#11: The Alchemist

A few years ago someone told me I should read The Alchemist  by Paulo Coelho.  They said it was their favorite book ever.  I waited awhile and then bought it for Levi for Christmas this year.  He read it and said it was okay.  We sometimes don't have the same taste in books, so I thought I might enjoy it more than he did.  I was wrong.
This book was just so boring.  Levi said the beginning was slow, but I kind of liked the beginning.  It was during the desert wandering that my mind started to wander.  I couldn't really focus on the book and just kept drifting to other thoughts.  Or I would fall asleep while reading.  I can't really tell you half of what happened, because I don't really know.
I liked maybe the 1st 1/4 of the book and the very end.  There was just too much in the middle that I "missed".

Up Next:  Unlikely Warrior by Georg Rauch

#10: NPH Autobiography

I love Choose Your Own Adventure books and I love Neil Patrick Harris, so I could not pass up this book when I saw it on the table at the library.  The book is titled:  Neil Patrick Harris Choose Your Own Autobiography. This book was written in a Choose Your Own Adventure format and gave details of Neil Patrick Harris' childhood, career, love life, family, and more.  NPH also through in some fake stories just for fun.  I learned some more things about NPH and was reminded of some of my favorite things about him.

The only thing I didn't like with this format, was that I may have missed some good stuff.  I came to endings twice while reading.  I wanted to see a few things that were mentioned that I missed the first time, like meeting Elton John and a letter from Sarah Silverman.  So after the 2nd ending, I just went back to the beginning and read all the footnotes and choices and skimmed most of the pages.  I may still have missed a few pages, but I think I read most of the book.

It was one of my favorite Autobiographies, as it was really entertaining.  Lots of jokes and great descriptions.  I especially laughed at the footnotes and his jokes about Dustin Diamond.  Overall a great read for any NPH fan.  :)

Up Next:  The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

#9: What Color is Monday?

I just finished the book What Color is Monday? How Autism Changed One Family for the Better by Carrie Cariello.  Working in the Special Education room in our school has made me very interested in learning more about Special Needs students and especially Autism.  Combine that with binge watching Parenthood on Netflix and I am an emotional wreck.

I am EXTREMELY fascinated with the minds of the autistic.  I love how they all learn differently, have different struggles, and have unique talents.  As Carrie describes in this book, each autistic person is like a snowflake, all similar but essentially unique.  This is so spot on.

Reading this book, I could see some similarities to the 2 boys in our classroom, as well as with Max on parenthood.  There are deep mysteries behind the minds of people with autism and I think Carrie did a great job of sharing her joys and struggles of raising her son and incorporating him into the family.

I've already recommended this book to everyone at work.  If you are at all interested in learning more about Jack Cariello, be sure to read What Color is Monday?

Up Next:  Choose your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris

#8: Mr. Gwyn

Mr. Gwyn by Alessandro Baricco is one of the books I got from my McSweeny book club.  It is the story of an author, Jasper Gwyn, who decides he no longer wants to write books anymore.  He instead tells people he wants to be a copyist.  He later comes up with the idea of "writing portraits".  To do this he finds his first model, a young girl named Rebecca.  He has her pose naked in a studio for 4 hrs everyday.  Instead of drawing her portrait, he writes a story about it.  He then starts doing this for other people, but no one is supposed to know it is him who is writing the portraits.  Things go well for a while and then Mr. Gwyn disappears.  Rebecca tries to figure out what happens to him.

I thought the intro into this story was a little slow and hard to understand.  Once the character of Rebecca became more prominent, I felt more involved in the story.  It was a unique idea and I liked the ending a lot.

There was also a bonus book at the end of this story called Three Times at Dawn that was mentioned as a novel in Mr. Gwyn.  I liked this one a lot.

Up Next:  What Color is Monday?  by Carrie Cariello

#7: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I just read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  I have never read this before, and I don't think I've ever seen the whole Disney movie.

The first thing I noticed when reading this book is that kids must have been a lot smarter back in the 1800s.  This book was written for a 10 yr old girl, but I had a hard time understanding parts for it.  This is probably mostly due to the "old English" that is used in Classic novels.  There were some words I was not familiar with and had to look up.

I can't say I enjoyed this book.  I thought with all the characters it would be really exciting, but it was just kind of boring for me.  There was a lot of description of characters and of Alice growing and shrinking, but I didn't feel there was much action.  I also didn't like how rudely the characters and Alice spoke to each other.  Just didn't feel like something a 10 yr old girl would do in an unfamiliar world.

I'm glad I finally read this book, but overall I found it quite disappointing.

Up Next:  Mr. Gwyn by Alessandro Baricco

#6: Eats, Shoots & Leaves

I just finished Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss.  This book was mentioned to me by Wesley's allergist, who has an obsession with punctuation while dictating his allergy notes.  This is a book about using correct punctuation and some of the history behind it.

While I find myself, somewhat interested in grammar, I can't say I am a true "stickler" as Truss calls them.  There are certain grammar errors that make me cringe, and others that I may glance right over.  In this book, Truss talks a lot about apostrophes and commas.  She also gets into other areas, such as colons, semicolons, and hyphens; that I am not as familiar with.  (I just read the book and I still don't know what should come after hyphen.)

I found some of the book entertaining and some kind of boring.  It had some like little facts that I never knew.  Did you know Starbursts were orignially called Opal Fruits?  She also seemed to have a lot of slams at American punctuation.  While I know there are lots of people who don't use grammar and punctuation correctly in America, I don't think she should say it's wrong just because we don't do things the same as the English people.  Towards the end she actually gave Americans some praise for their formal letter punctuation.

Anyway.  This book was interesting.  I can see why Dr. Brown would refer to it as "his favorite book that he really wouldn't recommend, because it's kind of boring".  If you are at all interested in grammar and punctuation- you should give this a read!!  (Note to self:  limit use of explanation points and dashes.)

Up Next:  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

#5: Yes Please

Yes Please by Amy Poehler is full of details about how Poehler became an actress and all of the people who helped her along the way.  It is also filled with some back ground of her childhood, advice, and testimonials of friends.

There were a few laugh out loud moments (for me this was mostly during the Parks and Recs chapter), but mostly it was just a lot about life in general.  There were a lot of details about friends and fellow actors, the UCB, SNL, shows, and her kids.  I especially loved the chapter about her boys and their moon hunts.  She briefly describes that she went through a rough patch when getting divorced, but she never really said anything bad about Will Arnett and the way she thanked him made me tear up.

There were a few parts I didn't like (like the sex and drug chapters), but that's hollywood and I guess we can't expect everyone to be perfect.

Overall I liked the book, but I still think I liked Tina Fey's book better.  :)

Up Next:  Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss