Jonathan Ames is funny. Granted, I read Pass Like Night a few weeks ago and it wasn't even attempting humor, but after reading his newest I am totally hooked. I keep thinking about Alan, the star of Wake Up, Sir, nearly a week after finishing the book. He's like a neurotic, self-depricating, Jewish, red-haired, sport-coat-wearing Forrest Gump with a valet. In fact, I'm going to stop this review now because that description should be enough. Either you're into that or you're not. Clearly, I'm into it. He has officially been added to my stable of Brooklyn writers.

Note: Apparently, Wake Up, Sir (and The Extra Man) have been optioned for the silver screen. Who should play Alan?

If this were an episode in a t.v. show, you would call the Half-Blood Prince a set-up episode. Rowling's style and voice were impeccable as always, but this edition set up a doozy of a story for the final book. I couldn't imagine it being any less than 1,000 pages.

As you might guess, I liked books four and five better but it's still Harry Potter. In no way do I regret picking up the book at midnight on the night of its release. When else will I get to see a crazy fan dressed up as Dumbledore riding around B&N on a segway? Exactly.

By far, the most well-crafted book I've read in...well, ever. When you hear the book is nearly 800 pages it's hard to imagine that every sentence is necessary, but it was.

Susanna Clarke tells the story of two magicians who bring magic back to England during the 19th Century. Despite being called "Harry Potter for adults", this book is far from that. They may both be about magic, but this is less about unraveling a mystery and more of a coming-of-age story. In this case, it is magic that is coming of age.

I loved this book, but I wouldn't call it my favorite. That status is reserved for The Master and Margarita, which just happens to have a similar title. Whether you're new or old to fantasy novels, this one wil get you good. Clarke's outstanding writing and her attention to detail will most definitely impress you.

This book pulled me out of a fiction funk. I thought I needed to take a break from fiction so I picked up a couple other books, neither of which worked out. Then my friend Zack lent this to me, and I loved it.

I picked up this book mainly because it was based in my neighborhood, Boerum Hill. It's fun to read a book and say, "hey, that's where I get my milk and cereal." This is probably the reason why the first hundred pages were slow; I picked up the book for a cursory reason. Soon thereafter, I was hooked. More than anything, I was able to see how growing up in a neighborhood that is of a different racial makeup than your own can be totally debilitating. There is a great deal more packed into these pages, but that was what stuck out for me.

This one's definitely a keeper. I even bought another book of his, Motherless Brooklyn.

I finished this a couple months ago but never got around to writing a review. That's too bad because it would have meant that you'd have another two months to go out and find this book.

Definitely one of the more enjoyable books I've read in a long time. It's the story of a young Indian boy who is traveling to America with his family, but the boat sinks in a storm and he spends the entire time on a lifeboat in a precarious situation. The writing is fresh and inviting and I wanted to befriend the main character, Pi.

It is worth noting that the book won the Man Booker Prize in 2002. This means there is a pretty gold seal on the cover. It's nice.

One of my favorite books I've read in the last few years. Find it.

Wow. This is an excellent book about the economics of baseball and the story of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. This would normally be the time where I pick apart the book and tell you what's wrong about it. There is really nothing to pick apart. Color me impressed and happy to have read it.

I wrote about it earlier in the main blog.

Chuck Klosterman's first book, the one that got him where he is today. I don't have a lot to say other than that this book is a really fun read for anyone who knows anything about 80s metal (hair or other). Well written, funny and poignant in a not-so-important kind of way.*

*You'll know what I mean when you read it.

Chuck Klosterman will never win a Pulitzer but I don't care and he shouldn't either. His books and writing are a little too true and always interesting. Growing up in a generation right behind is I can relate to a lot of his pseudo-memoirs/rants and it makes this book a blast to read.

The only reason I can't give this book a higher grade is because I didn't get much out if it. The content itself is amusing but not life-altering. The only proufound effect derived from this book can be attributed to some of the backlash surrounding its content (specifically in the NY Press). Their claims go further than mine in that they call this book totally unnecessary. I disagree. I think this book is 100% necessary because he is the first to really document the life of a 20ish, 30ish rocker growing up in the 80s. There are thousands, if not millions, of people this age who spend a ridiculous amount of time picking apart the little things -- he is just one the first to publish a book with this thoughts.

At the very least, this book will be a testament to how our generation looked at the world.

This one did not hit me nearly as hard as Fast Food Nation. I commend his effort and desire to bring to light the black market in the United States, but the book seemed to lack some focus in a couple sections. The book looks at the marijuana, illegal immigrant and pornography trade. In the final section he ends up telling the life story of a porn mogul and how he attempted to thwart the U.S. government. I guess it is supposed to show how much money the industry produces and how much time the government wastes policing it, but I would liked an approach that used more examples rather than one very big one. I should note that there were more than one, but this particular story dominated the section.

That being said, the whole book was interesting. Most informed citizens know about some of the workings of each of these areas, but Schlosser does a good job of confirming it all with data and first person accounts. In that respect the book is worthwhile. For me it seemed to retread some ground I've covered in the past.

This book is great for people who want to know more or anything about the black market in the United States. If you already know a lot then you can probably skip this and wait for his next book on prison systems, which I'm quite excited about.

