Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• This was a short, quick read that took no more than a few hours to get through.
• Although this book was in no way, shape, or form up to typical Willa Cather standards, it should at least be somewhat appreciated as having contributed to the author’s overall experience as a writer.

Disliked:

• The heavy-handed, transparent symbolism found throughout the novel was one of the clearest indications of Cather’s inexperience.
• Bartley wasn’t a sympathetic character at all. While I guess I can understand wanting to recapture his youth, he really had no reason to cheat on Winifred and try to resume a relationship with Hilda. It was unfair to both women, actually.
• The death scene was sort of melodramatic. It was rather convenient that the bridge held up just long enough for Bartley to arrive, and then started crumbling. And of course Winifred was waiting around until the body was pulled out of the water, completely unaware of her husband’s recent infidelities.

Rating:

Well, what is there to say about a book that the author herself basically disowned? Alexander’s Bridge is only noteworthy because it was written by Willa Cather. Others have called it “Edith Wharton lite,” and I tend to agree with that assessment. Still, because it was so short and to the point, I think it deserves at least 3 stars out of 5.

Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White’s wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven- decade career in Hollywood. Longtime fans and new fans alike will relish Betty’s candid take on everything from her rumored crush on Robert Redford (true) to her beauty regimen (“I have no idea what color my hair is and I never intend to find out”) to the Facebook campaign that helped persuade her to host Saturday Night Live despite her having declined the hosting job three times already.

Featuring all-new material, with a focus on the past fifteen years of her life, If You Ask Me is funny, sweet, and to the point-just like Betty White.

Liked:

• I listened to the audiobook version, which was read by Betty herself. She seems like such a truly sweet person that I couldn’t help but perk up and pay attention the whole time.
• I love that Betty has a whole room in her house devoted to stuffed animals and that she actually talks to them — out loud — whenever she walks into the room. I only have a few stuffed animals, but I do exactly the same thing!
• I enjoyed hearing a little bit about the show business side of Betty’s life, including the Snickers Super Bowl commercial that revived her popularity and the SNL hosting gig. She talks about Hot in Cleveland too, but not as much as I expected she would.
• I’m glad that Betty says being 89 (or 90 now, I guess) isn’t an “achievement”, that it “just happens”. That’s so true. Betty shouldn’t be celebrated just because she’s 90. She should be celebrated because she’s 90 and is still going strong in show biz!
• There were a few mentions of The Golden Girls and her work on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I’m all for nostalgia and loved the little tidbits Betty shared.

Disliked:

• There’s no way I’m going to be too harsh on Betty, but one thing I didn’t like was that this book was very short! I just borrowed it from the library, so it wasn’t that big a deal to me, but I can’t imagine paying $25 for the hardcover as some people surely did. I heard there were practically more photos in the book than text, which is pretty crazy!

Rating:

New Betty White fans might be disappointed that there isn’t much substance to If You Ask Me; to those folks I say check out her previous two memoirs (Here We Go Again: My Life in Television and Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo) for a fuller account of her life. I think this new book is just fine to bring people up to date with the latest happenings in Betty’s life, and I for one am glad that she wrote it (and that I read it). That doesn’t automatically make the work fine literature, though. I give the book 3 stars out of 5.

The perfect life
A successful lawyer and loving mother, Nina Bloom would do anything to protect the life she’s built in New York–including lying to everyone, even her daughter, about her past. But when an innocent man is framed for murder, she knows that she can’t let him pay for the real killer’s crimes.

The perfect lie
Nina’s secret life began 18 years ago. She had looks to die for, a handsome police-officer husband, and a carefree life in Key West. When she learned she was pregnant with their first child, her happiness was almost overwhelming. But Nina’s world is shattered when she unearths a terrible secret that causes her to run for her life and change her identity.

The perfect way to die
Now, years later, Nina risks everything she’s earned to return to Florida and confront the murderous evil she fled. In a story of wrenching suspense, James Patterson gives us his most head-spinning, action-filled story yet–a Hitchcock-like blend of unquenchable drama and pleasure.

Liked:

• As with most of Patterson + fill-in-the-blank co-author’s works, this book featured a ton of short chapters and plenty of twists and turns to the storyline. I bet if I took the time to analyze 3-4 of these type of books, I could walk away with an almost page-by-page template of how to write a thriller. Maybe that should be my next summer project!
• I liked when the FBI agent approached Jeanine (before she became Nina) and told her she had to get away from Peter. That was very cryptic; and when Jeanine researched Peter’s history at the library, her situation became downright scary.
• I liked that Charlie Baylor (the Key West lawyer for falsely accused murderer Justin Miller) and Nina ended up together. They seemed like a good match, and really, after all that time with the wrong man and then alone, Nina deserved some happiness. Here’s hoping they get to review medical malpractice insurance Florida laws together for a long time to come!

Disliked:

• I didn’t think that Peter’s wife-killing tendency was explained adequately. Did he just get tired of these women, so he killed them? Was it because he didn’t want them to have babies? If the former, what the hell was wrong with a simple divorce(or why even get married in the first place)? If the latter, why not use contraception even after marriage or get a vasectomy or something?
• Along similar lines, I wish the authors had explained why Peter decided to get married AND have children after Jeanine left him. Why the sudden change of heart? That seemed like an important thing to know.
• Why in the world would Nina stop at New York? I don’t know about you, but if I had a psycho ex out there like that, I would have gone clear across to the other side of the country. Sure, at first glance NY might seem far enough away from Key West, but with Peter’s Boston connection I would still be worried. Wouldn’t Seattle or San Diego have been much safer? I realize Nina didn’t have any money when she started out, so she had to stop in New York, but after she got herself together, she could have moved again.
• I don’t buy for one second that Nina never felt compelled to Google Peter to see what he was up to. She was surprised that he was still in Key West, had become the Chief of Police down there, etc. If she truly feared for her life all those years, I’m SURE she would have been Googling him to make sure he didn’t transfer to New York or something.
• I found it pretty amazing (in a bad way) that the Jump Killer so miraculously happened to pick Jeanine up on the highway — right after she staged her own disappearance to make it look like the Jump Killer caught her. How lucky!!
• Speaking of the Jump Killer, Peter just happened to have that guy under his thumb too and managed to set Charlie and Nina up on an empty dinner boat with that guy? Um, okaaaay.

Rating:

At this point, I know enough to have limited expectations regarding James Patterson’s assembly line works. As such, even though my Dislikes greatly outnumbered my Likes for Now You See Her, I’m still going to give the book 3 stars out of 5. It’s a fast-paced book meant to be consumed in a weekend, and in that regard it serves its purpose.

Less than half a year after sniper school, he was fighting for his life. The mission: capture or kill Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. From rooftops, helicopters and alleys, Wasdin hunted Aidid and killed his men whenever possible. But everything went quickly to hell when his small band of soldiers found themselves fighting for their lives, cut off from help and desperately trying to rescue downed comrades during a routine mission. The Battle of Mogadishu, as it became known, left 18 American soldiers dead and 73 wounded.

No book takes readers deeper inside SEAL Team Six than this.

Liked:

• The parts about SEAL training were definitely the highlights of this book. It was interesting to get a look at all the physical and mental challenges the candidates had to face and to wonder how I would hold up in a similar situation (not very well). Making it through Hell Week and BUD/S, and then being selected for SEAL Team Six are accomplishments to be proud of. Note: I say this as a completely non-military person who has not read ANY other books about Navy SEALs before this one. If you’ve read a ton of stuff, then obviously your mileage may vary.
• The military often gets a bad rap, but this book just goes to show how much of a life-saver/changer the armed forces can be. Wasdin had very few prospects as a young man, but joining the Navy and trying out for the SEALs gave him purpose and direction. A lot of people need that.
• I’m glad that Wasdin is now a chiropractor and has found a career that he truly enjoys after bouncing around from job to job for a while. I checked out his website, and though he doesn’t look at all like what I picture a former SEAL to be, it’s cool that he’s happy and settled these days.
• The Somalia stuff was pretty neat, too. I especially liked how Wasdin contrasted what really happened with what was portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down.

