Chris Carrel

After The March I was expecting more. The storytelling is crisp and well-paced, but the book's characters did not resonate with me. Nor did the mystery revealed at the end. It seemed to come out of another novel entirely.

This is a great novel. Doctorow excels at bringing history alive with well-researched stories and characters that interweave with real people and events in a way that straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction.

A devastating story of adults acting on impulses.

I had previously picked up and almost as quickly, put down a Dan Simmons novel, so I wasn't expecting to be entertained, enthralled, frightened and delighted by Simmons' 769-page fictionalized account of the disastrous Arctic expedition of the HMS Terror.
This is one hell of a good read.
In Simmons account, the Terror fell victim to arrogance, poor planning, weak leadership, some corruption, really bad luck and weather, and a mysterious white creature that begins slaughtering the crew.
The characters are rich and practically breath on the page. Despite the characters being stuck in ice for months, the plot steams forward at a powerful pace.
What lifts this novel from merely very good to excellent is the imaginative and moving final twist at the end.

Soccer doesn't really explain the world, but it's a decent thesis and a fun, interesting and informative read as Foer tries to prove his point. There's great history on the Old Firm (featuring Celtic, one of my favorite teams), one of the great sporting rivalries in the world, and a microcosm of the Catholic-Protestant wars in Ireland and England. There's also a chapter on another of my favorite clubs, Barcelona, that delves in to the Catalan independence movement and the Spanish Civil War.

A lovely and quite funny travelogue of football in the midlands of England. I've never been to England, but thanks to Harry Pearson I feel like I've seen my fair share of matches from the stands of Newcastle, Durhan City, middlesborough and the like.

Phillip K. Dick knew more about reality than most of us. This book proves the point.

OVerall, a fascinating book, though a bit uneven. Pollan takes a look at four plants and their effects on humans and human society.

I fell in love with Arsenal FC, in 2004, as they began an incredible run of 50 unbeaten games. They were a team that was easy to appreciate. Hornsby tells the backstory of a team that wasn't so lovable, the “boring, boring Arsenal” of the 1970s and how as a boy, Hornsby came to love the unfashionable Arsenal FC.
A great football book, and an intriguing bio and period piece.

Doctors and scientists are infallible and without prejudice. Yeah, right! Read this and see how untrue that is. A strong account of how the medical and scientific establishment willfully ignored the evidence of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia.

My friends think I was born a smartass. I really learned everything I knew from Kurt Vonnegut. RIP, Man.

I tried to get excited about this, my first steampunk read, but didn't find myself enamored of the writing, or the characters. I give this one big, ‘meh.'

One of my favorites. I'm re-reading it for the 4th time.

The essential guide to the end times. Postman was an incisive critic of American media and society...and he inspired Roger Waters' best solo album.

A rich and powerful history of the most effective dictator in modern history.

Scarier than any horror novel. Written before the Bird Flu and SARS and MRSA, this science reporting is scarily prescient.

For kids of all ages. A classic.