This will be a longer review with two books by John Grisham and one of my favourite poker players Gus Hansen.
The first Grisham book is The Pelican Brief.
It’s a story about Darby Shaw, a law student, who started her own investigation regarding the assassination of two Supreme Court Justices. Instead of being politically motivated, she suspected the assassinations to be pushed by greed.
She wrote a paper on her speculations, explaining who she think is the behind everything. She shows the brief to her professor Thomas Callahan who then shows it to an FBI lawyer. Everyone who knew about the brief was killed and Darby was afraid she will be the next target.
A wild chase starts which will keep you turning pages till everything is over.
I really like the book because it shows how someone capable of putting things together can interfere with plans of some big guys. I give this book an 9/10 as I really enjoyed it.
The second Grisham book was the first book I have read from him a few years ago and I just had to take another turn with it. It’s one of his best selling books and one that launched him into global fame. It’s The Firm.
It’s a story about Mitchell McDeere, a young guy who graduated in accounting, and finished third in his class from Harvard Law School. He married his high school girlfriend Abby Sutherland and were about to start a new life together.
Mitch had offers from big law firms in New York and Chicago, something on everyone’s wish list when finishing law school but he chose to join Bendini, Lambert and Locke, a small tax law firm in Memphis. They offered him the biggest salary, a house, a new car, low interest mortgage and many other things that seemed just too good to be true.
As it turned everything was too good to be true. While working there he saw many things they were doing but weren’t legal. He tried to get out but it was to late as they have already dragged him into their shady business. He needed to find a way to expose them but to keep his life save.
I won’t go into details but this book is a must read for everyone interested in thrillers. The book get a rock solid 10/10 from me. I hope I’ll catch some time to watch the movie as well
The last book is a far cry from everything I have reviewed this year.
It’s Every hand revealed by Gus Hansen.
This book is an journey Gus had on the 2007 Aussie Millions tournament. He carried a tape recorder with him and recorder a note after each hand. The result is something truly awesome because you can see how a poker player adjusts to the tournament. How he tries to read each situation individually but also try to see the whole picture.
It’s not a tutorial where you will learn what to do with pocket eights or what to do when you have two over cards to the board on the flop. It’s just about a man who started playing a tournament and who won it a few days later.
Sometimes he made correct calls (even admitting that he was a bit lost in some situations) and sometimes he made bad calls which really made him angry at himself.
If you like to play poker you will love this book because it gets you to the table as close as possible.
10/10 from me for this awesome book
I am almost through the second to last book and will carry one more book with me as we are going to celebrate New Year away from home and I also have another challenge in mind for next year.
Until then, Don’t forget to be awesome :)