Several years ago I was at a conference where Neil deGrasse Tyson presented. I was very impressed with his grasp of the all this science stuff and the way he was able to speak at a high level and not lose all these non-experts in the crowd. The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet is his story of how Pluto lost its title of Planet. He, as you may know, was very involved in that development. The book is well written but goes a little long in some chapters. This book could have been pared down a bit to make it read a bit faster. This could have been a long article in a science publication. That would have been a better fit then trying to stretch it out with a bunch of filler. At 176 pages, it would have been fine with 100 or so.
In 1947 the Salinas Valley native, John Steinbeck wrote The Pearl. This short (97 page) story is written in a time far ago in a little village. Some young people file a very fine pearl and it changes their lives. On the whole, I found the prose wonderfully written. That is after all that I have come to expect from this epic writer. Reviewing this is hard since I like the writing but the story was so sad, it would not be a book that I would want to read again. Since I had recently read The Red Pony which had some sad stories in it too, maybe that is a good comparison. I think I liked the Red Pony overall better. Maybe because it was longer, maybe because it wasn’t as sad. Either way, this book is worth a read if you haven’t read it before. But “mentally prepare” yourself.
I read The Red Pony by John Steinbeck as part of a summer reading program. It was a great quick read. Always a good story to be had with Steinbeck. And this one has four! I’m looking forward to find out what happens to Jody when he grows up and if he and Black Demon are as good buddies and he thought.
Steinbeck has long been one of my favorite writers. In my opinion you can not go wrong choosing to read one of his books.
The Fall of the House Usher by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story, 36 pages, that even though I have not read the Tell Tale Heart I have to believe is super similar. The story starts when the main character is invited to cheer up a childhood friend. The main character visits the house Usher and a verbose amount of description starts about the house and how spooky and depressing it is. Turns out his friend is all bummed because his sister is wasting away.
The sister dies after a long illness that the doctors can’t figure out. They bury her under the main characters bedroom. Weird right? Of course she isn’t dead and comes after her brother. She falls on him and I guess both are dead the main character who is telling us the story runs from the house scared out of his wits.
This story for me demonstrated how a whole great story can be told in only 36 pages. Writing short stories can be hard, but Poe nails this one!
Michael Wolraich moves you ten detailed and fascinating chapters, through the progressive politics of Theodore Roosevelt’s era. In the story you will get to know the players like “Fighting Bob” La Follette and Teddy himself as well as a larger cast of personalities. This well researched history takes you through a time in American politics that has been largely forgotten.
I found the book riveting and the story fun and education as my understanding of this period and the players was limited.
If you are interested in this topic I encourage you to browse through the discussion forms at History Book Club and read all the great information that club moderators put together as well as many comments from the author himself!
the “can’t-throw-it-away” type, the “can’t-put-it-back” type, and the “first-two-combined” type.
When I gave this to my wife on mother’s day my mother-in-law was also over at our home celebrating. When my wife opened the gift she rolled her eyes, but my mother-in-law shrieked. She said she had had this book on hold at the library for months, waiting to read it.
Since my mother-in-law has such a reaction we made sure she had a copy. As she read it (she reads faster than my wife) we discussed it and the book interested me. It’s a short read. While 224 pages long the text is large. So, I decided to read it as well. So, now we have three copies in the family.
As I read the book though, I found it read surprisingly fast and smooth. I also found lots of tid-bits to use. Kondo states, that you should clean house in a particular order:
The best sequence is this” clothes first, then books, papers, komono (miscellany), and lastly mementos
I agree with this list as the easiest things to drop are listed first. However, books would come after papers and komono for me.
As this all these self-help type books there are things you will take away from them and others that you will prefer to leave.
Star Wars: Chewbacca is one of the most recent comic book complications in the new Star Wars Cannon. I had to wait a long time for this one to come in from our library.
The story starts with Chewbacca stranded on a strange planet after crash landing. Soon trouble finds him in the form of a tween girl. She needs his help and lovable caring Chewbacca is there for her after his usual complaints that no one can understand.
