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Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: July 12, 2011, 12:24:07 PM »
My reading took a hit this past week. (For good reasons, which might come with some exciting news in the next week or so) I was able to read Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton and No Better Place to Die.
I picked up Just a Geek because I read Pat Rothfuss's review on his blog. Also, I'm a huge Trekkie fan. Let me clarify that. I absolutely loved TNG and Voyager, thought DS9 was alright, the original was good, and Enterprise was terrible. I can quote lines from the shows, love specific episodes, but I can't remember the names of every episode and I've never, never been to a Star Trek Convention.
Alright, bona fides out of the way, onto the review. Just a Geek was well written. It's not a terribly long book and a lot of it appears to be taken from Wil's blog. Having said that, Wil goes into detail to tell the reader what was going on behind the scenes when he wrote each entry. The book starts off with a young, 16 year old Wil Wheaton watching members of the original Star Trek cast come out of their hotel to get on a Trekkie Cruise. It takes a sixteen year old to be able to judge them so harshly and so completely. We've all been there. In Wil's case it resulted in him leaving Star Trek and spending the next 10+ years regretting it.
This is a story about fame and success turning into ruin. But more than that it's a story about recovery and acceptance. It's a story about hope. And I think those stories are worth reading every now and again to remind us that there's always a ray of sunshine at the end of the tunnel. This will appeal to any reader, but especially those who followed the show as there's a lot of behind the scenes looks from Patrick Stewart and co.
No Better Place to Die is a memoir of an 82nd Airborne Pathfinder's days in Normandy. It follows the action of Saint-Mere Eglise which had some of the most brutal close combat of the war. It's an alright book. The author's prose isn't bad, but he jumps all over the place and innundates the reader with a ton of names, details, etc. It would appeal to the amateur historian looking for an in depth look at the conflict, but the average reader, meh. Also, when I read memoirs I'm hoping to get a look inside of the writer's head. In this case the author takes the rare approach of pulling himself out of the story. There are a lot of harrowing tales and several Medal of Honor moments. Definitely worth reading for that alone. The second half of the book is filled with letters from the soldiers involved. Really you could read the second half of the book and find out the same information, but as they are letters you're expecting disjointed, haphazard organization. The first half is the same thing told by the author, but much more jarring.
Next up? GRRM of course :-)
I picked up Just a Geek because I read Pat Rothfuss's review on his blog. Also, I'm a huge Trekkie fan. Let me clarify that. I absolutely loved TNG and Voyager, thought DS9 was alright, the original was good, and Enterprise was terrible. I can quote lines from the shows, love specific episodes, but I can't remember the names of every episode and I've never, never been to a Star Trek Convention.
Alright, bona fides out of the way, onto the review. Just a Geek was well written. It's not a terribly long book and a lot of it appears to be taken from Wil's blog. Having said that, Wil goes into detail to tell the reader what was going on behind the scenes when he wrote each entry. The book starts off with a young, 16 year old Wil Wheaton watching members of the original Star Trek cast come out of their hotel to get on a Trekkie Cruise. It takes a sixteen year old to be able to judge them so harshly and so completely. We've all been there. In Wil's case it resulted in him leaving Star Trek and spending the next 10+ years regretting it.
This is a story about fame and success turning into ruin. But more than that it's a story about recovery and acceptance. It's a story about hope. And I think those stories are worth reading every now and again to remind us that there's always a ray of sunshine at the end of the tunnel. This will appeal to any reader, but especially those who followed the show as there's a lot of behind the scenes looks from Patrick Stewart and co.
No Better Place to Die is a memoir of an 82nd Airborne Pathfinder's days in Normandy. It follows the action of Saint-Mere Eglise which had some of the most brutal close combat of the war. It's an alright book. The author's prose isn't bad, but he jumps all over the place and innundates the reader with a ton of names, details, etc. It would appeal to the amateur historian looking for an in depth look at the conflict, but the average reader, meh. Also, when I read memoirs I'm hoping to get a look inside of the writer's head. In this case the author takes the rare approach of pulling himself out of the story. There are a lot of harrowing tales and several Medal of Honor moments. Definitely worth reading for that alone. The second half of the book is filled with letters from the soldiers involved. Really you could read the second half of the book and find out the same information, but as they are letters you're expecting disjointed, haphazard organization. The first half is the same thing told by the author, but much more jarring.
Next up? GRRM of course :-)