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.
When comparing this to the other books in the series like Greg Rucka’s Before the Awakening. It doesn’t do to well. The story was extremely slow to start. Don’t get me wrong the book reads very fast. It took me two days and I had a ton of interruptions in reading. I’m glad I read this only because I know its not integral to the story of the Force Awakens.
The story follows Luke on a mission he is doing for the Rebel Alliance. Although, he never gets to the mission in the book (too bad, might have been a better story). He feels himself attracted (via the Force) to a planet he has never been to before. He visits the planet and figures out why the Force was calling him, unfortunately his presence has not gone unnoticed. A new bad guy finds him. The story is little ruined by the fact that we all know Luke makes it.
No surprises and a slow story earns this book 3 stars. One star for being about Star Wars included. If you are following along in the series you can skip this one, but its under 200 pages and written for a much younger audience so the book goes very fast. Just don’t expect it to be your favorite Star Wars novel.
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.
Golden Son by Pierce Brown is a great, great book. I just this moment finished it. I started it the moment finished book one in the series, Red Rising. At first, I was reeled into the story as it picked up right where they last book left off. However, while reading I noticed that this book was much more wordy than the last. I still laughed and was caught with awe and surprise at places in the book, but I did notice a slow down in parts of the book. The pace was not consistent and I think it hurt the story.
I whole-heartily gave Red Rising 5 stars. It earned them. It is by far the best book I’ve read this year. But, Golden Son is different. It still earns 5 stars, just barely. I want to compare it directly to Red Rising, but is that fair? If it was not part of this series it would be a 5 star book easily. But in comparing it to Red Rising it just is not that good.
Anyway, if you haven’t read Red Rising, read that first. This is the second book in the series. Once you’ve read that come back.
Okay, read it? Good. That was fast. You’re a fast reader! Anyway, this book continues to follow Darrow as he rises in the Gold Society. Some major mysteries are unveiled in this telling of his story. But they don’t have a huge build up, its just bang this is Ares, and you’re like WTF, really? That was surprising, and there are more surprises like that in the book. And it ends on a huge cliffhanger, not as good as Red Rising (again), but very good.
I’m going to take a break then read Morning Son. I have it, but I am beginning a book with a book club soon, so it will have to wait. And honestly, it will be good to have a little break from the fiction for a while.
I liked the writing in this book very much. I originally picked up Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons because it is on my BBC list. I am very glad it was. The characters of Gibbons novel are particular and quirky. I had a little trouble getting to know the family at first, but after I had everyone placed things went really well. I occasionally had to re-read a line or two here and there since the acent some of the characters has was written in a bit difficult language for me.
Women are all alike– aye fussin’ over their fal-lals and bedazin’ a man’s eyes…
I really enjoyed Flora and I loved how the Starkadders addressed her as “Robert Poste’s Child” all the time. I’m totally going to do that to my nephew next time I see him. I loved reading a Penguin Classic. There is something about these little back books that is so enjoyable! Stella Gibbons first novel was this in 1932 and I have to say she did a stellar job on her very first book! Simply amazing for a first effort. The introduction talks about how this plagued her for the rest of her life. She hardly ever talked about the book and when she did, she never mentioned it by name. Only saying that thing or something similar.
If you get the feeling that this books title and abundance of authors is trying to compensate for something, you would be right. First and foremost, this is a book written for juniors, DK says 8-12. It would probably be perfect for a 8 year-old boy. But I wanted more. I wanted the mysteries that the movie brought to use at least hinted at. Seeing as the target demographic is 8-12 year-old boys it makes sense that the bulk of the book deals with descriptions of characters, buildings, and droids/robots.
I did learn things I didn’t know before leafing through the pages, so it is a worth while checkout from your library, but unless you have some Star Wars fans that fall in the target age group I wouldn’t purchase this one. Keep to the books for the most part. If you have watched the Clone Wars and are watching Rebels you will already know more that what is in this book. There are only four pages or so in the back of the book that pertain to The Force Awakens, so don’t get this if you think it will reveal more about the movie.
Having said that the pictures are great quality like every DK book and there is a lot of information there.
