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Book Review: Dreyer’s English

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Many years ago as an undergraduate, I was an English major, which means I spent a great deal of time reading the classics, writing critiques, and reviewing the finer points of the art of writing. Most of those finer points that I spent a untold hours (but quite told dollars) to learn are probably gone from my knowledge bank at this point. I don’t know because I can’t remember. I guess this means that I have a more relaxed writing style than some of my old professors may care for. Oh well. I certainly won’t find many arguments against a more relaxed, but disciplined writing style from Benjamin Dreyer. In his new book, Dreyer’s English, Dreyer goes over a whole host of writing rules that authors (aspiring, experienced, or otherwise) will find helpful, eye-opening, and – at times – potentially frustrating.

This is not to insinuate that Dreyer is incorrect in any of his suggestions, recommendations, or rules. Rather, this is to suggest that contemporary English has become so out of whack with the basic rules that we sometimes write in a piecemeal method akin to how Dr. Frankenstein built his monster (shout out to anyone who has read Dreyer’s English).

What struck me while reading this book was the fun, playful humor that Dreyer embeds into an otherwise dry, drab, sometimes angry subject. Some of you may recall your English classes as boring or dull or, worse, instructed by someone who was either of these two unfortunate descriptors. I’m glad to say that I did not have that experience (and thus, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English). But I do feel for those of you who may have had poor instructors and now are plagued with a poor appreciation for the rules of our English language.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book – and a comment that I agree with – is that rules are made to be broken. Of course, you have to know the rules before you break them. I’m with Dreyer on that stance. Yes, go ahead and end a sentence with a preposition if you want to. However, be sure to know what the rules are around why some folks don’t like to have sentences end with a preposition.

For those of you who underwent a rigorous education in the grammatical arts, you’ll find Dreyer’s English to be a great refresher and also a fun trip down what I hope is a pleasant memory lane. For those of you who are not as familiar with the strange peculiarities that make up the English language, you might find this book to be filled with the rules and grammatical laws that have evaded you. Or a playful read. Or both. Whatever. (Another shout out to those who read the book and its fun footnotes.)

Just a final comment, while this book is a fun read and enjoyable for those of us who like linguistics, I was a bit disappointed at the unnecessary distraction added by the often awkward and off-topic insertion of the author’s politics. Early in the book, he takes a shot at the Bush family. Later, he uses Donald Trump, Jr., as an example in a rather derogatory way. He swipes at President Trump in a footnote that looks, feels, and reads laboriously crowbarred into the book. There are other awkward shots at anything not Democratic or left-of-center littered throughout the book including a bizarre footnote where he comments that he originally used the verb “trumps” in an example but he now has an aversion to using that verb. Frankly, it’s creepy for someone to see politics all around them, including in verbs. Break free, people. Don’t let politics run (ruin?) your life.

These types of unnecessary political distractions are awkward in a book about the English language. Of course, part of my frustration with politics being included is that I vehemently reject the politicization of everything in today’s society. The English language should not be politicized. Excess fall backs to political commentary is also why I followed and then, sadly, stopped following the author on Twitter.

The whole world doesn’t need to be political. And, this may be just me, but I’ve begun to become uninterested* in people who only see the world and all of its marvelous elements in shades of Democratic blue and Republican red. Do better, everyone.

*A third shout out to those who read the book. I am uninterested in those who see politics in all shades of life, even linguistics. This is because I am disinterested in politics. There’s a difference, as Dreyer explains.

That unhappy note aside, I’m a fan of this book and I appreciated the humor that Dreyer used in his writing. This was a fun read and as someone who never picks up a brand new book, I am glad that I broke with my historical book-buying approach and purchased this one. If you’re into the English language and its many oddities, then give Dreyer’s English a try. I think you’ll enjoy it!

Book Review: The Hidden Reality by Stephen Martino

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Back in July 2013, I reviewed the first book in Stephen Martino’s Alex Pella trilogy. At the time, I was struck by the novel’s fast-paced action thriller approach to telling a captivating story that included very strong overtones to our then-current political environment. The Hidden Reality is the second installment in the Alex Pella trilogy and is a true successor to The New Reality in both its tone and style. Just as with the first novel in the series, The Hidden Reality drops the reader directly into the action and moves at a fast pace to jump start the story from the very first page. If you are looking for a story that has a sleepy opening and then slowly lumbers through chapter after chapter until something major happens, then this is not the book for you! The Hidden Reality starts off hot and keeps the temperature up throughout the entire novel.

