Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Definitely one of my favorites. While it is fiction, there is enough history described where it almost feels like you are learning something. I would love to read an analysis of the "history" in the book to discover how much was actually based in truth. It is an easy read and definitely the kind of book that I could really delve in and read for hours (not that that is every an option anymore, haha). I also love that Dan Brown uses lots of small chapters so it is easy to squeeze in short periods of reading and still get to decent stopping points.

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My Beautiful Munchkin

My Beautiful Munchkin I don't usually post mobile pics to my Flickr (I tend to reserve it for my photography), but we were too enamored with this photo not to post it. As usual, I got trigger happy and took a bunch of photos and this one turned out great. I think she looks like a little toddler model. ¡Que linda!

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have read this before, but not since we started our reading list. I can't imagine many people haven't read this, so a thorough review seems silly, but it was a quick and enjoyable read. One thing to note (obviously depending on which version you have) is in regards to the introduction. In the version I have, the introduction basically gives away a huge amount of the plot! I might understand in a foreword, but I ended up skipping the second half of the introduction because it was so full of spoilers. Crazy! Anyway, it was an easy check mark on the reading list so I can read another leisure book.

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Idiot America by Charles P. Pierce

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Overall it was a fairly entertaining read. It turned out to be a little more about history than I had expected, so I had to think harder and read a little slower, but I made it through ok.

Given the title, I was expecting something a little more along the lines of Why People Believe Weird Things. I should have had a tip-off that the book was going to be pretty liberal-biased when the review on the cover says "A raucous rant against the armies of the right... Pierce is at his scathing, insightful best." It had sections that seemed a little more balanced, but overall it was more of an attack on the right than an elucidation of the dumbing down of America.

This also reminded me of how weird the rating system for Goodreads is. You can give a book 1-5 stars. 3 stars would then mean that it is average, i.e. I would say it was "ok." But for Goodreads, 3 stars means "I liked it." How does that make sense? On a normal scale I would give it a 3, but since Goodreads is my book review aggregator, I'll abide by their system. I thought it was "ok" so it gets 2 stars.

It was interesting, but anything with such a blatant bias, whether or not you agree with it, gets tedious after a while. The last 100 pages or so I was just reading to finish, not necessarily to enjoy. If it had been pared down, or another author had provided some balance, I think it would have greatly improved the experience.

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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the reasons that I enjoyed this book is likely its ease of being read. Written in a storyteller style, and obviously aimed at a younger audience, in combination with its length made it easy for me to finish up with it fairly quickly. While I know it to have some religious undertones, it was still a kind of interesting little story.

And little story it was. I know it is part of a series, but there really wasn't a whole lot of substance to it. This DID make it easy to read, but also felt like a bit rushed to get through the storyline with as little detail and development as possible. Overall, it provided a reasonably enjoyable few days of reading, but I look forward to delving into something with a little more substance.

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I Hope They Server Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you are the kind of person who tends to like jokes that a lot of people think are just wrong, you'll probably love this book. There are definitely some hilarious (though vulgar) moments, but Tucker Max is definitely a total ass with little regard for other people. I had first discovered his stories from his website, and unfortunately, this book adds very little content. I haven't checked the site in a while, but you can just as easily read a great majority of the stories there. Still, definitely some entertaining and totally mindless reading. It was a great followup to Great Expectations for sure, haha.

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Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I finally finished it! I started this about 16 months ago (apparently things were so easy with our 3 month old that I decided to get back into casual reading), and I finally finished it!

In general, I think I would have given it 2.5 or 3 stars, but the Goodreads definition of 3 stars is "I liked it," and I wasn't prepared to go that far. There were periods that I found pretty interesting, and there were sections that I was lucky to get through 2 pages before I was falling asleep. Overall, it wasn't a bad read for a classic, but felt a bit long-winded at times. It also had a lot of text where people were speaking and had weird accents that made it extremely difficult for me to read.

So glad to have finally conquered another "classic" and ready to read something a bit more enjoyable!

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