The Kingdom of Ohio - Mathew Flaming

Good first fifty pages, terrible last fifty pages.  Might have been a good book if it was sigficantly shorter.

Napolean - Timothy Wilson Smith

The Geographer's Library - Jon Fasman

An Object of Beauty - Steve Martin

This book highlights Martin's love of art, but it didn't go anywhere interesting.  Even the information about art wasn't enought to keep my interest up.

Leaving Van Gogh - Carol Wallace

A disappointing book.  The last days of Van Gogh are told from the viewpoint of his doctor.  Unfortunately, the doctor, rather than Van Gogh, dominates the book and his not a very interesting or sympathetic character.  I wanted to think more about art, Van Gogh and madness but the book did little to stimulate my thinking in those areas.  I was baffled by how the doctor instantly recognized Van Gogh as an artistic genius, but as an art collector, never purchased any paintings from Van Gogh.

Learning to See Creatively - Bryan Peterson

A very basic book on photo composition that is flawed by the author's insistence of only using his own photos as examples.  It comes off as more of a promotion for the author than a real educational tool.  It would have been great to show examples of various photographer's different use of composition techniques.

By Nightfall - Michael Cunnigham

Horoscopes for the Dead - Billy Collins

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this one, but it didn't really work for me.  Sure, Billy is a good poet, and I have enjoyed some of his earlier books.  This one, however, seemed like he ran out of things to say and just got cuter and sillier while he discussed more meaningless little things.

Reading the OED - Ammon Shea

The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards

The River Sea - Marshall De Bruhl

Throughout the five centuries since its discovery, explorers, visionaries, soldiers of fortune,, men of God, slavers and the enslaved, scientists, men of good will and men of ill will, and men of appalling cruelty and rapacity have been drawn to the river and its vast basin.

Whether searching for El Dorado, the fabled land of gold and riches, seeking to spread God's word, hoping to exploit or develop the region's natural resources, or travelling out of wanderlust or idle curiosity, many thousands of the brave, the adventurous, and not a few of the foolhardy have come to the Amazon.

The introduction from which the quote was taken, piqued my interest in this new book. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. In only 217 pages, the book covers the entire history of the exploration and development of the Amazon. I enjoyed the first half of the book with the early explorers much more than the later chapters detailing the exploitation of the people and resources. The tales are often dreadful, as I guess one might expect of jungle exploration. While the book is very well written, I lost interest in chapters about development of the rubber industry and another chapter entirely on an array of modern exploitation.

The Cloud Atlas - Liam Callanan

I'M A WANTED MAN.

That's hardly enough to distinguish me around here, of course, I've heard it said that a percentage of Alaska's population is always fleeing something--the authorities, spouses, children, civilization. By comparison, I have it easy. It's just a couple of old priests hunting me, and I know them both. I could take them if it came to that, and it won't.

I'll be honest up front. They're coming after me for the most mundane of reasons. The only thing slightly extraordinary is that they're coming at all. For a while, I thought they would just forget about me, and that I'd be able to live out my days like most fugitives here: not entirely free from want, but free from those that want you. But no, first one sent a letter and then the other: these initial letters just suggestions, of course. Then a second round, with a request. And the third round, with an order. Come home.

I have to admit that I confused this book with another by David Mitchell with the same title and released the same year. I enjoyed reading it, in spite of it being an over-ambitious first novel. The main character is a young soldier sent to Alaska during WW II to investigate balloon bombs launched by the Japanese. Alaska in the 1940s and the unusual bombs are enough to make for an interesting tale. The author introduces some other characters which weren't believable for me. The book takes off into some mystical directions that weren't woven into the story in a way that worked. Still, many seem to like this book and it is an interesting adventure in an unusual time and place involving a fascinating piece of WW II history.

Kiss & Tell - Alain De Botton

Mr. Rogers had escaped his wife's complexity with interest in the peripherals of existence. He could entertain a conversation of many hours' duration on the second downward clue fo the The Times crossword, the migration of African birds, the effect of carbon dioxide on the synapses of the brain, not to mention the pros and cons of buying a water purifier or the gradual supersession of the sewn bookbinding by its glued counterpart - but remained at a loss to understand the role allotted to him in the family drama.

