Lady HotchKiss Says

The Third Man Factor is an extraordinary account of how people at the very edge of death experience the sense of an unseen presence beside them who encourages them to make one final effort to survive. This incorporeal being offered them a feeling of hope, protection, and guidance, and left the person convinced he or she was not alone. There is a name for this phenomenon: It's called the Third Man Factor.

If only a handful of people had ever encountered the Third Man, it might be dismissed as an unusual delusion shared by a few overstressed minds. But over the years, the experience has occurred again and again, to 9/11 survivors, mountaineers, divers, polar explorers, prisoners of war, sailors, shipwreck survivors, aviators, and astronauts. All have escaped traumatic events only to tell strikingly similar stories of having sensed the close presence of a helper or guardian. The force has been explained as everything from hallucination to divine intervention. Recent neurological research suggests something else.

Bestselling and award-winning author John Geiger has completed six years of physiological, psychological, and historical research on The Third Man. He blends his analysis with compelling human stories such as Ron diFrancesco, the last survivor out of the World Trade Center on 9/11; Ernest Shackleton, the legendary explorer whose account of the Third Man inspired T.S. Eliot to write of it in The Wasteland; Jerry Linenger, a NASA astronaut who experienced The Third Man while aboard the Mir space station-and many more.

Fascinating for any reader, The Third Man Factor at last explains this secret to survival, a Third Man who-in the words of famed climberReinhold Messner-"leads you out of the impossible."

Author:  John Geiger

This was a well written book about a topic I had not ever encountered before.

Of course, right after this I got all involved watching Everest on Discovery.  While climbing Everest is not sufficient to bring on the "Third Man"; it is a beginning.

The author discusses both the scientific understanding and specific individuals experiences; both shed substantial light on the topic.

Brilliant, fast-paced, and highly suspenseful, Tenderwire tells the story of a reckless young musician and her obsession with a very old violin.

Eva Tyne leaves her home in Ireland for New York to play in the New Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra. She collapses after her solo debut, checks herself out of the hospital prematurely, and embarks on a chaotic and dangerous odyssey. She falls in love with a mysterious man and becomes obsessed with a rare violin of dubious provenance, for which she must pay in cash. But consumed by obsession, her pursuit of the violin becomes a nightmare of paranoia: Haunted by the ghost of her father, racked with jealousy, and unsure whom she can trust, Eva is pitched into a desperate psychological conundrum as her desires threaten to destroy her.

Narrated in Eva's unforgettable and unreliable voice, Tenderwire is a guessing game and a whodunit that surprises at every turn.

Author:  Claire Kilroy

The synopsis grabs you and leads you to believe that the story is great.

When in fact, the elements of a good story are all there; but, the author doesn't take advantage and create a cohesive tale.  There are so many parts that if she had focused on making even one or two story lines INCREDIBLE; the book would have been manageable.  As it stands the book is a series of events with little holding it together.

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.

By Jack Weatherford

Robert Oliver, a renowned painter, has brutally attacked a canvas at the National Gallery of Art. What would compel an artist to destroy something he values beyond all else? From his hospital room, Oliver maintains a stubborn silence, only saying, "I did it for her."

But who is she? Psychiatrist Andrew Marlow prides himself on his ability to make even a stone talk, but he gets nowhere with Oliver. Driven by professional curiosity, Marlowe embarks on an unconventional pursuit of the answers his patient won't provide, and on a journey into the lives of the women Robert Oliver left behind.

I was so excited to read this book because I had read This Historian and enjoyed it.

I gave this book EVERY opportunity, but it simply didn't capture My attention.  As shame given how much I liked The Historian!

I have to admit that I appreciate math!  This book was interesting way to look through history.  Another, UNIQUE perspective on how and why things happened.

There is some math, but skipping over it did not reduce the impact of the book; for Me!

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one-third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. She also lectures widely on autism–because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us.

In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity.

I found this book insight; both in what she wrote and ultimately in her writing style.  I have people on the “spectrum” in My family and enjoy gaining insight to this condition.  One of the things this book talks about is how many times older family members show the behaviors in more limited manifestations.  I certainly see that as true with several family members; sometime Myself.

This book is atrociously BORING!  NOTHING happens in the house NOTHING.  Further, the idea that something is happening outside  the house on all fronts is there.  But, the history, people, events, etc are SO condensed and told in such a throw away manner; that it is simply IMPOSSIBLE to care.

Mostly, I just wanted the book to end; which didn't happen soon enough!