Rick-Founder JM CM BOOK CLUB ’s Comments (group member since Oct 06, 2009)

Rick-Founder JM CM BOOK CLUB ’s comments from the THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB group.

As usual I am reading three books at the same time which during this period in my life is extremely important as I deal with a terrible family illness and books have always been my refuge anyway I always read a nonfiction ...a classic ...and a current thriller and they are . .

KOMET wrote: "Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man by Edward Wilson




"PORTRAIT OF THE SPY AS A YOUNG MAN" represents a rou..."

New Author for me and I thank you very very much for pointing him out and I will definitely be adding him to my reading list

Barbara wrote: "Niceville by Carsten Stroud

Abductions, bank robbery, ghosts....strange things are happening in Niceville. Investigators have their w..."

I have been reading his novels for decades. My favorite is

Brinn wrote: "The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester...great book...very dense naval conversations and situations...and brilliantly portrays life at sea as well as the danger of being at sea during a war... superbly..."

One of the truly great writers and great researchers which is always important with a Novelist

I truly want to welcome all our new members and thank everyone for being a part of this most wonderful community

Thank you so much Barbara like everyone it’s been a difficult year and I’ve had some personal family issues to deal with which has been an enormous strain on me but books and reading have been my pillar!!

just want to thank everybody for their participation in this most wonderful forum for book lovers and movie lovers... I never dreamed that 11 years ago when I started this club that it would grow so very much ...I began this group as a tribute to my favorite actor James Mason and my love of books and literature. October is our birthday month and I felt it Incumbent on me to thank each and everyone of you for your wonderful wonderful support over these past 11 years... and as we go on we only grow stronger!!!!
Much Love
Rick

Rex and Daphne

I just want to thank everybody for their participation in this most wonderful forum for book lovers and movie lovers... I never dreamed that 11 years ago when I started this club that it would grow so very much ...I began this group as a tribute to my favorite actor James Mason and my love of books and literature. October is our birthday month and I felt it Incumbent on me to thank each and everyone of you for your wonderful wonderful support over these past 11 years... and as we go on we only grow stronger!!!!
Much Love
Rick

I wish THANK YOU for joining our wonderful James Mason community Book Club...the most magnificent place for book lovers as well as classic film aficionados and a group I founded in 2009..... I would be so so so honored to have you join us!!!!! My very best to you Rick Friedman

Sadly the gentleman who created this prize just passed away and I think a post about him would be most appropriate

Currently I am watching the new episodes of Fargo which are amazing and I highly recommend them to everyone

I want to welcome all of our new members and since 2009 when I founded this group I recognize and honor each and every new member and thank you Rick Friedman

Just amazing that the group I myself founded in 2009 is going amazingly strong!!!! the books I’m reading now are Othello by Shakespeare and Les Miserables

I am now reading a wonderful biography on James Boswell

I saw the new release Mary Poppins returns and it was nothing like the original I simply can’t never recommend it

Just finished THE GODS OF WINTER. MAGNIFICENT


Often, when one sits down to read a book, there are many questions that go through a readers mind. The primary questions being, will the book live up to expectations and will the author be able to create characters and plot lines coherent enough to formulate an entire novel that has a proper beginning, middle and end with each part supporting and seamlessly blending into the next.

Gerald G. Griffin, the author of several wonderful novels including the brilliant OF GOOD AND EVIL already has a proven track record of superb prose and excellent writing skills and considering his previous novels, has set a very high bar for himself with THE GODS OF WINTER. his newest release. Having been mightily impressed with OF GOOD AND EVIL and even naming it one of my “Books of the Year”, I had much trepidation as I began reading his newest novel. I am happy to report that Mr. Griffin has not only equaled his previous brilliance but somehow managed to exceed it with THE GODS OF WINTER.

“If it is true, that in order for a tale to become the stuff of legends, it’s writer must be in good stead with God, then that leaves my story out of the running, for it is a fact that early in life I got off to a bad start with God by irritating him”

So begins one of the most unique and memorable introductions to a character that this reader can remember and this is exactly how the book opens with the above humorous yet foreboding quote from the lead character Bob Daniels.

