Tattoos on the Heart: the Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle

 Tattoos on the Heart: the Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle - 217 pages

Father Gregory Boyle’s sparkling parables about kinship and the sacredness of life are drawn from twenty years working with gangs in LA.

How do you fight despair and learn to meet the world with a loving heart? How do you overcome shame? Stay faithful in spite of failure? No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love. Gorgeous and uplifting, Tattoos on the Heart amply demonstrates the impact unconditional love can have on your life.

As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training, and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration. Tattoos on the Heart is a breathtaking series of parables distilled from his twenty years in the barrio. Arranged by theme and filled with sparkling humor and glowing generosity, these essays offer a stirring look at how full our lives could be if we could find the joy in loving others and in being loved unconditionally. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JCPenney fresh out of prison, we learn how to feel worthy of God’s love. From ten-year-old Lula we learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Pedro we understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the darkness. In each chapter we benefit from Boyle’s wonderful, hard-earned wisdom. Inspired by faith but applicable to anyone trying to be good, these personal, unflinching stories are full of surprising revelations and observations of the community in which Boyle works and of the many lives he has helped save.

Erudite, down-to-earth, and utterly heartening, these essays about universal kinship and redemption are moving examples of the power of unconditional love in difficult times and the importance of fighting despair. With Gregory Boyle’s guidance, we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all of the people around us. Tattoos on the Heart reminds us that no life is less valuable than another.

A Measure of Darkness by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman

 

A Measure of Darkness by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman - 352 pages

Clay Edison Series Book 2

Alameda County Coroner's Deputy Clay Edison's life is chaotic.  He's dealing with a suspension at work, a brother fresh out of prison, and things getting serious with his girlfriend.  Edison is called out to a house party gone horribly wrong with multiple deaths to investigate.  All the procedural details you love from a Jonathan Kellerman novel are here along with fresh characters and details from the collaboration with his son Jesse.  

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory - 322 pages

A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in a fun and flirty debut novel.

Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist.

On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend...

After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other... 

They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want...

Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore

Dead Things by Stephen Blackmoore - 304 pages
Book 1 in the Eric Carter series

Eric Carter is a necromancer who sees ghosts and can talk to the dead.  He's spent the past 15 years running from his past in Los Angeles but the murder of his sister has forced him to return.  He will find out who did this and make them pay if they don't kill him first.  And then, death isn't quite the barrier for Eric Carter that it is for other people.

This is dark urban fantasy along the lines of the Dresden Files.  Carter is a layered character for this genre and the world is well lived in and fully formed.  I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman

Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman - 368 pages
Alex Delaware Book 31

This book changes the dynamic some in that Alex is the one who calls Detective Milo Sturgis into the case and they don't work it together until a third of the way into the book.  Alex is called out of the blue in relation to the mother of a former client who is now having severe mental health issues.  Alex is ensnared and feels an obligation to do right by the mother (a fading starlet) and her now missing child.  This series is police procedural as comfort food.  This book was a nice return to a more intricate plot with suspense that had been missing some from the more recent entries in the series.

Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, And Gangsters In The Public Library by Don Borchert

Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangsters In The Public Library by Don Borchert, 223 pages

I loved this book!  Maybe, I liked this book so much because working in a public library, I see so much of what he wrote about go on in our library.  I actually found myself laughing out loud.  Of course, our library's mishaps barely rival Don's, who works for the Los Angeles Public Library.  Of course, he writes about the usual things librarian's run across: fines, people having multiple cards, and the unruly kids. Some of the more shocking stories he shares are how he found a sex toy in the outside book drop and how the bathroom was being used as a drug dealers warehouse.  I especially loved the part where one year for the summer reading program they offered a trip to Houston and how one little girl kept checking out books and saying she read them all.  There was nothing they could do to stop her.  She had quite a few tickets in the drawing and of course she won.  The following year they went back to pencils and pens for prizes.  Or, the part where they use to serve wine with staff lunches in the library.  My favorite chapter is MMM, where the staff labels the patrons in their record as MMM.  I wondered what does that stand for?  At the end of the chapter, we find out it means patrons who Make Me Mad.  But, my all time favorite is how they charge $5.00 for a new library card!

