Caitlin_D reviewed this a couple weeks ago, and I thought it sounded interesting so I borrowed her copy. It definitely was — contains a lot of fascinating (and sometimes scary) facts about how our society is changing when it comes to learning and retaining information. Poundstone spills out a lot of information here, but most of it’s pretty entertaining. He talks about polls he’s conducted or cited for the book — what people know, and in staggering numbers, what people don’t. I had fun reading through the […]
Bad Bond Knock-off
I was so sad when Michael Crichton died. I loved his novels, even the ones that weren’t so great (ahem…Timeline) and of course, he’s responsible for two of my favorite things to ever hit the screen: ER and Twister. So I was delighted to discover that he had a writing career prior to becoming Michael Crichton, under the pen-name John Lange. Unfortunately, the first (and probably only) book I’ve read of the 8 written under the Lange name kind of…sucked. Scratch One begins with a series of assassinations across Europe as a […]
“Truth is, you save me, child. You save me as sure as the sun rises.”
I downloaded this audiobook thinking it would be fairly light material. After all, the main character is a nine year old girl. I was wrong, to say the least. “My daddy says that when you do somethin’ to distract you from your worstest fears, it’s like whistlin’ past the graveyard. You know, making a racket to keep the scaredness and the ghosts away. He says that’s how we get by sometimes. But it’s not weak, like hidin’…it’s strong. It means you’re able to go on.” Set […]
Southern Gothic
I pulled this up on Goodreads in preparation to write my review, I saw that Narfna had said (back in 09): “Four stars for talent, three stars for enjoyment.” That’s pretty much spot on. Beyond A Good Man is Hard to Find, which I liked in high school and liked 12 (gulp) years later upon rereading, most of these short stories are pretty miserable. But that doesn’t detract from how obviously talented O’Connor was, and what a shame it is that she died so very young. “She would’ve […]