review - Jason’s Feed

Book Review | Wheat Belly

My first audiobook of 2018. And I read/listened to this book mostly while at the gym! What a great way to get through your TBR! In Wheat Belly Dr. Davis convinces us all that wheat is not what it used to be and the new altered commercially created wheat is not good for a waistband. I enjoyed reading this book. I have been very focused on my fitness lately. I’ve gone vegetarian, since September of last year. I tried vegan, but I missed breakfast with eggs. So I compromised and I am eating egg whites.

Dr. Davis succeeded in convincing me that I need to reduce the amount of wheat that I am eating. I have eaten far too much. He argues that in fact, it can be addictive. This I very much agree with. I find myself craving a muffin, English muffin or just a slice of bread. Even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich would be very nice. Bread is “ingrained” in us! It is in every meal we have.

My family loves eggs in a basket, many people love to have a bagel or just some toast. Lunch is often a sandwich or a burger with a big fat yummy bun! Dinner always comes with a dinner roll. Its everywhere!

This book and Grain Brain have taught me about the glycemic index and many other ways that wheat negatively impacts our health. Grain Brains extends what I learned in Wheat Belly and speaks about how wheat negatively impacts our cognitive ability.

I liked Wheat Belly and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about eating healthy and being healthy. It is a great listen.

Book Review | Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the best book I have read in many years. It may be my new favorite book of all time. After reading the book I feel like Wade Watts the main character. I feel like I too have achieved what he did in the book. Like many 30 somethings, this book really spoke to me. I grew up in the 80’s. It was my decade. The characters in the book study that era to be better able to player Oasis an immersive world that they access via fancy virtual reality (VR) rigs.

This book reminded me of so many things all at once. How much I loved growing up watching TV shows like Silver Spoons and Family Ties. Playing the same video games that the characters mastered in the game: Adventure, Joust, Defender, Zaxxon, etc.

Of course, right now there is a ton of buzz about this book because it has been made into a movie. A movie with a trailer that is pretty spectacular. the movie will be released later this month (3/29/18) and the director is none other than Steven Spielberg. Who better to direct a movie about the 80s than the man who helped make the 80s with his amazing movies. The amazingly brilliant mind behind E.T. and Raiders of the Ark, both came out in the 80s.

This book also reminded me of Second Life a lot. That’s the immersive computer simulation where people can make the avatar anyway they want and you can actually make money in the game. Or Lindens, that can be traded in for real cash. Or at least that’s how it was years ago when Second Life was a big deal. I tried Second Life a long time ago, but even after reading this book I have no desire to log back into that virtual world.

Before reading this book I didn’t know anything about Ernest Cline. Now that I have read one of his books, I can’t wait to read more. “I love it when a plan comes together!” 5 Stars!!!

Book Review | Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century

In September of last year, I read Jessica Bruder’s article in Wired magazine about retired people living out of the RVs and working for Amazon fulfillment centers, MEET THE CAMPERFORCE, AMAZON’S NOMADIC RETIREE ARMY. It was a very well written article that greatly intrigued me. Later I found out that Bruder was going to be writing a book about the same subject, furthering the article into something substantial. Nomadland is the result of that work. Nomadland is Bruder’s third book and she has written for many magazines.

The book follows a few of these work campers as the work for Amazon and the park system. The pay is low, most time just above minimum wage, but it is usually just enough to get by with.

many of these wandering souls were trying to escape an economic paradox: the collision of rising rents and flat wages

Plus the RV driving retirees take care of each other, helping out where everything they can. Installing solar panels, sharing a meal, or patching up each other’s RV’s when there is damage. Even though they are retired they still work and they work hard. When working for Amazon they walk up to 15 miles a day putting Amazon products on shelves for other work campers to pick up and package for customers.

Amazon Tour by Flickr User: Maryland GovPics

Life is not a vacation for these senior citizens. Things are tough for those that lost their retirement savings when the market went bust or had to pay for huge medical bills when an unexpected illness struck. The single largest expense we all have is rent or a mortgage. If you can cut this expense by living in an RV or van or car, then the money you make goes a lot farther. Working for minimum wage really is a minimum then. Things are not good but they are doable…just.

This book was an insightful look at how those who get paid minimum wage make things work. Some of them live in RVs or cars because they had to decide if they wanted to eat or if they wanted to have four walls around them. Shelter had to take on another form for them. It works for them but there is definitely a stigma attached to living in your car. You are “house” less if no homeless. Without a real address, there are some real hassles to getting things done. Like having a drivers license even. Bruder did a wonderful job making her article for Wired grow into a very good read! I rate this book 4 stars.

Book Review | Take Risks: One Couple’s Journey to Quit Their Jobs and Hit the Open Road

Another book with a long title and if you look at the actual title as it reads on Goodreads it is really: Take Risks: One Couple’s Journey to Quit Their Jobs and Hit the Open Road (We’re the Russos Book 1), which of course tells us that Joe plans on writing a second book. Joe and Kait Russo are a couple that lived and worked in the Los Angeles area. Like many of us in this area, they worked very hard and their perspective companies expected a lot of them every day.

