Saturday, March 5, 2011

Another "Best Books of 2010"

Unlikely Disciple - Kevin Roose (Nonfiction)
Roose documents his experiences as a student for a semester at Liberty University, the largest Christian fundamentalist university in the United States. Coming from progressive Brown University, the author admits that the transition to Liberty, with its iron-clad attempts at controlling student behavior, came with much anxiety. He trains himself to control his foul language and even begins to pray and study the Bible regularly, much to the bewilderment of his liberal Quaker parents. He suffers his way through a course debunking evolution, but finds enjoyment in a Scripture class. Roose may be young—he's a 19-year-old college sophomore—but he writes like a seasoned veteran and obviously enjoys his work. He quickly makes friends at Liberty, but is naively stunned and not a little disgusted by their anti-gay rhetoric. School founder Rev. Jerry Falwell granted Roose an interview for the student newspaper shortly before the famous evangelical's death in May 2007. "Complicated" is how Roose describes Falwell, which is a good descriptor for his undercover student experience.

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot (Nonfiction)
From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?

Imperfectionists - Tom Rachmann
Printing presses whir, ashtrays smolder, and the endearing complexity of humanity plays out in Tom Rachman's debut novel, The Imperfectionists. Set against the backdrop of a fictional English-language newspaper based in Rome, it begins as a celebration of the beloved and endangered role of newspapers and the original 24/7 news cycle. Yet Rachman pushes beyond nostalgia by crafting an apologue that better resembles a modern-day Dubliners than a Mad Men exploration of the halcyon past. The chaos of the newsroom becomes a stage for characters unified by a common thread of circumstance, with each chapter presenting an affecting look into the life of a different player. From the comically over matched greenhorn to the forsaken foreign correspondent, we suffer through the painful heartbreaks of unexpected tragedy and struggle to stifle our laughter in the face of well-intentioned blunders. This cacophony of emotion blends into a single voice, as the depiction of a paper deemed a "daily report on the idiocy and the brilliance of the species" becomes more about the disillusion in everyday life than the dissolution of an industry

Girl in Translation - Jean Kwok
A resolute yet naive Chinese girl confronts poverty and culture shock with equal zeal when she and her mother immigrate to Brooklyn in Kwok's affecting coming-of-age debut. Ah-Kim Chang, or Kimberly as she is known in the U.S., had been a promising student in Hong Kong when her father died. Now she and her mother are indebted to Kimberly's Aunt Paula, who funded their trip from Hong Kong, so they dutifully work for her in a Chinatown clothing factory where they earn barely enough to keep them alive. Despite this, and living in a condemned apartment that is without heat and full of roaches, Kimberly excels at school, perfects her English, and is eventually admitted to an elite, private high school. An obvious outsider, without money for new clothes or undergarments, she deals with added social pressures, only to be comforted by an understanding best friend, Annette, who lends her makeup and hands out American advice. A love interest at the factory leads to a surprising plot line, but it is the portrayal of Kimberly's relationship with her mother that makes this more than just another immigrant story.

Hunger Games trilogy: Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins  (Young Adult)
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.

Room - Emma Donoghue
In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time.

I'd Know You Anywhere - Laura Lippman
Near the start of this outstanding novel of psychological suspense from Edgar-winner Lippman, Eliza Benedict, a 38-year-old married mother of two living in suburban Maryland, receives a letter from Walter Bowman, the man who kidnapped her the summer she was 15 and is now on death row. The narrative shifts between the present and that long ago summer, when Eliza involuntarily became a part of Walter's endless road trip, including the fateful night when he picked up another teenage girl, Holly Tackett. Soon after Walter killed Holly, Eliza was rescued and taken home. Eliza must now balance a need for closure with a desire to protect herself emotionally. Walter wants something specific from her, but she has no idea what, and she's not sure that she wants to know. All the relationships, from the sometimes contentious one between Eliza and her sister, Vonnie, to the significantly stranger one between Walter and Barbara LaFortuny, an advocate for prisoners, provide depth and breadth to this absorbing story.

One Day - David Nicholls
David Nicholls’ One Day starts with Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley on their July 15, 1988 one-night stand as they both leave college. Then it visits them on July 15 for the next 20 years of coulda-shoulda-would close calls and false starts, from tragic near-misses to fortunate narrow escapes. The conceit is clever—here comes the 15th again, chapter after chapter, with life, loss, and love on fast-forward—but it’s beyond mere cleverness. The passing of time gives One Day a sense of sweep and scope that make it the emotional equivalent of a page-turning beach read.

