September Read/2

Title: The Case of the Fabulous Fake
Author: Gardner, Erle Stanley
Genre: Mystery
Book Description (from the inside flap):
     The client was young, blonde and beautiful, and she wanted to disappear. The trouble was she wouldn't say why, and she wouldn't give her name. So Perry Mason agreed to a code of identification based on her measurements: 36-24-36.
     But according to Della Street, the figures were padded, and it turned out, so was everything the client said.
My Read:
     I appreciate the following statement from the famous lawyer on page 190: "That's a duty that a lawyer owes to his client. Regardless of how many times he has been lied to in the past, he always has to keep the faith. He always has to believe that in the final showdown, the client is telling the truth and putting the cards face up on the table."

September Read

Title: Perry Mason Solves the Case of the Duplicate Daughter
Author: Gardner, Erle Stanley
Book Review from amazon.com(by Acute Observer on June 5, 2015):
     "This book is dedicated to Francis Edward Camps, M.D. who has achieved international distinction as a medico-legal expert in the United States and England (the Christie Case). Dr. Camps is the co-author of “Practical Forensic Medicine”. Too many murders have been diagnosed as suicides, and suicides as murder, because of a lack of medical knowledge and pathology.

Carter Gilman was eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. He asked his daughter Muriell to cook another egg and sausage. When Muriell brought this to the dining room she found Carter had disappeared without a word. But he left a note asking for Perry Mason to be called in case of any emergency. When Muriell finds hundred-dollar bills scattered on the workshop floor, she calls Perry Mason; he arrives as quickly as possible. Later that morning Perry Mason has a new client; Edward Carter (who is Carter Gilman). Edward Carter says he is a friend of the Gilman family and wants to prevent Nancy Gilman, Carter's wife, from being blackmailed by a Las Vegas private detective. Perry Mason assigns Paul Drake to investigate. A few hours later Mason receives a phone call from this Las Vegas detective, Vera Martel, who warns him to stay out of this case. Mason realizes there are a lot of assumptions and coincidences in this case, and he needs to recheck the stories that he is being told.

Paul Drake follows a daughter to Las Vegas, and uncovers startling news about a missing heir or heiress. Then they hear more shocking news about Vera Martel: murdered, and made to look like a car accident! The police arrested Carter Gilman on suspicion of murder. Then the police show up to question Carter's wife and daughters."

September Read/John

Book report for 2015-09-15/T

THE LITTLE BOOK OF SIGN LANGUAGE
Text: Written by Jason Rekulak
Dust Jacket & Interior:
Photographed: Steven Raniszewski/BCP
Designed: Terry Peterson
Produced: In cooperation with the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf

This book, being both small and with only 127 pages, is meant as a teaser to entice ones interest in American Sign Language (ASL). Like a dead battery can be 'jumped' by a good voltage source, ones pursuit might well be stimulated to passion by the well illustrated lessons given in easy to read fonts for detailed texts describing this language's uniqueness. The beginning 'signing' is well covered along with the explanation that eye contact, facial expressions, and body language play a crucial role.

First, the alphabet is covered. Then their excellent way of showing the numbers zero through ten, and how their signs work while having to use only one hand. Greetings and salutations come next, covering from hello and goodbye, then to  congratulations and excuse me, to the very important 'magic words' of please and thank you. Also included are some emotions, family members, favorite foods, animals, and references to learn more.

From the beginnings of sign language in America in1694 when the deaf Englishman Jonathan Lambert moved to Martha's Vineyard (MA) with his seven sons, two of whom were also deaf, to the system used today, this informative book is an excellent way to begin learning this intriguing way of communicating. It's small size make it convenient to actually carry in ones pocket to enable studying throughout the day when small amounts of time can be easily snatched between other projects. This resource, then, is obviously highly recommended. So until another book report, picture me with my right hand up and my fingers moving up and down - as if I were waving goodbye.

August Read/Margaret

Sea Swan
      When I bought this book, “Sea Swan,” a long time ago, I was just thinking it was for my grandchildren. Now a few years after retiring at home, I found this book was what God prepared for me to have during my retirement time. I learned a lot from the grandma in this book. She was always active. She even had a lot of people helping her in her life which made her life run very smoothly. One day when she was 75, she was determined to learn new things to improve her life. She bought a new swim suit and went to class to learn with young people to swim. She did not stop after she knew how to swim. She also enjoyed learning how to dive so she could see all the beautiful things in the world God created for us to enjoy. She even taught and encouraged others to do swimming and diving to see how beautiful it is under the sea. Then she planned her retirement life to have with her cat, close to the sea, so she could swim and dive. She even tried to learn cooking and to take care of herself. She is a very encouraging lady for me. You don’t need to feel old when you retire. You just need to go and see the outside world while trying to learn something new every day.

