movie they are living in California. The family consists of Brian Fitzgerald, a firefighter, his wife Sarah, who used to be a lawyer but has been a SAHM (stay at home mom) for the last 12 years. Their children are from oldest to youngest - son Jesse, and daughters Kate and Anna.

When Kate was 2 years old she was diagnosed with APL (acute promyelocytic leukemia). Her older brother Jesse was not a match for her. Neither were the parents. They were unable to donate any blood or bone marrow.

So Sarah decided to have another baby who was a perfect genetic match. This baby was named Anna and she is the main character of the book (and movie). Anne was a testtube baby - one of 4 embryo's who were genetically manipulated to have all the proteins required to be a perfect match to Kate.

Anna's cord blood was donated to Kate right after she was born, in the hopes that this might stop the disease. It did but only for 5 years. From then on Anna is subjected to more and more procedures just to help Kate stay alive.

The life span of an APL patient is usually 5 to 6 years. Sarah was desperate to save Kate, so she had Anna. Every time Kate was hospitalised, Anna was forced to drop whatever she was doing, and rush to the hospital to have contribute more blood or bone marrow to Kate. All the attention was on Kate. Anna was only in the lime light when she was required to donate more blood or bone marrow. Jesse is ignored altogether.

At age 14, Kate's body start shutting down. First her kidneys. Anna is told by Sarah, that of course Anna will donate a kidney. Anna revolts, hires a lawyer and demands medical emancipation from her parents. She takes her parents to court. She wants to stop being forced to be a donor, even if this means Kate will die.

There are several other major things that are in the book but not in the movie. One is the court appointed guardian for Anna which is not mentioned at all in the movie. The second is Jesse's activities. While Jesse is seen out by himself in the city, his activities are not shown.

The movie was powerful enough without the guardian or Jesse's activities. I really wanted to call Cameron Diaz (who plays Sarah) a bitch for spending all her time on ONE child at the expense of the other two kids. No parents should be like that. However I know that Cameron is just acting. She was so believable.

Also in the book the judge who is deciding the court case is a man. In the movie the judge is a woman. And in the movie, Kate gets to go to the beach. In the book she does not.

As to the ending, well one sister does die. You have to see the movie and read the book to find out which.

In Secret Service - Book Review

2009-06-30T19:52:00.011-04:00

In Secret Service
By Mitch Silver
Pocket star Books 2007
Author's website

In 1964, James Bond’s creator sealed a package containing an explosive manuscript he thought no one would read until fifty years after his death.

Ian Fleming was an officer in Britain’s Naval Intelligence during World War II, and he had his own adventures to recount. His family ties and his career had taken him to the upper echelons of British and American society and espionage, a world where passionate affairs, exotic locations, and polite cocktail chatter were interlaced with danger, betrayal, and deceit. He’d replicated that world in his famous novels, but this manuscript contained a real spy story that would explode history when its secrets were revealed. He’d chosen the reader, and he’d have to trust she would serve the truth.

In 2005, Amy Greenberg — a young American academic with a glittering future — is summoned to Ireland to claim the contents of her grandfather’s safe deposit box, in which she finds only one thing: a manuscript by Ian Fleming. The pages detail Fleming’s involvement in Allied spycraft and contain information so confidential, so potentially explosive, that Amy soon discovers that people on both sides of the Atlantic are willing to kill to maintain its secrecy. As she journeys back home with her precious cargo, Amy finds herself in a race against time—she must unlock the manuscript’s shocking and fascinating secrets and outwit the unknown assailants who would do anything to bury the truth and protect a traitor’s name.

Peopled with real characters including Winston Churchill, Princess Diana, Edward Duke of Windsor and his wife Wallis Simpson, Anthony Blunt, Rudolf Hess and FDR and illustrated with authentic looking documents, In Secret Service is an explosive historical mystery inside a contemporary thriller.

This is Mitch Silver's first novel. He combines impeccable research with thrilling action, in a brand-new take on espionage suspense.

I really enjoyed this novel. Read it in 2 days and could not put it down.

LITERARY MEME

2009-06-29T18:21:00.010-04:00

IN WHICH I REVEAL MY LITERARY SHALLOWNESS...

A literary friendly blogger sent this to me so I shall answer as best I can.

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Equal numbers of books by James Rollins, Steve Berry & Clive Cussler

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I don't own multiple copies of any book.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
HUH? No.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Dirk Pitt - described as over 6 feet with ebony hair and aqualine eyes.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children)? 84 Charing Cross Road and 100 Million Francs (see below)

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna.
Berna's most famous book Le Chevel sans tête, (The Horse without a Head) usually known in English as A Hundred Million Francs, was published in 1958. It concerns the adventures of a gang of street urchins from the slums of Paris whose plaything, a headless horse on wheels, is used as a hiding-place by train robbers. It has been translated into several languages, enjoying great success in Britain and the United States. In 1963, the Disney Studios in Britain filmed the book as The Horse Without a Head: The 100,000,000 Franc Train Robbery, scripted by T. E. B. Clarke and starring Jean-Pierre Aumont and Herbert Lom.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
Zero Tollerance - by Toller Cranston - the Canadian skater.
It was so impersonal I could not get past the 3rd chapter.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Hang on - have to look through my blog to answer that.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
None really. I dont like forcing myself or my favourite book onto anyone

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I'm gonna say the guy who wrote The Kite Runner - if he hasn't already won it.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Any of James Rollins or Steve Berry's adventure novels.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
When I am sleeping, I don't dream - at all.
My fantasy dream involving books is to write the ultimate historical novel a la James Michener.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
None that I can think of.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Any shakespeare play - especially HAMLET

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
none obscure - have seen all the well known ones - as films or on TV

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
French

18) Roth or Updike?
WHO??