Fast-paced, action-packed storytelling aside, if you are looking for a novel that has compelling characters that you actually care about and can become emotionally-invested in as you read, then The Hidden Reality is your book. In fact, one of the primary reasons that I could not put this book down was because Martino writes characters that I could relate to and whose stories I wanted to read. His characters mean something to the plot and are not just throwaway placeholders or MacGuffins. Alex Pella, for example, is a hero that you want to cheer for; he’s someone that you want to see win in the end because he awakens the best parts of how we see ourselves. Putting aside the main character for a moment, the novel has additional characters who are absorbing – and for different reasons. Without giving away any of the major plot points, in the beginning of the novel a character named Jules laments to his fellow board members that their corporation is so large and so omnipresent in the lives of everyone on the planet that it has rendered humanity weak and somewhat mentally-stunted. He goes into a diatribe about people no longer having the fortitude or desire to rise up against these types of overwhelming power structures because they rarely think any more. As a reader, I found myself considering the many times that I have felt the same frustration as Jules. I thought about the times that I have passionately implored people to wake up to what is going on around them only to realize that I am stuck talking to people who are mostly wearing blank stares on their faces.

It is not a fun experience and I uniquely understood how Jules felt in that moment.

The brilliance of The Hidden Reality and of the entire Alex Pella series, though, is the deep connections that Martino’s dystopian future has with the often scary revelations that are becoming far too common in our own world. When our Internal Revenue Service was used as an attack dog for political purposes and the most prolific website on the internet (Facebook) is rolling out updates to its face-recognition software and strongly encouraging its more than one billion users to play along, one has to wonder how close we are to achieving Martino’s hidden reality today. The Hidden Reality features a global organization that can track anyone’s location based on their subatomic wavelengths, individuals who place implants in their eardrums to communicate, and the fusion and evolution of corporate behemoths into a global government. Are we really that far away from any of these headlines being published in our own media and in our own time?

The Hidden Reality combines a dystopian future with the mental rigor of a medically-augmented and futuristic plot to create an action-packed story that is fun to read and hard to put down. If I were publishing this review during the summer months, then I would strongly recommend you pick up a copy of this book to read while you are relaxing on the beach. As we are in the doldrums of winter, though, I cannot think of a better book to read while snuggled up by the fire on a cold winter day. When the temperature drops outside, I highly recommend you kick it up a notch inside by jumping into the Alex Pella series!

Incidentally, this was the first e-book that I read on Amazon’s Kindle app. I do not really have any complaints about the Kindle platform. In fact, I think it worked out pretty well considering that I had the Kindle app install on my Samsung Nook tablet (weird, right?).

Book Review: The New Reality by Stephen Martino

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Quite possibly the best thing about Stephen Martino‘s debut novel, The New Reality, is the fact that the action is fast-paced from the very beginning! There’s nothing worse than picking up a new book, getting excited to get into the story that you read about on the back cover, and then having to trudge through 100 pages of back story just to get things going. Martino avoids that entire concern by just getting right to the point and that, alone, made this one of the best thrillers that I’ve read in years. The fast-paced action aside, I also enjoyed the story that Martino tells – even if it may be a harbinger of things to come.

The New Reality is a medical thriller set not too far in the future (the year is 2080, though the story jumps to 2081 soon after it starts) with very real connections to today’s political world. As the story moves along, the reader is introduced to different characters situated on a global landscape ranging from America to the Arab states and more. For example, the main antagonist – Ari Lesmana, known as “the Malik” – seems to be born from the hype that surrounded President Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. The main protagonist is a scientist and medical entrepreneur named Alex Pella who is cast in the same mold as a Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos. During the story, Martino ties Lesmana to a citizenry with a near-brainwashed level of euphoric fanaticism. From my perspective, that connection closely followed the bizarre euphoria that followed Obama’s supporters after 2008. I never understood that – he’s just a politician, not the Second Coming. Calm down, people. Anyway…

Martino does an excellent job of bringing the reader into the panic that surrounds The Disease and, particularly, the desperation that Pella and his team feel as they try to find a cure before it’s too late. Unlike many recent releases in the thriller genre, The New Reality brings the reader a fast-paced, action-packed adventure that moves as fast as you can flip a page. There are no long, drawn out segments of the book to bore you to tears. Instead, Martino writes in a style closely resembling that of Dan Brown and Harlan Coben. And that is the style that this story needs to be told in because of the amount of movement that the characters experience during the story. One chapter takes place in America while the next chapter takes place in a high-tech, super-fast airplane while the following chapter might be in Israel or somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula. If you like reading a strong “thrill of the chase” novel that actually has a significant story to tell, then this is the one for you. And watch out for the storyline extension at the end of the novel – it’ll leave you hungry for the next book in the Alex Pella series!

The New Reality is the perfect book to read while you’re laying on the beach this summer, too. As I’ve noted, the story moves quickly and Martino moves the core discussion along in each chapter. You won’t be left waiting for dozens or hundreds of pages to find out why a certain character said something in a prior chapter – the answers are given to you as fast as you can read them and put the pieces together. Martino’s experience as a neurologist certainly plays into his ability to write a strong medical-based thriller. If you’re a fan of this genre, looking for a great book to read this summer, and/or just looking for a book that has characters with depth, a story with resonance, and a real lesson to teach today’s political leaders, then The New Reality is for you. Plus, based on the high level of quality in his first novel, I think we’ll be seeing more of Martino in the literary world. Give the Alex Pella story a shot – I really think that you will enjoy it. I definitely did!

