woodge blog

Peter and the Starcatchers ~ Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson

Trade Paperback 480 pages  ISBN-10: 078684907X ISBN-13: 978-0786849079

Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's first foray into kid-lit borrows Peter Pan and creates this story that happened before the events of James Barrie's classic. Here, Peter and some other orphans find themselves aboard the ship Never Land along with some mysterious cargo and a girl named Molly.  In hot pursuit is the notorious pirate Black Stache.  I read this aloud over many weeks to my kids.  They were all ears and Luke (age 7) especially enjoyed it. There's a bit of humor sprinkled throughout and many thrilling adventures.  The action is fairly tame although sometimes too intense for Kajsa (age 4). This book was popular enough to spawn three sequels to date.  We'll see if there's interest in reading the next. But the next read-aloud book may be something different.

If Toni Braxton married Dan Hicks and then formed a band with a subset of Elvis Costello's band The Attractions, would it be called Toni Braxton-Hicks and the Contractions?

A Little History of the World ~ E. H. Gombrich

paperback 304 pages ISBN-10: 030014332X ISBN-13: 978-0300143324

This popular book has been around for many years in over a dozen languages but it has only recently been translated to English. (The reason why is explained in the preface.)  Mr. Gombrich originally published this book in Vienna in 1936.  It is written for a younger audience which results in a clear, engaging narrative.  There are 40 short chapters which include sections on: Ancient Greece and Egypt, the Roman Empire, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Jesus, Mohammed, the Middle Ages, the Crusades, Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Napoleon, and so forth up to World War I.  Then in the final chapter, the author talks about his experiences during World War II and his hopes for peace. It is a fascinating book, covers a lot of ground, and made many areas of history much clearer for me to understand. I highly recommend it to anyone curious about world history. 

This was a quirky tale of con-artist brothers with one of them getting too involved with a mark. Great cast: Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, etc. A decent diversion but I'm not surprised it went quickly to DVD (I don't think this got a theatrical release).

Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate #1) ~ Gail Carriger
Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages ISBN-10: 0316056634 ISBN-13: 978-0316056632

The fun, frothy tale is set in an alternate Victorian London where vampires and werewolves have been integrated into society. The Bureau of Unnatural Registry is the organization keeping tabs on them and one 25-year-old spinster, Alexia Tarabotti keeps finding herself in their company.  Alexia herself is one of the rarest of the unnaturals. She's a preternatural, i.e. one who has no soul, and thus she has a negating effect on werewolves and vampires when she comes in physical contact with them.  When Alexia accidentally kills a rogue vampire -- one that is not part of a hive -- the plot gets into motion.  Alexia herself is a wonderful character: smart, witty, forthright, self-concious about her dark skin tone, dead Italian father, and prominent nose; she is eager to have something to do. Preferably something to do with the BUR and the handsome head of the BUR the Earl of Woolsey, Lord Maccon, the land's hunky alpha werewolf.  This story was very much fun, perhaps a little short on action but long on wit and with a healthy dose of erotica.  I'm probably not the target demographic for this sort of thing, but I greatly enjoyed it and will no doubt scoop up the follow-up, Changless, when it becomes available next May.

I don't usually go for horror flicks but this one looked pretty funny so I gave it a shot. Turned out to be one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. A big part of that was one awesome cameo appearance. Another part of that is that Woody Harrelson can be so much fun to watch. And Jesse Eisenberg's narration of his rules for surviving a zombie apocalypse (begun by a bad burger) can be gruesomely hilarious. It IS a zombie movie so there IS gore. Just so you know.

Loved the first one in this series, barely remember the second one, but this one may prove the most forgettable. Seems there was less action here and a whole lot of way boring "repartee." The female part was just annoying and the villain was less than memorable. Oy. I ended up fast-forwarding through much of this.

Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 2) ~ Steven Erikson
Mass Market Paperback: 864 pages ISBN-10: 0765348799 ISBN-13: 978-0765348791

This tale continues with only four of the characters from Book 1 (Kalam, Fiddler, Crokus, and Apsalar) and a host of new characters on another continent. The four from Book 1 travel to the Seven Cities area of the vast continent west from Genabackis.  The seer Sha'ik launches a war against the Malazans.  The Empress Laseen picks the Wickan leader of the Crow Clan, Coltaine to safeguard the Malazan refugees.  Coltaine begins a long, hazardous march to the city of Aren.  There are several bloody battles, many perilous travels through strange "warrens", and some new interesting characters, notably the Imperial Historian, Duiker (attached to Coltaine's march) and the youngest daughter of House Paran, Felisin.  Her journey takes some strange turns. It's epic, strange, dark, and weird. It's also big meaty fantasy with an eye-popping conclusion.  I enjoyed it but next up is some lighter fare.

       

Click here to download:

Malazan_book_2.zip (1092 KB)

Set in a future where people interact via robot surrogates, this story features Bruce Willis as a cop investigating the death of a surrogate operator who is killed via his surrogate -- something that's not supposed to be possible.  Bruce the surrogate has a bad toupee, Bruce the operator is grizzled, bald, and goateed.  Naturally all the surrogates are hot to one degree or another and their respective operators are reclusive pajama-clad shlubs (kinda like Twitterers!).  There's a few slick action scenes that make good use of the robots and the story moves along fast enough (only a 90-minute flick after all).  It's fairly entertaining but I also found it to be a little too somber.  It could've used a good dose of humor and really, with a premise like this, there's many ways to inject humor into it.  But every single character was a sad-sack. Cheer up ferchrissake! One of the touches I appreciated was having the surrogates have a somewhat herky-jerky gait.  I like that kind of attention to detail. This would make a decent DVD rental if you're interested.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions ~ Dan Ariely
hc 304 pages ISBN-10: 006135323X ISBN-13: 978-0061353239

This was a pretty interesting book, interesting enough to finish, but maybe not so much that I read it to the exclusion of all else.  Regardless, I learned some cool things about how irrational we all are.  Things like the effect of a thing's price on our decision to buy it or determine its effectiveness... the influence of arousal on decision-making (careful there!)... overvaluing possessions... the effect of expectations... and our propensity to cheat when the option is available to us.  The author details many little experiments that he and his colleagues used to bolster his conclusions and I was amused at how many of them involved beer in some fashion.  Clearly he's a smart man.