Running the Books - Avi Steinberg  (Biography)
In this captivating memoir, Steinberg, a Harvard grad and struggling obituary writer, spends two years as a librarian and writing instructor at a Boston prison that's an irrepressibly literary place. True, his patrons turn books into weapons (and one robs him while out on parole), but he's beguiled by the rough poetry of inmate essays and "kites"--contraband notes secreted in library books--and entranced by the "skywriting" with which they semaphore messages letter-by-letter across the courtyard. And there's always an informal colloquium of prostitutes, thieves, and drug dealers convened at the checkout desk, discussing everything from Steinberg's love life to the "gangsta" subculture of Hasidic Jews. Gradually, the prison pulls him in and undermines his bemused neutrality. He helps a forlorn female prisoner communicate with her inmate son, develops a dangerous beef with a guard, and finds himself collaborating on the memoir of a charismatic pimp whose seductive rap disguises a nasty rap sheet; he has to choose sides, make queasy compromises, and decide between rules and loyalty. Steinberg writes a stylish prose that blends deadpan wit with an acute moral seriousness. The result is a fine portrait of prison life and the thwarted humanity that courses through it.

Lonely Polygamist - Brady Udall
A family drama with stinging turns of dark comedy, the latest from Udall (The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint) is a superb performance and as comic as it is sublimely catastrophic. Golden Richards is a polygamist Mormon with four wives, 28 children, a struggling construction business, and a few secrets. He tells his wives that the brothel he's building in Nevada is actually a senior center, and, more importantly, keeps hidden his burning infatuation with a woman he sees near the job site. Golden, perpetually on edge, has become increasingly isolated from his massive family—given the size of his brood, his solitude is heartbreaking—since the death of one of his children. Meanwhile, his newest and youngest wife, Trish, is wondering if there is more to life than the polygamist lifestyle, and one of his sons, Rusty, after getting the shaft on his birthday, hatches a revenge plot that will have dire consequences. With their world falling apart, will the family find a way to stay together? Udall's polished storytelling and sterling cast of perfectly realized and flawed characters make this a serious contender for Great American Novel status. (

Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand (Biography)
From Laura Hillenbrand, the bestselling author of Seabiscuit, comes Unbroken, the inspiring true story of a man who lived through a series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. In evocative, immediate descriptions, Hillenbrand unfurls the story of Louie Zamperini--a juvenile delinquent-turned-Olympic runner-turned-Army hero. During a routine search mission over the Pacific, Louie’s plane crashed into the ocean, and what happened to him over the next three years of his life is a story that will keep you glued to the pages, eagerly awaiting the next turn in the story and fearing it at the same time. You’ll cheer for the man who somehow maintained his selfhood and humanity despite the monumental degradations he suffered, and you’ll want to share this book with everyone you know.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson
In her charming debut novel, Simonson tells the tale of Maj. Ernest Pettigrew, an honor-bound Englishman and widower, and the very embodiment of duty and pride. As the novel opens, the major is mourning the loss of his younger brother, Bertie, and attempting to get his hands on Bertie's antique Churchill shotgun—part of a set that the boys' father split between them, but which Bertie's widow doesn't want to hand over. While the major is eager to reunite the pair for tradition's sake, his son, Roger, has plans to sell the heirloom set to a collector for a tidy sum. As he frets over the guns, the major's friendship with Jasmina Ali—the Pakistani widow of the local food shop owner—takes a turn unexpected by the major (but not by readers). The author's dense, descriptive prose wraps around the reader like a comforting cloak, eventually taking on true page-turner urgency as Simonson nudges the major and Jasmina further along and dangles possibilities about the fate of the major's beloved firearms. This is a vastly enjoyable traipse through the English countryside and the long-held traditions of the British aristocracy.

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter - Tom Franklin
Edgar Award-winning author Tom Franklin returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry was broken, and then Silas left town. More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.


*Descriptions from Amazon.com



Friday, January 28, 2011

Ralph Ross Obituary

 Here is a link to the Obituary of Ralph Ross and other newspaper articles about the Bluegrass Conspiracy. Another article talks about his pardon.

http://a-loon.blogspot.com/2010/03/its-small-world-in-south.html

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Bluegrass Conspiracy: Where are they now?


Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra--

In 1996 his brother Joe, having served six years in a federal prison for conspiracy in the Judge Wood murder, dies in an automobile accident near El Paso, Texas. Less than a year later, Jimmy's wife Elizabeth, who was serving a thirty-year sentence for plotting to kill the judge, dies in prison from complications of ovarian cancer. Acquitted of the Wood murder himself but found guilty of conspiracy charges involving both drugs and obstruction of justice, and of still another murder, the last surviving Chagra brother serves out his life sentence at a maximum security federal penitentiary.

