Ben Mezrich's Bringing Down The House

The non-fiction novel The Black Hand by Chris Blatchford is written very poorly. To put it bluntly, this book has the entertainment value equivalent to that of an episode of Two and a Half Men. The Black Hand is extraneous, redundant, and over-all plain boring. If you're interested in reading about something that will keep you on the edge of your seat, filled with the deception, drug use and murder, in the Mexican mob; read the Wikipedia article and spare yourself the pain of reading this book.

Argument: Dubus includes references to Kenneth having an inner conflict between being the man of the house, or letting his transgender feelings show.

Mickey lives in poverty with his biological mother Mrs Johnstone who is attempting but failing to control her infinite number of children. Eddie is given to Mrs Lyons, a wealthy woman who is in fact Mrs Johnstone's boss, as Mrs Johnstone realises that she will not be able to afford to keep both children.

Former President John F. Kennedy said, “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” Leadership is a quality found in many characters of writer. In Neal Shusterman’s Unwind, Connor is a main character that found direction and became a great leader. Unwind is a story that takes place in future America. The unwinding process takes place from the ages of thirteen to eighteen. During this time, kids are able to be unwound and harvested for their body parts. Kids will not die but they will live in a divided state. Connor is one of the main characters in Unwind. From the moment Connor was introduced, he was a ticking time bomb that could explode at anytime. As the story progressed, however, he learned to control these emotions,

He lost his hat, the one that he got from someone at his birthday party. He got offended by Mickey, giving him a punch on the arm. From this, the readers can understand that MIckey, the alcoholic Irishman, was not a good soul to Eddie. Mickey will probably became a part of a negative time period during Eddie’s life, and this could be the reason why the narrator introduced MIckey in this way not completely positive. Thirdly, “She puts his hat back on his head. Later, she will walk him along the pier, perhaps take him on an elephant ride, or watch the fishermen pull in their evening nets, the fish flipping like shiny, wet coins. She will hold his hand and tell him God is proud of him for being a good boy on his birthday, and that will make the world feel right-side up again” (Albom 25) In a lot of moments we read about Eddie, how he suffered much pain and misconstrued events throughout his life on earth: Eddie was searching for some kind of peace within himself, which he never found. However, here the love of the mom for his kid is shown, and the reader can definitely understand that Eddie’s mom cared deeply for Eddie and his brother, Joe, offering her sons a nurturing alternative to their abusive, alcoholic

In the novel, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, the main character, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, is an immigrant of Syria who stays in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and is arrested due to the suspicion of looting, but really is arrested because of his race and how he looks. Zeitoun’s faith and loyalty to his community and home is tested through the many obstacles of Hurricane Katrina and including his religion, racism, and his very own dignity. The author, Dave Eggers who is also the speaker in novel, proves all examples of Zeitoun’s challenges credibly in the text.

The novel, Watch out for Jamie Joel written by Mike Dumbleton, successfully explores a realistic view of secondary school life. Dumbleton uses a unique narrative perspective, structural manipulation, characterisation, supported by a variety of themes such as death, family conflict and pressure. Symbolism and foreshadowing heighten concern and sympathy for Craig Eliot and Jamie Joel in their every day challenges in the life of a deputy principal and a teenage girl.

The short story On The Bridge by Todd Strasser is about two boys, Adam and Seth, who are hanging out after school on a bridge that overlooks the highway. Seth was the character that demonstrated maturity towards the end of the story. He showed some examples of this when Adam got them into some trouble. For example, when Adam flicked his cigarette onto the windshield of a car below the bridge, the drivers came up behind them. “But suddenly he [Seth] noticed that all three guys were staring at him. He quickly looked at Adam and saw why. Adam was pointing at him.” It was this point where Seth started to question his friendship with Adam, because they had gotten into trouble because of Adam, and then he blamed it on Seth. After the men left, Seth

It was proven that he gambled four to five times a week during the 1985, 1986, and 1987 seasons. In placing his bets he mainly work with Tommy Gioisa, Ron Peters, Michael Bertolini, Paul Janszen , Steve Chevashore, and a bookie in Staten Island, NY identified only as "Val." Shown above are just six of the main people with whom he bet with and or used in aid to avoid getting caught. In the report to the Commissioner it is stated that Rose acknowledged sending eleven $8,000 check to Michael Bertolini, which were made out to fictitious payees, Rose stated that the money was loaned to Bertolini and was used only as payments to other athletes for participating in baseball card shows (hallinan). Later in 1987 Rose needed to use Paul Janszen in order to place his own bets with Val from Staten Island because Val refused to accept any bets tracking back to Pete Rose due to his failure in paying off his gambling debts.

The novel that I have decided to make a report on is the book Ashfall by Mike Mullin. My reaction to the book Ashfall was "Wow, Alex is really brave". If I was in his situation , I don't think I would have reacted the way he reacted. Alex took control and focused on one thing and that was finding his family.

In his new book, The Divide, Matt Taibbi takes a look at the inconsistency between a major fall in crime rates and yet an increase in prison population. Taibbi shows, through many examples that poverty rates plummeted during the 2000s. Naturally, if an individual faces more poverty related situations in their lives, he or she is more likely to take part in illegal activities. But Taibbi presents this isn't the case here. Within the last few decades as poverty levels have been going up, violent crime rates have been decreasing continuously. Although there are reports of violent crime rates going down, it just doesn't seem to make any logical sense how the prison population in America keeps increasing unless looked at from different academic

Mike Johnson is Mick’s father. He taught Mick everything that he knew from football. Mike was a phenomenal high school athlete, and just as good at college. He was expected to tear the NFL up however, Mike blew up in the NFL he was skipping practices and even getting in fights with other players. He got

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond gives you an in depth look at societies you may or may not be familiar with and shows you the secrets to their success or failure using his personal 5-point framework. I enjoyed this book and thought he made a lot of good points and had convincing evidence to back it up. While reading you could really tell he knew a lot about the areas he discussed because of the depth he went into with details and descriptions. One complaint I would have about the book is the length he went to in the detailed descriptions, at some points I felt he went too far and got a little wordy and with as much as he gave you are left with almost no questions or curiosity. There were a few terms he uses in the book like

The book Seize the Storm, is written by Michael Cadnum. I chose this book because my dad actually read this book and told me about it a few years earlier, and found it in the library and it looked cool so why not choose this book. The title of the book “Seize the Storm” just sounds like that would be a great book, which it was, plus the cover looked very cool.

To any sports fan, names such as Babe Ruth and Joe Namath are synonymous with gods, geniuses and pioneers in their respective sports. However, amongst poker players; the name Doyle Brunson can often be referenced in the same manner as the Lord in Church. Brunson, now an old man with gray balding hair and more money than he could count, is still to be found at one of the many poker tables in the oasis in the desert we call Las Vegas. In fact, Brunson is so good, about twenty years ago he wrote a book to strengthen his competition. The book "Super System" is considered to be the poker bible as well as the foremost learning tool used by professional poker players. To this day it is the greatest publication on No Limit Texas Hold `em