Yes, I’m a fan of Rick Riordan. Yes, I love YA novels and The Son of Neptune is no different. They are entertaining and I like to read them. Reading my short Goodreads review of this book reminds me of how much I love these novels. Lots of times I will listen to them on audio. They are fantastic and I love to be reminded of how much I enjoy them and that I need to get back to reading the series again. I believe this is as far as I am in this series. One book a year from the series is I guess what I average.
The last four chapters of this book are riveting and some truly great action-adventure writing. I still don’t know if this series is as strong as the first, but it is very good reading!
I hardly remember The Grownup by Gillian Flynn. It was a very short book, 64 pages. Amazon sells it as a Kindle Single. That’s not to say that it is not a good book. Some of the best books I’ve ever read are very short. This is a very good book and I can guarantee you will be riveted to it for the duration.
The short spoiler-free synopsis is a con artist meets her match and you get to know that character and the others in just 64 pages. Some authors have a whole book and still can’t get that done. For $2.99 as a Kindle Single, you really can’t go wrong with this. It made me want to further explore this author’s longer works. I received this book for free as part of my regular Book of the Month monthly delivery.
I really need to keep up this blog better. I hope to have more time to write this holiday break. I hope you and your family are having a wonderful holiday, however, you celebrate it (or don’t).
What can I say about this book? I picked up Wine Folly on a visit to my local library. They had it out on a random table display with other wine books. This one looked pretty good, so I grabbed it on an impulse borrow. I am glad I did. This is a kind of coffee table book or reference book at most. There is no story or narrative. There are a bunch of beautiful graphs and visualizations in this book. It goes over what the tastes for different wines are. It doesn’t compare them per se, but it does a good job getting a novice aquatinted with wines and the way they taste for all the different ones. It covers the most popular ones but doesn’t have everything. This would be best suited for those that are just starting out with wine and not something for someone who already knows a lot.
I’ve started to use this app called serial reader to help me tackle the very large War and Peace. So far it is helping a lot. It has broken up the tome into 235 segments. Each segment is about 10 to 15 minutes in reading time. If I can stick with it, I will be done with the book in less than a year at this rate. I’m currently around 62 segments read. That means that I am about 27% complete with the tome.
This new way of attacking the book seems to be working for me and I’m looking forward to checking it off my list and moving onto the next large tome.
Tales from the Haunted Mansion Vol. 1: The Fearsome Foursome
These are definitely for kids, but having said that, it was still a fun read! Not so subtle hints and phrases that people who frequent haunted mansion will recognize within Tales from the Haunted Mansion: Vol. 1. If you or your tween is a Disney fan you will most likely enjoy these stories that follow a group of friends on a “scary” journey into the haunted mansion that you and I both know and love. I enjoyed the artwork in the book but mostly found it unnecessary as it didn’t add anything to the story.
Volume 2: Midnight at Madame Leota’s is already available. Given that the first book was really just a children’s novel and didn’t really scare or move me with its story, I don’t think I will be picking up the second volume, but if you have kids that like scary stories, I think they will enjoy this as well.
Star Wars: Darth Vader Vol. 2: Shadows and Secrets
As I catch up on my reviews, I find myself struggling to remember some books. There is one, however, stands out for the secondary character. I liked this new Aphra character. The storyline in Shadows and Secrets was really good, it wasn’t just great art, it had a very interesting storyline that kept me engaged the whole time. This Star Wars series is definitely worth your time. I believe this new character is even getting her own comic books now. I can’t wait to read more of these.
Writing this post now reminds me of how much I misreading these Star Wars comics. I wish there was one site that had all these in an order that was easy to understand and read. If anyone knows of any please let me know in the comments.
Follow Roosevelt on the adventure of a lifetime. At times this was slow, but it was written as a biography and a travel novel. There is a lot of detail here. You can tell the author did their homework, but at times the details did come at the expense of the readability of The River of Doubt. I did enjoy this book and for those history buffs who are into the presidents, I would recommend it.
The journey itself is interesting even if it was not a former president. It’s had to believe this was written in 2005. It felt like a much older book, but maybe that’s because the actual trip took place, just after 1912, so much before when it was written. Even with all its detail I did give it 4 out of 5 stars. This one was an audiobook and that’s probably why I read it so fast even though it had all that detail.
I”m sure I read Raspberry Pi Cookbook right after or during my RetroPi build. I had a great time building that. The girls still ask to play it and I like to play it when I have time too. This was a very thorough book and covered things more professionally than the other Raspberry Pi books that I picked up from the library.
This got 4 our of 5 stars from me mostly because of again of the professionalism of the writing and how polished the book is compared to those other books that look very much slapped together. Since building that first project I’ve also created a digital frame, that tells me what time it is and the weather, etc. It’s a nice build to have above my other monitors.
I also plan on building another one with a camera in it. I hope to have that one built early next year if Santa is good to me! This is a good book to have while you are building your first Raspberry Pi project. Not sure if you need to buy it though, I think this is more of a rent, as I doubt you will need it again.
Full disclosure: I met Andy Walker and Sean Carruthers a long time ago at one the first podcast conventions. It was an absolute pleasure. They even treated me to lunch. Andy sent me a copy of this book himself. Having said all that my review of this book is my own.
Who should read this book? As the authors themselves say “…there’s a good chance you’re interested in ways to use science to make life better for yourself and your offspring…”
The authors of Super You are Andy Walker, known technology journalist, tv and radio personality, and podcaster. You may know him from Call for Help, a tech television show he starred on with Leo Laporte. Andy writes this book with co-authors Kay Walker, his wife and Sean Carruthers, a long-time friend, and partner in many of his endeavors.
I enjoyed watching their many videos on youtube and listening to their podcast. Even watching their tv shows back when ZDTV or TechTV was still a channel. Speaking about podcasts, check out this interview about the book from Triangulation one of Leo’s many podcasts.
Back to the book. The chapters are mostly about how you can improve yourself through technology for the first portion of the book. Altering the genes of your baby before it is born to make sure you have a boy with blue eyes. The book moves on to discuss beauty hacks like plastic surgery and a few people who are injecting themselves with RFID chips.
Most interesting to me was the bit about living longer through technology and how that is about 30 years away. What happens in 30ish years? By then, the authors say, we should have access to the technology to extend our lives by double what people are living now. It shouldn’t be a stretch to live past 100 if you are younger than the baby-boomer generation.
That’s all great, but will it really happen? And what do we do to ensure that we make it that last 30-year stretch? The book speaks to both of these questions. I suggest you read it, with a glass of red wine, you’ll see why after you read the book! Enjoy!
The Lost Hero is the first book in a series from Rick Riordan. It is a spin-off series from the original Percy Jackson and The Olympian series. There are 5 books in the series. This book reads very much like the books in the Percy Jackson series and for me, this is a very good thing. I liked that series a lot. A lot of action all the time and it is funny as well. This book was a great introduction to a new series. We meet all new heroes but still get to check-in with some of our favorites from the Percy Jackson series. Riordan makes some great calls in writing this new series. I’m hooked.
