Review: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



So, it's repetitive. Not an unexpected thing from a book of magazine articles and speeches. That fault it totally surpassed by the fact that I learned a lot, felt inspired, and now really, really want to reread the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Oh, and am I the only person who didn't realize Tang was an astronaut's drink?



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Review: Horrid Henry And The Secret Club

Horrid Henry And The Secret Club by Francesca Simon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The one where Peter tries to be horrid was hilarious.



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Review: Days with Frog and Toad

Days with Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Love Frog and Toad.



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Review: Still Life

Still Life by Louise Penny

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I don't especially read a lot of mysteries. Sure, I devoured Agatha Christie when I was younger and I got really obsessed with Ian Rankin because he wrote about Edinburgh, but in general I'm not much of a mystery person.

I adored this. One thing I noted, which I thought might be unusual, is that so much of this book concentrated on grief and how people deal with it, rather than just on the crime/criminal. And I rather liked that Nicol didn't end up getting it by the end of the novel. And I found the town meeting where the police asked the locals to teach them about something they needed to know interesting - does that actually happen?

One thing that I did note was that I'd assumed that when the series continued, it would be about Gamache, not about Three Pines, right up until I read the sample chapter of the next book. And that makes me very happy because I fell in love with Three Pines and the people there.



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Review: Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt

Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Found this in the library and read it to my students. I enjoyed it more than they did, but I think they're a bit youngish for it.



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Review: Nate the Great and the Tardy Tortoise

Nate the Great and the Tardy Tortoise by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I adore Nate the Great. And now I want pancakes.



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Review: Unicorn Being a Jerk

Unicorn Being a Jerk by C.W. Moss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Most of this amused me. I read it about where you'd expect me to have. So, someone else's bathroom.



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Review: The Yellow Birds: A Novel

The Yellow Birds: A Novel by Kevin Powers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



4.5 stars, really, since I did stay up until 3:30 reading this last night.

It's so beautiful and poetic in the writing, which contrasts so much with how hard a subject it was to read. I loved the way the two time periods went back and forth and that the ending really did surprise me quite a bit. I think I liked this one a bit more than Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, though they were close in terms of my love for them. Between these two and the non-fiction The Long Walk, I'm on a war streak.



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Review: Infidel

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I am totally the right person to read Infidel, I suppose - an atheist with a real hard-on for travelling and life in other cultures.

When people talk about all the white male atheists being the only spokespeople, they need to direct people over here. Her path from Islam to non-belief is fascinating.

I found her take on Islam interesting, because it doesn't at all jibe with what I saw (at a distance, granted) in Malaysia and Indonesia at all. I wandered around in my low-cut tank tops and had not a single problem. So I don't think it's all of Islam, but since I'm pretty open to the idea that religion in general is bunk and leads to silliness, it works for me.

Plus, her life is just so interesting.



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