Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Now, I'm not a stickler about grammar, per se. Sure, I notice on occassion when there is a misplaced or missing punctuation mark. But it doesn't ruin my day or take the "s" off my proverbial skittle to see an it's where an its belongs. Given Lynne Truss's warning at the start of the book that you should put this book down if you don't gasp in horror when you see incorrect grammar, I almost put the book down without reading past the first page. I called her on her hyperbole and sarcasm though, and I'm glad I did.  read more »

Amazingly, I survived high school and college English Lit classes without having read this book. I read 1984 three or four times, but never Brave New World. All I can say is that I shouldn't have read the forward for this book. I saved it until the end, just in case it had spoilers in it. Even though I saved the forward until the end, it still spoiled the book for me.  read more »

The first book I ever read by Robert Cormier was After the First Death. Although I admitted that the book was well written intellectually, the book was very dated in a 1970's world and I didn't give it credit for being a wonderful novel. Being dated to the 1970's is key to understanding both First Death and I am the Cheese.  read more »

There was a time I would have embraced fully James Joyce's work. However, at this point in my life I see this work as being romantic dribble.  read more »

Robin McKinley once stated that every author has one story they are trying to get out and all their works can be traced through that story line. Although I hadn't noticed that before, after reading these two books (and several discussions with Rebecca on the topic), I'm convinced that many authors follow this pattern. Dan Simmons has an obsession with taking literary genius and bringing a reincarnation to a future science fiction conflict. And his grasp on making an interesting world definitely convinces me that there are volumes of backlog notebooks he's written for his story.  read more »

A guidebook to Judaism, by Herman Wouk.

There are a few books that every cultured American should have on their shelves. Ghandi's autobiography is one. This has been added as another to my list. Written around the same time, Wouk's explanation of Judaism is completely comprehensive and inspiring.

Herman Wouk is a devout orthodox Jew who has written several plays and novels. His writing flows and makes this study on Judaism clear and enjoyable. If you have any interest at all in Judaism, this is a great resource, as are your Jewish friends. I miss Josh Palay.

This book opens with the declaration that it will make you believe in God. [Or something like that. Rebecca picked it up and when she reads a book, she gets really into it so I'm not going to bother looking up quotes or anything.]

Everyone I know has read this book and enjoyed it. We finally got it from the library and while Rebecca was out of town, I read the whole book. Couldn't put it down.  read more »

I picked up this book because my friend, Dave, recommended it to me. He's given me some really good recommendations in the past that I was impressed with, so I spent the past half year trying to hunt it down. More exactly, he said I'd really get into this book, it was right up my alley.  read more »

A couple years ago, I read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune; afterwards, I watched the TV miniseries adaptation of the books. Although I wasn't facinated by Messiah, Children progressed the Dune story and I became really interested in reading the rest of this series. Then I had surgery and forgot all about it. But this review is about the original.  read more »

Okay. Here's my review of Kira-Kira. On the opening paragraph, we knew that the sister was going to die. We knew the chapter she was going to die in. I knew that nothing was going to happen in this book besides someone dying and a kid trying to deal with it at the end. Why? Because this book is formulaic.  read more »