Book Review: When Wrestling Was Rasslin’ by Peter Birkholz

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From time to time I’ll get a request to review a self-published book and to post that review on JerseySmarts.com. I’m always mixed about what to do with these requests. On the one hand, I’ve not really been impressed with any of the self-published books that I’ve read. I even have two self-published books sitting in my NOOK HD+ that I’ve been trying to read for the last year or so. They’re just so poorly written that I can’t manage more than a page or two before I have to take a break. Yet on the other hand, I’m a nut for literature and the professor in me enjoys reading other people’s work – especially when they willingly ask me to offer an opinion on what they’ve written!

However, the latest self-published review request that I received was actually an easy decision for me to make. The request was from a group called Rasslin’ Books and the book that they asked if I was interested in reviewing was called When Wrestling Was Rasslin’ by Peter Birkholz. My response to being asked to review a book about the early, regional days of professional wrestling? Of course!

The early territorial days of professional wrestling have always fascinated me as a topic of discussion. No, I’m not talking about the “regions” of WWE and WCW or today’s breakdown of WWE and TNA. And I’m not even talking about WWE in the 1980s versus the fragile coalition of the National Wrestling Alliance during that time. I’m talking about going back – way back – to the 1920s and 1930s. I’ve always been fascinated about learning the inside story of what really went on in the territories back when professional wrestling was like the Wild West!

For better or for worse, Birkholz’s book is not that story. The book’s cover suggests that this is the “inside story of the legendary Houston Wrestling promotion.” That’s true enough. However, if you’re a fan of what professional wrestling has become today, then this is not the “inside story” that you think you’re buying. This isn’t the story of why a certain performer was chosen to be a champion over someone else. This isn’t the real story of why a certain wrestler was run out of town. This isn’t the story about wrestlers (or promoters in this case) traveling the roads and filling the pages with story after story of unbelievable moments.

When Wrestling Was Rasslin’ is none of those things.

Instead, this is a story about professional wrestling. No, it’s not about the new millennium where one global behemoth company dominates the sports entertainment landscape. And no, this isn’t about the cable television war during the 1990s or the unique attitude that came along with it. In fact, this story isn’t even about the big time 1980s and the pop life prominence that wrestling first enjoyed during that decade. This is a story about a wrestling landscape that goes back further – back to the beginning of professional wrestling in the Houston, Texas area. To his credit, Birkholz does a very good job of detailing the formative years of the Houston Wrestling promotion and talking about how it survived as a business over its initial decades (and ultimately its final years). In some ways, Birkholz has written the story that people have been waiting for Paul Heyman to write about the original ECW, but I digress.

A point of contention for some readers may be that the book reads like you’re sitting down with your grandfather, uncle, or another older relative and listening to them tell stories about days gone by. This is likely a point of contention for some readers because let’s face it – younger generations today are just rude and disrespectful of the art of storytelling that so many older generations relish in. Yet, I believe the methodical pace that the book is presented in is the exact style that Birkholz is attempting to achieve and he does so masterfully.

If you’re okay with the fact that this book reads like you’re listening to a storyteller from an older generation, then one criticism of the story is that it is easy for your mind to wander to other things. For example, I usually read my books with a television on near-mute (to provide some background noise) and with the windows open so natural light and fresh air can come in. Well, it was easy to be distracted while reading this book because if you’ve ever been caught by an older relative who wants to tell you stories, you know that your mind begins to wander after a while. This isn’t a criticism of the book’s content, but it is a recommendation to read the book in short spurts of 15 – 20 pages at a time in order to get the most out of it.

One of the reasons that your mind can wander while reading this book is because it’s less of an actual story and more of a yearbook (ideally, the book would have been titled, “The Houston Wrestling Yearbook”). The methodical pace of writing that I referenced above really refers to the structure of the unofficial “chapters” in the book (there is no Table of Contents, so I assumed each of the new headings creates a new chapter). Each of these “chapters” is broken into a decade where Birkholz writes about every one of the ten years of that decade. He draws much of his material from reading match listings and recalling a memory or two of having sat through those events. This pace is interesting at first, but ultimately becomes irritating when you realize that the entire book is written in this formula. By the time I reached the “chapter” on the 1970s, I was exhausted with this format. Thankfully, I had four several hour-long train rides in the last few weeks which allowed me the time and patience I needed to make it through the book, regardless of its format.

On the flip side, once you get towards the end of the book it really becomes an interesting story about the shift in power that occurred during the 1980s. The story of how the ownership of Houston Wrestling was split up and then ultimately how Vince McMahon came in, gave Houston a shot, backed out, and then was brought back to the table is one that I would have loved to read much more about – and from more perspectives. Birkholz does an admirable job of covering that period of time and I would recommend that any wrestling fan who can get their hands on this book read through those pages because it really is an interesting part of the story.