August Read/Otoor

A Bible Story: Miriam and Her Brother Moses
Author: Jean Marzollo

 This story relates to the Bible story about Moses. It shows how a brave little girl, her n name Miriam, helped to save her brother, Moses’s life. Moses led his people to freedom, after they were slaves during the Pharaoh’s time period. Pharaoh gave his soldiers a truly terrible order to throw all Hebrew baby boys into the Nile River, so they wouldn’t grow up to fight him. This happened the same year that Moses was born, so Miriam succeeded to convince the princess, daughter of Pharaoh, to save Moses’s life. Miriam also had special songs that she had taught Moses when he was a baby. When he became a prince, he wanted to help his family and all the Hebrew slaves so he led them out of Egypt.

August Read/Sherri 2

The Matzo Ball Heiress

Lauri Gwen Shapiro’s book, “The Matzo Ball Heiress,” is  light, humorous and an easy read. The story is centered around a dysfunctional family that long ago lost their Jewish identity due to the large expansion of the families prosperous business. The irony is the family money that supports their gregarious life style, is reaped from the Kosher Jewish community. The largest profit time is centered around the Jewish Holiday called Passover. The business is dwindling and so is the family. The family is given an opportunity to rebuild  their family relationships and busines but in order to accomplish this they must come together to present a Sedar on TV. The challenge is they are all estranged and have not had a Sedar in years. The story unfolds like an old vaudeville comedy of characters , from the Egyptian Consulate member, to the father’s flaming gay boyfriend, to the grandfather’s secretary/ ex-mistress, to the pothead assistant, to the three trust fund characters who want desperately to keep their inheritance a secret. A calamity of errors happens throughout the story keeping it funny yet edgy. 

August Read/Sherri

Fall of the Marigolds

“Fall of the Marigolds” is written by author Susan Meissner. Susan writes her books with an object that pulls two time period together. There are many correlations between both stories. In this book, the object is a scarf with a print of marigolds . The first time period takes place on Ellis Island in September 1911. The second time period is during the 9/11 fall of the Twin Towers. The two stories intertwine and eventually are pulled together by the story of the scarf. What I liked most was Susan’s storytelling techniques. I like reading a story, that leaves you wishing for the rest of the story and curious as to how it will unfold yet not wanting the story to end. The characters are revealed by their choices and actions. This book is about family, friendship, love, bravery, fear and humanities view of two difficult times in American history. The big lesson here is the beauty of perception and how we all have a choice in our perceptions in life.  Given we don’t always know all the information or sequences of events to know if our perception is correct. Knowing the other sides of the story can make all the difference in our truly understanding the challenges we all meet in life. Sometimes if we are lucky as our characters, we learn, with time, the whole story and  how our influences in helping others to meet their challenges, will be reviled to us.

August Read/2

Title: The Case of the Demure Defendant
Author: Gardner, Erle Stanley
Genre: Mystery
Book Review by P. Mann VINE VOICE from amazon.com
"A young woman under the influence of the "truth" serum sodium pentathol confesses to her doctor that she poisoned the older man in whose house she had been living. After the man's death, she says, she threw the bottle containing the poison into a lake. The doctor, armed with this information and a recording of the session, consults Perry Mason, bringing the famous lawyer into the case.

The police have no knowledge that anyone has been murdered. The possible victim's cause of death was put down to natural causes years before when he died. Now, though, the police get wind of the confession, and Mason finds himself racing against time to determine whether a crime has been committed at all. He goes to the lake and succeeds in finding a bottle that, thankfully, does not contain poison. Apparently, the case is at an end. The "confession," he thinks, was just a product of the woman's imagination and guilty conscience. However, just when Mason thinks he can rest easy, the police recover a second bottle.

Now, not only is Mason's client back in hot water, but Mason himself is also facing legal trouble. The police, it seems, suspect Mason of having planted the first bottle."
My Read:
After I closed the book last night one word by Perry Mason was running in my head as I tried to close my eyes and sleep. The word is "Overlooked." It was repeated more than once by the famous lawyer at the very last chapter. Here is one quote from the lawyer: "There's one other alternative," Mason said," and I think you have all overlooked the significant thing in Newburn's testimony which was to the effect that when his wife slipped out toward the dining room, there was no one in sight, that she couldn't find Nadine or Cap'n Huge, that the double boiler containing the chocolate was on the stove, all melted, and-"..."He told us he was in the dining room all the time, washing windows." "Jackson Newburn didn't see him."-page 153-154
In real life, how many did we overlook things to miss important messages? At least, after reflection as I closed the book, I found myself victim of overlooking stuff. It's something to ponder over for me.
Good read.