Disliked:

• This book was not well-written. Despite the presence of a co-author, both the prose and dialog were awkward, clunky, and disorganized. There were many stray sentences that seemed to have been thrown into the mix just for the hell of it without ever leading anywhere.
• I didn’t like the descriptions of fights . Reading about how Wasdin and his buddies fought 30 cops (yeah, right) or kicked a bunch of rednecks’ asses was tedious and made him sound like a jerk, not a tough guy.
• Similarly, I didn’t like reading how he squashed a rat with his boot (nasty!) or shot kangaroos in Australia or wild animals in Africa from a helicopter. The part about him practicing field medicine on a goat or sheep or whatever was disturbing as well. Yes, I understand that most of this had to do with training, but still… I would rather not have read about it.
• Call me crazy, but I don’t understand how Wasdin could make excuses for all the beatings his stepfather (allegedly) gave him. If I got beat that much, I don’t know if I’d EVER have it in my heart to forgive the person, let alone try to justify the person’s despicable actions.
• I wrote “allegedly” up there because I’ve read some stuff from Wasdin’s half-brother claiming that a significant portion of the childhood stuff was made up. I obviously can’t verify if this is true or not, but it does give me pause. In particular, MANY people have said the wild cat in the suitcase bit was a tale that has been going around since the ’50s, so who knows.
• Wasdin left the SEALs in the mid-’90s, so a lot of the stuff in here is outdated info. I was kind of hoping to learn more about the SEAL Team Six of today and how they operate with the latest technology.

Rating:

SEAL Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin does provide some good insight into what it took to become a Navy SEAL and join the elite Team Six snipers back in the day. This is not a perfect book and probably isn’t even one of the best SEAL books out there. But I think it’s sufficient for the casual reader and is interesting enough that you’ll want to plow through the boring parts (of which there are many). I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Patch’s impassioned marriage to Gloria is fueled by alcohol and consumed by greed. The dazzling couple race through a series of alcohol-induced fiascoes — first in hilarity, and later in despair. The Beautiful and Damned is a piercing and tragic depiction of New York nightlife, reckless ambition, squandered talent, and the faux aristocracy of the nouveaux riches. Published in 1922 on the heels of Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, it gives evidence to the sharp social insight and breathtaking lyricism of one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• The portrayal of Anthony and Gloria’s relationship felt very real to me. I’ve been in relationships like that, where things are only good when the money’s there and the couple spend all their time recklessly living it up instead of working, paying bills, and saving. Just as with Anthony and Gloria, that lifestyle is fun for a while, but soon becomes strained and exhausting. Their deterioration hit way too close to home and was very hard to read about at times.
• Speaking of hitting too close to home, I was surprised to learn that this book predates Scott’s own marriage to Zelda Sayer. Wow, shouldn’t he have used this as a real-life cautionary tale? Was he just perversely determined to become Anthony in the flesh? Yikes.
• The scenes towards the end of the book where Anthony tried to muster up the courage to ask Maury Noble and the film producer Mr. Black for money were just gut-wrenching. Again, if you’ve ever been in a position of pride/independence and then had to swallow that pride to borrow money… well, Fitzgerald captures those feelings perfectly.
• The novel really picked up steam after Anthony joined the Army and went south. I didn’t like the Dot character or the way Anthony carelessly disregarded his marriage vows, but that separation from Gloria seemed to be the impetus for the only true action in the entire book.
• Anthony’s pitiful attempt at becoming a salesman was another part that I found to be very realistic. Anthony is EXACTLY the kind of person who would spend more money trying to make a sale (e.g. getting drunk in bars in order to try to sell stocks to the bartender) than he would ever earn in commissions.
• Some of the writing was truly wonderful. This particular novel of Fitzgerald’s is generally derided by critics for being too overwrought, and while I do agree that many of the descriptions and adjectives are so ornate as to be distracting, it’s clear that this wasn’t written by an ordinary talent.

Disliked:

• The first half of the novel dragged in a LOT of places. Gloria and Anthony were interesting for a while, but then their scenes became way too repetitive. They drank, they spent money, they fought, they were irresponsible, they were unproductive members of society….how many different times and in how many different ways did we need to see that?
• I didn’t like the ending. I thought it would have been more interesting had Gloria and Anthony NOT received any money from the Adam Patch estate. Their downfall was delicious, and since they were utterly selfish characters without any positive qualities, I would have preferred that their descent continue until they were forced to work. To have $30 million fall into their laps at last didn’t feel right. The fact that Anthony was so frail at the time of his inheritance that he would likely be accepted into Housing for seniors mitigated the situation — but only a little.
• Dot was kind of a scary little stalker, wasn’t she? First the stunt about threatening to commit suicide if Anthony didn’t come see her right away, and then tracking him down in New York City when she knew damn well he was married… Women who are that desperate always give me the creeps.
• Did F. Scott Fitzgerald really name check himself in this book by mentioning This Side of Paradise as something that the young folks of the time were reading???
• Richard Caramel was a tedious character. What purpose did he serve? Was he meant to make Anthony jealous because Anthony wanted to write? Was he meant to be a parody of FSF and his contemporaries? Whatever the case, I didn’t like him.