Melanie Flynn--

In 1993 her mother breaks a sixteen-year silence about the disappearance, calling a radio talk show to accuse the Lexington police of ignoring significant information she provided them in 1977. Mrs. Flynn is especially critical of then-Captain John Bizzack for his role in the case. "I have given Bizzack and many of your police officers," she tells Lexington Police Chief Larry Walsh on the air, "names, dates, addresses, and events, that nobody seemed to care about." The mother also tells a WKYT TV reporter that she believes the Lexington police themselves were "involved" in her daughter's disappearance and murder. Mrs. Flynn speaks out after her daughter's name is repeatedly mentioned during the drug trafficking trial of Bill Canan. According to several witnesses at the trial, Canan, the Lexington police officer who had been the last person to see the missing woman alive, had implied that he had been involved in her death. Yet at the time he was never interviewed by Lexington detectives. In the summer of 2001 the case of Melanie Flynn remains unsolved.

Rex Denver Hall--

The former Lexington narcotics officer is convicted in 1998 on federal cocaine charges of cocaine smuggling and is serving a life sentence.

Bluegrass Conspiracy: Where are they now?


John Y. Brown, JR.--

After a bitter divorce from Phyllis in 1997, the next year he weds his third beauty queen, a 1998 Miss Kentucky, Jill Louise Roach, who is 27 years his junior. The lavish ceremony beneath the white plantation columns of Brown's mansion on Old Cave Hill Lane is attended by former Governor Brereton C. Jones, Preston and Anita Madden, F. Lee Bailey, his son John Y. Brown III (Kentucky Secretary of State), and other local notables. "Man can't live alone," Brown tells the Lexington Herald-Leader. "Once you're a family man, you need a family to survive." In 1991, with country music entertainer Kenny Rogers, he has founded Kenny Rogers Roasters, an international chain of wood-roasted chicken restaurants said to have average annual sales of a million dollars per unit, and two years later launches another chain in South Florida called Roadhouse Grill. By the mid 1990's he sells his stake in both concerns to what the Miami Herald describes as a "Malaysian conglomerate." Along the way through the decade he has been a guest of his old friend, President Bill Clinton, in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. In the spring of 2001 he plans to build yet another restaurant chain radiating from Florida, this one with former University of Louisville football coach Howard Schnellenberger, to be called "Coach Schnellenberger's The Original Steakhouse and Sports Theater," where patrons may dine on steaks, chicken, ribs, and lobster while watching sports on six-foot-by-eight-foot video screens. "Life's full of opportunity," the 65-year-old ex-governor and onetime presidential aspirant says at his third wedding, "if you look forward and not look back".

Phyllis George--

Rebounding from her acrimonious divorce from John Y., she is reported by News-day in the fall of 1998 to be living in Manhattan in a "sumptuous 5th Avenue apartment." She has written a book called Living With Quilts, and boasts of having 100 quilts and other Kentucky folk art in a spare room in her Manhattan home. She has also had a brief stint with CBS, where she suffers numerous gaffes, is excoriated by critics, and would be fired after only eight months when she perkily suggests on air that a falsely accused rapist and his purported victim give each other a hug--albeit with the network reportedly paying the balance of the $1 million in George's three-year contract. Like her ex-husband, she maintains close ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton in the White House, giving the latter an expensive pin in one of the gifts Mrs. Clinton fails to report as required by law. Meanwhile, New York society columns portray the 1971 Miss America as prominent both socially and politically, dating Charles Gargano, a leading Republican and chairman of the Empire State Developing Corp., as well as hosting a lavish Washington party for dignitaries of both the outgoing Clinton regime and the incoming administration of George W. Bush, Jr. By the summer of 2001, George is reportedly courted both by national Democratic leaders to run for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky, and by the Kentuckians to run for Governor in her own right.