A general criticism I would offer is that at times Birkholz the storyteller/former promoter over-sensationalizes the matches and performers that he writes about each year. Sensationalizing matches and performers is not an uncommon trait for professional wrestling promoters and announcers, so I’m already preconditioned to know how to digest this type of hype. Although, when I was some 50 pages into the book I did begin to grow weary of reading about how this guy was arguably the “greatest performer ever” and that his opponent was probably the “best wrestler in the world” and this event was the “biggest event in wrestling history” and the other event was the “most talked about event in years.” You get the point. That went on for the entire book in seemingly every paragraph. That type of hyperbole may be more true than false during the moment and more right than wrong, but it’s also tiresome for a reader to follow along over an entire book.

Also, at times it would have been nice to learn more about the behind-the-scenes discussions that accompany any wrestling promotion. Birkholz tells the early story of professional wrestling in Houston more from a long-time fan’s perspective than from what is commonly thought of as an “insider” perspective. There’s nothing wrong with his fan’s perspective, but if you think you’re going to learn about the backstage discussions that led to, for example, Verne Gagne not becoming the undisputed NWA World Heavyweight Championship in the 1950s, then you’re not going to get that here. And, frankly, that’s okay.

If you’re a wrestling fan, you should not let the lack of backstage “insider” discussion from 60 years ago prevent you from getting your hands on this book. For this wrestling fan, it was a fun read and a very colorful trip down sports entertainment’s memory lane.

NOOK Book Review: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

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Wow. I don’t even know where to start this NOOK Book review so I’m just going to begin at the beginning and take you through my experience with A Game of Thrones. Like most folks, I heard about A Game of Thrones because it’s a big hit on HBO and has a pretty large fan base with respect to readers of the novels. I’m the type of person who at least likes to be aware of what’s going on in pop culture and when A Game of Thrones hit the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list, I thought that I should probably give the story a shot. Plus, I’ve been looking (not that hard) for a good fantasy series to read since I’ve pretty much read and re-read everything that the master of the genre – J.R.R. Tolkien – published.

So with the thought in my mind that this was a New York Times bestseller, a hit series on HBO, and a fantasy story that was gaining momentum in pop culture I got myself the NOOK Book version of A Game of Thrones. For reference, the NOOK Book version of the novel has 753 pages, some 733 of which are the actual story versus the final 20 NOOK Book pages which are an appendix listing the relationships of the different characters in the story.

I’m not sure how deep into detail I want to get with respect to the story itself, but there are a few major, overarching points that I want to make about this book.

First, A Game of Thrones does not read like a fantasy or science fiction story except in certain places. Other than the opening prologue, the reader has to wait hundreds (literally, hundreds) of pages before any event occurs that is actually supernatural in its nature. Further, the reader isn’t treated to a second supernatural, fantastical event until the very last page or two of the book. And even at that, after the reader gets through 733 pages of this “fantasy” novel the fantastical event at the end of the novel is good, but not enough in this reader’s mind.

Second, this is a long book. A really long book. As a reader, I enjoy long books because they give me a chance to get wrapped up in a story and really try to understand the perspectives of the characters, why they do what they do, what larger issues are being commented on by the story/author, etc. I didn’t get much of that from A Game of Thrones and, frankly, the lack of both character depth and progressive character development for the majority of these 733 pages is alarming. Based just upon the character depth and development alone, I’m shocked that A Game of Thrones made its way to the #1 spot on the New York Times bestseller list. Shocked.

Third, while I eventually began to accept what A Game of Thrones had to offer, I can’t really say that I enjoyed reading the book. Don’t misunderstand – I didn’t loathe reading the book. If I hated A Game of Thrones I would have just stopped reading it and went on to the next book in my unread stack. There’s something in this story… there’s something there that made me – as a fan of fantasy and science fiction writing – want to see the superiority and depth of this story and its characters. But I just couldn’t get myself into it that deeply.

The story of the Stark family ruling at Winterfell, being split up, and ultimately having the head of the family decimated in King’s Landing after King Robert dies is certainly a good story. But the reasons behind the various actions that lead to the end of the novel are not that deep. Look, the Lannisters are scumbags and they do whatever they want to do without regarding for right or wrong. They put an inbred young king on the throne who doesn’t even know that his father is actually his uncle and I guess that there is supposed to be more of a gripping story than appears to the naked eye there, but I didn’t see it. However, a more compelling story for this reader was that of Dany and her brother Viserys and their interactions with the Dothraki. And yet even in that story, Martin (seemingly randomly) chooses to kill off one of the most interesting characters in the novel, Khal Drogo, to reach the storyline progression that is achieved at the end of A Game of Thrones. It just seemed to me that in terms of storytelling, Drogo could have made it a little bit further in the story.