Everything one said threw him into deep thought, whereby he would roll back his eyes, lift up his head and enter into a phrase of saying 'Yes' in rapid succession though the comment which had elicited this might have been no greater than, 'It's getting harder to find red apples these days.'

This book is original, funny, and well-written--but it doesn't add up to a good read. Dissecting the biography genre, de Botton selects an ordinary person's life to display in this book. With of interest about the person, the gist of the book becomes a dissertation on structure and style of most biographies. There are some great moments and interesting thoughts in the book, but it too often digresses into details that are modestly interesting and briefly amusing. Apparently, a lot of readers seem to like this book, but for me a short story would have been adequate.

Names - Marilyn Hacker

Letter to Mimi Khalvati

Dear, how I hate the overblown diction of

lines for occasions: festschrifts, like elegies

making a banal birthday seem to

signpost a passage to unmapped wasteland,

...

This book is very intelligent and meticulously composed, but its poetry doesn't move me. I appreciate the writer's fine skill, but the writing feels too structured and intellectual in spite of the book's themes of women in the Middle East and America's role in disrupting societies. The author chooses to write in obscure poetry forms: ghazals, gloses, sonnets; which I don't find particularly appealing nor contributory to expressing Hacker's thoughts. One of the reviews on the back cover states "Marilyn Hacker's language saves us through its brilliant riches, its coruscating threnodies of structure." Yes, there are brilliant rich lines, but I get lost in artificial structure and it feels like Hacker is trying too hard. It feels like a book more for college literary professors to dissect rather than one for the average poetry lover.

Forbidden City - Trina Robbins

The 1940s was a boom time. During the war years, people thronged to the Chinese nightclubs. They came to forget the war for just a few hours, for the beautiful showgirls, for dance teams like Toy and Wing or the Tai Sings, for romantic singers like Larry King, "The Chinese Frank Sinatra" and Frances Chun "The Chinese Frances Langford." Movie stars from Hollywood like Bing Crosbie, Boris Karloff, Ronald Reagan, and Jane Wyman rode the trains up from Hollywood to participate in war bond drives, visited the nightclubs, and mingled with the entertainers. GIs on their way overseas, attracted by promises of exotic entertainment, filled the clubs. Many were from small Southern towns and had never before seen an Asian. They didn't know where they were being sent, or if they would come back, and they spent their money as if there was no tomorrow.

Asian entertainers, too, thronged to the clubs--and like Filipino Tony Wing or Japanese Dorothy Toy, born Takahashi, they were not always Chinese. Teenage girls whose traditional parents forbade them to dance, ran away from home to perform on the stage. They came from Oregon and Hawaii, from as close as Stockton, California, and as far as Hong Kong, and they converged in San Francisco's Chinatown.

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This book documents the Golden Era of Chinese nightclubs in San Francisco which existed from the 1930s into the early 1960s. The pictures, which are abundant, are great. The text, other than a short introduction, is entirely direct quotes from persons involved in this unique setting. Many of the tales are very interesting, however, it would be a much better book if the author had taken time to weave the accounts into an historical account rather than depend solely on first-person recollections. I enjoyed the book with its fascinating glimpse into a uniquely American historical anomaly.

Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov

I am handsome. Perhaps I'm really a dog prince, living incognito, mused the dog as he watched the shaggy, coffee-coloured dog with the smug expression strolling about in the mirrored distance. I wouldn't be surprised if my grandmother didn't have an affair with a Labrador. Now that I look at my muzzle, I see there's a white patch on it. I wonder how it got there. Phillip Philipovich is a man of great taste- he wouldn't just pick up any stray mongrel.

Written in 1925, this short novel is a sharp-witted, humorous attack on Russia after the Russian revolution of 1917. A science experiment goes awry in the home lab of an educated doctor at odds with the proletarians. The author has received much posthumous acclaim. His style is creative and crisply written. He is able to create a funny book with dark themes. His political comments on totalitarianism often ring true today. A very entertaining read from another great Russian writer.

