Of moose and men: Lost and found in Alaska by Torry Martin and Doug Peterson. (277.3083) The second half of the book description on Amazon makes it pretty clear that this book has religious themes, but I don't recall that from the description on Net Galley. (Likely I just missed it.) So I thought we were going for more of a travelogue-style of thing: plentiful enough on the market, but this one got off to a pretty good start in the first scene. But the religious thoughts felt pretty shoe-horned in, not a natural extension of the work. It felt forced. And it is the template for every chapter: humorously-told welcome-to-Alaska story (over-the-top, but that's the storytelling style and pretty consistent) and them a poorly-incorporated Bible lesson. It might be candy for some readers, but I'd like to see 1) similes and parables and such make sense, and 2) it would probably work better if the "what God taught me" was interwoven with the chapter material and not a literal tag-on at the end of the story.
The author's friend and roommate is a pretty major part of most of the stories, but there isn't a word of explanation as to how they met or what they're doing in Alaska together until pretty far through the book. That seems like a pretty major oversight in the story telling.
The author's friend and roommate is a pretty major part of most of the stories, but there isn't a word of explanation as to how they met or what they're doing in Alaska together until pretty far through the book. That seems like a pretty major oversight in the story telling.
A cabinet of philosophical curiosities: A collection of puzzles, oddities, riddles and dilemmas by Roy Sorensen. What am I reading? Does anyone think this makes sense? This feels like a guy who is using the biggest words possible because he wants to seem important or intelligent, regardless of the fact that they don't make hypotenuse. It's like when Joey used the thesaurus function on every single word in his essay. Paragraphs are strung together, related only very loosely. And it's 659 pages long, without any addendum-- or answers. The riddles are said to have their answers at the back of the book, but they are conspicuously missing from the ARC.
Reading this is like a fight, trying to tear meaning from each sentence and hold that meaning in balance while trying to string together enough sentences to get to the core thought.
Reading this is like a fight, trying to tear meaning from each sentence and hold that meaning in balance while trying to string together enough sentences to get to the core thought.
The x-files, season 3, with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. It's pretty ridiculous that various government and military groups are supposed to be conducting tests on the American public. You couldn't pick a worse group of experimental subjects--especially in the general population, where you can't control or even account for any other factors.
Mulder does a lot of gun-waving. He points that thing at all kinds of people he doesn't really intend to shoot. Very bad practice.
I love it when they bring in the geek squad, and especially the torch Frohike carries for Scully. You can do worse than a slightly weird guy who is crazy about you.
The new artisan bread in five minutes a day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. (641.815) I've just finished baking my second batch of bread, a second recipe. With my food allergy, it is pretty hard to find bread I can eat; I don't particularly like dropping $6 on a loaf of bread I don't really like and which will likely get poached by my family. These breads are like making beans from dried-- the amount of actual time spent on the project is minimal, it just takes planning to allow enough time to complete everything.
One thing I don't like is that, considerably frequently, under a recipe it will direct readers to another of the authors' books for more types of whole wheat, pizza doughs, etc. Self-promotion is one thing, but this seems excessive.
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