Rating:

This was my second time reading The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and now that I was able to look at it with the perspective of one who has been through similar situations, I have a whole new appreciation for the characters of Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert. But the book still lacks the tightly focused writing and well plotted structure that Fitzgerald would become famous for with his third novel (Gatsby), and the story wasn’t very compelling after all is said and done. I give this one 3 stars out of 5.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I think David Mitchell is a tremendous writer. His prose is often very good and fun to read. It’s clear that he has talent galore, so I wouldn’t mind reading other works of his.
• The Robert Frobisher story, the Luisa Rey mystery, and the Timothy Cavendish piece were my favorites. All of those had interesting plot lines that made me want to keep turning the pages, and I felt that Robert Frobisher was perhaps the most fleshed out of all the characters in the entire novel.
• For me, the novel as a whole worked best when read as a collection of six discrete short stories instead of the nested stories they were intended to be.

Disliked:

• I didn’t like the structure of this novel one bit. Sure, I guess you could say it was “clever” to break each story off in the middle, continue with the next, and then finish each one off in reverse chronological order, but I found that to be annoying. The structure itself became more prominent than the stories, which should never be the case, IMO. Plus, there was simply no good reason to structure the story that way. It was merely for effect, which added to my annoyance.
• The post-apocalyptic future stories were incredibly dull and monotonous. I am not ashamed to admit that I skimmed almost the entire second half of “Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After” because I couldn’t stand Zachry or any of the other characters in it. Ugh. And the Sonmi story was just a bit more tolerable than that. Too bad those two stories were by far the longest in the whole book.
• I didn’t see the point of having each story loosely connected to the subsequent one via such contrivances as someone finding a previous character’s letters or reading a manuscript about a previous character. Again, that just seemed like more “look at how clever I am!” posturing rather than an organic element of the book.
• The end of each story was rather…anticlimactic. Honestly, when I finished the book, I was rather unsatisfied that such a lengthy journey came up so short when all was said and done.

Rating:
I know critics and readers alike have mostly raved over Cloud Atlas, but I simply can’t share their enthusiasm. Though well written by a talented author, the stories lacked the kind of substance I was hoping for. This book seemed more like a technical exercise in structure than a deep, thought-provoking novel, so I couldn’t get into it as much as I had hoped to. Nevertheless, I still think it warrants 3 stars out of 5.

Why has Amazon been so successful? Much of it has to do with Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder, whose unique combination of character traits and business strategy have driven Amazon to the top of the online retail world.

Richard Brandt charts Bezos’s rise from computer nerd to world- changing entrepreneur. His success can be credited to his forward-looking insights and ruthless business sense. Brandt explains:

• Why Bezos decided to allow negative product reviews, correctly guessing that the earned trust would outweigh possible lost sales.
• Why Amazon zealously guards some patents yet freely shares others.
• Why Bezos called becoming profitable the “dumbest” thing they could do in 1997.
• How Amazon.com became one of the only dotcoms to survive the bust of the early 2000s.
• Where the company is headed next.

Through interviews with Amazon employees, competitors, and observers, Brandt has deciphered how Bezos makes decisions. The story of Amazon’s ongoing evolution is a case study in how to reinvent an entire industry, and one that anyone in business today ignores at their peril.

Liked:

• This book gave a straightforward and mostly chronological (after the first chapter, anyway) account of how Amazon.com rose from humble beginnings to become the world’s largest retailer. It was a pretty amazing journey, even in this Internet age that produces billionaires practically overnight.
• There was plenty of coverage given to Amazon’s business model and the various strategies the company used to expand and sustain growth through the early part of the last decade. I never really followed business news at that time (especially not for dot-coms), so a lot of the information in the book, while probably freely available online, was still new to me and had the added benefit of being compiled all in one place.
• I feel like there was just the right amount of information presented. It was neither so much that it delved into dry business talk that left me bored, nor so little that I felt the need to do my own research to complete the picture.

