Cloud Atlas

An interesting book by David Mitchell called Cloud Atlas, and yes it just became a movie as well.  If you like linear works, you may not want to put this on your book list!  It was a good book to read intermittently on my way back from Abu Dhabi as it had six stories contained in the book with some rather very loose connection with some of the others.  I actually really enjoyed the First Luisa Rey Mystery and The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, the other four had diminishing interest on my part.  The book starts with a story of Adam Ewing set in the South Pacific in 1850 and ends in the sixth story with a post-apocalyptic society set in Hawaii!  The connection of the stories is the main character from the next story!  And then the stories have a second part positioned in reverse order from the beginning.  So what begins comes to be presented at the end, hmm...  Rather than try and explain the major storylines, which I will spare you from, I will focus on my two favorites (listed above).  The First Luisa Rey Mystery is a tale of the lead character (by the same name) who serves as an undercover reporter attempting to report on the unsafe conditions of a nuclear power plant, but is in harm’s way as she gains evidence to reveal through her newspaper.  A hired assassin is following her and tries to kill her by running her off the road over a cliff, but Luisa makes a daring underwater escape and in part two is able to present the data to prove the corrupt men were breaking the law, but a price is paid in the end for Luisa!  In the more comic story within Cloud Atlas, the Ghastly Ordeal for Timothy Cavendish who works as a publisher and tries to escape from gangster clients and gets booked into a hotel by his brother to escape, and then he finds out there is no escape, he is in a nursing home and no way to escape!  In part two he and a clan of elderly “inmates” escape and inspired to write a screenplay of his life after he finishes reading the Luisa Rey story – and that is how these two are connected!  Fun concept, some of the stories were just not that interesting to me.  Great concept though.  Must pay attention to the connections, you snooze on this one, you really lose.