The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

Hardcover: 181 pages
Publisher: William Morrow;(June 18, 2013)
ISBN-10: 0062255657

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, June 2013: Neil Gaiman's intent was simple: to write a short story. What he ended up with instead was The Ocean at the of the Lane--his first adult novel since Anansi Boys came out in 2005, and a narrative so thoughtful and thrilling that it's as difficult to stop reading as it was for Gaiman to stop writing. Forty years ago, our narrator, who was then a seven-year-old boy, unwittingly discovered a neighboring family’s supernatural secret. What happens next is an imaginative romp through otherwordly adventure that could only come from Gaiman's magical mind. Childhood innocence is tested and transcended as we see what getting between ancient, mystic forces can cost, as well as what can be gained from the power of true friendship. The result is a captivating tale that is equal parts sweet, sad, and spooky. --Robin A. Rothman

I don't  know what to say about this book.  The review I read made it sound like something I would like so I bought it.  I enjoyed most of it.  But it was a bit out of my range with the "other worldly" parts.

I am sure all Neil Gaiman fans will love it as they love all his books..  I may have picked the wrong book of his to be my first read by him.  I will say he has a very imaginative  mind!

Then She was Gone

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Atria Books;(November 6, 2018)
ISBN-10: 1501154656




Amazon Review:

Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, the youngest of three. She was beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic post-exams summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her.
And then she was gone.

Now, her mother Laurel Mack is trying to put her life back together. It’s been ten years since her daughter disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie’s case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she’s meeting Floyd’s daughters—and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel’s breath away.

Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. And now, the unanswered questions she’s tried so hard to put to rest begin to haunt Laurel anew. Where did Ellie go? Did she really run away from home, as the police have long suspected, or was there a more sinister reason for her disappearance? Who is Floyd, really? And why does his daughter remind Laurel so viscerally of her own missing girl?

I was surprised that I totally enjoyed this book.  No detectives involved! I don't read many that don't involve a few murders and a detective or two !


There are still many times you find yourself trying to figure out what happened? Or what will happen?  So it does keep you coming back to the book often!   I guess I would call it a good summer read or a good read when stuck in the house!

The Murrow Boys: Pioneers in the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism

The Murrow Boys: Pioneers in the Front Lines of Broadcast Journalism by Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud.

Hardcover: 445 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (May 1, 1996)
ISBN-10: 0395680840

From Publishers Weekly

In 1937, Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) was dispatched to Europe by CBS Radio as its European representative. Although the job consisted of finding entertainment for the radio, world events would soon intervene. With Hitler beginning his rampage, Murrow fought isolationism at home and provincialism at CBS to form a legendary group of electronic journalists. William L. Shirer became Berlin correspondent, and Murrow, holding down London himself, hired the vain, insecure Eric Sevareid for Paris. Streetwise New Yorker Larry LeSueur, covered Dunkirk. There were also Charles Collingwood, Murrow's "Bonnie Prince Charlie," who loved the good life; Winston Burdett, onetime Communist later turned stool pigeon for a red-hunting Senate committee; and Howard K. Smith, Southern gentleman and Rhodes Scholar, who would take "the last train from Berlin" when the U.S. entered the war. With the end of the war, we see "the boys" as they evolve in a changing America, resisting television (they all, at first, hated it); McCarthyism (Sevareid, Murrow and, especially, Collingwood would be fearless); hubris (Shirer became so arrogant he was fired); and the CBS corporate structure (William S. Paley, corporate shark, would always win). Cloud, a former Washington bureau chief for Time, and his wife, Olson, former White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, have written a lively, colloquial history of broadcast journalism that is so exciting one's impulse is to read it in a single sitting. 

Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.




I found this book in a thrift shop and remembering Edward R Murrow's name and some others from when I was very young I took it home.  A number of years later I finally got around to reading it!

Murrow and "his boys" were leaders in reporting on the war when it had never been done before. Amazingly most all came home after it was all over only to find technology was moving on from Radio to Television. To say they weren't happy would be an understatement.

Only some that are my age and older would remember many of the names, but towards the end of the book Walter Cronkite  entered the picture.. more of us remember him.  But I do remember Edward R Murrow had a tv show called See It Now. 


Definitely a book of History that began before I was born... but didn't end  until I had a firm memory of some of the things they talked about.

Rocket Men

Rocket Men by Robert Kurson.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks;(May 21, 2019)
ISBN-10: 081298871X




By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the Moon by President Kennedy’s end-of-decade deadline, and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the Moon—in just four months. And it would all happen at Christmas.

In a year of historic violence and discord—the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago—the Apollo 8 mission would be the boldest, riskiest test of America’s greatness under pressure. In this gripping insider account, Robert Kurson puts the focus on the three astronauts and their families: the commander, Frank Borman, a conflicted man on his final mission; idealistic Jim Lovell, who’d dreamed since boyhood of riding a rocket to the Moon; and Bill Anders, a young nuclear engineer and hotshot fighter pilot making his first space flight.

Drawn from hundreds of hours of one-on-one interviews with the astronauts, their loved ones, NASA personnel, and myriad experts, and filled with vivid and unforgettable detail, Rocket Men is the definitive account of one of America’s finest hours. In this real-life thriller, Kurson reveals the epic dangers involved, and the singular bravery it took, for mankind to leave Earth for the first time—and arrive at a new world.

Well... as many books I have read over the years about our Space Race, "this book" is unique!  I loved it.
As much as it was still about the race to the moon, this Apollo 8 books is as much about the astronauts as it is about the moon.  A very "personable book".  Filled with minute things that although I have read many other books on the race to the moon, this one makes you feel like you really know the astronauts and their families, and the small things which were probably never mentioned in any news about the flight.. you will learn in this book.

Thank you so very much Carl Anderson for giving me this book .  At first I wondered if I really wanted to read yet another version of the space race... but once I started the book.. I knew it was different.  It was personal.  It was like I was right there through the whole flight.  When they counted down to "Lift Off".. I cried like I did every time I actually saw the Launches and Splash Downs!..