Living this way grew tiresome to the Russos and one day out of nowhere Kait said let’s just leave it all behind and travel. So began the Russos adventure. The non-fiction book chronicles the Russo’s life while they make their transition. In that year, they start researching their options and start shopping for an RV to live out of full-time. They put their house up for sale and have to get rid of most of their possessions.

Like many others, I watch Joe and Kait’s adventure via their YouTube channel where they post a weekly video covering their adventures. While watching their videos Joe recommended a book called Walden on Wheels. I had already heard of this book and it was on my to-read pile. Whenever someone talks about books I’m instantly interested and Joe just mentioned a book that was already on my list! So, Walden on Wheels went to the top of my to-read list. While I was reading and enjoying that book, Joe revealed to his YouTube subscribers that he had written a book and it was available on Amazon for download on a Kindle. I was sold. I immediately downloaded the book and began reading right after I had finished Walden on Wheels.

Joe doesn’t disappoint. He dived in with detail on their adventure to buy an RV and start their adventure. But just as they begin their journey, the book ends, which brings us back to the beginning of this post, there will be a second book and I will be reading it! While we wait there is always Joe and Kait’s new videos every week on YouTube. Joe’s first book earned 5 stars from me.

Book Review | The Good That Men Do

My first reaction to The Good that Men Do, is that there is very little I can say about this controversial book without it being spoiler-ridden. So with that in mind, this post will be a spoiler.

Alrightly then last chance to turn back we are going to dive into a spoiler post her. I don’t do these often so I have given you plenty of warning. On the show:

In the last episode, when Shran’s former associates track down Enterprise and board the ship, they demand that Archer take them to Shran, but the captain refuses. The aliens are about to kill Archer, so Trip, thinking fast, tells them that he will take them to Shran. When Archer protests, the aliens knock him out. Trip leads the aliens into what appears to be a harmless utility closet — he tells them it is simply a com station and he is going to get Shran to come to them. Trip tells them he just needs to connect a couple of things, but when he brings a pair of conduits together, a massive explosion erupts, taking out both Trip and the aliens. Trip is fatally wounded.

All that is from this Wikipedia entry. I just didn’t want to write all that out. So, yeah Trip is dead or at least we all assume he is. That is where The Good That Men Do is different from that last episode. It continues to tell the story. Instead of dying, Trip goes off on a top secret mission to save the galaxy from the Romulans.

Being a fan of the show I think the last episode was all wrong. And I’m not alone in that. So, while this was better than the last episode because Trip doesn’t die and I don’t remember it having Johanthan Frakes in it, in that whole strange looking back in time thing they did. I think Frakes is awesome, but the whole holodeck reliving stuff was lame.

These are the Voyages, Star Trek: Enterprise

The book moved slow, too slow. It was really long for what it was trying to do, 464 pages, maybe the author was trying to give Trip the ending he deserved and felt pressured to do that and he gets carried away with all the verboseness. The story just dragged. There was some action in it which was a breath of fresh air during a lot of internal dialogs the characters were having.

I gave this Star Trek novel 4 out of 5 stars because I liked the interactions between T’Pol and Trip mostly. I also like that the story continued to be told instead of ending. This was the 11th book in the Enterprise series and the last one that the show actually covered, so I’m very excited to see where things go next in the 12th book Kobayashi Maru.

Book Review | Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between

Yes, I am a fan of the Gilmore Girls. I watched the first show when it was on TV and then later I watched the whole thing through on Netflix just to make sure I had not missed any episodes when it was on TV.

Later I found out that Lauren Graham had written a book, not this book. A book called Someday, Someday, Maybe. I was reading a post online (I forget where) and the author was writing about the best audiobooks to listen to and how great it is when the author of the book actually does the audio part as well. After reading that article I found Someday, Someday, Maybe on audio at my local library and grabbed it.

I really enjoyed that audiobook and realized that Ms. Graham has a real talent for storytelling. Fast forward a few months and I hear the news that a new Gilmore Girls will be launching. I was disappointed to discover that it was more of a miniseries, with only 4 episodes. But at least they did something, and I enjoyed that too. It seemed to me that it was just enough to wet our appetites, but not enough to quench them. Really too bad.

But, reading Someday, Someday, Maybe and watching the new Gilmore Girls on Netflix lead me to of course want to read Ms. Graham’s new book, Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between. I thought this was going to be a biography of sorts, but it really just focused on what it was like to film the first Gilmore Girls and then when it was done how much she missed it. It could have been called the book about Gilmore Girls with a really long title.

