Ever watched snowboarders in the Olympics and wanted to pull some of the same tricks they make look so simple? Did you think you could read a book to learn how? If so, Mastering Snowboarding may be the book for you. I grabbed a promotional copy of the book from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer’s program. My snowboarding skills [...]
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The Most Memorable Games in Patriots History
If you remember 15 years of losing to the Dolphins in the Orange Bowl, you will love this book. If you enjoy reading about the history of the National Football League, you will enjoy this book. If you think the Patriots begin and end with Tom Brady, you may be disappointed. If you hate the [...]
Surviving the Aftermath of Lucifer’s Hammer
It’s dated but I enjoyed the apocalyptic Lucifer’s Hammer. As the Hamner-Brown comet approaches Earth, politicians, criminals, journalists, and scientists deal with the anticipation of its passing and possible impact. That uncertainty is main stumbling point that dates the book 30 years after its publication. It’s disconcerting to have part of the plot be reliant [...]
My 2012 Book Reading List
The Goal One of my recurring annual goals is to finish reading at least 26 books for the year. In 2012, I managed to finish 36. Although, 6 of those were lighter reads. So maybe I should discount those and bring it down to 30. In any event, I exceeded my goal. The full list [...]
An Odyssey Exploring The Odyssey
How meta: an odyssey exploring Homer’s The Odyssey. Scott Huler has a baby on the way and one last adventure in his soul. Picking up a copy of the epic poem, he connects with it in a way that he didn’t when he first read it decades earlier. He sets off, travelling lightly and cheaply, [...]
Make Magic! Do Good!
Dallas Clayton launched his writing/illustrating career with An Awesome Book! Now he is back with a bigger and more awesome book: Make Magic! Do Good! His new book is a collection of poems and illustrations. An Awesome Book was a single poem joyfully illustrated by Clayton. Make Magic! Do Good! is full of dozens of his [...]
Show Time – A Tale of Reality Horror
Show Time takes place at some point in the near future, with the participants willingly subjecting themselves to a media portrayal of their jeopardy. The network drops seven contestants on a desolate island in the middle of Lake Superior with some necessities and minimal food. According to one of the agreements surrounding the games “it is [...]
Eden on the Charles
If you’ve ever lived in Boston, Michael Rawson’s Eden on the Charles is a great book to help understand how Boston developed in the 19th Century. You may know the basic transformation of Boston from a small ithsmus surrounded by shallow flats to the larger bustling city of today. For a book labeling a city as [...]
The Power of Habit and How to Hack It
We are creatures of habit. We may like to think that our daily actions result from deliberation and willpower. But mostly they are the products of our unconscious habits. The same is true for our kids. Most of what they do is based on habit. One of the keys to success in life is [...]
The Big Roads
I admit that I have a fascination with infrastructure. It seems so natural that I could jump in my car in Boston and be in Florida 24 hours later. I’m already forgetting the snarls and confusion in Boston during the Big Dig and the new harbor tunnel. At the dawn of the automobile age, cross-country [...]