Drinking & Dating: P.S. Social Media Is Ruining Romance by Brandi Glanville with Leslie Bruce

Drinking & Dating: P.S. Social Media Is Ruining Romance by Brandi Glanville with Leslie Bruce, 242 pages

This is the second book by Brandi Granville who is better known for being on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo.  Or, maybe she is more famous for her cheating ex husband who left her for Lee Ann Rimes.  Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed in her second book. This book follows her dating adventures, mostly while drunk.  There is a couple things that bothered me about this book, or maybe more.  The book is full of the "F" word, a little more then I care to read.  She describes many of her dates and boyfriends, but disappointingly does not drop names.  I guess she is protecting their identity.  Also, the hash tags throughout the book became slightly annoying.  I read this book in a day, so if you are a fan of team Brandi or Twitter, then I would recommend this book.

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman

Killer by Jonathan Kellerman - 352 pages
#29 in the Alex Delaware series

Psychologist Alex Delaware is called on to make a court ordered assessment during a bitter child custody dispute between two sisters.  This dispute leads to murder and attempted murders left and right.  The characters in this series are getting a little stale since I've spent so much time with them and they don't develop as people very much.  I really wish Robin (Alex's girlfriend) would get fleshed out into more than just an accessory and someone for Alex to talk to at home for further exposition.  Alex comes across as suffering from mild depression in this book which makes for a gloomy reading experience.

Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman

Guilt by Jonathan Kellerman - 400 pages
An Alex Delaware Novel

Kellerman has become a habit.  The books have become police procedurals with very little character development.  The crime element is well done and the mystery is interesting when a crime that happens today harkens back to a sixty year old case that reads like a film noir.  But if I hadn't read the early books in the series I would have no real reason to care about these characters, especially Delaware who functions mainly as a sounding board for his police detective friend, Milo Sturgis.  So in the end, a quick read with an interesting plot but this series is not the place to look for three dimensional character development any more.

The Black Box by Michael Connelly

The Black Box by Michael Connelly - 416 pages

Harry Bosch's past and present merge as he investigates a 20 year homicide cold case from the time of the LA riots.  At first blush it seems like random violence but it turns out to be something much more personal involving the victim's investigation into the US military.  This is another sterling entry in the storied franchise of Harry Bosch books.

We All Fall Down - Nic Sheff

We All Fall Down by Nic Sheff - 297 pages

As I read Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines I laughed, I cried, I fell in live with Nic Sheff. I became absorbed in his journey, and the same was true for We All Fall Down. While Nic's relapses aren't nearly as severe this time around the story still rises and falls with his struggle with addiction. Reading his books feel like talking with an old friend and as I read We All Fall Down I couldn't help but feel proud of Sheff by the end (even if the beginning made me want to wring his neck).

You'll Never Blue Ball in this Town Again by Heather McDonald

You'll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again by Heather McDonald, 263pgs.

 I found this book while looking for a current book by Chelsea Handler. I had read all Chelsea Handler's previous books and found them hilarious.  If you like Chelsea Handler books, you will probably like this book.  Not quite funny as Chelsea's books, still very entertaining.  Heather is a writer for the Chelsea Lately Show and a comedienne in her own right.  Heather spends the majority of the book writing of how she fought off losing her virginity until the age of 27.  Whereas Chelsea grew up in New Jersey, Heather grew up in a well to do family in Southern California and attended USC where she was in a sorority.  A very entertaining read.

Gun Games by Faye Kellerman

Gun Games by Faye Kellerman - 375 pages

Another worthwhile entry into Kellerman's long running Decker / Lazarus series.  The focus of the story is split between Gabriel Donatti, a foster child living with the Deckers and the police investigation into two apparent suicides at the same local exclusive private school.  The plot has enough twists and turns to keep your interest and the characters continue to be strong and very well painted.  Plus, as a bonus you will learn about Jewish culture and classical music along the way!