Book Reviews

I have read many books since the last book review post. So here goes. 
Book 59 was Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. I love C.S. Lewis, but this was the first non-fiction book of his that I've read. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the fiction of his that I've read, but it was still really good. I found a lot of it really helpful. C.S. Lewis makes things make sense.
That's why I love him. XD

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, was Book 60. It was a re-read, because I hadn't got anything else around that I really felt like reading. I liked it, a lot. Marcus is an interesting character who reminds me a lot of the protagonist of Scott Westerfeld's So Yesterday, another book I liked. And I for one enjoyed the long explanations of things like cryptography and found them fascinating. Alas, like Graceling, the romance was... rather more than I was comfortable with. I still enjoyed it, but I can't entirely recommend it. Stupid YA with its stupid romance...

Book 61 was one I've been reading on and off since before I started this blog: Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Before this, my knowledge of Einstein was basically, "Real smart physicist dude with wacky hair who thought up E = mc squared and other relativity stuffs that I can't make heads or tails of! Yay!" 
But I'm interested enough in relativity stuffs that I can't make heads or tails of that I picked this one up anyway. I'm very glad I did. It was interesting, funny, and not at all boring. Einstein was an absolutely fascinating man (as well as a rather strange one), with an extremely eventful life. This book is great. 

Book 62 was utterly different. The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger, belongs to The Younger Sibling, who is a Star Wars fan. I'll make a confession: I've never even seen the movies. But we were riding back home from church, I was bored, and the book was on my seat, and I figured why not give it a try. So I did. It's about a sixth-grade class. One character, Dwight, makes an origami finger puppet of Yoda, and when Yoda gives advice and predictions to several people, apparently without being controlled by Dwight, most of the class starts thinking that Origami Yoda is magical and can see the future. 
This book was rather young for me - The Younger Sibling is only eight, after all - but I enjoyed it. Some of Yoda's responses were absolutely hilarious. When asked how to beat a video game, he says, "Read a book you must." Questioned as to whether he refers to the hint book, he says, "No. A book like The Hobbit." 

I read book 63 on my Kindle. Yeah, I have one of those. It's awesome; perhaps I shall post about it one of these days. The book was How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier. I've never read any of her books, except Zombies Vs. Unicorns, which hardly counts. This one was really good. 
It's set in a world where just about everybody has their own personal fairy, which is like a special talent or gift. One character has a never-getting-in-trouble fairy, and one has a never-being-late fairy. There are always-finding-loose-change fairies and perfect-hair fairies. The protagonist, Charlie, has a parking fairy: whatever car she's in finds the perfect parking spot, always. But not only is she only fourteen and so unable to drive, she hates cars and she's sick of family members always wanting to take her with her whenever they drive to a place where they might have trouble finding one. She wants to get rid of her fairy and get a new one. When the story starts she's trying to get rid of it by walking everywhere and never giving it a chance to be used, but when she walks she's late for school and gets in trouble, putting herself at risk of expulsion from her super-strict sports school. She tries other methods. Lots of other stuff happens which I won't say for fear of spoiling. I really liked the character of Fiorenze. I could have done with more explanations of the fairies and just the world in general - there were some questions left about both, and some things that didn't make sense - but overall this book is really fun and highly recommended. I'm definitely going to seek out more of Larbalestier's stuff.  
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Whew. That was long. I'll be back on Monday with something shorter, if the Apocalypse doesn't take place between then and now. Farewell till then!