The book I read to research this post was The Apostle: The life of Paul by John Pollock which is an excellent book which I downloaded for free from kindle. Some years ago my religious studies teacher told me Paul came along at a crucial time. It was a time when christianity was getting popular in what is now Israel but it had yet to gain popularity elsewhere. Paul was instrumental in spreading it throughout much of the known world and really kickstarted christianity. He is probably the greatest missionary we have ever seen. Paul had probably been married which was a requirement to join the sanhedrin but it looks as though his wife and maybe child died early on. You probably know that in his early life he persecuted christians. He was probably responsible for getting St Steven stoned. He was convinced that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body from the crypt after his crucifixion. He thought the talk of sightings of Jesus were nonsense. That was to change on the road to Damascus where he was temporily blinded by God. Jesus appeared to him and showed him the truth. In this book his sight is restored in the temple which there are several different versions of that story. He was a roman citizen which conveyed certain like he couldn't be put to death without a trial. Also he couldn't be flogged without reason. By and large the christians were law abiding whose only offence was preaching. The standard punishment for christians was to be torn apart by lions in the arena. Simon Peter who would later be canonized St Peter was crucified upside down in public but Paul was beheaded again on account of him being a roman citizen.

The book I am reviewing in this post is Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben which is an excellent thriller which I bought from a carboot sale. This novel is part of the Myron Bolitar series of thrillers. It's also 1995 although it was reissued in 2007 so it's quite old. Harlan is best known for his standalone thrillers. Anyway in this story Bolitar is a sports agent and has one sportsman on his books who is about to make the big time all it needs is his name on a contract. Harlan of course is holding out for the best deal. Another sportsman on his books looks quite promising but is tied in to an illegal rather dodgy contract to someone else that probably won't hold up in court. That someone else will do anything to make him fulfill the contract including sending thugs around to threaten him and Bolitar. Myron headbutts one of them. Now this sportsman has a bit of a skeleton in the cupboard because he went out with a young lady who was sleeping around. This was revenge against her mum who she caught with another man. Anyway she goes with loads of men and shows her mum pictures to torment as well as doing pornography pictures in magazines. The whole football gang rapes her and then she dissapears presumably murdered. Her knickers are sent to the police who get forensics to examine them and they find semen traces pointing the finger at the football team. Anyway then later she appears to make contact with the sportsman who is on his books. I'm not going to say whether she is alive or not as that would spoil it. Suffice to say there is a happy ending. Definitely a good read and the best Bolitar thriller I have read.

The book I am reviewing in this post is Backpacked by Catherine Ryan Howard which is an excellent book which I downloaded for free from kindle. I may try and do a post on travel approximatelt once a week. You might also be interested to know I have done posts on Arizona & Alaska at

http://oldscratbag.com

Anyway getting back to the book it's about 2 young women from Cork Ireland who backed around Central America and is quite amusing. Catherine had been working in Orlando Florida and was much more at home with her comforts. Her friend suggested they went to Central America & she decided to go primarily because she hadn't spent much time with her friend for quite some time and also she wanted some good photos for facebook. A lot of the stories that go around about bus crashes in places like Honduras certainly have a ring of truth. On some of the mountain roads you're lucky to see a crash barrier. They visit a volcano which is still active in the sense there is still hot magma coming out of it. They also have to climb down 15 foot into the crater which they aren't very keen on doing. It's certainly an adventure. Also with a lot of companies like Macdonalds opening branches in places like this and the inevitable americanisation of this area which has already it's an interesting snapshot of what this area used to look like. I noticed that Catherine has done another book on her experiences in Orlando which I will review soon. Also Backpacked was No1 on the british amazon travel free book chart and I can see why it's a good read.

The book I read to research this site was Burying the Bones by Hilary Spurling which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. You might be interested to know I did a post on China at http://oldscratbag.com & also I have done a post on doing business in china at http://claireabella29.com

This book is a biography of the author Pearl Buck who spent much of her life in china in the early 20th century and spent much time reading chinese litterature and doing missionary work. Her parents were from america but were missionaries in china at a time when it was quite unsafe. Often chinese people would think any westerners had jinxed them and would blame things like a drought on them. Pearl was one of only 2 women to win the nobel prize for litterature which she won in 1932 the second one was in 1993. The book she is best known for is the good earth which was part of a trilogy and would be made into a film. It also topped the bestseller list in america for over 2 years. The americans loved it. She came from a completely different culture which the americans found fascinating. The chinese at that time always wanted a male heir and would often leave female babies on the nearby hillside for the animals to eat or sell them into slavery. Pearl often found these bodies and would bury them. Another thing the chinese would do is tightly bandage female babies feet so they wouldn't grow because the feet were cute and this crippled them. She was still in china when the japanese invaded during world war 2 and endured much hardship. With the success of her books she was a celebrity in america and later in her life moved there. She wrote a book which was a story set in kansas under a pseudynom and many people thought the book was so good that the author must have spend his entire life in kansas. Her father wrote the first chinese bible which the church opposed and her family were very poor. Later in her life she started a charity to help asian children and she adopted a couple of foreign children.

The book I am reviewing in this post is Exit Wound by Andy McNab which is an excellent SAS thriller which I bought from a carboot sale. Like most of his books this features Nick Stone the exSAS covert operative. In 1989 when the Berlin Wall was about to come there were many in the soviet military machine who were selling secrets to the west to make money. Stone went on an SAS mission to buy some secret information but one of the men got shot. He was very close to his comrades on that mission. Then fast forward to 2008 and they are at an SAS reunion and the same buddies tell him about a mission to go to Dubai to retrieve a solid gold door that once belonged to Saddam Hussein. He joins the mission as a favour to his friends more than anything. In Dubai apparently it has been hit badly by the recession and a lot of airplanes fly there almost empty and come back full. A lot of foreign nationals have lost their jobs and they can freeze your bank account if you fall behind on your debts. So often they dump their car at the airport and fly back before they get the chance to freeze their account. Anyway Nick Stone and his friends find they have been set up and Nick just about gets away and all 3 of his comrades are shot. He visits Iran and Russia in an attempt to get revenge and it does have a happy ending. One thing he says about Iran is they aren't just a bunch of goatherders and are quite intelligent. Despite Americas best attempts they have built nuclear power stations. They also have developed a missile that can deliver a 1,000kg warhead 2,000 km away. They are definitely the most powerful nation in that region. With Russia Andy reckons Putin who was the president started the war in Chechnya to distract the russian public from the corruption in their own country. It is an interesting book even if you just read it for his comments on different countries.