No new ideas here, but sort of like comfort-food for a Vonnegut fan.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970 by Mark Lewisohn
Sometimes gets bogged down in technical details about mixing, remixing, master, takes, etc, but there's a lot of interesting info for hardcore Beatles fans.
Too much expanded universe bullshit, and written before the prequels so a lot of it isn't even "real" anymore. I'm a dork.
Trashy, creepy and compulsively readable. I read it while on vacation in Ecuador which might've been the best possible place to do so.
Somewhat misleading, since about a third of the book is written or drawn by people other than Byrne. The Byrne stuff also feels like it's kind of flying off the rails, like he stopped caring about telling a coheisve story.
Doesn't hold up as well as WATCHMEN, the other gritty superhero book of the same era, and parts of it feel oddly dated.
Beautiful art makes up for a pretty pedestrian story.
Terrific--if disturbing--adventure combinging Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper.
Not so much a biography as an examination of different key moments in his life. Didn't convince me Jefferson wasn't a hypocritical jerk.
Somewhat depressing, which is to be expected considering this is the creator of PEANUTS, but I was disappointed that his creative side was given little attention in favor of sordid personal details.
Nice compact bio of one of America's most interesting presidents.
The funniest part is Amy Sedaris playing various roles, including their brother "The Rooster."
An interesting overview of the history of the world, written in a simple style that makes it understandable to bright kids or historically challenged adults. My one quibble is that, being German, the book definitely has a Eurocentric tone and gets a little bogged down with squabbles between various kings, princes, dukes and would be emperors from about 1400-1800, most of which had little lasting impact on history. Still, a good place to start for those curious about the subject.
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs
As someone who pretty much an atheist but fascinated by religion, I found this pretty interesting. The author has a pretty funny writing style. It gets kind of sappy at the end but overall I found it entertaining and informative.
First off, I will confess I didn't complete this book. I find Nixon a fascinating figure but I found the style to be somewhat hysterical, along the lines of biographers like Albert Goldman. The author is so determined to show that Nixon was a sleazebag in every way possible that he winds up relying on a lot of hearsay ("Joe Smith said Nixon once kicked a dog, according to his valet Chet Jones") and makes some bold claims with little evidence (the fact that Nixon beat his wife, for instance). Nixon did so much awful stuff which is on the record it got a little tiresome seeing him strain to find new dirt.
A lot of strange "science" experiments, ranging from the morbid (how long can we keep a dog's head alive apart from its body? Answer: about three hours) to the amusing (can mothers pick out the smell of their baby's poop from a line up?). If you're squeamish about animal testing this book is definitely not for you but there's some interesting stuff.
We found it very entertaining. It reminded us of a cross between CATCH-22 and THE OFFICE.
Interesting, though it's also somewhat depressing to find out what cowards America's newspaper editors are.
I really wanted to like this book but was somewhat disappointed. I think part of it was that there was a lot of discussion about Japanese comics which went over my head so if you're more familiar with the artists he's talking about you may find it more compelling than I did.
A lot of people really seem to like this series and while I enjoyed this first book I feel like it hasn't gotten as good as I think it could. I'll definitely be checking out the next book.
The sheer evilness of the lead character is pretty exhausting but some good moments of very black humor.
It started off very interesting, looking at the origns of nerds, how they're depcited in pop cutlure and other sociological stuff. The second half of the book is more of a personal memoir, but it lacks focus and felt kind of superficial.
An enjoyable bunch of rants, drawn in the classic Bagge style. I don't always agree with his politics and still don't see what he has against roads but still a good read.
My favorite of the series so far. I feel like they're really starting to have fun with it, and look forward to the next one.
Pretty exciting installment! I really loved the D&D-style fantasy adventures of Blue and the shocking revelation. The adventures of Jack in Hollywood felt a little flat in comparison, but still a great volume.
A pleasant enough biography. Sometimes a bit gushing in its love for Burns but it does a pretty good job of covering his life.