Author is a retired attorney having practiced for 35 years in Illinois who now lives in Texas and started writing stories about a year and a half ago. Book Review-Tell Tale Stories by Jeffrey Archer Jeffrey Archer is a well known English best selling author of short stories and novels. His latest book is entitled Tell Tale Stories and consists of thirteen short stories and one miscellaneous chapter, 259 pages in all. I will give you a story by story summary, each story being a chapter in his book.
The first story is a hundred word story he wrote for Reader’s Digest per their request. It has an O. Henry ending. Well written in one hundred words. Enough said. Can’t let the rview become longer than the story. Story number two was about who killed the mayor, that was the title Who Killed The Mayor, and was an easy one to figure out. It takes place in Italy. It was not ‘unique’ like the title of the first story. With the third one he got me. I had no idea how it was going to end. The story led me elsewhere. It has a French title I can’t pronounce and is spelled Auvers-sur-Oise. I don’t know what it means either. Some place in France would be a safe bet I’d guess. In story number four he quotes Shakespeare to death. It is so overdone that it kills the story for me. I’m not enough of A Gentleman and Scholar, like the title, to appreciate it. The fifth story about love and war was an easy one to figure out too. Ended with a happy ending of course. After all, All’s Fair in Love and War, just like the title says. The sixth story is so so. It’s about a kind of entrepreneur in ‘The Car Park Attendant.’ Kind of not believable. No one could amass that fortune being a car park attendant even if he did kind of own the parking lot. The seventh story, A Wasted Hour, was not a wasted story. Good surprise ending here. I never would have guessed it. Story eight is The Road To Damascus. The title fits the story perfectly. Somewhat moving ending to this journey. For story number nine The Cuckold the title fits too and it has another twist ending. It is a well written mystery. Only one clue, that turns out not to be a clue, turns the tale. Story ten, A Holiday of a Lifetime, goes unfinished. There’s no ending to it. Yeah that’s right. Instead the author gives you a choice of three endings he wrote and tells you to pick your own. What a way to weenie out. Story eleven another con, Double or Quits. Good thing it quit when it did. Now story twelve The Senior Vice President was a good one. Reminded me of Elmore Leonard with all bad guys trying to out con each other. You’re pulling for our hero the senior vice president to pull it off as his plan takes the expected unexpected turns and twists. A winner of a story it is. Story thirteen, A Good Toss To Lose, was takes place during World War I and though somewhat predictable was enjoyable and somewhat sad too. Now the last chapter isn’t even a story at all. It's the first four chapters of a book of the author’s to come out in November of 2018. Yes that’s right 2018. He uses Tell Tale Stories published in the fall of 2017 to plug a book coming out a year away. Now if the book was coming out in December of this year, just in time for a great holiday gift or some other holiday plug, that would make sense, but nobody is going to remember it a year from now. What were the publishers at St. Martin's Press were thinking anyway. Definitely a poor business decision. Somebody’s head needs to roll. I never even read the four chapter come on. That’ll show ‘em. Overall the book was enjoyable. I recommend it. I like stories with quirky twisted endings and this book has its share in abundance. The only thing distracting about it was all the names and places over there in England. Like duh that mattered or something to me an American like me. His English audience though probably appreciates it. And the author, being English, does use quite a lot of uniquely English phrases throughout his stories. But nothing there’s more difficult to interpret than, ’a spot of tea old chap.’ Oh well. Cheerio and Ta Ta for now. And oh yes, keep a stiff upper lip.
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Author is a retired attorney having practiced for 35 years in Illinois who now lives in Texas and started writing stories about a year and a half ago. Did You Ever Wonder? Did you ever wonder why all those tv commercials are reduced to slogans of just three to five words? Think about it. You see them all the time on tv, McDonald’s ‘I’m lovin it,’ Arby's ‘We have the meats,’ and the classic that started it all Wendy’s memorable ‘Where’s the beef?’’ Fast food, fast commercials.
But it’s not just fast food companies that use them. Car manufacturers especially rely on them, ‘Let’s go places,’ and ‘Zoom, Zoom, Zoom,’ You can’t get any simpler than zoom, zoom, zoom, one word three times. Genius. But what is really genius today is that car commercials mix politics into their slogans like ‘Empower the Drive.’ If we can empower women, then by God we can empower drivers too. And don’t forget “Driving Matters.’ Duh where’d the heck that one come from? Out of left field? Finally did you ever notice that car slogans always attach themselves to the upcoming holiday season. So at Christmas time we get, ‘A December to Remember,’ a rhyming slogan. That’s good. Rhymes are good. For as we all know, “rhymes bind the mind from the ridiculous to the sublime.” * Which brings us up to an HNL, a Hole Nother Level, those rhyming catchy jingles like ‘Nationwide is on your side.’ A masterpiece of commercial musical composition if there ever was one. Five words, a rhyme, and a catchy tune all rolled into one nonstop song that plays over and over again on the broken record player of your mind so that you can’t stop singing or humming that stupid song all day long. Now sometimes slogans exceed the five word limit like, ‘Better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John’s.’’ Six words but three phrases. Still not a good idea. Pushing the envelope. Gets one to thinking. Better ingredients? Better ingredients than what? Last week’s, last year’s, or the other guy’s? And who in the hell is the other guy and what ingredients did he use? Too many words kills a commercial. That’s why politicians also use three word campaign slogans.They don’t want the voters to stop and think. Heaven forbid! Think of Obama’s slogans. Remember this man is a Harvard graduate and a lawyer. ‘Yes We Can,’ and ‘Hope and Change.’ The voters swallowed those sugar coated concoctions hook, line, and sinker. No wonder he’s the smartest man in America. Well the list of slogans could go on and on and by now I’m sure you the reader are stopping to see how many you can come up with. But you can bet your sweet bippy, that is if you still have one. Don’t know what a bippy is? Well look it up. That’s what the internet is for. Just remember that it’s another four word phrase. Anyway you can bet your sweet bippy that nothing will change. That’s the way it always has been and the way it always will be ‘world without end amen.’ So really there’s no reason at all to wonder about why three to five word slogans are used. It’s simple. Simple like a commercial. The answer has always been with us. That great wit of a man H. L. Mencken gave it to us many years ago when he so brilliantly proclaimed, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” And if that’s too long of a sentence for you to comprehend or understand just remember these four little words, that’s right four, four words, ‘keep it simple stupid.’ KISS if you can’t remember that. And above all else let us never forget, ‘All Slogans Matter.’ *This is not a quote from a great writer, poet, or philosopher. I made it up and because it sounds so profound I thought it deserved its own footnote. |