William Taulbee "Bill" Canan--

On January 15, 1994 the forty-seven-year-old former Lexington narcotics officer is sentenced to seventeen years, eight months on federal drug charges. An FBI search of Canan's apartment on Garden Springs Drive in Lexington has turned up more than a score of arms, a blow gun with steel-tipped darts, stiletto knives, a police badge, a bag of cocaine, and hundreds of cassettes apparently containing tape-recorded conversations which are coded and indecipherable to federal agents. Also found are books on weapons and explosives, including a three-volume set entitled How To Kill, a hand-drawn chart labeled "Canan's Alley" showing a bulls-eye ringing photographs of various local officials, and a confidential publisher's manuscript copy of The Bluegrass Conspiracy. At the trial, a DEA agent has sworn that Canan was never affiliated with the agency, while other witnesses testify to his drug-dealing and his own dark inferences of killings, including the murder of the still-missing Melanie Flynn. "A vengeful man at the center of a tangled web of fear and intimidation," as the Herald-Leader describes him, the shackled Canan, wearing a trademark blue windbreaker and black Lee jeans and defended by a court-appointed attorney, smiles cryptically and rocks incessantly in his chair at the defense table. When later interviewed in prison by federal agents about the Melanie Flynn case, he smirks and says only: "That names sounds familiar".





Bluegrass Conspiracy: Where Are They Now?

I found some info on the characters in The Bluegrass Conspiracy. Some is dated and I did not verify the facts. You can let me know if you have found additional info.


John Bizzack
John Bizzack moved on up to become head of Kentucky's Criminal Justice Training program, donating money heavily to political candidates while noted also, as a country music song writer. His wife of 35 years died on the COMAIR plane crash at the Bluegrass Airport in 2006 where 49 south bound people perished.

He's been quite successful, even though implicated in much of the cover up documented in Ms. Denton's book. His family was connected through business to Leonard Lawson who just stood trial for a bid-rigging scandal in the Transportation Department, State of Kentucky.

Both Ralph Ross and Leonard Lawson used the same law firm. While Ross lost his wiretapping case, Lawson won with much protection from the judge (Forester) who gave directions to the press that Lawson would be sure to have a "fair trial." Forester also stated at the trial's onset that the whistle blower (Rummage) who had implicated Lawson was already discredited.

It goes on and on. and locally fearful folks say, "The same ones running the BGC then, are still running it. even today."

John Bizzack--

He retires from the Lexington Police Department after 25 years, and becomes "Dr. Bizzack" in 1993 having obtained a "PhD in Administration/Management " from Walden University in Minneapolis, known for its correspondence degrees. In 1996 Kentucky Governor Paul Patton appoints him State Commissioner of Criminal Justice Training. By the turn of the century Bizzack boasts authorship of some six books dealing with "leadership" in criminal justice affairs, including one listed with Amazon.com as Police Management for the 1990s: A Practitioner's Road Map, and reportedly lectures widely on professional standards for police officers. He owns Bittersweet Station, a imposing cattle farm on Winchester Road, is known as an enthusiast for British luxury sports cars, and not least is celebrated as a composer of country-and-western music, winning the Hank Cochran Song Writing Contest for his "Courage to Say Goodbye".

Friday, January 7, 2011

The Best of the Best of 2010

On Sunday January 2, 2011 the Lexington Herald-Leader ran an article about the best books of 2010 by Colette Bancroft from the St. Petersburg Times. Here are the highlights.
  • Best Novel-A visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
  • Best Real Life Thriller-The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
  • Best Crime Fiction-Djibouti by Elmore Leonard, I'd Know you Anywhere by Laura Lippman, Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane, and The Reversal by Michael Connelly
  • Best Good Novel That Could Never Live up to It's hype-Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
  • Best Scary Hilarious futuristic satire with a tender heart-Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
  • Best Audio Book-Life by Keith Richards (read by Johnny Depp)
  • Best unexpectedly successful comeback-Autobiography of Mark Twain, volume 1
  • Best Surprise-The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O'Hagan
  • Best Last Act-The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Half Broke Horses

I want to correct the phrase that I quoted from the book. I should have quoted, "Push and Pray" instead of push and pull. That makes better sense. See if you can find it in the text.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Half Broke Horses

Half Broke Horses can be described in 1 word. ADVENTURE. I enjoyed the book especially because it is a true story about a very fearless, determined woman. There were parts that were funny and unbelievable. Jeannette Walls signed my copy "Push and Pull" and I didn't know what that meant until I reread the book and found the phrase in the text. What did everyone else think about it?

Sunday, January 2, 2011

It's a New Blog

Chicks 'N Hens Book Club has been in existence for over 2 years. We meet monthly to discuss  a book. Each member takes turns in choosing books and we read a variety of genres. For 2011,  I would like all of the members of Chicks 'N Hens to be able to comment on our books. Not everyone can make it to the meetings each month and I would love to hear what you think about the book club book and any other books that you might be reading.

For January 2011, we are reading Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls. I just finished reading it and want to hear what you think.