She says she was very excited to film the new mini-series with Netflix and talks a lot about that project as well. But again, I was kinda hoping it was going to read more like a biography where we get to learn a little more about Ms. Graham. Although, it wasn’t like that we still get her witty attitude and funny jokes. It was a very enjoyable read and as a fan of the show a win for this reader. I felt this book earned 4 out of 5 stars. Dinged one only because I wanted it to be more biography.

Book Review | Breakfast at Tiffany’s

I’m glad to have read Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s because I must admit after watching the movie a few times I was still lost as to who Holly was and what was her deal anyway.

The book is narrated by a man named Fred, who later becomes a friend of Holly’s. Holly is an 18 or 19-year-old young lady who came from a farm simple life. She put herself in New York City and established her self as a high society girl. She “spends time with” wealthy men and gets everything she wants from them because they all find her so desirable.

It’s all pretty grey on if she is a prostitute or as Capote puts it an “American Geisha”. The reader will have to decide for them first. This is another book that I picked up as a quick win in the summer reading contest, as it weighs in at only 140ish pages. Again, though I’m glad I read it as it added a lot of detail as to who Holly was. The movie felt like it was moving along really fast grazing over things that I wish there was more content too. But that is how the medium works always grazing along the top of things that a book can cover so much better.

I enjoyed reading this and gave it 4/5 stars. It is one of those few books I think I can go back and re-read at another time. Maybe things will become even clearer to me a second time around.

Book Review | Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom

Joe Russo of We’re The Russo’s recommended Walden on Wheels as a good place to start when researching van life. If you are not watching their youtube videos you should start. Kait and Joe are very entertaining and full of useful information for anyone interested in van life.

In Walden on Wheels, the author Ken Ilgunas takes us along on his adventure to reduce is college debt. Like many of us, myself included, Ken, followed the societal norms of going to college after high school, simply because that is what was expected of him and what he was taught he should do.

After college, he has a large amount of debt he needs to pay off and fast. But with a degree in literature, he has trouble finding good paying jobs. The readers will follow him on various adventures to Alaska among others in order to find work where there is also free room and board offered. This is great because all of the money he is making goes straight to paying off his debt.

Once the debt is paid off, when you think the book is about to end, Ken actually continues his adventure by going back to school. What?! What about the debt he will incur, wasn’t that the whole thing about the book?

Ken has a plan. He is going to live in a van while going to school and eat hardly anything while working in all of his spare time. For me, this is where the real adventure started. This book is a really fun ride and helps you appreciate just how much that we have that we don’t really need. What is life about, possessions or experiences?

This is the first book I have read in 2018. Well, finished in 2018, I started it on December 29th. The best part of this book, besides the content, of course, is that the book is free for Amazon Prime users and is also part of Kindle Unlimited if you have that.

Book Review | Being There

Another goofy novel similar to The Importance of Being Earnest. Short and funny. I think in the 160 pages that Jerzy Koskinski has he does a better job telling the story of Being There than was done in The Importance of Earnest. Things are clearer but still funny.

I would think may have seen the movie but might not realize that there was a book first as that happens so often now. The book was first published in 1970 and the bubbling but lovable Peter Sellers does a great job 9 years later portraying Chauncey Gardiner. Sellers is depicted on most of the covers of the book that you can find now.

Chance or Chauncey as he is later known in the book is a gullible simple-minded man. The is the gardener of a fancy home near Wall Street. When his wealthy benefactor dies, Chance has to leave the house. He runs into a nice young lady that is completely convinced he is a rich businessman of amazing intelligence.

What follows is a comical series of events where Chance is basically set for life, even though he is still the simple-minded fool we meet at the beginning of the book.

I found the story entertaining and very telling of society and the way we only see each other, but don’t really know each other. The book also made me reminisce of when I had seen the movie many years ago as if pulling the memory from the deepest part of my mind so that I could just bearly remember seeing the movie a very long time ago. The book heaved those memories to the forefront and I was pleasantly surprised that I knew the story, but still needed to be reminded of how everything turned out for Chance.

I happily bestowed 4/5 stars for Being There.

Book Review | Rape: A Love Story

This book was very difficult to read. The title is not misleading. You are getting exactly what you think with this book. With that said if you can stomach the awfulness of this Oates writing is very good and this is an important book. These stories need to be out there. This specific book Rape: A Love Story is fiction, but so often it is not for many, many others.

Again this is very tough material. You will cringe you will want to put it down and not pick it back up. But again, this is worth repeating. This is some people’s life. We must learn about this. Not that we will understand their pain, but so we can at least begin to understand the horridness.

A local woman known to all in the small town takes a shortcut. She is accosted by some local men and you know what happens. The story is told in parts with the timeline all mixed up. You don’t get the whole story until the end. You will live through the pain with Teena as she fights to maintain her sanity. And there is one more thing and it’s even worse, her daughter is with her when it happens.

I gave this book four stars, it may have earned more if not for the topic. It was just so damn hard to get through. If you want to challenge yourself with a tough read like I did, then you can try this book, but you have been warned, it is not a pleasant read.