Good overview of cryptids in a reference book format with excellent full color pictures. The write-ups were well done and varied enough to keep things interesting. I’m interested in checking out books in the series now.

A nice quick read that got better as it went on. Warren was a hard character for me to relate to at first, but he grew on me as he started to question some of his choices. The story pulled me in even when there were some odd language choices such as “mordant, somewhat supercilious brown eyes.” Overall it was a solid first effort and I’dchack out his next book.

I didn’t know much about Howard Zinn going into this book, other than he wrote The People’s History of the United States (which has been sitting on my shelves, unread, for years) and that his political views, like mine, are left of center, and by a fair amount.

So it was quite a surprise to read this extremely interesting, quick-moving, and most of all, inspiring, autobiography. Written in 2002, eight years before his death, Zinn uses 15 chapters to tell stories of his life - from growing up poor during the depression to hard-working parents, to teaching at a historically black college and helping students find their voices in the culture rights movement, to protesting the Vietnam war and his time as a bombardier in World War II and how it shaped his future views on war. Any one of these topics could make for a good book - that Zinn covers them all rather concisely and as part of an overall background to a life of civil disobedience makes for a great, compelling book.

After the 2016 presidential elections and the changes which followed, many on the left became discouraged and even somewhat depressed. This is the book those people - print company included - needed to read. As gripping of an autobiography this is, the bigger takeaway and a point that Zinn drives home repeatedly is that in even against tremendous odds, it is important to stand for what you believe in and protest as needed. In fact, failed attempts at resistance are important to bring likeminded individuals show more together and to further strengthen their beliefs. It tells the reader that standing up for what’s right is important and that individual voices are important, as eventually those voices form a group and that group can institute major change. I started the book thinking I was glad Zinn wasn’t around to see our current political environment, but finished wishing he was. He would have been thrilled to see Black Lives Matter, Indivisible, Action for a Better Tomorrow and the #MeToo movement. This book is a great starting point for those who are upset about the world, are unsure if their voice will make a difference and have no idea where to start. show less

Post-rock as a genre is really nebulous - bands most critics or listeners would label as post-rock reject the label, and there is not one specific set of characteristics that make a band or its music post-rock. So Ms. Leech certainly had her work cut out for her from the get-go, but she does an excellent job highlighting and profiling all the various cells of post-rock activity around the world. She tackles her daunting task mostly chronologically, which works, as some of the later bands take cues from the earlier bands. The author does a good job mixing various interviews through the years with new interviews of some of the key players involved. With any book about music, I wish there was a recommended listening section at the end of each chapter, but enough specific albums are mentioned that one can follow along as I did, and I enjoyed finding gems by Cul De Sac and Bark Psychosis which I missed the first time around. Like the genre it covers, the book can be challenging to plow and difficult to uncover at times, but totally worth it for the patient and adventurous.

Translated from French, Hadriana In All My Dreams is a tale of zombies and romance, Voodoo and eroticism in Haiti in the late 1930's. The narrator tells the tale of Hadriana and others who come into contact with supernatural forces, and the beliefs of the Haitians in the city of Jacmel. Depestre does a good job contrasting Voodoo and Catholicism and the relation of the native islanders to Hadriana and her family, a weatlhy white family from France. Eroticism plays a significant part of the tale, an aspect of Voodoo I was unaware of. Some of the language used related to the erotic details seemed a little off or forced, so it was helpful to read to interpreter's notes at the end where she says " figuring out how to translate Depestre's twenty or so terms for human genitalia indeed had me stretching the limits of the English language" to make me forgive some of the terms used that seemed unusual and at times, laughable. The author paints a vivid picture of Haiti and the island and its culture are one the centerpieces of this novel and I feel handled very well. The story itself bogs down in the middle- there is a lack of suspense at points, I feel - without giving much away, I will only say certain outcomes seemed inevitable but a number of pages were spent where the tale didn't seem to get any closer to resolution. Overall, the descriptions of Haiti, the contrast between Voodoo and Catholicism as well as the wealth white French family and their relations to the Haitians made show more this a good read and make me interested to seek our more of Depestre's work.

