Category Archives: Books & Book Reviews

Seeking

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Truthseeker (Worldwalker Duology #1)Truthseeker by C.E. Murphy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I actually finished reading this book some time ago, but have just now gotten around to the review.

It’s marked as a duology – so it shouldn’t be a shock that this book doesn’t have a complete ending. It reaches a good finishing point, but you have to read them both to get the whole thing.

I didn’t get to the second one. I can’t put a finger on exactly what didn’t catch me on this one. I will say it did something that I haven’t seen in other books.

– spoilers if you haven’t read it yet –

There’s a part where the main character travels by magic to fairy land. She’s supposed to be able to get right back to the time when she left. She doesn’t. I’ve read a number of alternate world stories and it’s unheard of to actually then deal with somebody not getting back to their place during the time when they should have been there. Sure, there are the ones where people are placed out of time by a hundred years or more – but this one was more like 6 months and then the main character shows up again. And has to deal with court cases and missing persons cases that are being handled by the police *about them*. It was very refreshing to see that. It was one of the things I really enjoyed about this book.

I think there’s a lot of good stuff here for fans of urban fantasy.

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Limit Your Greed

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Limit Your Greed: Put principles above money to build better businesses and a better world (and still make a profit)Limit Your Greed: Put principles above money to build better businesses and a better world by Bill Catchings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I stay away from 5 star ratings generally, but I do genuinely think this book qualifies.

I will add the disclaimer here that I know one of the co-authors BUT I went and purchased my own Kindle version of this book.

Then I went and bought a hard copy so I could hand it to a co-worker. When she’s done with it I’m going to start noting things up and seeing what sorts of practices I can pull from the book and apply to the office I work in.

In case you’ve missed it – I like this book. I don’t read a lot of business books, but if other business books were like this one I’d likely read a lot more of them. Concise, clear and well written. There’s no nonsense here. This is real world, in practice stuff.

The downside, if you can call it that, is the aim or focus of the book toward people running or starting businesses. I am not the owner of the place where I work. IF I were the owner I’d be in a much better position to push for changes like these. As it is, I am going to need to figure a way to get these ideas across to the owners of my current office.

I recommend anyone with an interest in running a business differently go and get a copy of this book. Absolutely worth it.

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Harsh Mistress

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The Moon Is a Harsh MistressThe Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a selection for a local book group. I’m glad it was picked.

I’ve read other works by the author but never this one. I had no idea what to expect, no preconceived notions with regard to the story. My “notions” were all related to the author himself.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Yes, there are a number of anachronistic things in the book. It was published more than 50 years ago – of course some of the devices and gear won’t look “new”.

The thing that struck me most was the number of ideas at play in there. Little things that amounted to “throw away” bits in the book. The main character is dealing with a computer that has become self aware. The main character then considers his interactions with the machine not just as a person to a tool, but takes into account the “feelings” of the machine, at one point mentioning that he doesn’t want it to become suicidal. This in an age that still thought the computer needed to be a room sized thing with tubes. Like I said – ideas.

There are lots of good things to chat about in here. It’s a classic that is worth picking up and checking out.

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Illumination Required

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Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1)Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. I liked the story, the world building and the characters. There was some very thoughtful stuff in there. There’s action and tension and the real sense of danger you don’t get from a lot of books without being over the top.

This book also brought up some questions that are worthy of discussion from a publishing point of view. It was an interesting choice to put the story forward as a series of found documents and compiled messages or reports. That certainly helped the speed of the book, a very quick read. What didn’t work for me was the tiny font that actually carried story information across waves or swirls or ship patterns.

To be fair about this – I was reading on an electronic device. That might make a difference. IF I had been reading a hard copy of the book, perhaps the swirls and such would have had a better feel. As it was, even when I attempted to use the e-reader’s ability to make fonts larger or zoom on pictures it was a fail. There were parts of the story I missed just because I couldn’t read it. That was very frustrating.

IF you’re going to get a copy of this book I recommend it for the story, but not so much for the layout.

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Fool Moon

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Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, #2)Fool Moon by Jim Butcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Went back and listened to this one. Much like the first (Storm Front) I was surprised at how much I didn’t remember of the details. I’d read my copy long enough ago that there was still tension when I listened despite knowing “the future” of the characters. STILL really well done.

I am really enjoying listening to the audio production. Having the book read to me is a neat way to experience the story. I did actually pick up on one teeny tiny flub in the reading – but it was so slight that I suspect most people wouldn’t catch it.

Absolutely worth going to get this version and digging back into the series!

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Carlisle Vs. Army

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Carlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest BattleCarlisle vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner, and the Forgotten Story of Football’s Greatest Battle by Lars Anderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There’s no half star available on the rating scale here – I’d really put this book around 3.5 stars.

I liked this book and the slice of history it represents. One of my favorite parts of this book is the way it ties together the other things that were happening at the time when the game in question was set to go off. Historic context is very important. It’s also fascinating to draw parallels to things that still happen today, around 100 years later.

I did struggle with the way the story flow of the book was chopped up. The author went backward and forward across the time line even in the same chapter and more than once it pushed me out of my momentum so it took longer to read than it might have otherwise.

I find this book more interesting based on the simple fact that I, and my parents and my sisters family, live very near where these things took place. When I mentioned this book or folks in this area saw the cover they generally had some knowledge already about the famous Jim Thorpe. There is a lingering sense of pride even after those same 100 years and all the related issues.