Disliked:

• The author wasn’t given access to Bezos despite numerous interview requests. While I can appreciate that this is hardly Brandt’s fault, it does detract from the book a bit. Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of other biographies or profiles where the subject wasn’t directly interviewed, but still… That’s just my personal feeling here.
• The book could have done with more analysis from Brandt. He mostly just laid out the facts without really talking about the larger implications of what was happening.

Rating:

One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com by Richard L. Brandt was a decent enough book for what it was: a brief, need-to-know look at how Bezos created Amazon.com and turned it into one of the most successful dot-coms still in existence. There’s not a whole lot of depth here, and most of the information can probably be found online, but instead of wading through Google for several days trying to come up with relevant articles, you can just pick up this book. I give it 3 stars out of 5.

DNA from a 1989 rape and murder matches a 29-year-old convicted rapist. Was he an eight-year-old killer or has something gone terribly wrong in the new Regional Crime Lab? The latter possibility could compromise all of the lab’s DNA cases currently in court.

Then Bosch and his partner are called to a death scene fraught with internal politics. Councilman Irvin Irving’s son jumped or was pushed from a window at the Chateau Marmont. Irving, Bosch’s longtime nemesis, has demanded that Harry handle the investigation.

Relentlessly pursuing both cases, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a killer operating unknown in the city for as many as three decades, and a political conspiracy that goes back into the dark history of the police department.

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought the Irving case was built up in a pretty suspenseful way. I was anxious to learn if the death was indeed suicide or if it was a murder that had something to do with the father’s political dealings.
• I can’t believe Maddie is already 15 years old and helps Bosch with some aspects of his cases! I guess that’s to be expected, though. I can’t imagine Bosch’s daughter being a girly girl who would be Google searching prom dresses 2012 on her laptop instead of reviewing surveillance video with her dad. Oh, and the fact that she knows how to handle guns and now enters shooting competitions is pretty cool, too. I wonder if Connelly is planning to retire Harry and “continue” the series with Maddie in the lead role instead. That would be awesome!
• The twist about Chill being a serial killer with 37 victims to his name was grisly, but good. I certainly wasn’t expecting that at all.
• I really liked the way Chill was caught. He managed to escape detection all those years, but was ultimately undone by a single drop of blood that belonged to an ex-girlfriend’s child. The way Bosch and Chu went from Clayton Pell’s bloodstain to catching a killer was probably my favorite part of the entire book.

Disliked:

• I can’t stand Harry Bosch as a character anymore. I am just so sick and tired of his imperious, lone wolf ways that I have to start skimming whenever he interacts with his partner. Yeah, Chu was totally wrong to go to the LA Times with inside information, but would he have done so if Bosch had been treating him as an equal? If I were in Chu’s shoes and had a partner giving me orders ALL THE TIME without telling me the reason behind the tasks, I would get pissed and want to act out too. Harry has seniority and all that, but that doesn’t give him license to act like an asshole 24/7.
• I couldn’t keep up with all the changes of heart Bosch went through at the end of the book. First he wanted to use his influence with Kiz to get Chu transferred. Then he wanted to quit because he had been played and couldn’t see Irving’s death as the suicide it was. Soon after, he wanted to give Chu a second chance. And then immediately after that, instead of retiring for good he decided to ask for a full five years on his DROP (Deferred Retirement Option Plan). WTF???
• The relationship stuff with the doctor was boring and unnecessary.
• I just don’t enjoy the political angle that Connelly loves to insert in a lot of his books. Sure, in real life politics plays a huge part in what goes on within a big city police department. But I couldn’t care less about the fictional LAPD police chief, his assistant Kiz Rider, or councilman Irvin Irving. The stuff they’re trying to do to each other is tiresome and uninteresting to this average reader.

Rating:

My love-hate with Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series continues with The Drop. The book definitely had some positives that made it an entertaining read, but the bad points are ones that have become quite a trend with this author’s work recently and are becoming increasingly irritating with every installment. I’ll probably continue to read Connelly out of habit; however, he’s not a must-buy-on-release-day writer for me anymore. I give this book 3 stars out of 5.

What’s left? A professional matchmaker. He’s Simon Dodson, and he’s very choosy about the clients he takes on. Cassie finds Simon a difficult, acerbic know-it-all, and she’s astonished when he accepts her as a client.

Claiming he has her perfect mate in mind, Simon assigns her three tasks to complete before she meets him. Three tasks that are all about Christmas: being a charity bell ringer, dressing up as Santa’s elf at a children’s party and preparing a traditional turkey dinner for her neighbors (whom she happens to dislike). Despite a number of comical mishaps, Cassie does it all—and she’s finally ready to meet her match.

But just like the perfect Christmas gift, he turns out to be a wonderful surprise!

Warning: Spoilers below!

Liked:

• I thought Cassie was a fairly likable protagonist. She wasn’t completely annoying or anything like that, and she wasn’t presented as Little Ms. Perfect, either. She had her faults and flaws, which served to make her more human.
• Macomber pretty much got right down to the action. This was a short book, so there wasn’t much time for subplots and tangents. Nearly every scene was productive and had some kind of impact on the outcome.
• The minor characters were decent. Usually, the best friend comes off as desperate or annoying, but I liked Angie. Ditto for the brother. It seems that nearly every romance book includes someone who is completely jaded when it comes to love, but the characters here were upbeat and positive without being unrealistically so.

Disliked:

• Who in their right mind would spend $30,000 on a matchmaker??? I guess Macomber selected that price to show readers that the stakes for Cassie were high, but all I could think of whenever Simon’s fee was mentioned was, “Think of all the other things you could do with that money!!!”
• The moment Cassie met Simon, I knew Macomber intended the two of them to get together. The author spent far too much time describing his appearance for it to be otherwise.
• I saw the Angie and Sean thing coming from a mile away, too. Oh, well, it’s not like I read these kinds of books for the suspense, right?

Rating:

The Perfect Christmas was my first Debbie Macomber book, and while I wasn’t exactly blown away, I did enjoy it to the extent that I’d be open to reading more of her work. This book had fun characters and a great atmosphere, and even made me laugh out loud a few times. It was kind of standard fare for the genre, so I give it 3 stars out of 5.

Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I’m a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth. The result is a book filled with hysterical scenes of one man’s attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended if at times bemused love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away.

Liked:

• I know the reading public’s opinion on Bryson is pretty evenly divided into those that think he’s funny and those that think he tries to hard and falls well short of the mark. I tend to subscribe to the former belief, and therefore enjoyed many smiles and chuckles while reading this book.
• I think Bryson did a nice job of capturing the things that strangers to America would find odd, funny, or endearing. I studied abroad for two years while in college, and when returning home even after such a short time away, I noticed many of the same things that Bryson did. Having some of the same experiences as the author greatly increased my appreciation of the book.
• This volume is actually comprised of recycled newspaper columns that Bryson wrote for a British publication upon moving back to America. As such, each piece is a quick read presented in an easily digestible chunk.
• Some of my favorite essays include the graduation speech to a group of N.H. high school seniors; the one about the author dropping his oldest son off at college; the one about the often incomprehensible instructions accompanying computers and similar devices; and the several odes to small-town America that are sprinkled throughout the pages.

Disliked:

• Some of Bryson’s setups for the columns were so outlandish–and obviously contrived simply for the purpose of serving as an introduction–as to take me right out of the reading experience. Obviously not all of the things Bryson wrote about actually happened to him, and he clearly allows himself a great deal of poetic license when “retelling” certain events. I understand that, and am not asking for a purely factual account of incidents in his life. But still… the essays would have been much improved if the setups were just a bit more plausible.
• I didn’t like Bryson’s occasional forays into political philosophy, including his rant about the U.S. government’s stance on the illegality of drugs. If I want to read about politics, I’ll pick up a book by an analyst. I just wanted to be entertained here, not subjected to the author’s opinions on the law.
• Even though this book was short, the theme felt pretty played out by the time I reached the end. I think it had to do with Bryson portraying himself as a bumbling idiot who was completely overwhelmed by the tiniest obstacle. I mean, yes, there are a lot of ridiculous rules and regulations out there, but you don’t have to be a doofus to be befuddled by them. Was he just trying to be self-deprecating? I don’t know; but the shtick got old.

Rating: