Notes from a bibliophile

In Anna Karenina Tolstoy says, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Let me explain why he's wrong. This Is Where I Leave You is a really funny novel about a profoundly unhappy family. We first meet Judd as he finds out his father has died. It's really just the cherry on the cake his life has recently become: he's recently jobless, homeless, and wifeless, all after walking in on his wife having sex with his boss in his bed. Now he has to go sit shiva with his family, who he doesn't get along with. His mom is a child psychiatrist guru who mined their childhoods for fodder for her "What To Expect When You're Expecting" style parenting books. His older brother Paul resents him for ruining his college career when a Rottweiler attacked them. Paul's been running the family sporting goods store since their dad's been sick and trying to conceive with his wife. His older sister Wendy has three kids who ...

I love reading, but sometimes it's just such a hard slog. This was one of those. It shouldn't have been. It's essentially the story of Chicago at the time of the World's Fair (or the World's Columbian exposition). If you've ever read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, you have an idea of the reeking atmosphere of Chicago at the time. It seems incredulous that people would consider building a world's fair in such a place. But Chicagoans are apparently a stubborn, head-strong lot, and were intent on showing the world what they could do. And, oh my, did they ever show the world. So many things found their origin at or in relation to the World's Fair - the first Ferris wheel, Juicy Fruit gum, Shredded Wheat, Cracker Jack, Aunt Jemima, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, the first time the pledge of allegiance was said, the beginnings of the minimum wage, time and a half for holidays, the five day work week, and of course the first time Columbus Day was celebrated. They ...

First off, let me state I got this free from Audible for Christmas. I do love me some free stuff. The story begins with an enchanted mirror created by demons which basically makes good things appear bad. the demons want to show it to the angels for a laugh but they drop it on the way to heaven and it shatters into billions of teensy-tiny pieces. If they get in people's eyes, they make them see the negative side of things. If they get in people's hearts, it turns them to ice. The intro states that this is the inspiration for the movie Frozen. Maybe that heart-into-ice thing, but that's about it. It almost has more to do with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe than Frozen. Kai and Gerda are best friends. One day a piece of the aforementioned mirror gets in Kai's eye and heart. He immediately turns on his little friend and runs off to play with the older boys, who played the ancient Nordic equivalent of Marty McFly grabbing the fender of a passing car while on his s...

It's Mr. Bond take a holiday. M sends Bond to a resort in Brighton to wean him off the red meat, martinis, and 60 cigarettes a day (seriously, how does he have time to save the world from terrorists? How can he even see them through the smoke?). But trouble follows Bond, of course, because who wants to read about 007 eating yogurt and vegetable broth? This novel introduces the world to SPECTRE and Blofeld. They have stolen a plane with two nuclear bombs and are threatening to blow up cities if they aren't given (and you can't help hearing Dr. Evil) ONE MILLION DOLLARS! Bond goes to the Bahamas to investigate. It's pretty good, as long as you're willing to overlook the female stereotyping and raw machismo seeping from the pages. The interesting thing is how this novel sort of anticipates the terrorist society we live in today. When the plane is first reported missing, M and Bond speculate on how any person any where could sneak a bomb into any where in a golf bag...

This novel starts pretty boldly. Sophie is fishing with her dad, enjoying a pleasant day, when he pulls out a gun, kills his wife and tries to kill her son. You feel like you're missing something. I turned back a few pages to see if some of them got stuck together, but nope, that's it. The why of it all is the rest of the book. Sophie was working on a drug to help people who suffered from night terrors, by controlling their minds. Because no one would ever think of trying to manipulate that... Royd is a survivor of one of the bases where this drug is being used, taking soldiers, assassins, and other deadly individuals and making them brain-controlled weapons. He's out to kill the heads of the program, and he thinks Sophie is one of the people involved. She however has parted ways with the program and is out to kill the same people and destroy her research. It's a pretty good story. It's a pretty short story, too. This is my first time reading Iris Johansen. She...

First off I should state that I got this for free, although I can't remember from where. The book is subtitled Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking. Rudder examines date from various websites such as his own dating website OkCupid, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other dating websites. The theory is that we reveal our true thoughts and feelings when we feel the freedom of anonymity that the internet provides, and apparently that is true because the information he examines is quite interesting. One of the more interesting of those topics is racism. I imagine that most people if you confront them directly with the question, "Are you a racist?" would say no. The OkCupid website has a preliminary questionnaire, one of which asks something along the lines of "would you ever date someone that has made racist statements" and not surprisingly, most people say no. But the data Rudder presents shows something quite different. The interesting part is that there...