There are a variety of lesser stories interwoven throughout the novel that also have potential, such as the stories regarding the Mormont family, the different characters and their interactions in the Night’s Watch, the Others beyond the Wall, etc. But Martin doesn’t really get into those stories too much. One would think that with 733 pages of story, he could dive into one of those sub-stories and really give it some color. The again, if he chose not to give a depth of color to the main characters, I guess it would seem silly to do that with the minor ones instead.

I know this NOOK Book review seems more like I’m complaining than anything else, but I just can’t figure out what my exact gripe is with A Game of Thrones. My gripe is not that the story is mostly sluggish or mostly boring – I can imagine many folks enjoying this read. And my gripe also doesn’t have to do with the extremely repetitive words and phrases that Martin uses throughout the novel (if I read that a character ate something “to break his/her fast” again or that a warrior was robed in armor that looked like “a lobster,” I’m going to punch someone).

In general, I think my problem with A Game of Thrones is that it really does take hundreds of pages for Martin to reveal a plot point that any astute reader had probably already discovered and processed the moment that the plot point was hinted at… hundreds of pages earlier. In addition, while Martin’s writing style isn’t necessarily bad, his narration style leaves a lot to be desired. A Game of Thrones does not benefit by the way Martin jumps from one part of the story to the next (very similar to the way the Lord of the Rings movies follows the progression of the story). Aside from being distracting to the discerning reader, jumping from one scene to a completely different one reveals another one of my gripes with this story – it seems to have almost been written in a format that would make it easily adaptable to television.

After 733 pages of NOOK Book reading, I can’t quite put my finger on the element of the book that makes A Game of Thrones a hit show on HBO. However, there is little doubt in my mind that this story was written – at least in part – from a desire to see the characters come to life on film or television and that is what is at the core of what bothers me. When you read a book like Tarzan or a book like The Hobbit or a series like The Lord of The Rings, you aren’t reading about characters who were created to eventually be placed on the big screen. Go back and read a book like Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe and tell me if you think that the characters in those books were written with the express purpose of eventually making a video game or television series based off of the characters. The answer is clearly no (and not just because those mediums of entertainment didn’t exist when the books were published). These books were written to tell a compelling story and let’s be honest – content is king.

The reason why The Lord of the Rings has stood the test of time is because J.R.R. Tolkien created a story with characters that are so deep and with such a rich back story that a fan of fantasy novels can get lost in his legendarium and never cease to be amazed at a new discovery that informs the core story of good versus evil. It’s that content that made Tolkien a master of his craft. And in truth, it’s that lack of content – the lack of any compelling, overarching reason as to why events are happening – that brings down A Game of Thrones for this reader. I understand that there are other books in this series. However, I have to ask the question – if a deeper, compelling story isn’t revealed after 733 NOOK Book pages of reading, then what else is there? Could Martin have made the next books in this series any less substantive, any less dramatic, any more unnecessarily graphic, or any more frustrating to read than A Game of Thrones? I have access to the next book in this series, but I’m unsure if I’m going to read it yet. I might give the first chapter a try just to see what’s doing.

For those of you out there who are looking for something different to read – A Game of Thrones is definitely different. However, if you’re looking for a good science fiction series or a fantasy series with a deep, compelling story to get into, then I don’t think that A Game of Thrones is for you. The story isn’t quite science fiction nor is it quite fantasy except in very few, very brief instances in its 733 pages. And for a science fiction or fantasy fan, that’s just not enough. The book is long – that’s for sure. But length aside, A Game of Thrones is a case where quantity does not equal quality.

NOOK Book Review: Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

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This was an interesting read for a variety of reasons. First, it was a free book that I downloaded from the Google eBookstore. I mean if the book can be legally acquired for free, then why pay for it, right? So, with respect to reading books on my NOOK Color, this was the first freebie that I’ve read on it. And on that topic, I noticed that the .epub version of the book (the one I read on the NOOK Color) had a lot of weird quirks to it. For example, sometimes there would be incredibly misspelled words to the point where the flow of my reading had to stop so I could try to decipher what was printed on the page. Also, there was a good amount (not a lot, but a good amount) of formatting errors throughout the book. Not enough to make me want to delete the file and pay the dollar or so that it costs on BN.com, but enough for me to take notice.

The other interesting part of reading this book was that it really was entertaining. Sure, there were parts of it that were just a bit unrealistic (I mean a baby human being taken in by apes, raised as an ape, becoming the king of the apes, teaching himself to read and comprehend written language, and then being taught how to speak French by a military officer is a bit bizarre), but overall it was a really fun read. My Father used to be a big fan of the old Tarzan television show. My Father was an older guy from an older generation and I always wondered what he found so captivating about the Tarzan television show. Well, after reading this book I can see for myself – this is a very entertaining story!

