Jua More - Book Reviews et al

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth

June 24th, 2010 by softie

Caves and caving fascinate me, so when I saw there was a book about supercave exploration, I had to read it. I am so glad I did. I was absolutely glued to this book from the first page to the last. The only thing it lacked was a section of pictures, but that’s the price I pay for reading an advance copy–the published edition has several pages of them. Even so, I was able to look those up on the [...]

Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth

The Passage

June 24th, 2010 by wham

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It has been a while since I’ve encountered a horror novel of such magnitude and scope, but Justin Cronin’s hefty tome “The Passage” seems poised to announce itself as the latest true “horror epic.” It’s about time too! Ambitious and thought-provoking, but filled with propulsive action and bloodshed, “The Passage” is the thinking person’s genre thrill ride. This massive book starts in the near future with a pretty unique combination of vampiric lore meshed with science gone awry. But Cronin, [...]

Sh*t My Dad Says

June 17th, 2010 by wham

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As you can probably tell from the title, the language in this book is very raw, so if you are offended by curse words, this book may not be for you. Justin, the youngest of three sons, writes about some of the things his father says. Most of them seem a bit over the top when you read them out of context but they never come across as glib or hate filled, just honest. In a society where almost everything [...]

The Last Child

June 17th, 2010 by softie

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I dare you to read the prologue of this book without getting totally pulled in to the story. My heart was pounding by page 2, and I think my boss might want to have a talk with Mr. Hart because I went in to work a couple of mornings on very little sleep because I couldn’t put this book down until I got to the last word. Johnny Merrimon was once a happy child. He and his twin sister, Alyssa, [...]

Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 10)

June 9th, 2010 by softie

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“Dead in the Family” has a very appropriate title — all sorts of family members pop up, and not just for Sookie. Charlaine Harris still can whips up a pleasant warm Southern vibe for her not-so-urban fantasies, but unfortunately this latest novel isn’t quite up to her usual standards: it’s basically a mass of fluffy in-between storylines that rarely go anywhere. Just after Amelia leaves for New Orleans, Sookie’s cousin Claude appears at her home and asks to move in [...]

Dead in the Family (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 10)

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

June 8th, 2010 by Kelvin

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This book traces Tony Hsieh’s rapid progress in the business world, from callow party dweeb with a high IQ to his selling of Zappos to Amazon for north of a billion dollars. Along the way, we get some ups and downs in business start-ups, the hunt for money, the hunt for the secret to corporate long-term success, and some input from partners and employees along the way. Zappos’ leadership eventually decided to emphasize sterling customer service as the key to [...]

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Beautiful Creatures

June 4th, 2010 by softie

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After beginning to read Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, I checked my hands to see if there happened to be glue on them. Use that as a warning. Once you start the book, it’s impossible to put it down. There is action after action and even when you close the book, what you just read stays in your thoughts throughout the whole day. Beautiful Creatures can be classified under fantasy-fiction, and I would recommend it for readers [...]

Wolf Hall: A Novel

June 3rd, 2010 by softie

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The scope and breadth of this novel is immense. Hilary Mantel sets out to describe a tumultuous period in English history, not by focusing on the main event- Henry and Anne- but by showing the struggle faced by those more behind the scenes. Thomas Cromwell says, late in the book, that worlds are not changed by kings and popes, but by two men sitting at a table, coming to an agreement, or by the exchange of thoughts and ideas across [...]

Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality

June 3rd, 2010 by Kelvin

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I have to say from the start that I am disappointed in this book. I was hoping for a detailed look into the science of aging in the world today, but only got glimpses of it as we moved through the book. A great deal of time and space is devoted to the musings of Bacon, Shakespeare, Dante, Keats, various mythological figures, the Bible and other writers from generations past. There was also a great deal about the musings of [...]

Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

May 31st, 2010 by Kelvin

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I am a big fan of the Heath brothers’ first book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and I am happy to report that they have stepped up to the plate and hit another home run. In “Switch,” the Heaths once again take the kernel of a good idea originated by someone else and build an expansive original work around it. In “Made to Stick” that kernel was Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of “stickiness,” what makes ideas [...]