Julia Navarro

Julia Navarro wrote one gripping story in her 2016 psychological thriller Story of a Sociopath. The book is a character study of sociopath, Thomas Spencer, a fictional character. The author wrote about events in Thomas' life that took him down a wrong path, beginning when he was a boy, and then wrote a section about what he would have done if he had not been a sociopath. All of this is written from Thomas' viewpoint, first person.

In the prologue Thomas Spencer muses over his life as he mulls show more his impending death. He admits "I am scum...I was born without a conscience, or at least I never knew where to find one, but perhaps one will knock on my door tonight."

Thomas was the black sheep of the family, a wealthy family in the upper echelons of New York society. He disliked every member of his family and each of them responded by showering love on him because they did not know why he was different. He had all of the advantages that wealth can give a person including education and the need to not even work if he chose not to do so.

However, as the oldest son in the family Thomas was expected to follow in this father and grandfather's footsteps and become a lawyer in their law firm. He chose not to for two reasons. One, he despised them and wanted to hurt them and two, he floundered in school.

Thomas ended up at an unknown advertising school run by a former ad executive who had fallen from grace. This educational credential was not expected to help any graduate in the job market but Thomas made it work by moving to London. There he gave up a life of privilege and over a lifetime worked his way to the top working in media for politicians.

It has been a long time since I was interested in reading a novel. This book gripped me from the first page and kept me reading. Nasty characters are always fun to read about and Thomas Spencer delivers here. There are many dark plot twists as you would expect with a character study on a sociopath as well as with someone involved in political campaign management. Thomas accidentally stumbled into this career but I think he got lucky because this career perfectly fit his personality.

This was a great read. show less

Esta es la historia de Thomas Spencer, un tipo que se encuentra en el final de su vida o lo que podría considerarse como tal, después de un problema severo del corazón, en la soledad de su gran apartamento, Thomas nos cuenta la historia de su vida.

No voy a entrar mucho en detalle, porque considero que es un libro que se tiene que leer, lo que si puedo decirles es que no es nada parecido a lo que la autora nos tenía acostumbrados.

Es un libro, que me dejo con un sabor de boca amargo, muy show more amargo, me deprimió, porque es indudable que existen personas como Thomas en todas partes y eso, se los digo yo, no habla muy bien de la raza humana.

Por supuesto que recomiendo el libro, pero, para ser honesta, no es algo que volvería a leer, tal vez, no estaba en el mejor humor cuando lo hice y por eso de primera instancia me dio por no recomendarlo, pero tengo que ser objetiva, el libro es bueno, esta muy bien escrito y eso no tiene nada que ver con el tema, que también es un tema bueno, fui yo, la que no estaba en el momento de leer algo así. show less

11-2024
Como todas las historias de Julia Navarro, atrapan y te llegan al corazón.
Dos familias unidas por un niño, viviendo en diferentes países situaciones similares de ideologías opuestas.
La falta de libertad es la esencia de la historia, sobre todo en la URSS. La vida en los Gulag era especialmente dura. Mucho se ha hablado de los campos de concentración nazis y muy poco de los de Stalin.
En ambos países la libertad de pensamiento, de ideas, del arte... Estaba totalmente controlado show more por el Estado y el disidente era castigado como si fuera el peor criminal.
Todo ello queda reflejado en la vida de las dos familias de Pablo. show less

The Bible of Clay is a riveting novel about the search for clay tablets in Iraq just 2 months before the U. S. invasion. The tablets are expected to prove that the Genesis story of creation was dictated by Abraham to a scribe 1,000 years before the papyrus version that scientists know today.

Archeologist Clara Tannenberg announced at an archeology seminar that her grandfather, Alfred Tannenberg, had found two cuneiform clay tablets that suggest that the biblical Abraham's story of the show more creation of the earth was dictated to a scribe named Shamas while he was living in Ur. She asks for funds to do an excavation in Iraq where she suspects that the tablets will be found. She is ridiculed by the other attendees but is still able to find financing. Her husband, Ahmed Husseini, is the head of the Bureau for Archeological Excavation in Iraq and is highly respected. Both he and his father-in-law, a former SS officer in Nazi Germany, are friends of Saddam Hussein and can easily obtain approval from Saddam for just about anything. However, 3 of Alfred's childhood friends and fellow Nazis, try to stop him from finding the tablets and claiming them for himself and his grand-daughter. There are also Holocaust survivors who have never forgotten his face or his name who have been trying to locate him for decades in order to bring him to justice.

The story flows back and forth between biblical times, Germany in WWII and the present time. There is plenty of action so the pace is fast. I think that the story could have been told with 100 fewer pages. It got bogged down in the latter part of the middle but I was still riveted from page 1. show less