A major distinction with this novel as opposed to so many others is that Griffin truly immerses the reader in the life of his lead character, we get to know Bob Daniels from his childhood through his high school and college years, both undergraduate and graduate, onto his professional life as a successful psychologist.

This is a sign of a truly accomplished writer who realizes that in order for any plot or future conflict to work the reader must be fully invested in the lead character and that most definitely happens in this case as Daniels is fully fleshed out as both a rather braggadocio yet strangely susceptible person. A shotgun wedding and a tragedy that ensues will also show a very vulnerable side to Daniels, one that will haunt him throughout the novel.

Much credit must be given to Griffin for making this character an all encompassing and fully realized person. In the hands of a lesser author the lead character could easily have devolved into parody, stunting the emotional impact of the entire novel, yet thankfully just the opposite is true in this unforgettable book

His experiences at college, especially with so-called members of “The Fraternity” give a strange sense of foreboding that harkens back to other secret societies that seem wonderful at first yet the reader is wondering at the same time whether everything is as it appears. Daniels seems like the golden boy throughout his college career but through the magnificent efforts of Griffin’s perceptive pen we are left to ponder whether or not all that glitters is truly gold.

Special note must be given to the relationship between Bob Daniels and his father, for it is the linchpin in the overall narrative as well as providing the title of the novel. Without giving too much away, his father was a Marine who had some sort of horrific experience while on a mission and believes that his sins and a curse placed upon him will be visited upon his son, it is this family nugget that provides the nuanced tension that permeates even the most lighthearted scenes throughout the novel and makes the book so very addicting.

The novel deftly changes its tone once Daniels leaves behind his storied college career and moves to Atlanta where he becomes quite a successful psychologist and struggles to overcome his reluctance to commit to anything more than brief interludes with the opposite sex. The reason for this, I will not give away, but it is a key plot element.

What Griffin continues to successfully achieve is creating a virtual quicksand into which the reader and Bob Daniels are both drawn deeper into the morass of what appears on the outside to be both a very successful and happy existence yet undertones of evil lurk. A trip to a mental hospital for the criminally insane is nothing short of breathtaking.

The third act of this novel brings the reader into one of the most heart wrenching tales of love and what happens when one’s heart fully opens up for the first time only to encounter life’s trials and tribulations. Again not wanting to give away any spoilers, it is impossible for the reader not to be completely overwhelmed with emotion during this final third of the book as we have gotten to know Daniels so very well and his joy is our joy and his pain is our pain.

In a real sense this novel can be looked at as three seasons... Spring, Summer and Winter. In Spring we see Bob Daniels in his childhood and youth, with all the hopes and dreams, adventures and misadventures, along with that feeling of immortality. Summer then brings the fruition of all those dreams, success, unrivaled acclaim at school and breathtaking financial and professional recognition in his chosen professional field. The sun is truly shining twenty four-seven on everything Bob does. Finally we come to Winter..when the piper must be paid, the bone chilling winds, the gray skies. Such is in this book and such is life.

One over arching theme in this masterful novel is the susceptibility of all of us to madness and whether or not it is brought on by life’s events or by per chance... “The sins of the father”. As we watch the Poe-Like descent into madness of a character our hearts are truly shattered no less then if that character was a close friend or relative in real life, so brilliant and cogent is the writing of Mr. Griffin.

The journey we began in earnest with a young man telling us about his misadventures impersonating a pastor in the hope of gaining financial rewards, only to be told by God that what he was doing was wrong has come full circle. That little boy has grown up and through extraordinary prose and plotting only the reader realizes that the adult Bob Daniels has remained very much like the young Bob Daniels regardless of professional and financial success.

Be it a curse or inherited madness, Mr. Griffin’s use of a narrator the reader has come to love and respect and yet to later stunningly and shockingly discover basic truths about, much like an Agatha Christie novel, evident throughout yet easily overlooked, is nothing short of genius. Much like Bob, we come to question everything that we believed before, ironically though, mainly about the man we had come to trust, to even bond with, as he was telling us his story.

THE GODS OF WINTER is quite simply a must read.. a book that will remain with you long after you have finished it and one of those books you will find yourself recommending to friends and relatives. It is far more of an experience than a novel, an experience once completed, never forgotten.

RICK FRIEDMAN
FOUNDER.
THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB
EST. 2009. Over 8000 Members
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