I love to read. I prefer reading fiction but I also read Masonic Books, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction and Biographies - I have been reading "real" books for awhile. I have a Kindle and I do enjoy the convenience but I do like the book format best.

I will share three books - two finished and one in progress.

First

The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

by Kara Cooney

I enjoyed this book. I believe that I saw it by watching the author on The Daily Show.

I have been intrigued with Hatshesput from the time that I saw her Temple during my trip to Egypt. The succeeding pharaoh took a chisel to her name so that she literally would be erased from history. He did not succeed.

No one can really say that her story is told in its entirety but Dr. Cooney has done a masterful job of exploring this story.

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power in a man’s world.

Hatshepsut, the daughter of a general who took Egypt's throne without status as a king’s son and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty, was born into a privileged position of the royal household. Married to her brother, she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her inconceivable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of king in an elaborate coronation ceremony that set the tone for her spectacular twenty-two year reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the infant king whose mother Hatshepsut out-maneuvered for a seat on the throne. Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays with the veil of piety and sexual expression. Just as women today face obstacles from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut had to shrewdly operate the levers of a patriarchal system to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut had successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods. Scholars have long speculated as to why her images were destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her rule. Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power—and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power

The Patriot Threat (Cotton Malone #10)

by Steve Berry

I have been a fan of Steve Berry's writing for years and his Cotton Malone character is like an old friend. The premise of whether or not the 16th Amendment is illegal (wouldn't that be fun) and the history of Hyam Salomon* and and what would happen if the would have been re-payed interest.

{*Haym Salomon and the way he was treated after the war is a travesty (IHOP) (April 7, 1740 – January 6, 1785) was a Polish-born Jewish American businessman and political financial broker who immigrated to New York from Poland during the period of the American Revolution . He helped convert the French loans into ready cash by selling bills of exchange for Robert Morris , the Superintendent of Finance. In this way he aided the Continental Army and was possibly the prime financier of the American side during the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain}

This was a good read. I recommend it.

The 16th Amendment to the Constitution is why Americans pay income taxes. But what if there were problems associated with that amendment? Secrets that call into question decades of tax collecting? In fact, there is a surprising truth to this hidden possibility.Cotton Malone, once a member of an elite intelligence division within the Justice Department known as the Magellan Billet, is now retired and owns an old bookshop in Denmark. But when his former-boss, Stephanie Nelle, asks him to track a rogue North Korean who may have acquired some top secret Treasury Department files—the kind that could bring the United States to its knees—Malone is vaulted into a harrowing twenty-four hour chase that begins on the canals in Venice and ends in the remote highlands of Croatia.

With appearances by Franklin Roosevelt, Andrew Mellon, a curious painting that still hangs in the National Gallery of Art, and some eye-opening revelations from the $1 bill, this riveting, non-stop adventure is trademark Steve Berry—90% historical fact, 10% exciting speculation—a provocative thriller posing a dangerous question: What if the Federal income tax is illegal?

The Forbidden Tomb (The Hunters #2)

by Chris Kuzneski

This is another "favorite" author of mine. I actually always get these in book (rather than Kindle) format and I keep them on my shelf. As said I am only half way through this book but I can't wait for the next one.

Review from a Goodreads reader - My first taste of Chris Kuzneski’s work was last years The Hunters , I’m always on the lookout for another great thriller writer, James Rollins, Andy McDermott and co can only turn out so many books a year, after that its the cheesy end of the market, the Dan Brows etc. So finding that the Hunters was not just good, but brilliant was as much a relief as it was a revelation.

In book two “The Forbidden Tomb” we see the return of the excellent, multi-layered and utterly human characters created in book one. A complex team, compiled from each needed skill set for the first mission, and just as apt for this new mission. As such we are treated to another search for the impossible, a hunt to find something lost and no real clues to its location, in this case the Tomb of Alexander the Great. But as i have come to expect in any book of this type, all is not what it seems. Why has the tomb never been found? Why are there so few clues? Is someone protecting the history of Alexander and his Tomb? Who? What? Why? I love the stream of unknown. Read the book and find out! (i cannot give any more away)

For me i found the story breathtaking (i’m a huge fan of Alexander the great and stories about him). The plot isn’t just a balls out action thriller, it has more intelligence than that, it has the ability to keep you guessing all the way to the end. This book has so many twists and turns you just don’t want to put the book down. I think this is the first book in years that has made me physically sit bolt upright and exclaim out loud “No F….ing way!” I take my hat off to you sir, that part of the plot took real balls, i was shocked, surprised, amazed, appalled and yet transfixed by the incident with Jasmine.

This book is truly an action packed thinking man (or woman)'s thriller, with a plot that spans the centuries and is packed with more surprises than is good for the heart. Loved it, and already cannot wait for the next one. I really do promise to make time to read the Payne and Jones series, which if its even half as good, is going to be worth making the time to read.

Highly recommended

Woman in Gold

This was a wonderful movie. Anything with Helen Mirren is something that I will enjoy. I loved the story based on a true story (which is after all a movie) about the recovery of stolen art. It also is the story of a woman - Maria Altmann who sought restitution from the Austrians for for the paintings which belonged to her. Information here.

And this is just something else to get me over the hump.