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
WHO??

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Chaucer - at least he wrote decent stuff that tells us about history.

21) Austen or Eliot?
Austen - if I absolutely had to choose.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
I seldom read the classics. I dont read them for fun.
I am not fond of the old fashioned language. Jane Austen, Shakespeare etc

23) What is your favourite novel?
You mean NOW? None specifically.

25) Poem?
I HATE poetry unless it rhymes. Silly I know, but if it does not have rhythm or rhyme, I cant read it. The only poems I like reading are those of Australian poet, Banjo Patterson. He wrote classics like The Man from Snowy River. This poem was made into a movie in 1982 - The Man from Snowy River

26) Essay?
The only essays I have read in the last 12 months, were those on the Art of Writing, by Sir Arthur Quiller Couch. And that was only because Helene Hanff loved them so much. I had to read them online.

27) Short story?
I don't read short stories.

28) Work of nonfiction?
Anything mentioned in this blog. I LOVE reading NON-Fiction.

29) Who is your favorite writer?
Just one? Impossible.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Don't know. I probably wouldnt read them anyway

31) What is your desert island book?
If I am stuck on a desert island I will be wroting down those stories I can rememebr so I can keep my mind busy. I hope I have pen and paper.

32) And... what are you reading right now?
The Bookseller's Apprentice - this one if I haven't already read it.
The Summer Book (cookbook) - this would be second
How to Identify Prints - NO
The Encyclopedia of Ephemera - NO
The Making of a Marchioness - NO
The Children who Lived in a Barn - NO

Keeping Faith - Book Review

2009-06-25T21:00:00.004-04:00

Keeping Faith
by Jodi Picoult
Harper Collins 1999
Author's website

As I have mentioned through this blog, I am not a fan of Chick-Lit. So I have never read any of Jodi Picoult's books.

Until this week after I saw the trailer of the new movie My Sisters Keeper - which opened at the theatres this week. The trailer looks good. My logic says, if the trailer looks good then the movie must be good. If the movie is good, then the book must be good. So I decided that I maybe better read a Jodi Picoult book or two. So I did.

Keeping Faith is about atheism and religion. One of my favourite subjects.

Seven year old Faith talks to her imaginary "Guard" constantly and begins to recite passages from the Bible. Being Jewish, Faith has never read the bible. Fearful for her daughter's sanity, Mariah sends her to several psychiatrists.

Yet when Faith develops stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter, a girl with no religious background, might indeed be seeing God. Word leaks to the press and a media storm ensues.

Mariah's ex-husband suddenly instigates a lawsuit for custody of Faith, claiming that Mariah is a danger to his daughter. And his lawyer gets a court order stating that Mariah must be kept away from her daughter for Faith's protection and safety. Faith is put under the care of a court appointed guardian. The court case is riveting.

I really enjoyed this book. A lot more than I thought I would.

Jodi Picoult has written more than 15 books. I know a lot of my readers will have read them, but I am just discovering them now. I plan on reading more - starting with My Sisters Keeper which has been reserved at my local library.

The Doomsday Key - Book Review

2009-06-20T16:01:00.013-04:00

The Doomsday Key
By James Rollins
Harper Collins June 2009
James Rollins website

The Doomsday Key is a special fungi that protects humans from the genetically modified crops currently being grown and sold through out the world. The trouble is that genetically modified organisms (GMO) are NOT confined to one place, they are blown by the wind to many other places and interfere with other foods.

In this novel people are dying after eating GMO crops. Their bellies are full but they still starve to death. Grayson Pierce, his Sigma Team, two women from Gray's past, and even the Sigma Agency boss Painter Crowe, are all drawn into the mad rush to find the cure for the GMOs.

This cure was mentioned just ONCE. In one book written at one time. The Domesday Book of England. You haven't heard of this book? Well maybe because it's better known as the Doomsday Book.

The Sigma team travel to Italy, France, England, Norway and to the Svarlbad Islands in the Arctic Ocean, in a bid to find the cure and destroy the GMO's before they kill the people of the Earth.

This book is due to be released to the public on Tuesday 23rd, June, just 3 days from now. I received my reviewers copy last week, and read it straight through.