IF you happen to be near the central Pennsylvania area you will find this book of interest. Some of the places mentioned are still around. If you’re a fan of football as it is played today, it is worth digging into this story to get a sense of why the game is what it is and how we’ve landed where we are. I’ve heard other versions of Pop Warner’s story, not in connection with Jim Thorpe and it interests me to see the contrasts. A different view point is always good to have. I Recommend this book based on those particulars.

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Storm Front

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Storm Front (The Dresden Files, #1)Storm Front by Jim Butcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don’t know if I’ve reviewed Storm Front on here before or not. There are a number of books I read prior to joining the Goodreads community that I have avoided writing reviews for unless I have gone back and read them again while a member of Goodreads.

I got the first 4 books of The Dresden Files as a gift this year and I was thrilled. I love this series.

Going back and listening to the unabridged audio was a very interesting way to approach this. I knew the story, but what I hadn’t realized was all the little details that I’d forgotten over time. Some things I “knew” for sure turned out to be remembered incorrectly or worse, tainted by the television version of the story.

I recommend this series all the time. I have 2 extra “loaner” copies of the first book (I’ve ‘lost’ a handful over the years to folks that fell in love with the series). IF you’ve read the book before, listen to this production. It’s a great way to go back to the series. IF you’ve never read Storm Front before, I highly recommend it. Great series and worth the effort.

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Still Burning

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Centralia (Images of America: Pennsylvania)Centralia by Deryl B. Johnson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was a single sitting book for me. Generally I really like that as an idea, but somehow for this book it didn’t work. I had difficulty with the pictures. I understand that many of the actual photos would not be easy to see – but having them reproduced in this volume somehow managed to make them even harder to see clearly.

I think I wanted more of a timeline based series of pictures. Some of the photos are doubled up in here and they don’t always progress chronologically. The author mentions at least 3 times the play that he wrote… once would have been enough, particularly given the brevity of the written word in here.

The story of Centralia is certainly an interesting one and for that I’m glad to have taken this quick peek back in time. IF it were anything more than a quick peek I would have been very disappointed. As it is, one sitting works for me and I’m moving along.

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Goodreads Technology

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I shouldn’t be grumpy about the wonderful technological thing I’ve been able to do… but I am.

I have been posting personal reviews of books I’ve read to Goodreads since 2009. I’ve got hundreds of books up on there. I like being able to share my thoughts with friends both local and distant. I like being able to go back and look at the list of things I’ve read and be able to sort them into various categories or descriptions. Others have tried to tell me there are better systems out there, but I haven’t really felt the need to move.

Much like any other business that wants to remain relevant, Goodreads has an app. I can access my account from my phone to look things up while I am out and about. Excellent. I love having access to the data. They also have a little part of that app that allows users to scan books by the ISBN code on the cover of the book. I can basically let my phone look at a picture of a code and the book in question will come up on my phone. IF the code doesn’t work, I can just let the phone look at the cover of the book and it will likely find the book that way. Amazing.

I needed to clear up some space in the back room. I moved a recently acquired book shelf (thanks mom!) in there and needed to put a stack of books on it so that I could reclaim the various flat surfaces where they’d been living. It was a random collection of stuff. I went into Goodreads, made up new “shelves” so that when I scanned the books I could put them together as actual, physical copies that reside in the house rather than the Kindle variety.

Here’s where I get picky about this little app. Of the 40(ish) books I scanned, 5 of them didn’t work. Some were old and didn’t have the right code but a couple just failed. Not a big deal – I’ve got weird stuff in the collection (I think you’re only allowed to use eccentric if you’re rich…). The problem was the process. First, there are 3 base categories that ALL your collection falls into – want it or not – “want to read”, “currently reading” and “read”. That’s it. No matter what other virtual shelves you create your book automatically falls into one of those, you can’t change it or avoid it. I hear somebody out there saying, “well, yeah – why would you have a book if you don’t actually want to read it or have read it?”. What if it’s an additional version that’s part of a collection? Yes, it’s likely that it falls into the “read” category or why would you have it, but I found the lack of an option there to be really annoying.

I also didn’t really want those books to qualify under the “read” category for other reasons. I have specifically resisted putting all the books I read before I was a Goodreads member up on the site. It seemed disingenuous to post something without a review while claiming to have read it. As I re-read titles I go back and add them. If I’m not re-reading them, I’d like the option to qualify my listing in another way. I don’t want the 40 books I scanned today to be added to my “read” count for the year. That’s bad data. I want it to sort better than that.

Yes, in the end it’s great technology to be able to do what I have done. No, it is not perfect. Hopefully there will continue to be improvements as the site keeps moving forward. I also hope they make it possible to cross post to Amazon reviews – but that’s another post.

MHI Again!

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The Monster Hunter Files (Monster Hunters International Book 7)The Monster Hunter Files by Larry Correia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really fun collection of short stories. I particularly liked the first two stories, even if the one by Jim Butcher was released ahead of the book itself (and I read it long before I actually bought the book). There was a lot of what I would consider “classic” monster hunter stuff in here. I was really amused by the story in the Enchanted Forest. One of my favorites.

Not all the stories were in that vein however. There were a couple of stories that felt like they were forced to fit the world building of the monster hunter universe. These were stories from popular authors that have series of their own that didn’t stretch out past the characters as they’re known in the other series. Those stories were easily the weakest to me.

All in all, I was really happy with this one. IF you like the monster hunter series I suggest you go and grab this book.

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