Like I said above, though, some parts of the story are patently out there. I can’t imagine that a human raised by apes would survive, let alone be able to become such a physical force that he begins to overtake the apes and literally beats the life out of other jungle animals, but that’s part of the fun of the story. I also enjoyed reading about the introduction of the famous “Jane” to the novel as she, her father, her maid, her father’s servant, and (believe it or not) Tarzan’s cousin are all left for dead in the jungle by mutinous pirates. I won’t give away the bulk of that part of the story (which is a fun read itself), but suffice to say that – just like every other story in history – the good guys come out on top.

However, when I think back about reading Tarzan of the Apes I’ll think back about a book that is really one-half the story of Tarzan’s upbringing and one-half a love story. The latter part of the novel is a great love story about a primeval man and a highly cultured young woman and their search (both literally and figuratively) for each other. While I was reading this part of the novel I couldn’t help buy think that Burroughs takes some liberties with how fast Tarzan is able to generally adapt to civilized society in his attempts to find Jane. And whenever I had those thoughts I’d remind myself that I was reading a book about a guy who grew up among apes in a jungle and I’d get back to the fun of the story at hand. 🙂

In the end, I definitely recommend reading Tarzan of the Apes if you’re looking for a fun, classic work of fiction. The story of Tarzan is entertaining on many levels and will likely keep you captivated if not for the fantastical elements of the story, then for the old-fashioned approach that Burroughs uses to tell a very good story.

NOOK Book Review: The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

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A few months ago, I realized that I felt somewhat “good.” Now, I don’t know how to properly define what it means to feel “good,” but I do know that after spending the last ten or so years of my life not eating fast food, drinking soda, or putting an excessive amount of harmful stuff in my body (hey, we all need to get drunk every once in a while), that I just felt pretty good.

In fact, I felt good enough to begin a weight loss contest with my roommates. My hope was that the weight loss contest would motivate me to go to the gym more often and, in the process, eliminate some of the nagging nuisances of being so overweight. For example, my joints (knees, ankles, and hips) tended to feel extra stressed after laying on a couch or sitting on my leg (which I do often in my home office area). You know – typically overweight stuff.

Those somewhat nagging physical inconveniences aside, I’m constantly trying to put myself in a situation where I can learn new things about topics that I’m interested in. For the last few months, I’ve been reading up on different diets that focus on simplicity and common sense and I found myself looking at the paleo diet. After a little bit of research I wound up on Mark Sisson’s website (MarksDailyApple.com) and flipping through a sample of his book called The Primal Blueprint. Flipping through that sample made me realize that the trajectory that I’ve been on for the last ten years is pretty much a combination of Michael Pollan’s food rules, the paleo diet, and The Primal Blueprint – so I purchased the eBook version of The Primal Blueprint and began reading.

And you know what? I really enjoyed reading this book.

Sisson goes into detail about his ten rules for living a primal lifestyle. To do this, he uses a fictional, catch-all character named Grok – one of our cavemen ancestors who lived a simple life that consisted of foraging and hunting animals for food and running for dear life when that food started to attack! Conceptually, the entire basis of The Primal Blueprint is built around Grok’s life and how it can translate to today’s world. It’s a brilliant form of writing because by using a fictional character that the entire world can relate to (a caveman), Sisson is able to start each reader of his book (or his website) at a similar “square one.” In other words, in order to understand and accept The Primal Blueprint, you have to understand and accept that cavemen lived simple lives.

Which is a simple enough concept to grasp, I think!

The core of The Primal Blueprint diet is to reduce the amount of grains that you eat and increase the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables. That’s about as a boiled down as I can make the discussion about food without getting too technical (for example, don’t eat just fruits and vegetables – eat organic fruits and vegetables). And Sisson – as many health writers are these days – is a big proponent of eating meat (grass-fed, organic). Eating a good portion of meat is part of Sisson’s war on Conventional Wisdom (a defined term in The Primal Blueprint and thus why it is capitalized here). Sisson argues that Conventional Wisdom is what made the majority of Americans fat and overweight while living unhealthy lifestyles with little to no play time or exposure to the sun.

While I was reading this book, I looked at the world around me and it’s very easy to notice that Sisson is absolutely right on many of these anti-Conventional Wisdom points.

In addition to the deconstruction of Conventional Wisdom, the other main point in the book that stuck with me was the attack on Chronic Cardio (another defined term, thus the capitalization). For Sisson, Chronic Cardio is what most of us get engaged in when we say we’re “going to the gym.” You know how it works – you get on the treadmill, steadily increase your pace, stay on for a little while, move on to the elliptical machine, repeat the same procedure, move on to the stationary bike, repeat the same procedure, and call it a day. Sisson argues that this isn’t healthy because it puts your heart beat range in a dangerous, unnatural zone and conditions your body to stop burning calories (i.e. the plateau effect when trying to lose weight). For the anti-Chronic Cardio discussion alone, I’d advise clicking through Sisson’s website or flipping through his book at the local Barnes & Noble (which I did before I purchased the cheaper, more cost efficient NOOK Book version).

