A Minister in a Box  by Aaron Ben-Shahar

This is an exciting adventure story that goes back and forth mostly between Jeronti, a small African nation, England and Israel. There are secret agents, some who had been very high up in the Mossad, as well a head Mafia guy, There is even an anesthesiologist who will keep the man in the box sedated as he is kidnapped in a most daring caper. At times I had difficulty keeping track of the characters, as their names were unfamiliar ones. But that did not stop this from being a page turner. (Yes, I actually read this in soft covered book.) Although this is touted as pure fiction, I could not help but wonder if some of the events may really have happened since the author has a history of having served in highly sensitive positions in Israel’s General Security Services.

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Time and Again by Jack Finney

As many readers know, this 1970 novel is about time travel, a subject that comes up from “time to time” in science fiction stories. In this case, the current book by Mr. Finney is a classic book in this genre.

The method of inducing time travel in the story is by “self-hypnosis” done by a unique individual who is familiar with the circumstances in the setting to which he is to travel and would be in a location which existed in the past as well as in the current time. It also is required that the time traveler has the ability to do self-hypnosis. Since I know a little about hypnosis, I found this method did not feel acceptable to me to induce “time travel” and therefore, I found it difficult to suspend my reality testing and imagine the method that was being used to achieve this goal. Whereas, another well-known book titled, 11/23/63 by Stephen King used a time travel method known as “rabbit hole” where the traveler steps through an opening such as one in the story that was in a pantry and then comes out in a particular time period and when he returns, he uses the same method to return to the time from which he departed. This method seemed more feasible to me. Go figure, I can’t really justify this critique.

Aside from the method of travel, the key problem in time travel is whether the time traveler will influence or effect or change events in the future (or in the time in which the traveler originated). This, of course, is a fascinating concept and is, in fact, a key element around which the story is built. Well, I don’t really accept the possibility of time travel at all. This aspect of theoretical time travel reminds me how everything we do influences the future. For example, if I had not accepted a blind date many years ago, my children and grandchildren would not exist as I know them today and my life would be quite different. Therefore, in some way, we all have influenced other people’s lives and maybe the course of history by every element in which we appear and interact with others. I find this interesting food for thought, but otherwise, this book was a fairly good adventure story with a few moments of literary tension.

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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

This book introduces the reader to the story of Koreans who migrated from Japan shortly before the outbreak of World War II. It also traces the occupation of Korea by the Japanese prior to this time and follows a family who lived in Japan for four generations. This book tells the story of discrimination against the Koreans by the Japanese. Through the depiction of various characters, the reader learns about family values, the role of women, religious beliefs and the impact of culture on the lives of this multi-generational Korean family.

The book takes the reader on an interesting journey which not only studies all aspects of the personalities and values of the characters, but also paints a very vivid picture of the bustling street markets in Korea as well as the life in the universities in Japan. There is also a very interesting and revealing story about “Pachinko”, a gambling parlor game that is common and also the connection to the criminal underworld of the people who run these games.

This is a good read which pulls back the curtain and reveals the lives of people who we may not have had the opportunity to meet and understand.

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