Thursday, July 26, 2012

Unholy Night:

Unholy Night by: Seth Grahame-Smith
Fiction: humor, audio book
Book Count: 43

This is the story of Christmas, if the wisemen were actually a set of thieves that were on the run.  And if for some reason you wrote the book based off what you remember of the story from Sunday school as a kid, but you looked up the names that traditionally were given to the wise men.  Not that I expected a lot of biblical accuracy from the book, but making John the Baptist years older than Jesus for no real reason is odd.  (The timeline is also messed with, but that is for the storyline.)  Unlike most other stories that deal with the event the main character is not Jesus, nor Mary, Joseph, or even one of the cute little animals in the stable; it is Balthazar a.k.a. the Antioch Ghost.  He is a man that vowed to destroy Rome and steals all of their treasure.  He is a man that believes in nothing but himself and leaves a wake of destruction and broken hearts all over the empire.  He is a man that has a dark past.  In short he is the last person you would think of being a hero in the story of Christmas.  But he is, as the one thing he hates more then the Romans is the Romans killing the innocent.

8 CD's 9.5 Hours

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Three Books no Reviews:

Fashions of the Decade the 1950's by: Patricia Baker
Non-fiction: history, pop culture 62 pages
Book Count: 40

Baby Showers By: Amy Elliott
Non-fiction: 61 pages
Book Count: 41

Rebecca and Ana By: Jacqueline Dembar Greene
Fiction: history, 78 pages
Book Count: 42

Friday, July 06, 2012

Lobsters Scream When You Boil Them:

Lobsters Scream When You Boil Them: And 100 Other Myths About Food and Cooking By: Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough
Non-Fiction: Cooking 320 pages
Book Count: 39

This book is all about cooking myths; why they aren't true, what you should really do, and how the myths came about.  It also also has 25 recipes in it based off of the truth related to each myth.  As each entry is 2-3 pages it doesn't have the depth of a episode of "Good Eats" or some other books, but it is a good starting place for food myths.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

Fearless Fourteen:

Fearless Fourteen By: Janet Evanovich
Fiction, Mystery 310 pages
Book Count: 38

The review of book 13 is here.   In this book Grandma becomes a goth gamer, Lula makes Tank faint and there is potato gun home defence system.  Also Stephanie needs to find one of Joe's distance cousins or learn to live caring for her teen aged son, and finding the missing millions from a bank robbery that might be under her feet couldn't hurt.

Monday, July 02, 2012

The Last Bookstore In America:

The Last Bookstore In America By: Amy Stewart
E-Book, Fiction
Book Count: 37

First, this book is in part about the end of bookstores because of e-books, and it is an e-book!  This is the story of a young couple starting out that find that they have inherited one of the last bookstores in America from an uncle the husband hasn't seen since he was a kid.  It is in part a love story to the bookstore and the word on paper.  It is also about weed, tax evasion, corrupt local politicians, Big Tobbaco, a former writer, and odd Californians.  In short it is a funny book full of unusual people and twists and turns.

Their Last Suppers:


Their Last Suppers Legends of Time and their Final Meals By: Andrew Caldwell

Non-fiction: history, biography, cooking 179 pages

Book Count: 36

This book has interesting premises; tell a short biography of a famous dead person as well as what their last meal and or favorite foods were with recipes. And for the most part it does that. The biographies are the type you would expect in a high school text book (short, simple, and including only the most well know parts/theories about the person's life.) The recipes are diverse and mostly updated so that the modern cook could make them. There are a few typos in the recipes making at least one recipe unusable and a number more confusing as they call for things that weren't on the ingredient list in the instructions. (Most give some idea of how much you need of it in the instructions, making it still possible to use the recipe.)