Category: Books

This may have been the longest it’s taken me to finish a book, at a little over 5 weeks. One week I was traveling in LA, and a good part of two other weeks I was a bit sick. Despite those holdups, I did keep my interest and finished it up.

I’m a big fan of Larson, as is the kind woman at the library who initially recommended another book of his a little while back. The non-fiction reading like fiction is a pretty great style. I enjoy learning historical facts in such a manner.

A couple other’s of his that I’ve read thus far have been:

• Dead Wake
• In the Garden of Beasts
• Isaac’s Storm

I believe I still have to give The Devil in the White City a read as well.

Getting a little excited for the upcoming Star Wars film, I was glad to see that Aftermath was available at the library. I was eager to get caught up with events leading up to the new movie.

The book was well written, but didn’t really touch on any of the big players in the Star Wars universe. I guess this should have been expected, but still I was hoping to read more about some of the big names.

Granted Wedge Antilles was always been a favorite of mine, even his story was all that large in the book. I really thought he was going to have a bigger role when I first started reading. Oh well.

Overall, it was interesting to get an idea of the state of affairs immediately after the Return of the Jedi. Looking forward to the movie in a few weeks.

I feel like I’ve been reading a bit more non-fiction recently, so I figured I had to go with a fiction book this time around. Noticed a new Stephen King book, Finders Keepers and gave it a shot.

It was pretty solid. Turned out it was a sequel (which I might have to check out the previous book now) and centered around a crime. I really liked how the book started in the past, then jumped around to the present to set the stage.

Towards the end I really did get into it a bit more and really plowed through the last part of the book, eager to see how things ended. Good stuff.

Overall I thought it was a pretty solid summer read.

While I’m not too big into politics I did notice a new biography on Ronald Reagan, and he was the President during my younger childhood. While I remember jelly beans and the Soviet Union, I figured it’d be interesting to remember a bit more about that era.

While the early history of him before being President was very interesting and good to learn, I was most interested in reading about his Presidency. Those were the years that I recalled and reading up on so many of those events of the eighties really brought back other good memories too.

For instance the terrible Challenger explosion, the Star Wars missile defense systems, the “evil” Soviets, crushing Mondale, etc. All these really stood out to me during those formative years.

Though this was a very lengthy and quite heavy book, I did enjoy reading it a lot. Not only did I learn much more about the guy and gotten a better idea of what went on behind the scenes, it also brought back some good memories as well.

There is a really impressive hawk who hangs out in my trees. I guess living on the corner he gets a pretty great view on my property.

When I saw a book with a hawk on the cover I figured it’d be interesting to read and perhaps learn a bit more about these guys.While the book turned out to be a lot more about feelings and such than I was expecting, I still did learn a bit much about birds.

Actually I haven’t seen the guy since I read this book, but I’m pretty sure he’s been up there a few times and I’m sure he’s seen me. He’s quite a big hawk and was eating a squirrel on my front lawn. He let me get very close, which was a bit strange but most exciting.