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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything 793 reviews
Christopher Hitchens
Twelve Books, Hachette Book Group, 2007
Untitled, Sorry.
I've absolutely loved everything Christopher Hitchens has said about religion in this book and everything else he's had to say about religion before and after. He's a brilliant man who's done his homework. But I think the title is misleading because I don't think god(as in the concept or possibility) is inseperable from religion. In other words I don't think its unreasonable for an anti or ...
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A Thousand Splendid Suns 1284 reviews
Khaled Hosseini
Riverhead, 2007
Deep, but easy read
I loved this book! I'm a slow reader and I was so engrossed in the story, I finished it in five days! When you're staying up all night reading, you know it's a good book!
I was so moved by the story, I bought The Kite Runner afterwards. This book really gives us a sense of what Afghans are going through, especially the women of Afghanistan. This is a touching and inspirational story and I ...
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Bird Songs: 250 North American Birds in Song164 reviews
Les Beletsky
Chronicle Books, 2006
Bird Songs book review
I received this book as a gift a few years ago, and since then, I have given 4 of them as gifts to my bird-loving friends! I also shared it with a friend who just turned 3 years old. She enjoyed learning the names of the birds and the sounds they make. I have learned to identify birds by their sounds, without even seeing them!
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The Invention of Hugo Cabret181 reviews
Brian Selznick
Scholastic Press, 2007
Great Book for Adults and Children
We read this book as a family. My youngest son hates to read but with this story he was the first to ask if we could read each night. Great visualizations and illustrations for the reader.
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The Dangerous Book for Boys628 reviews
Conn Iggulden, Hal Iggulden
Collins, 2007
I knew this stuff but...
I am a geezer and things like this were taught when I was young and had to run from dinos to avoid becoming supper while going home for supper BUT
The IGGIES put everything right here!!
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Get 2 copies of this book, one for the young man who needs to know these things because... a mans gotta know what a man should know.
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Get the other copy for yourself because you've forgotten ...
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Diary of a Wimpy Kid 152 reviews
Jeff Kinney
Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2007
Best book ever!
This book was so awesome I couldn't put it down. I read it in 2 days and couldn't wait to get Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. I hope this author writes a lot more books because they are very enjoyable and entertaining.
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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier393 reviews
Ishmael Beah
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007
This book needs to be read by everyone...
Rarely has a book had such an impact on me. Ismael Beah's epic journey from carefree childhood to inhuman adolescence to enlightened adulthood tells the story of hope for mankind. As Beah has said, it puts a human voice to the war and violence in his country of Sierra Leone, and, in the larger perspective, to all violence, war and hatred around the world. I heard Ismael Beah speak in person ...
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The Sweet Far Thing (The Gemma Doyle Trilogy) 117 reviews
Libba Bray
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2007
The best book ever!....
This book is amazing amazing does not even describe how wonderfull this book is.
This book is the third book of the Gemma Doyle Trilogy it was well written a wondefull and beautiful story. I loved it I just finished reading it yesterday and my eyes are still swollen it was a truly fantastic story.
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The Mysterious Benedict Society86 reviews
Trenton Lee Stewart
Little, Brown Young Readers, 2008
Superb Children's Book
While I am an adult and not chronologically a child (one could argue my outlook is somewhat childlike at times), I certainly enjoyed this book and think children would enjoy it as much if not more than I. It feels a bit like reading a Harry Potter book in that fantasy and real world happily combine. Highly recommended for all children and some adults, especially those who enjoy reading Harry ...
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Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-4548 reviews
Max Hastings
Knopf, 2008
Fascinating - superlative effort
This is my first Pacific Theatre (in keeping with the author's heritage) non-fiction book and I was totally taken in by Max Hastings' effort. Realizing that this is just a single year of history, the breath covered was remarkable. It was fascinating reading with very little wasted on superfluous wording. Hastings knows the material and was meticulous in his delivery; mixing history and ...