One of the annoying parts of reading the book was the constant references to going to Sisson’s website to get more information on a certain topic. Sure, it’s nice that there is a free resource to access additional information on a topic, but I don’t need to be reminded about that free resource every few pages.

Granted, there were a bunch of formatting issues when reading the NOOK Book version of The Primal Blueprint, but none so egregious that I had to stop reading the book at any point. I have to imagine that the reason why there were formatting issues is because this book is pretty much self-published and didn’t have the benefit of a big publishing house to review every format and aspect of the book. No worries, though, the NOOK Book version is very accessible (and very easy to read while I was on the treadmill or the elliptical at the gym).

NOOK Book Review: The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

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Well, thanks to my handy, dandy NOOK Color I’ve been reading a lot more lately. In fact, I have a few more “NOOK Book” reviews coming up in the next few days (hopefully, if I get a chance to write them up). And today, I’m glad to bring you a brief review of the fifth book in The Saxon Tales series – The Burning Land. In The Burning Land, author Bernard Cornwell continues the story of Uhtred Ragnarson – the anti-authority hero of 9th Century pre-England.

Uhtred’s tale continues in this novel much like it has in the previous novels. He fights a few battles for a king that he doesn’t respect (King Alfred) to help create a country that he doesn’t care about (England). In some respects, Cornwell’s writing style has become somewhat formulaic for The Saxon Tales, but as a reader of this series – I’m fine with it. In other words, when I pick up one of these books (or NOOK books in this case), I know that I’m going to really enjoy reading through the pre-battle, battle, and immediate-post battle portions of the novel. The other parts of the story tend to drag a little bit, but that is the nature of writing fiction.

In The Burning Land, Uhtred is faced with two major in his life. The first is the loss of his wife, Gisela. The second is the introduction and ultimate destruction of a Danish woman who enters the story – Skade. In fact, The Burning Land does a great deal to inform the readers of the importance of certain women during Uhtred’s time period. The novel not only tells the stories of Gisela and Skade, but also of the emergence of Aethelflaed as the much-beloved Lady of Mercia. One of the joys of reading this book was reading about how Aethelflaed gave hope and spirit to the Mercians who were otherwise downtrodden and stuck with an Ealdorman that they could care less about (Aethelflaed’s husband, Athelred).

Of course, the advance of the Danes on the Kingdom of Wessex is also a major part of the story and I enjoyed reading how Uhtred played a part in both bolstering Wessex’s defenses and igniting the fire of war on the side of the Danes. It’s almost as though he was fighting against himself, which might be a great allegory of the strife that is constantly going on inside of Uhtred. The fight scenes in this novel are, as always, intense and near-addicting. Honestly, it gets very hard to put down the book (the NOOK Book, that is) when the story moves to one of the fight scenes. Very well done by Cornwell.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this NOOK Book and I would recommend it to any fans of this type of series. If you’re interested in the middle ages and reading a historical fiction set in that time period (though frequently referencing real life events of historical record), then you would probably enjoy the entirety of The Saxon Tales. The Burning Land certainly lives up to the high standard set in the previous novels in this series and I expect that the next novel – Death of Kings – will do the same.

In the event that you’re interested, you can read any of my reviews of the previous novels in The Saxon Tales: The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, Lords of the North, and Sword Song. If you opt to read any of those previous reviews, I hope you enjoy them. And if you’re looking for a good beach read this summer, then pick up the first book in The Saxon Tales and give it a shot. I think you’ll enjoy it!

Book Review: Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell

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If you’ve been reading JerseySmarts.com for a while, then you may remember a couple of book reviews that I posted a few years ago. The first of those book reviews was for a book called The Last Kingdom and the second was for a book called The Pale Horseman. Both of these historical fiction novels are written by Bernard Cornwell and they are the first two books in a series he is calling “The Saxon Tales.”

I read those books a few years ago and I really enjoyed them. However, as you’ve probably garnered from this blog – I’ve been booked up over the last few years and thus I haven’t had a chance to catch up on reading the remaining books in this series. Until now, that is…

Lords of the North was one of those books that had been shuffling around from my bookshelf to my home office desktop to the bureau and so on for the better part of a year and a half. In fact, in the last year and a half I only managed to read about 6 pages of the book. But then a few weeks ago I picked up the book on a Friday night and started reading a little bit more of it. I read through the first few pages again, moved along to the next few pages, and before I knew it I was some 50+ pages into the book. Fast forward a mere 24 hours later and I had finished reading the Lords of the North.

That’s how captivating this story is once you start to get into it (and have the benefit of having read the previous two novels in the series). The third installment of The Saxon Tales follows the story of Uhtred Ragnarson as he travels back to his ancestral homeland in Northumbria. What I remember about the “plot thickening” in this story is the part where Uhtred helps free a slave by calling himself Thorguild the Leper. Nothing wrong with a little deception when you’re trying to keep yourself alive, right? The slave turns out to be a guy named Guthred who proclaims himself the King of Northumbria. This part of the book stayed with me as a major plot point because after helping Guthred build some credibility for himself to be the King of that part of England, Guthred goes and sells Uhtred into slavery as demanded by Uhtred’s uncle.