The story follows the battle against the bad local bad guys and eventually Chewbacca and his new little pal have to part ways. Chewbacca proceeds to his original destination Kashyyyk, his home planet, where he is able to finally deliver a box. We are never told what is the box, but I got the feeling it was the remains of a fallen comrade.
Yes, I got one. I pre-ordered Kindle Oasis with a brown cover on the first day possible and just received mine, two days after the official launch. Since there was a delay you could infer that the demand was pretty high for this gadget. As of now, they are out of stock on most configurations. Most reviews I read said wait this time and don’t get it, since it wasn’t a substantial upgrade from the Voyage.
I have to disagree. The fact that the Kindle Oasis finally has a bezel big enough to hold the kindle single-handed without accidentally turning the pages, is a huge benefit. Also, increasing the number of internal lights is very nice. The additional battery life is nice, but the Voyage lasted long enough for me already.
Kindle Comparison Chart
A lot of reviewers were also comparing the Oasis to the Paperwhite model. This is a mistake. You should compare it to the Voyage. I did and it is dramatically lighter and thinner, at least on the non-battery sides of the Oasis. Oasis, as you can see in the above chart is 4.6 ounces. The Voyage is 6.3 ounces. A difference of 37%!
I quickly figured out how to change the name of the kindle and discovered that it was not trying to automatically download books, it was just populating what books I had bought, but not downloading them.
I ended up pushing most of the books that I had bought to the Kindle Oasis. It now has around 150 books on it and I can’t wait to start reading them. I’ll do another update when I have had some time to read with it and see if I really do like it better than the Voyage. I already like how the cover comes off easier and the look of the cover. Although, it seems to scratch easily.
I read with it for a bit tonight and I did switch from hand to hand often. It is a nice feature that you can switch from hand to hand and the screen automatically rotates. The page turns are fast. It is very light in your hands and easily held with one hand, unlike the Voyage.
I think this is a good upgrade from the Voyage. Maybe those reviewers that thought it wasn’t didn’t read on their Kindle every day. Maybe only real serious readers can see the advantages that this new Kindle Oasis can offer.
In the interest in full disclosure I received Alive by Scott Sigler book and a copy of Alight, the second book in the series, as part of a giveaway. My opinions are my own. Now that that is out of the way. Go read this book! NOW! You don’t need to read the rest of this review.
Still here? What! Why? Go read the damn book! Ok fine, so you don’t believe me huh? I read quiet a bit and there are very, very few books that I think everyone should be screaming READ THIS NOW! This is one of those books. It makes me angry that no one told me to read this. What is wrong with you people? This book is that good!
This book losses a lot of what it is if I or anyone else tells you pretty much anything. I loved the constant surprises in this book. Everyone throws around the page-turner word a lot, I probably use it too much as well. This book really is a page turner. It usually takes me much longer to read a 345 page book. This week I also went back to work, so I’ve hard hardly any time to read. Every single free moment I was reading this book. I HAD to find out what happened next.
I totally bought into the very likable characters right away. The environment the story takes place is unique. I can’t say much more but you feel yourself paying very close attention to the descriptions of things as you try to figure out what is going on.
Very basic introduction to the book. Female young lady wakes up in total darkness trapped in some kind of box. That is in the description of on goodreads and amazon, so I don’t feel I’ve given away anything. Just go read this. It is amazing. Scott Sigler hit a home run! I can’t wait to read Alight! But I’m going to take a break from this story line, so that I don’t have to wait so long for the third book Alone coming out on October 25, 2016.