The Borgias and Their Enemies:1431-1519 - Christopher Hibbert

By now it was not just the sight of the city, little more than a decayed provincial town, that distressed visitors. Corruption was rife in the Church and shocked the pilgrims who came to Rome to receive indulgences, which were now being dispensed on an unprecedented scale. Abandoning in despair their attempts to form a strong and stable political state, the Romans allowed Urban VI's successor, the clever and avaricious Boniface IX, another Neapolitan, to assume full control of their city, to turn the Vatican as well as the enlarged Castel Sant'Angelo into fortified strongholds, and to appoint his relations and friends to positions of power and profit.

The Borgias are are an amazing family living in fascinating times. Unfortunately, this book gets bogged down in too many details, as interesting and amazing as they may be. I felt like I needed to create a chart to keep track of all the relatives and branches of the family. To gain an insight on this time period and the powerful Borgias, this book is a good resource. For enjoyable reading, I found it lacking in a narrative that made it cohesive and moving toward a natural conclusion. The majority of the book details the early years in the time period while the last twenty years are given little attention. Not badly written, just tedious to read.

ArtBook Giotto - DK Publishing

Destined to become one of the most important artists in the history of western painting, Biagio or Agnolo, known as Giotto, was born at Colle di Vespignano in the Mugello valley near Florence in what most scholars date as 1267. There is no documentary evidence to provide us with any certain information about the chronology and events of his life but literary sources and legends abound bearing witness to the fame he enjoyed from the beginning of his artistic career. Until his death in Florence in 1337, his life was spent between the foremost centers of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, where he absorbed the cultural and artistic legacy of the age and transformed it into a highly evolved and revolutionary language with an originality that is generally regarded as marking the beginning of the history of Italian painting.

This book is part of a series put out by DK Publishing. As an illustrated guide introducing Giotto, it is a nice little book. That, however, is a large part of the problem with this book--it is simply too small and needs a larger size to display the great works of art. The text is minimal with each pages including multiple images. While the illustrated books typically leave one wanting more, they are a fine way to get a taste of an artist. I learned a few things about Giotto and gained a deeper appreciation of him from this book. If you want to enjoy Giotto's great frescoes and alter pieces you should look for a large format book. Giotto is well worth the time if you appreciate art.

Who Do You Love - Jean Thompson

We were headed straight into bad news. The snow had begun sixty miles back as something light and sifting. It raced across the highway in curving snake shapes and slid harmlessly beneath the wheels. By the last exit it was sticking to the road in patches. Just a few miles farther and the pavement turned solid white. The wind was stronger now; it blew at right angles to the highway, kicking up loose snow, filling the air with it. I was driving hunched up against the wheel as close as I could get. Holly said, "I told you, check the forecast."
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This book of short stories focuses on disappointments in love. Mostly focused on a woman's perspective, they are sad stories on the flip side of the knight in shining armor. Thompson succeeds in crafting unique situations and people having to face an unsatisfying experience. Too often, I found myself not really caring enough about the people and situations. The author has received a lot of recognition and praise for her work, so I guess she appeals to many more so than she did to me.

Digital Photo Design - Paul Comon

All you need to know: Composition is the elimination of all unnecessary elements. At first glance, this inelegant definition seems too simplistic, but if you take only one idea away from this volume, let it be that.
You will never find that definition in any dictionary and it certainly does not address all the subtleties of image arrangement, but if you practice it faithfully, most compositional problems will fall away.

I liked the photographic depictions of design concepts in this book, but found the text poorly written and tedious at times. This is a basic photo composition book and would be very informative for someone who has never studied this subject. Certainly, the average person who has never studied photography could improve his or her photos tremendously by following the recommendations offered. I checked out the book from a library and there are better books to buy if you want to own a book on this subject. It covers all the basics and will be educational for beginning and amateur photographers.