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Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir10 reviews
Natalie Goldberg
Free Press, 2008
"What you fear, if you turn toward it, will give your writing teeth"
This morning at 4:30 I turned on the light to read a few more pages of Old Friend From Far Away. I skipped toward the end and read about how at a celebration for the twentieth anniversary of Natalie's first book, a woman who took her writing class when she was a young student at an alternative school, stood up to speak. The woman told her story of how one Monday Natalie brought in a bushel of ...
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The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel273 reviews
Michael Chabon
HarperCollins, 2007
Great writing, brilliantly read!
This is a fun, fast paced, brilliantly imagined detective story set in a fanciful present. Might be particularly interesting for those with an affinity/awareness/interest in Jewish culture. As this is an audio book,the reading is as critical as the writing, and we are very impressed by the great job Peter Riegert does in moving this along without indulgence or conceit, and in giving the many ...
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The World Without Us232 reviews
Alan Weisman
Thomas Dunne Books, 2007
The World Without Us
Excellent book. Full of information on what we are doing to our environment and food for thought as to possible solutions. Definitely not a scare tactic treatise like many environmentalist-type books tend to be, but a honest look at where we've come from, and where we're going. Things look OK and manageable. The things we've made will take a long time to disappear. The things that we've thrown ...
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The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One)72 reviews
Joe Abercrombie
Pyr, 2007
Compulsively Addictive
I was a little worried about ordering and reading this book because I haven't read any fantasy for about twenty years. I had gotten more than a little tired of the formulaic plotting, one-dimensional characters, and the stereotypes that drive the genre. However, when Scott Lynch released "The Lies of Locke Lamora" a few years back, I succumbed to the hype, bought the book, and devoured it over a ...
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Shogun303 reviews
James Clavell
Dell, 1976
Step Inside Feudal Japan
I love this book. I'm so mad that I have already read it, because I want to experience it again for the first time! While I am not Japanese, I have heard it said from a number of Japanese sources that Clavell's writing allows you to nearly step inside the Japanese psyche that helped to form the society of today.
While it is a fictional account, the book is loosely based upon the factual ...
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The Book of General Ignorance53 reviews
John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
Harmony, 2007
Fun book, but it too shows some ignorance...
This is a thoroughly interesting and fun read. However, awash as I am in my own ignorance, I have detected a few gaffs here and there...such as the authors' claims that a star named Lucy (which allegedly has the heart of a diamond) is precisely located some billions of miles OVER Australia! Anyone with a whit of background in cosmology would recognize that since our Earth is spinning at somewhere ...
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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life296 reviews
Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, ...
HarperCollins, 2007
Eat me!
Barbara Kingsolver's lyric prose is so fun to read, and it's good for you too! It's heartening to see the locavore movement get such attention on a national scale. Maybe American food culture isn't doomed after all. The inserts from her family are entertaining, but sometimes awkwardly placed. I can't wait to lend this out to my friends.
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The Savage Detectives: A Novel44 reviews
Roberto Bolano
Picador, 2008
Strange and chaotic book
First of all if you are trying to grasp Bolaņo I would recommend by far 2666 (Narrativas Hispanicas) (Paperback)2666: A Novel, an excellent novel.
I read the Spanish version and the Mexican slang all over the novel can be sometimes overwhelming.
The story is chaotic nevertheless amusing. But It's all you get so be prepared.
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The Wednesday Wars23 reviews
Gary D. Schmidt
Clarion Books, 2007
Four thumbs up!
On the suggestion of a friend who has excellent taste in books, I bought this book for my eleven year old son, who's appetite for books exceeds what I can keep up with! It was so gripping that he sat up until two in the morning to finish the book. (I can sympathize; I've done that!) His review (five stars) for the library book club was so enthusiastic that the next night I sat up until two in ...
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Things I have learned in my life so far35 reviews
Stefan Sagmeister
Abrams, 2008
self help books usually turn me off
There is one section of bookstores that I traditionally avoid when browsing:
the self-help section. It's not that the ideas of how to live a fuller life are not
worthy of my attention, but the way these book are written usually wears me
down by their linear nature and repetition of thought. And they often seem
disingenuous. Sagmeister's book is the opposite. It is an alternative
self-help ...
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