Squeezed by Alissa Hamilton is a great kind of non-fiction, but you have to be ready for it. Coming off some very thrilling YA novels, I found it difficult to slow down and really process Hamilton’s points. I did find myself getting lost in all the information, but I enjoyed that feeling and I like researching again as well. I enjoy learning things like 96% of all oranges grown in Florida are processed into juice. There was a lot to take in from this book. I’m going to lay out the essentials here so you can skip the rest of the review if you want. But before I do, did I like this book? Yes, it gets 4 our of 5 stars. Having said that this book is not for the faint of heart. It can be dry for those not interested in the particular topic. I’ve always been fine with dry books as I’m interested in everything. Consider yourself fairly warned.
If you buy orange juice at the store and it has a best buy date of more than a few days, it is heavily processed.
By heavily processed I mean, pasteurized.
By pasteurized, I mean boiled and they suck all the air out.
When they boil it it loses its nutrients, when they suck the air out the flavor goes to.
What is left (orange colored sugar water) is stored in tanks for around a year before it is processed some more.
When they take it out of the tanks the add fresh orange juice (just a little) to try to add back that orange flavor and smell that they removed. Most processors also add flavor pack, which are mostly water that has been perfumed with synthetic human engineered smell to add back the orange smell that was removed.
Most know that Tropicana Pure Premium is not from concentrate. Few know what it is. p.147
I knew going into this book about the pasteurization, and I remember hearing about flavor packs, but I didn’t really know what that was. Hamilton made that clear in her book. But mostly, her book was about policy. Policy and politics from 1961 forward. This policy and politics dictated why we have the orange juice that we have today. The FDA decided that since flavor packs are made from oranges (not the case anymore) that it didn’t need to be put on the label. So, if you see anything at all about flavor packs, it might say natural flavors on the label, but this is not always the case. A lot of processors wiggle their way out of putting anything like that on the label or in the nutrition facts section.
Many consumers would be shocked and disappointed to learn that most processed orange juice, a product still widely perceived to be the definition of purity, would be undrinkable without an ingredient referred to within the industry as “the flavor pack”. p. 159
…you taste the bulk concentrate that hasn’t has the essence added back it just tastes like sugar. p.161
Here is another quote from the book that goes over the lifecycle of making pasteurized orange juice:
…pasteurized, deoiled, put into an aseptic tank farm, and the brought out, blended, add-back [added] and put into the package. p.156
Another disturbing thought is that some of the oranges could have been bacd, but how is the consumer to realize this when it is boiled (for added shelf life, not consumer safety) and removed of all taste and smell. The flavor pack that is added could very well cover any lingering bad smell caused bad oranges that made it through any quality assurance testing. It can have “a protective or masking role.”
Watch the advertisement below carefully, Anita Bryant never says directly that the oranges are from Florida in this add but that the orange juice is. The orange juice from Brazil is processed in Florida, but it is not Florida oranges.
Another eye opener is that fact that most of our orange juice is coming from Brazil now, which doesn’t have the same FDA or governing bodies that we do have here. Why Brazil? Does it taste better? Nope, it is only because it is cheaper, most agree that it is inferior do the oranges grown in Florida.
Below is a short interview that the author, Alissa Hamilton gave to a local news outlet.
The book was very enlightening, I discussed that fact that back in the 60’s the average homemaker was believed to be incapable of processing too much information, like what pasteurization meant.
And I love this quote:
Brennan had evidence that processed orange juice has so dulled consumers’ senses that they were becoming attuned to the taste of less-flavorful juice. He questioned whether North Americans desired, or would even find palatable, fresh squeezed. p.99
Great tidbits that I learned from reading this:
Orange derives from the French or which means gold
Florida’s prolific Sunshine Tree was not planted until 1560
Southern China was the first to grow the sweet orange commercially
By the 1960’s 75% of purchased food had undergone some form of processing
The FDA estimates that over 3,000 food additives are in use
Just two more things I want to share about this book. Did you know Bing Crosby made millions selling the stuff in these commercials? And before that on radio?
And lastly I leave you with this quote:
It is difficult to find an orange juice consumer who is not bothered by the fact that a product that is made out to be fresh sits in storage, sometimes for upward of a year, and is made palatable only by the addition of a flavor pack.
