Yes Please by Amy Poehler

 Yes Please by Amy Poehler - 329 pages

In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by.

Opinion: I like reading memoirs and thought this one was decent. Amy Poehler is funny and had good bits of wisdom scattered throughout, too. I listened to the audiobook of this, instead of reading it, and I'm glad I did. I'm not big into audiobooks but I think I'd rather have listened to this than read it, because she invited other people to read portions that were relevant to them, like her parents or Seth Meyers, which was cool. Obviously with her being a comedian, it added to the humor when she did voices or changed her tone and stuff.

The Guide by Peter Heller

 The Guide by Peter Heller - 273 pages, Audiobook - 7 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Kingfisher Lodge, nestled in a canyon on a mile and a half of the most pristine river water on the planet, is known by locals as Billionaire's Mile and is locked behind a heavy gate. Sandwiched between barbed wire and a meadow with a sign that reads Don't Get Shot! the resort boasts boutique fishing at its finest. Safe from viruses that have plagued America for years, Kingfisher offers a respite for wealthy clients. Now it also promises a second chance for Jack, a return to normalcy after a young life filled with loss. When he is assigned to guide a well-known singer, his only job is to rig her line, carry her gear, and steer her to the best trout he can find.

But then a human scream pierces the night, and Jack soon realizes that this idyllic fishing lodge may be merely a cover for a far more sinister operation.

This was a pretty good mystery/suspense story. However, Heller could have gone into less detail about the specifics of fishing. I really liked the relationship between Jack and Allison. It was different and refreshing.

The Whistler by John Grisham

 The Whistler (The Whistler #1) by John Grisham - 470 pages, Audiobook - 13 hours

⭐⭐⭐✰✰

We expect our judges to be honest and wise, to ensure fair trials, and to protect the rights of all litigants. But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe?

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer who now goes by Greg Myers, claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined.

It seems the judge was secretly involved with the construction of a large casino on Native American land. The Coast Mafia financed the casino and is now helping itself to a sizable skim of each month’s cash with the judge getting a cut and looking the other way. It’s a sweet deal: Everyone is making money.

But now Greg wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. Greg files a complaint with the Board on Judicial Conduct, and the case is assigned to Lacy, who immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous. Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.

I was a little disappointed by this book. I have liked other John Grisham books and thought this story sounded really interesting. There was a lot going on, and corruption was definitely rampant, but it didn't excite me the way I expect a thriller to.

Absolute Power by David Baldacci

 Absolute Power by David Baldacci - 550 pages, Audiobook - 18.5 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A grizzled professional cat burglar gets trapped inside the bedroom closet of one of the world's richest men, only to witness, through a one-way mirror, two Secret Service agents kill the billionaire's young wife as she tries to fight off the drunken sexual advances of the nation's chief executive. Running for his life, but not before he picks up a bloodstained letter opener that puts the president at the scene of the crime, the burglar becomes the target of a clandestine manhunt orchestrated by leading members of the executive branch.

Meanwhile, Jack Graham, once a public defender and now a high-powered corporate attorney, gets drawn into the case because the on-the-lam burglar just happens to be the father of his former financee, a crusading Virginia prosecutor.

Embroidering the narrative are the hero's broken romance, the prosecutor's confused love-hate for her burglar father, the relentless investigation by a northern Virginia cop, the dilemma of government agents trapped in a moral catch-22, and the amoral ambitions of a sexy White House Chief of Staff, all with a sociopathic president at its center.

Especially since this was David Baldacci's debut novel, it's exceedingly good. It captures your attention from the very beginning and just keeps going from there. While there are a lot of characters and a lot of moving parts, it never gets confusing and kept me wondering how it would end throughout the entire book.

The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci

 The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci - 432 pages, Audiobook - 11 hours 45 minutes

⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance.

Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.

Sara Ewes, Devine’s coworker and former girlfriend, has been found hanging in a storage room of his office building—presumably a suicide, prompting the NYPD to come calling on him. If that wasn’t enough, Devine receives another ominous visit, a confrontation that threatens to dredge up grim secrets from his past in the Army unless he participates in a clandestine investigation into his firm.

This treacherous role will take Travis from the impossibly glittering lives he once saw only through a train window, to the darkest corners of the country’s economic halls of power…where something rotten lurks. And apart from this high-stakes conspiracy, there’s a killer out there with their own agenda, and Devine is the bullseye.

I love David Baldacci's Amos Decker series, and I enjoyed the Mercy series. I didn't enjoy this book as much, and if he turns this into a series, I'm not sure I would read any more of it. I enjoyed the mystery/thriller part of the plot, but there was a lot of computer lingo that went over my head.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

 Hidden Figures by Margo Lee Shetterly - 349 pages, 10 hour 47 minute Audiobook

⭐⭐⭐✰✰

Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human Computers’ calculating the flight paths that would enable space travel. A group of talented ‘colored computers’ who were segregated from their white counterparts, used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets and astronauts into space. This true story moves from World War II, when an executive order signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt made it possible for women and African-Americans to work in professional positions in government workplaces, through NASA’s golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War and the women’s rights movement. This book tells the story of courageous women whose work forever changed the world.

At times, it was difficult to keep track of all the names, events and dates in this book as she tended to throw out one fact after another. I feel like I learned facts about some people's lives, but I didn't get to know Dorothy Vaughan or Katherine Johnson on a personal level. I did find all the information about the discrimination and segregation African-Americans, especially those in Viriginia during the 1940's through 1960's, faced on a daily basis. I enjoyed the movie "Hidden Figures" much more than the book even though the screen adaptation portrayed NASA as a segregated workplace in 1961 even though they ended the practice when NACA became NASA in 1958. The movie told the story of the three main characters, instead of mostly stating facts about them, and helped you get to know them on a much more personal level.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

 Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - 331 pages, Audiobook - 11.5 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This gritty and compelling novel tells the story of star-crossed lovers set in the circus world circa 1932.

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.

I'm not a huge circus fan, so this is not a book I would have chosen on my own. However, I'm very glad it was selected in our Book to Movie Club as I enjoyed it immensely. The book, told from Jacob's point of view while he was working on the circus and years later when he is in a nursing home, transports you into the world of circus trains.

Dewey Decimated by Allison Brook

 Dewey Decimated (The Haunted Library Mysteries #6) by Allison Brook - 336 pages, Audiobook - 9 hours

⭐⭐⭐⭐✰

Carrie Singleton is just off a hot string of murder cases centered around the spooky local library in Clover Ridge, Connecticut. She could really use a break—but no such luck.

First, a dead body is found in the basement of the building attached to the library, and it turns out to be Carrie’s fiancé’s Uncle Alec, who Dylan hasn’t seen in years. But Alec has no intention of truly checking out, and his ghost makes itself at home in the library, greatly upsetting the patrons. Carrie and Evelyn, the library ghost, work hard to keep Alec out of sight, but what was he doing in Clover Ridge to begin with? And why was he killed?

Meanwhile, the town council, of which Carrie is now a member, is embroiled in a hot debate over the fate of the Seabrook Preserve, a lovely and valuable piece of property that runs along Long Island Sound. Turn it into an upscale park? Sell it to a condo developer? Or keep it as protected land?

As the dispute rages, there’s another murder, this time involving a council member. Could the two murders be connected? And could Carrie be next on the hit list?

This is a fun series. I like the addition of another ghost in the form of Dylan's Uncle Alec, and Dylan's greater involvement in solving the murders.