Thanks to the publisher Akashic Books for the advance reading copy. show less

I was very familiar with the song "Hey Joe" - both the Jimi Hendrix version and what I thought was the "original" by The Leaves. Turns out that the song has a very long and complicated history and was THE go-to cover for any 60's garage band. The author does a great job going into the history of the song, including both the question of who really wrote it ( and following the ups and downs of those two songwriters over the years) and its place among other murder ballads such as "Stagger Lee" and "Frankie and Johnny" The book threatens to become a list of all the covers after Hendrix at one point but there are enough worthwhile interviews to keep it on track, especially Living Color leader Vernon Reid's take on the violence against women implicated in the lyrics, and the on-point observation of the Vibrators' John "Eddie" Edwards - "Yeah, it's simple, but it's also dangerous and powerful. You can make it as easy or as difficult as you want. I's just a good song to play. It just works."

It's a very fast and fun read and a thorough history of a song that has a very colorful past. If I have any knock against the book, it's that the author's casual tone at points seems more suited to a blog post that a full non-fiction book. But that aside, I would highly recommend Hey Joe to rock music fans, especially those who enjoy reading about the history of a song's creation and evolution in the hands of artists over the years.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Riverdale Avenue Books show more for the advanced reading copy for this review. show less

This is a decent clean joke book with many Christianity-based jokes, but it is misleading to call it The World's Greatest Collection of Dad Jokes. I think of dad jokes as real "groaners", and often pun-based.- and jokes that dads tell to their kids. The chapter "For those who punderstand" comes close to that and has several good dad jokes within. But that's chapter five, and the rest of the book would appeal more to older audiences. The first chapter, In Hindsight, focuses on jokes about the elderly. Some are pretty decent but I would consider few to be "Dad Jokes" - would a kid understand jokes about the trials of aging? I could see a reverend telling these jokes to his congregation or a group of older parishioners and getting a great reaction, though. As titled, I think this book falls short. "Dad Joke" is a term we hear more and more often these days so I can see the publisher's desire to create a collection with this name. The amount of actual jokes in this book that fit this definition is small, so I would say two stars as titled, three stars if it was called Good Clean Jokes or similar and three and a half stars if it was titled Jokes for Ministers or something to that affect. I feel ministers would be the real audience for this collection.

At times it feels like a catalog of who was who in various scenes in the history of New York, but the author does a really good job of capturing various scenes over the years. I was surprised at some of the bands that came out of NYC. Not a smooth flowing book and sometimes it seemed like a laundry list of bands, but more often, I felt the spirit of different scenes and it led me back to cds, tapes and records I haven't thought about in years.

Fantastic first hand accounts from baseball players of yesteryear- a great one to return to again and again.

This was the first CJ Floyd mystery I've read, and CJ himself appears only for the last few pages, although his shadow looms large throughout the book. The main plot line concerns the assassinations of the number one draft pick in the NBA, a Pulitzer winning journalist- and shortly thereafter, the draft pick's father. Numerous people close to the deceased conduct investigations, including his best friend and college teammate, Damion Madrid.

Let me start with the good points- this book kept my interest through out, and I did wonder what the resolution would be throughout. Some of the characters were pretty interesting and the dialogue was decent throughout. Greer does a nice job of painting a portrait of the black neighborhoods and people of Denver

But for the good aspects of this book, there were also many disappointments. The plot gets a little needlessly complicated at points, likely to send the reader off the trail of who the murderer might be, but it winds up becoming a little distracting and unbelievable. There's an awful lot of poking around by amateurs- yet they always seem to get answers from folks who are in way too deep, with very few of them telling the would-be gumshoes "talk to my lawyer" or "I don't have to answer you". The character of Flora Jean Benson is well developed (ahem), but I couldn't help but visualize Jackie Brown-era Pam Grier throughout- perhaps that's what author Robert Greer had in mind, but I found it a little distracting. And as much as I show more tried to suspend my disbelief, as an NCAA basketball fan, I had a hard time not chuckling when they mentioned Colorado State in the NCAA finals.