Once again, this book was fast moving, with plenty of action, lots of history and even some science and archaeology as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

National Archives - Domesday Book

Free Rider - Book Review

2009-06-16T15:43:00.003-04:00

Free Rider
by John Lawrence Reynolds.
Mcarthur & Co 2001

This is the story of the Bay Street Embezzler, Michael Holoday. For most of the 1990s, Michael was an investor and trader on Bay Street in Toronto. And for most of that same time, he stole the money he was given by his clients.

When it all started falling down around his head, he kept on asking for loans from his clients until eventually the Stock Exchange and the Police stepped in. Michael's trial was held during 2000.

I arrived in Canada in November 2000, so I missed all of this. Michael was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Twice during that 8 years, he was given day parole. Twice the parole had to be revoked, because he continued to borrow money, contuinued to make trades, and continued to live beyond his means. His sentence ends in December 2009.

Michael Holoday still beleives he was right and that he is entitled to live a good life with other people's money. Michael frequently made up false statemetns for his clients telling them that they had made a lot of money, when in reality most of his clients had lost money. As soon as they paid him money to deposit into their account, Michael would spend it. He never did the trades. He spent the money on his wife and his wife's family in a very loud and overly lavish manner.

Those who read this book will be checking their statements more carefully and questioning account discrepancies, I guarantee it. The Toronto Star.

The Betrayal - Book Review

2009-06-13T18:09:00.009-04:00

The Betrayal - The Lost Life of Jesus
by Kathleen O'Neal and W. Michel Gear
Tor Books 2008
Author website

You might recognize the writers names as the authors of the "People of..." series of Novels. This book is also a novel.
The Year is 325 AD - a most critical year in the life of the Catholic church. The Council of Nicea, headed by Emperor Constantine, trying to decide which writings will be used in the church and which will not.

In the writings of Mary Magdalene, Philip, and James are clues to the real truth about Christ. But the church rejects these writings as they dont want a rebel for a god, they want a teacher and a leader, one who will come again and save his people.

Emperor Constantine declares these scrolls, and others like them, to be a "hotbed of manifold perversity". Constantine also decrees that anyone found reading or copying these texts will be executed as a Christian heretic.

There is an alternate story of the life of Jesus. It is a very HUMAN story, one that has been SUPPRESSED for 1900 centuries. The story in this novel is based on ACTUAL documents recovered from archaeological sites in the Middle East or respected repositories of ancient literature, such as the Vatican Library.

Nearly all the ancient texts verify that Jesus was crucified as the "King of the Jews". He was not, as many books and movies would have us believe, a meek and mild man who spent his time spinning tales (parables) and healing the sick. Such a Jesus would have been a threat to NOONE.

The historical Jesus DID theaten and enrage people, from the priestly aristocracy in Jerusalem Temple, to the Roman Prefect who finally condemned him to be crucified.

Oh Dear - I spoke too soon

2009-06-12T09:43:00.003-04:00

Now I have got the flu. I guess it was inevitable when you live in a small apartment with 2 other people who both have the flu. I started coughing at 8pm last night while I was reading a bedtime story to my son. Fortunately it is the weekend. I HOPE to get some time to rest and relax.

I start a new class next week.

Wake - Book Review

2009-06-11T22:25:00.008-04:00

Wake
By Robert J Sawyer
Published by Penguin April 2009
Robert's Website
Trilogy website

I have mentioned Canada's home grown sci-fi author a few times on this blog. Robert J Sawyer is an excellent writer and a very nice fellow. He is almost always at the Word on the Street festival held at Queens Park (Toronto) in September.

Anyway Sawyer has started another new trilogy. This one is about computers and sentient intelligence inside the Web. The first book in the series is called WAKE and was just published 2 months ago - in April. I reserved my copy at the library and had to wait 6 weeks to finally get it.

It was excellent and unforgettable. I could not put it down. I even stayed up to 1 am to finish it. I cannot wait for the next 2 books - WATCH and WONDER. That is what WWW means - not World Wide Web but - Wake, Watch, Wonder.

I have always loved computer related books, and computer related movies too.

Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math — and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex paths clearly in her mind.

When a Japanese researcher develops a new signal-processing implant that might give her sight, she jumps at the chance, flying to Tokyo for the operation.

But Caitlin's brain long ago co-opted her primary visual cortex to help her navigate online. Once the implant is activated, instead of seeing reality, the landscape of the World Wide Web explodes into her consciousness, spreading out all around her in a riot of colors and shapes. While exploring this amazing realm, she discovers something — some other — lurking in the background. And it's getting smarter ...

Caitlin and her parents are Americans, but they move to Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada. Both her parents have PHD doctorates.

I have just one small nitpick with this book. Robert Sawyer needs to be somewhat more educated on Canadian immigration law. The Decter family have not immigrated to Canada. The father has a work permit, and the mother has applied for hers which is allowed under Canada law. So why is it that Mr Sawyer makes no mention of Caitlin needing a study permit to attend the local high school. Which under Canadian immigration law, she must have.

I mention this only because of my extensive experience with Canadian immigration and my excessive need to mention the nit-picking details

Other than that, this was an excellent book.

Oh yes, and I read this book for the Canadian Book challenge in an attempt to get the challenge to over 1000 books. And because on the last update (the 11th) John asked ever so nicely - in fact he challenged us.

