Following up on Monday's musical retrospective, it's time to award some superlatives to the books that I read in 2014. Straying even farther from release dates than with my musical entry, this list reflects books that I read in 2014, not necessarily books that were released this year. Most Hyped Book (That I Didn't Really Like) - [...]
Tag: Books
Let It Snow
At this point I've read all of John Green's books and enjoyed each of them immensely. I've also become a big fan of the VlogBrothers as I slowly make my way through their massive catalog of videos. Despite my age placing me slightly outside of the group's target demographic, I am proudly a Nerdfighter. If [...]
The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse
I wrote earlier about the truth in the old cliché that you should never judge a book by it's cover. And while that remains true, sometimes reading a book because of its awesome cover can still be the right choice. Though I had read Siddhartha and enjoyed it, the book wasn't particularly transformational for me and [...]
Harry Potter and the Metabolic Disease
We've come to the part of the year where candy and sweets are everywhere, all the time. You pretty much won't be able to escape cookies and pies and chocolate flavored toothpaste until after New Year's Day at this point. Wait. Chocolate flavored toothpaste? Seriously? That's really a thing? God, we are truly a disgusting [...]
Soon I Will Be Invincible
Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible is a book about superheroes that is neither a comic book nor a graphic novel. Drop the comic, drop the graphic. It's simply a book, a novel. About superheroes. And it is awesome. The story is told through the alternating viewpoints of a literal evil genius, Dr. Impossible, who suffers [...]
A Princess of Mars
If you've read a science fiction book or seen a sci-fi movie, odds are you have some familiarity with Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars even if you don't know it. Published almost one hundred years ago (1917), A Princess of Mars is a classic pulp adventure story and its DNA flows through the veins of [...]
The End Is Near
Well, not literally. But the end of the year? Yes. Very near, indeed. Which means that it's time to start putting together year-end lists of favorite books and albums, a task that I always intend to fly quickly through only to then spend an inordinate amount of time fussing over. My intent this year is to [...]
A Boy and A Bear In A Boat
When Dave Shelton named A Boy and A Bear In A Boat, he pretty much gave away the whole premise in the title. The book follows the adventures of a boy and a bear in a (you guessed it) boat as they take a journey of indeterminate origin and purpose. As the boy and bear venture to who-knows-where [...]
Powers
Let's get this out of the way upfront: Ursula Le Guin is a master of the bildungsroman. A Wizard of Earthea, The Farthest Shore, Malafrena, and several of her other books are among the finest coming of age novels in American literature. There are few authors capable of elucidating the challenges of personal discovery the [...]
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a story of childhood adventure and, as such, the story's titular hero finds himself in a number of troublesome predicaments, usually as a result of his own childishly unchecked curiosity. Through Tom's adventures in overcoming these predicaments, Twain paints a remarkably accurate picture of the joys, fears, and trials [...]
Songs & Stories 