In all, a mixed-bag, one I would recommend only to true fans of this genre. I do plan on seeking out a CJ Floyd book that actually includes CJ Floyd to see if that would make a difference in the end result. show less

This is the first novel by adventurer/journalist Kira Salak. The author's note states the much of the book is based on personal experiences. This is the story of adventurer/journalist Marika Veccera, her travels around the world and her journeys to find her writing idol- and while she's at it, herself.

Salak has been to Papua New Guinea herself and wrote a non-fiction book about it. This came through in vivid colors, as the sections that took place in the jungle were believable and fascinating. When Marika was in PNG, it was hard for me to put the book down. Other visits to far off locales were not as riveting, but still interesting.

Unfortunately, part of the book takes place in Boston, and involves a love interest that seems fairly unbelievable as a character to me. The dialogue between the two main characters seems forced at times, and occasionally caused me to chuckle in disbelief. A few other of the stateside characters seemed forced as well, although her visits to Missouri were interesting and well done.

In all, this was a decent book that definitely kept my interest. It succeded with flying colors as an adventure story, did a decent job with its religious and philosophical overtones, and missed the mark (for me, at least) when it came to romance. If adventure is what you seek, The White Mary may be worth your time- for me, I plan on seeking out Salak's non-fiction work- her eye for detail in exotic lands is apparent here, and likely works well in that context.

A fun, well-written look into the geeky but hypnotic world of fantasy baseball. Sam Walker trtaces the origins of the game, profiles the super geeks who advise the rest of us, and gives insight into playing in the most competitive fantasy baseball league. The one downer, I think, is that Walker emptied his bank account to have a staff of two full timers, an actress/temptress and a psychic. It makes for good reading, but to me, not as interesteing as if he would have went it alone or with advice from buddies. His moments with the players themselves are excellent, and I walked away from this book with a few new favorite big leaguers, for many different reasons.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who plays fantasy baseball or is just curious as to why those who play it are so fanatical about it.

Let me start my review by saying I'm a 40 year old straight male- so I'm clearly not the demographic they were going for. My wife read this book and really enjoyed it, so she gave it to me to read. I found it interesting, and at times enjoyable, but it missed the mark for me on a number of points:

1) I didn't find it funny and their use of stronger language came off as sloppy and intentionally trying to shock, but they would have had to venture into Margaret Cho/Lisa Lampinelli territory to make me even flinch....The writing style was conversational, girlfriend to girlfriend. To me (again, a guy), it came off sloppy rather than casual.

2) It's very stong towards the PETA side of things, and since my wife and I were already in the process of switching to a vegetarian lifestyle, it wasn't that shocking to me. They get a bit preachy at points, but it didn't bother me as much as the facts they supported were from PETA publications and other like-minded people. Perhaps those are the only folks who know the true story, but to me it came off like an essay on how great Kobe Bryant is, with the major sources quoted being the Kobe Bryant Fan Club and his mother.

That being said, they do nicely portray how you can eat vegetarian and be healthy, and how it's not as scary as some might think. They offer many ideas on how to make the switch and nicely get through it. And biased or not, they remind people how the food industry treats animals. I've thought about this before and had my own show more ways of rationalizing it, but I'm not sure everyone knows what happens in a slaughterhouse. So it's something folks should be aware of.

I give this book two 1/2 stars mostly for the wrting style, but:

>add one star if you're a woman

>add another star if you're thinking of going vegetarian, vegan or are already either

>add another half star if you are passionate about the ethical treatment of animals show less

This book could change the way you eat- or at least think twice before you pop open that next tube of GoGurt. Pollan lloks at the Western diet and our obsession with "nutritionism"- and why the food industry pushes nutrient specific foods yet we're all so unhealthy. He gives guidance on how to eat simply "Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants." and elaborately nicely on how to do so, with some simple tips. While the book may come off a little preachy and one-sided for those not ready to admit they could/should be eating better, it's a well-thought treatise for those who want to improve their diets.