At the bottom of the long post you can read this...

Now with just 47 books to go to reach 1000 (which is just amazing--thank you so much!), I want to really push it this last month. If every participant just reads one book this month, we'll easily reach this goal. But just in case, I want to make June Read A Canadian Book Month. So, even if you've completed the challenge already, please read just one more! Pretty please! Pretty please with a Canadian cherry on top! And if you were going to read a Canadian book this month anyway, I challenge you to read two. Come on! I need your help here!

The swine flu pandemic

2009-06-11T12:28:00.002-04:00

Apologies for the silence over the last 10 days, but we have been hit by the flu. At least my husband and son have, I have been lucky enough to not catch the flu, despite still living in an apartment with two sick patients.

With all the concerns about Swine flu these days, one cannot be sure if one has the regular flu or the dangerous kind

The paper said today that the WHO have upgraded the swine flu to a pandemic. The paper also said that there have now been over 1000 cases of swine flu in Ontario alone - but only 2 deaths!!! And both those people had underlying medical conditions. My husband also has underlying medical conditions. And he is having much more difficulty in shaking this flu off. Other years have been much easier.

We will be heading out soon to the doctor to get a doctors note so my son can go back to school tomorow (despite the bad cough) or next week - if the doctor says so. Husband will go see the doctor tomorow.

The Magician Series - Again

2009-06-03T16:57:00.004-04:00

Charlie Bone and the Magician Series
by Jenny Nimmo
Egmont Press 2002-present

A few days ago I posted about a new series of books about school students who do magic.

I have now read all 7 books. This is an excellent series, so if you have any pre-teens or teenagers who are missing their Harry Potter fix, tell them about Charlie Bone. I am sure they will love you for it.

These are the books listed in chronological order.
Midnight for Charlie Bone (2002)
Charlie Bone and the Time Twister (2003)
Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy (2004) / AKA Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa (2006)
Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors (2005)
Charlie Bone and the Hidden King (2006)
Charlie Bone and the Wilderness Wolf (2007) AKA Charlie Bone and the Beast (2007)
Charlie Bone and the Shadow of Badlock (2008)
Charlie Bone and the Red Knight (Due out - September 2009)

Children of the Red King

Why Diet and Excercise Fail - Book Review

2009-05-28T19:31:00.013-04:00

Why Diet and Exercise Fail
By Daniel M Korn
Foner Books (Self published) 2009
Website

Yes, this is another self-published health book. Not big - just 135 pages. This book attempts to explain why diet and exercise do not work. It also tries to explain what causes obesity and how it is NOT just because people eat too much.

Most Diets do not work because they do not teach the participants how to change their lifestyle, they do not teach that participants have to learn a new way of eating for the rest of their lives. When the participants use the diet, and get down to their goal weight, they go right back to eating the same old way they used to eat, and within a couple of years, all the weight they lost, has reappeared on the body. Exercise by itself also does not work.

Interestingly enough, Korn says that eating too much fat does not actually cause people to get fat. That is because most of the fat is burned as energy for the body to do its daily activities.

No - the 2 biggest causes of obesity are caffeine and not enough sleep. But then the lack of sleep is actually caused by the caffeine, because caffeine is a stimulant. Thats why everyone must have their morning cuppa before they get to work. So once you start drinking too much caffeine, you usually start losing sleep, and the weight piles on.

Also there is a note that diet sodas with aspartame still cause obesity because of the caffeine in those drinks. This is a major contradiction.

The diabetes clinics tell their diabetic patients that they can drink as much diet soda and black coffee as they like because the aspartame will not put on weight. There may be no sugar in diet drinks, BUT there is still CAFFEINE in those drinks. And diabetic people and experts wonder why the diabetics either cannot lose weight or why they are putting on more weight.

In Israel there are very few obese children. This is because of the desert and the very hot weather where Israel is located. Soda pop is not good for hot weather - it causes dehydration. So all Israeli kids and soldiers grow up drinking water. They do not become obese or overweight. Because they dont drink caffeine. There are obese Israeli adults, but those people started drinking coffee as adults.

I can vouch for all this. I used to drink soda pop by the 2 litre bottle every day. NOT diet pop - just the regular soda. I wondered why I was gaining weight. As soon as I weaned myself off the pop and onto water, I started losing weight.

So if you want to lose weight - really the only way to do it - STOP the POP.
And stop the coffee and all caffeinated drinks. Including RED BULL.

The Lost Constitution - Book Review

2009-05-28T09:45:00.007-04:00

The Lost Constitution
by William Martin
Tor-Forge Books 2007
Website
Second Amendment

This is the third book in the Peter Fallon series. Peter Fallon is a book detective. He searches for rare books. I must find and read the first two books.

In this novel, Peter searches for a lost draft for the constitution that had annotations written on it by the New England delegates in the 1760's.

At the same time the Gun controversy has risen up again in present day USA, and this time the federal government is seriously thinking about banning guns for the entire country. But this law goes against the constitution which says the following....

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So the NRA and the gun supporters are up in arms about losing their right to bear arms.

There is a legend from history that said there was a draft copy of the constitution on which delegates jotted down their thoughts and ideas on a variety of matters concerning the bill of rights, religion and guns.

This draft was held and lost by a young man named William Pike. He lost this draft and eventually regained it some years later and it was handed down to this descendents, until the civil war broke out. Then the draft went missing. Noone has seen it for 150 years.

Peter Fallon and his partner get dragged into the search. As does a congresswoman and a rich media billionaire. Peter and partner do a lot of library research, following William Pike's family and their descendants. Peter also gets caught up between 2 groups who are also hunting for this draft. The billionaire wants the original document for its antiquarian value, and the other group is a hunting group who do NOT want to lose their right to bear arms.

The showdown takes place at a baseball park in Boston, during which Peter must hand over the draft to one of these groups.

This is a comment on gun ownership

[BLURB]Americans have a right to own guns, Supreme Court justices declared (March 2008) in a historic and lively debate that could lead to the most significant interpretation of the Second Amendment since its ratification two centuries ago.

COMMENT When the Second Amendment was created, the arms in question reserved to the people were military arms. The Second Amendment did not consider the question of hunting weapons, for hunting was indispensable to survival in the early colonies. But the battles of Lexington and Concord had shown that government, when it becomes oppressive, seeks to remove military arms from the people, a fact well understood by the Minutemen.

Under US law, the militia is all able-bodied men and women able to carry arms and between the ages of 18 and 45. It is acknowledged in the law that there is an "Unorganized militia", meaning all citizens able to bear arms but not under the direct control of US authority. This is a hold-over from the days of the Minutemen when it was understood that citizens would exercise their own discretion in deciding when to shoot the redcoats. The common motto was, "Do not wait for orders, but grab thy musket and ride towards the sound of gunfire!"

All tyrants seek to disarm their own people, and it is not mere coincidence that every genocide since the start of the 20th century has been preceded by attempts to disarm the population being targeted.

Guns are the birthright of free people, because guns give free people the right to say "no" to a dictator. That is the very core of the reason the 2nd Amendment was given to us,to give us the ability to say "no', because there is no freedom without the freedom to say "no."

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson, in letter to William S. Smith, 1787

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

[There has been a notable increase in the number of massacres happening in USA over the last few years. This is because the criminals do not care one iota about the laws, and they still get the guns and love to shoot unarmed people who do obey the law. Removing guns from the people will just cause MORE massacres and deaths to occur unless the government specifically legislates the removal of guns from the CRIMINALS!!!!]

"[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens." -- The Federalist, No. 29 - Alexander Hamilton

"[A]rms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." -- Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775 - Thomas Paine

AUTHORED ON 2008-03-19
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
Michael Rivero

The Magician Series - Overall Review

2009-05-27T14:12:00.017-04:00

Charlie Bone and the Magician Series
By Jenny Nimmo
Scholastic & Egmont Press 2002-present
Jenny Nimmo's website
Charlie Bone's website
The Magician series

Harry Potter - Meet Charlie Bone.
Charlie Bone - Meet Harry Potter.

Charlie is the 21st century version of Harry Potter who was invented in the 20th entury (1997-2007) Like Harry Potter, these are Young Adult books, but that does not stop me enjoying them.

Charlie Bone is a descendant of the Red King, who once ruled Africa over 1000 years ago. This Red King had 10 children - all of whom inherited a power of some kind. While the Red King was away at war, 5 of his kids left home and were never seen again. The other 5 who stayed home, began to fight amongst themselves.

The descendents of the Red King are just now discovering their powers and are being sent to the Bloor Academy (a school) where they can be monitored (but not taught) how to use their power. This is called an empowerment but each descendent has only ONE enpowerment.

Charlie Bone has an empowerment. He can listen to and jump into any photograph. Other children have different empowerments. One boy can stir up the weather and cause a storm, another can control the ocean and cause tsunamis. And a third boy can talk to the animals.

This series is set in UK and they use pounds and not dollars for currency. I dont think this series has any Canadian connection. I think it is just coincidence that the author used the name of a major street in Toronto - Bloor street- unless she was looking at a map.

There are now 8 books in this Magicians series. I have now read 3 of them, and enjoyed them all. The first two books are Midnight for Charlie Bone and Charlie Bone and the Time Twister. I have reserved the other 5 books at the library.

And just out of interest I have just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the last and final book in the series. I wrote back in 2007 when it first came out that I would wait until I could get it from the library. That is exactly what I have done.

Doors Open - Toronto

2009-05-24T17:02:00.008-04:00

This weekend was Open Doors weekend in Toronto. This is where a number of businesses open their doors for the public to have a look around. Usually behind the scenes. This weekend I was able to get to 3 different places.

Union Station where we went up into the roof of the Great Hall and walked along the Glass Floor and along the Balcony. Most people who use Union Station dont know that they exist. Mainly because they dont look up. The Union station is huge. We walked along long empty corridors and up and down several sets of stairs. The corridors had NO doors at all.

Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. This is a professional theatre that produces and creates plays for children ranging from 4 year olds to high school students. We went behind the scenes, saw the green room - where the actors wait before they go on stage. The tour guide said that every theatre has a green room. We also went down to the basement and saw the workshops - the costume shop, the wardrobe room and the set workshop. We could not see the Theatre/Stage because there was a rehearsal going on.

The last place I was able to see was the Canadian National Ballet School (NBS). Apart from a 30 minute wait to get in (The line was very very long) this was a most enjoyable tour. We saw several ballet studios - some empty and some in use with a ballet class (even though it was the weekend), the school classrooms and the large cafeteria. We also saw the NBS residence building where students from outside of Toronto, live when they are not in school. There are about 120 full time students at the NBS going from grade 6 (12 year olds) to grade 12 (17 year olds) with roughly 20 students per grade. All the students learn french, music and ballet, as well as other Ontario educational requirements. We even got to see the school science laboratory.

The Archimedes Codex - Book Review

2009-05-17T09:37:00.012-04:00

The Archimedes Codex
Reviel Netz and William Noel
Weidenfield & Nicholas 2007
Palimpsest website

This is the story of the Archimedes Palimpsest. It is the story of the discovery, the treatment and the editing and publishing of Archimedes words and ideas.

A palimpsest is a parchment manuscript with the old writing scraped off and the new writing written over the top. This was done way back in the very early times of the christian era, because parchments were expensive to make and it was easier to reuse them.

Archimedes was a Greek mathematician. Archimedes was born in the Greek city state of Syracuse on the island of Sicily around 287 BC.

The links can take you to more detailed biographies about Archimedes, but his most well known discovery was how to measure the volume of water displacement for which he shouted EUREKA when he discovered that the volume of water displaced was the same as the object displacing the water. In other words, Archimedes was taking a bath.

Firstly, and most importantly, this palimpsest prayer book originally contained at least seven treatises by Archimedes. These treatises are the Equilibrium of Planes, Spiral Lines, The Measurement of the Circle, Sphere and Cylinder, On Floating Bodies, The Method of Mechanical Theorems, and the Stomachion.

Of these treatises, the last three are of the greatest significance of our understanding of Archimedes. While the other treatises had survived through other manuscripts, there is no other surviving copy of On Floating Bodies in Greek — the language in which Archimedes wrote, and there is no version in any language of The Method of Mechanical Theorems and of this part of the Stomachion.

The Archimedes manuscript was used for the majority of the pages of the prayer book. The Archimedes manuscript was written in the second half of the tenth century, almost certainly in Constantinople.

William Noel is the Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. He was also the Director of the Archimedes Palimpsest Project.

Reviel Netz is the Professor of Ancient Science at Stanford University in San Francisco, as well as a leading expert on Archimedes.

This book was very interesting to read. William writes about the discovery of the palimpsest, and all the technology used to bring out the words of Archimedes in a text that has not been read for over 1000 years.

Reviel wrote the maths chapters - there is a lot of geometry in this book, and lots of geometry diagrams - while explaning Archimedes mathematics and how he built on his earlier discoveries to make later discoveries.

As I have said earlier, I am not a numbers person. I struggled throiugh the maths chapters, knowing that my reward was to read the palimpsest chapters.

I really really enjoyed this book.

Anatomy of Deception - Book Review

2009-05-17T09:04:00.005-04:00

Anatomy of Deception
by Lawrence Goldstone
Bantam Dell 2008

I grabbed this book of the shelf at the library because Lawrence Goldstone and his wife Nancy have written a number of books about books.

I was most disappointed to find that this story was not about books, but about medicine. This is the story of a young wannabe surgeon, Ephraim Caroll, who was just starting out as a medical student in Philadelphia in 1889. It involves real surgeons who were at the front of medical history in USA. Names like William Stewart Halsted, William Osler and Samuel Gross.

This story uses Halsted's supposed drug addiction to cocaine and heroin as the background to comitting murder. Ephraim Carroll's role is to investigate and find out what his friend George Turk was poisoned, What George was doing when he was not at medical school, why Rebecca Lachtmann's body was in the mortuary, and what was Thomas Eakins involvement in all of this. Lots of questions which Ephraim attempts to answer.

To me this story was good. I did read and finish it. A book must hold my interest for me to finish it. BUT as I said earlier, I was disappointed that it was not about books.

Benjamin Franklin - America's Original Entrepreneur - Book Review

2009-05-17T08:51:00.006-04:00

Benjamin Franklin - America's Original Entrepreneur
By Blaine McCormick
Entrepreneur Media Inc 2008

Benjamin Franklin has been a favourite American founding father of mine for quite some time.

While I do have a Benjamin Franklin reader (by Walter Isaacson) I always found it diffcult to read Franklin's autobiography in the original vernacular. The language is just too old for me.

So I was very pleased when I found the Modern Adaptation of Franklin's Autobiography for Business Today, written in modern english. It was so much easier to read.

People of the Book - Book Review

2009-05-17T07:40:00.011-04:00

People of the Book
By Geraldine Brooks
Viking Penguin 2008
Author Website

I have been wanting to read this book for some time, and finally was able to borrow it from the library. I enjoyed it very much.

I love reading stories about books through time and the history of their travels - no matter if its fictional or real. Normally I dont read books about Jewish scrolls and manuscripts. but this book had an Australian as the lead character. Having grown up with Aussies as neighbours, I chose to read it.

As a lot of other reviews have said, there has obviously been a LOT of research done for this book. This is the story of the history of one jewish haggadah. A haggadah is a book of prayers usually said at the passover celebration. This haggadah had illustrations in it. Back in the 1400s when this haggadah was made, Jews did not allow illustrations in their books becasue making a graven image was against the Torah. (What we now call the 10 commandments).

Dr Hanna Heath is a manscript conservator. [If I had known that this job existed when I left school over 20 years ago, I would have gone to university to study how to do this]

Hanna's job is to repair and preserve the ancient books that still survive today. She has a Ph.D. Her mother has an MD and a Ph.D. Hanna's mother is a neurosurgeon. Hanna grew up with no father and every time she asked her mother who he was, her mother refused to answer.

In 1996 the faous Sarajevo Haggadah was finally permitted to be on display. It had last been seen in Sarajavo during the war (WW2). Noone knoew what happened to it, and finally after 50 years it has resurfaced.

Hanna was chosen for this job becasue she was an Australian, more or less neutral. She was not American, she was not German and she was not a Jew.

In 1996, Sarajevo, Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia were all in the middle of a civil war. Hanna flew to Sarajevo under the auspices of the UN and spent s few weeks studying and doing what she could to preserve the Haggadah.

There were clues to be found in the book - a small piece of a butterfly wing in the binding, a wine stained page with blood mixed in, and some salt crystals. Hana used all these to discover the history of the book, where it was made and where it had travelled to, before finally arriving in Sarajevo.

During this journey, Hanna's mother is involved in a car accident and is rushed to hospital. Hanna's mother finally tells Hanna who her father was. Her father died when her mother was 4 months pregnant with Hanna. The mother was a neurosurgeon and she allowed her lover to bleed to death, because she knew her lover would be blind if they saved his life. The father was an artist. He needed his eyes to paint. Not only that, he was a Russian Jew.

The story ends with the haggadah being stolen and a fake haggdah being installed in the mueseum. Hanna's career is ruined when she says it is fake, and noone believes her. Hanna goes home to Australia and finds a new job recording and preserving the aboriginal petroglyphs scattered through the Australian desert.

Hanna also changed her name from Heath to Sharansky (her father's name). Six years later Hanna finally gets closure and has her career restored when the real haggadah is once again returned to its rightful place in the Sarajevo Museum. Hanna also makes up with the muslim lover she had met in Sarajevo and who helped to ruin Hanna's career. He apologises, she forgives him and together they make one final discovery about the Haggadah.

I fashioned these pictures for Binyamin ben Netanal ha-Levi. Zahra bint Ibrahim ak-Tarek, known in Seville as al-Mora

I have just one complaint about this book. Ms Brooks has certainly done a lot of research regarding the history and lives of the jews in Europe after they were expelled from Spain in 1492. But there is ONE line in the book which she has NOT researched. She seems to have made no attempt to find out the truth for herself.

The line says this - I think also about the person whose skin is stretched across the lampshade.

It has been proven that the lampshdes made at Buchenwald Camp in WW2 were made of GOAT skin and NOT human skin.

In April 1947, Ilse Koch was brought before an American military tribunal in Dachau, where she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison....During the review process, her sentence was reduced to time served, or four years, and she was released in 1949 by General Lucius D. Clay who said that the lamp shades in her home had been made from goat skin.

Woodward and Bernstein - Life after Watergate - Book Review

2009-05-16T09:42:00.007-04:00

Woodward and Bernstein - Life in the Shadow of Watergate
By Alicia Shepard
John Wiley and Sons 2007
Website

Did you ever wonder Whatever Happened To those two Washington reporters that brought down President Nixon? And no I dont mean Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. They are actors. They just portrayed the real reporters.

This book tells the story of what happened to Woodward and Bernstein before during and after Watergate.

Bernstein never really was able to keep up any decent career. During the watergate saga, the two men had written and published the book All the Presidents Men. This is the book on which Robert Redford based his hit movie of the same name.

Numerous times after the movie was rleased, whenever Carl Bernstein went to places like restaurants and said his name was Carl Bernstein, the journalist, he was frequently told that he was a liar. The real Bernstein was in All the Presidents Men.

Bernstein's personality meant that he got bored easily and kept jumping from story to story. He married (and divorced) Nora Ephron before she became famous as the writer of such movies as - Silkwood, When Harry met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You Got Mail. They have two sons (born between 1976 and 1980). Bernstein left the Washington Post and was later courted by ABC (I think) to do a daily TV show. Eventually Bernstein was fired from the TV show because he was not comfortable speaking with the guests or to the camera

Bob Woodward stayed at the Washington Post and used that as a jumping off point to write more books on Politics. They are all listed on Bob's website.

