Category: Books

I picked this one out to read based solely on it’s cover. Take a look at the cover, it’s pretty amazing to me. A communist looking pug is pretty awesome!

The book turned out to be pretty good too! It was some solid political satire. Though I have to admit, while it was satire I wouldn’t be too shocked if some of the personalities weren’t similar to some real folks in such situations.

The whole idea of starting up things with China was pretty funny. I especially liked the ideas of getting the Dalai Lama with a panda based virus. Creative stuff.

Clearly a book can be judged by it’s cover. Thank you communist pug!

Looking for some fine non-fiction to read at the library I saw former NFL wide receiver Cris Carter’s book, Going Deep: How Wide Receivers Became the Most Compelling Figures in Pro Sports. I always respected him as a player and later analyst, plus it sounded like it would cover the years that I was most interested in following the NFL.

Turned out to be a pretty interesting read. I think since his career really spanned my favorite years when football was so much fun for me to watch, that I really found it very interesting. There were a lot of great wide receivers that I had almost forgotten about over the years (I couldn’t name all the run and shoot Oilers anymore).

I really liked how he covered both the ups and downs over the years. His insight on teammate Randy Moss was interesting to read. As a long time Raiders fan, I was kinda bummed by how things had turned out with him, and was glad to get his perspective and opinion on it.

I really found this to be really fun to read and plowed though it very quickly. Good stuff.

When in doubt at the library, I tend to pick something with a fancy cover. The Eye of God fit that bill and turned out to be pretty good too.

It did a good job of mixing up some truth with fiction. So while I know it’s fiction, there is some sort of realism kinda to the plot. The plot also mixed up tech with religion, which tends to be interesting to read.d Thankfully there’s an addendum at the back that explains what was true and what was made up.

The pacing was pretty cool, and I found myself really reading that extra chapter to see how things turned out towards the end.

I was also glad to read the alternate quantum physics ending (makes sense if you read it). It made me happier for a few of the characters in the end.

The last couple of books I’ve read have been pretty dark and twisted. So, this time I thought I should read something a bit uplifting and positive to bring balance back to the Force. So, a book with a cute puppy on the cover seemed like a very safe bet to me.

Well, a dog dies in chapter 2 or 3. Yeah, that’s right a dog dies right off the bat. So much for my plan.

To make things even more amazing, I believe this dog dies a total of 4 times in the book (he’s reincarnated which was nice to imagine is true of dogs). Dog deaths are tough, and having to weather 4 of them was quite the true.

Oh, not to be outdone there are numerous human deaths as well. Of which I truly lost count of.

Though in the end everyone is happy and together in heaven, I was not in any way expecting so many dog deaths in this super friendly looking book!

The book was pretty good though, and I do like the author’s take of a dog’s life. I really hope my trusty friends though the years do have a way of coming back and still being around.

I figured I’d try to read Under the Dome after watching the first episode on TV. I figured if I liked the show, then I’d like the book as well.

Turns out the book is much, much better than the show (especially since the first one). Though it was over 1000 pages, I read through it pretty quickly. It was hard to put down at times with all the craziness going on.

I also have to admit that I was very surprised at the ending and what was behind the whole dome thing. Even though I know to expect something a bit different from a Stephen King novel, it was still a refreshing surprise.

There were moments where I found myself reading for several hours at a time. I’m not sure if that’s exactly a good thing, but it does speak for the book.

The only drawback is that after reading, I don’t think I’ll want to watch the show as I’ll find too many “errors” in it.

Very good stuff and a good read.

Figured I’d continue with some non-fiction on my summer reading tour and picked up The Way of the Knife from my super friendly library. It turned out to be a pretty interesting book.

It mainly details the CIA post 9/11 and just how much the organization has changed since then. I found it pretty interesting to hear now much they had changed in the 70’s and within the past 10 years. I hear on the news about recent events, but this book went into more detail on most of them.

With the crazy perception we get from such government organizations though movies, it was cool to read about real people and operations. But a couple of the people detailed kinda seemed straight out of a movie, so maybe what we see at the box office isn’t all that far-fetched after all.