Talk about getting screwed over by your boss, right?

The story takes a bit of a detour when Uhtred becomes a slave. I’m not sure if it’s one of Cornwell’s literary devices or if it’s just the way this part of the book presents itself to the reader, but I thought the entire story slowed down at this point. Having read three of Cornwell’s books (and I’m almost finished with the fourth book in this series), I’ve noticed that when he writes about fighting scenes and action scenes, he’s great. However, when he writes about the mundane existence of a slave (for example), the writing slows down. There are several places in Cornwell’s books that have these slow down points and, as an informed reader, I find myself annoyed at the slow down in the story, but understanding of the need to do so.

The other part of this book that stands out in my mind is the final fight for Dunholm. Uhtred takes Guthred’s “army” and leads an attack against Kjartan. This is the same Kjartan whose son (Sven) had one of his eyes plucked out by Ragnar – the guy who essentially raised Uhtred and whose name he uses in his last name (Ragnarson). What stands out to me in this battle is the release of Thyra and her hounds. From the way that Thyra is described in the book, I envisioned a crazy lady that appeared as a mix of the crazy cat lady from the Simpson and the lustful, angry version of Galadriel from the Lord of the Rings.

This is what I imagine Thyra, Ragnar's sister, was like - just without the magic.

Not exactly a pretty sight if you’re trying to win a battle against her side, you know?

Of course, like in all great movies and novels, the good guys win in the end and Uhtred defeats both of his long-time enemies (Kjarten and Sven) as well as a much stronger, better funded enemy in Ivarr Ivarsson.

I’ve never considered myself a big reader of historical fiction until I began reading The Saxon Tales. They’re very entertaining and Cornwell skillfully crafts each book so that it can be read on its own. Readers of this series, though, know that each book builds on the one prior and that the characters continue to develop throughout. I’d recommend this book to anyone who has read the first two novels in The Saxon Tales as well as anyone who enjoys historical fiction (set in the late 800s and early 900s). Also, those who enjoy reading fantasy and science fiction might enjoy how Cornwell intersperses the Norse religion and Christianity throughout the tale because the character think that the gods of each religion are using their “magical powers” to help them along.

Plus, it’s the summertime and who wouldn’t love a good book to read while laying on the beach?! If you’re headed to the beach this year, then I suggest picking up the Lords of the North – I think you’ll really enjoy it!

Book Review: Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

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I have a bad habit of starting to read a book and then letting it lag for weeks, months, and sometimes longer before finishing it up. It is certainly not the right way to read a book by any means. However, over the last few weeks I’ve dedicated myself to finishing up a bunch of books that I’ve been halfheartedly reading over the last year or so. Thus, you’re going to get a lot of these book reviews coming at you on JerseySmarts.com, as you saw the other day with my review of reading The Hobbit on the NOOK Color.

For this entry, though, I’m going to focus on a business book that I received as a Christmas gift either two or three years ago (I can’t remember). That book, Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, focuses on why some ideas “stick” and others seem to fall away. The book is well-written and manages to make its points in a very sticky way (pun intended).

When I think about this book, the one story that sticks in my mind is about a journalism teacher who told his class that they needed to create a headline for a set of circumstances that he was going to give them. The circumstances were that all of the teachers in the school were going to a prestigious Governor’s school next Thursday to study better strategies for reaching students and to increase the overall status of the school. The students created headlines like, “Our School Selected for Prestigious Honor,” and “Governor’s School Educating our Educators,” and so on. However, the teacher told them that they missed the point. The real headline should have been something like, “No School Next Thursday.”

The book is filled with stories like that – stories that have survived the years and different interpretations (I definitely didn’t repeat that story correctly). These are the stories that “stick.” The Heath brothers dive in to why these stories stick and they come up with the SUCCESs model. That stands for: simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, stories. According to the Heath brothers, these are the elements of any story that becomes sticky.

Made to Stick is written in a very accessible manner and includes miniature case studies at the end of (and sometimes throughout) each chapter. These case studies give real life examples of how those six elements of stickiness play out in the real world. I find that when I read a business book, I like when these types of real world examples are parlayed into case studies to illustrate a point. And Made to Stick definitely meets that requirement of a good business book for me.

Overall, I think that this is a good book for someone working in the marketing or advertising fields. Also, I would recommend this book for any entrepreneur who is looking to make a name for their company in an already crowded field. Further, this is the type of book that any well-rounded business person would want to read and keep in their personal library for reference reasons. In fact, I expect that I’ll go back and re-read portions (if not all) of Made to Stick at some point in the future.

If you’re looking for a good read about why certain commercials, images, advertisements, or stories stick in your head, then I suggest picking up Made to Stick. I think that you’ll really enjoy reading it.

Note: Made to Stick offers some free resources, which you can find by clicking here.