This book ends with the 2005 exposure of Deep Throat as being FBI senior employee Mark Felt. If you are interested in Watergate and want to know what happened next, then you have to read this book.

Bernstein and Woodward as played by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in the 1976 movie All the President's Men

The REAL Bernstein and Woodward in 1974

The REAL Bernstein and Woodward in 2008

An Earthly Knight - Book Review

2009-05-16T07:57:00.009-04:00

An Earthly Knight
by Janet McNaughton
Harper Collins 2003

Janet McNaughton is a Canadian author and has written a number of Young Adult books. This fictonal novel is also a YA book but I enjoyed it very much. Set in 1162, this is the story of Janet and her love for the fairy knight Tam Lin.

When Janet's father agrees to marry her off to William de Warenne, the brother of King Malcom of Scotland, Janet disagrees with the idea. William de Warenne is a brute, a rapist and an uncouth man. He thinks nothing of raping women and treating them like slaves and brood mares. Only good for breeding. Janet was raised to be somewhat more independent.

Janet flees her home to the forest, and ends up at Carter Hall, the ruins of the old LIN family manor house. There is a legend that says that the LIN family who used to own Carter Hall all died of food poisoning except for the youngest son and one stable boy. Those boys have never been seen since.

As a 14 year old, Tam Lin was seduced by the Fairy Queen and now lives in the Faery world. He desperately wants to return to the real world, but he cannot. Only one thing can save him. The love of a women. Janet and Tam (now aged 21) fall in love and eventually sleep together. Janet is 16 (an old maid in those times).

So when Janet is standing in the church at the betrothal ceremoney, she tells William, the priests and her father that she cannot marry William because she is with child by another. William wants to beat her black and blue. But she is saved by Eudes, Janet's brother, who tells them that William needs to punish himself as he has gotten at least two other young girls with child recently, and now they have NO future. William sulks at being found out, and then goes home. Janet is free to go to Tam Lin, but first she must rescue him from the Faery World.

This is a fictionalised version of the ballad of TAM LIN from Scotland. It comes from the Scottish Borders.

Now while I do have ancestors from Scotland, NONE of my ancestors came from the Borders region. My ancestors were Celtic and Gaelic from the Scottish Highlands, and in one line, may even be of Viking and Norse ancestry.

This was a very enjoyable read, and I was able to finish the book in just a few hours.

Chalked up - Book Review

2009-05-16T07:37:00.004-04:00

Chalked Up
By Jennifer Sey
Morrow Books 2008
Jennifer's Blog

This is the true story of an elite Gymnast on the US national gymnastics team during the 1980's and how she eventually walked away to save her life.

For those of you who know me, Gymnastics has been my most favourite sport to watch since I first saw Nadia in 1976

Jennifer tells the story of dieting, binging, bulimia and what really happens in the world of gymnastics. This is a hard book to read, but at least now I know the truth of what really happens and how many mothers become pushy mothers without realising it.

One of the reason Jennifer Sey was not able to advance in her gymnastics career is that she was plagued with injuries. She suffered a broken leg at one event, and broke her ankle at another.

in 1986 Jennifer became the US national woman's gymastics champion, but the timing was all wrong. She would now be required to keep up her fitness levels for the next 2 years in order to qualify for the 1988 Olympics. Jennifer sadly was unable to do this.

Jennifer has now been married for a number of years and has 2 young sons. She lives in California and works for Levi Jeans in the marketing dept.

The Chase - Book Review

2009-05-16T07:15:00.004-04:00

The Chase
By Clive Cussler
Berkeley Books 2007

I had to read this book judt to satify my curiosity. This is not a book from any one of Cussler's previous series. This is an entirely new book, but not necessarily different.

This book takes place in the year 1906, in and around San Francisco. other related events take place in Colorado, Utah and the western states. If you can remember your history, what big event took place in 1906?

There are two guys - the bad guy is called the Butcher Bandit and the good guy is called Issac Bell. Issac is a detective and he has spent the last 2 years tracking down the Butcher Bandit.

The Butcher Bandit robs banks and cold bloodedly kills everyone in the bank at the time he robs it and any other witnesses who can potentially ID or describe him.

Issac and his team of detctivs start asking questions and manage to find two people who did see what happenbed and who were not killed.

From there it was a long chase - literally - for Isaac to track down the bandit. Everything culminates down to he chase - a long chase by train from San Franciso on the day of the 1906 earthquake up to the remote parts of Montana whre the bandit planned to escape to Canada and live out his days free and rich.

Thw weather and the gography of Montana plays a part in preventing that from happening.

44 years later the train is dug up from its watery grave and it is finally confirmed that the Buthcer bandit died on that day and the money was still safe in the boxes.

I enjoyed this story very much - just as much as I do the Dirk Pitt and Kurt Austin stories.

This story istold in exactly the same style as Cussler is well known for. He even introuduces two familiar names as bit players. This had me confused for a few minutes as I tried toi figure out why the names Cussler and Leigh Hunt were being used.