The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
Be good and do the right thing, and at the end of the struggle when things appear the darkest, a miracle can occur. Has a book triggered your emotions? It did mine.
A summary of the story from Wikipedia:
After being trapped in an isolated car crash, the life of elderly widower Ira Levinson becomes entwined with a young college student, Sophia Danko, and the cowboy whom she loves, a young man named Luke Collins. The novel is told through the perspectives of these three characters as they go through their lives, both separately and together.
Ira Levinson, ninety-one years old and already in poor health, is just holding on; remaining alert only because his wife Ruth, who has died, appears as an image to help him remember their life together: how they met, the paintings they collected and the dark days of WW2.
Just a few miles away, Sophia, a student at Wake Forest college, is about to have her life change forever as she meets an unexpected love, Luke. Luke is a cowboy and risk-taking bull-rider, unlike anyone she has ever known. Together they experience the joys of love as well as the difficulties that come with Luke's dangerous career.
Two couples who have little in common, yet whose lives will converge with unexpected poignancy.
A movie has been made from this novel, as have quite a few others from the novels of this author, including Message in a Bottle, The Notebook, Safe Haven. From the critical reviews, the movie was a dud, but it was a romance aimed at a teenage audience. I really don't want to watch the movie, and in my case I did not identify with the young couple, but with the elderly Ira Levinson.
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In between bitching about Trump and criticizing others on NT, have you read any novels lately? If so, what were they, and what were they about?
I'm listening to The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi, a reflection on "what it is to be a human", masquerading as space opera. Scalzi is always good.
I've not read any of Scalzi's works.
It's SF. He manages to combine excitement and adventure, with intellectual reflections.
Near the end of the novel, there is a legal error which I'm pretty sure not many readers will have realized. It has to do with what has been called "Estate Taxes". Even though I may have little knowledge of American law, I'm pretty sure about that particular error. I won't post it here, but if anyone has read the novel and wants to know what it was, they can ask with a Private NT Note.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.
Great story with historic background. Love historic novels.
I read the link, and it sounds like a good story. My father fled from Russia at the age of 13 because his family were considered bourgeois, i.e. not welcome by the bolsheviks. It's interesting to see that the author spent time in the Metropol hotel while writing the novel.
It's well worth the read.
One might expect that the plot could be boring, even moribund, but the review indicates that lots of things are happening there quickly changing from one scenario to another.
I bet your father and his family had some stories to tell.
My father never talked about Russia. All I know is that his family owned a sugar refinery and were considered bourgeois so they were despised by the bolsheviks. My father did not indicate his background and was admitted to a technical school that he was not entitled to attend. After a while he got found out, and had to run, so at the age of 13 he travelled alone to Canada, ending up with 13 cents in his pocket. He went into business and eventually ended up a millionaire with a home in Canada, a golf condo in Florida and drove a Cadillac. On another article I told the story of when he bought his first Cadillac - he first had a Jaguar dealer bring him a Jaguar Mark IX to see and try out, the car I fell in love with and to this day consider it the car I would most love to own, but he didn't like it and bought the Cadillac instead. He was an amazing man who could do anything he needed or wanted to do - a perfectionist - he could fix and use any machine in his business and in his 50s took up golf and soon had an 8 handicap. He died too soon - at age 69.
That's an amazing story.
Actually, I have not.
However, I recently read an autobiographical account of a Vietnam experience. The author is someone I know to a degree and is a novice writer.
In turn, I iwrote a review as a novice reviewer. I do not qualify yet to publish the review where I purchased the book. Why not post it here?
Okay, Dave, if I write a book I'll ask you to write a review.
Thank you Buzz.