I love Harry. I completely and totally adore him. I went to Barnes and Nobles at midnight on June 21st to stand amongst thirteen year-olds to buy this book. I read the first four books in six weeks and couldn't comprehend how I would be able to wait for the fifth. Two years later it arrived and the 870 pages seemed like it might be a little short.

Given my unabashed love of Harry, you may wonder why I gave it a B+. How could J.K. do any wrong at all? Well, she did in my opinion. I read every page with complete and total adoration but when the book ended I felt that something was missing. [Now is the time you should stop reading if you don't want to see any spoilers.]

The end of this book leaves so much to be desired. The final battle was neither big nor exciting and there were some aspects of the story that were left completely unresolved. I am certain this was Rowling's intention and I'm okay without total resolution when there are two more books in the series, but it was done without elegance. The fourth book was easily my favorite because it left the story wide open and the reader with a million questions while still providing a heart-stopping final battle and a plot in the book that stood on its own. The same thing cannot be said for the fifth installment. The students had to contend with their O.W.L.'s and Harry had a big crush on Cho, which are big enough stories, but neither really get resolved and they certainly don't compare with the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

That being said, this book did bring out a side of Harry and the others that we haven't seen before. Harry is growing up and is starting to exhibit feelings of fear and desolation. It's odd, but completely logical, to see him act so sullen. Ron and Neville are finally starting to take on a bit more personality, which has been great. Also, we're starting to get a better idea of the motivations behind the faculty at Hogwarts. Overall, Rowling did a great job forwarding the plot and the whole thing was coherent and captivating, which is impressive for a 900 page book.

Still, the book reminds me a lot of Matrix Reloaded in that it is clearly a section of the bigger story. The other Harry Potter books were able to stand on their own, but this one isn't quite capable. For that reason, despite my love for Harry and the imagination of J.K. Rowling, I have to give this a B+.

It bothers me that I didn't enjoy this book all that much. The writing was excellent, the main character was very compelling, the subject matter was important, but I just couldn't get into it. This is just one of those books that people like to put on their bookshelf to look like they are inteligent, thoughtful and a good person. I will probably do the same, but the book was still a little boring.

While reading the book I thought about what would have made it better for me. I don't doubt the formula works for other readers, I just knew that if the style was different I could fall in love with this character. His name is J. and he is a freelance writer who travels the country writing stories for whatever magazine will hire him. He is a literary nomad. J. is snide and cynical but is still very endearing. If the book had been just about him and his merry band of freelancers, I would have loved it. Instead, there was the main subject of the book -- race (I think). Really, that's the problem. I don't like reading stories outside of a class where the author buries the main point of the book in sublety and metaphor. Yes, fiction is dependent on this technique, but I find that I am too lazy to process the information on my own. And in this case, it seems that the author is burying everything in subtext just for the sake of doing so. Why can't authors occasionally just come out and say what they mean?

So, it may be unfair of me to say that I didn't like this book because I didn't get it, but that's the truth. I don't really get it. If anyone else has read this book and would like to chat with me about then I would be more than happy to do so. Without that, I'll have to say that this book isn't for me, at least not at this time.

Wow, the writing style in this is so fresh. Imagine Wes Anderson humor infused in a book about a man dying of boredom. Yeah, pretty cool, eh? The author, Sam Lipsythe, is definitely a force to be reckoned with and this is more a book about his voice than it is about the actual subject. Like Mel Brooks did with movies, Lipsythe is able to poke fun at the way we read books and the way they tend to be written. It meant I laughed out loud on more than one occassion.

As I mentioned, the book is about this guy who is dying of boredom, but he really isn't dying at all, it's just what his doctors tell him as they try to conjure up a new disease. The story follows his attempts at curing his non-existant illness, and they are nothing if not far-fetched. Of course, this makes for a roller-coaster ride of a book. Now that my typical book review synopsis is done, this book is fucking crazy and I loved it for that. The path you follow makes perfect sense as you read it but would sound like utter nonsense if you tried to explain it, which is evidence of Lipsythe's brilliance.

The reason this book got a B is because it didn't have something special in it. Most teachers believe that in order to get an A you have to do something out of the ordinary, something spectacular. I don't think that Steve is up to that level. Nonetheless, it is a really fun and really fast read.

I'm going to be seeing Sam Lipsythe do a reading this weekend at Soft Skull, my local independent bookstore/publisher.

Apparently, this is book is supposed to do for video games what Michael Chabon did for comic books. At least that's what the cover says. I don't know if I agree with that because Chabon made comic books accessible to everyone, and not knowing a heck of a lot about comics wasn't prohibitive. With this book by D.B. Weiss, I felt that your level of video game knowledge was important. So, it's been tough for me to recommend this book to just anyone.

For those that cut the mustard (what the hell does that mean, by the way), I found this book to be incredibly interesting a few levels. For everyone, the book is about a geek who is writing a book that catalogues every video game ever made and his pursuit for one particular game, Lucky Wander Boy. He believes it holds the secret to life.

First, the criticism of games, especially early in the novel, is excellent. I would definitely read his reviews over those you find in today's video game mags. The plot of the book was interesting, as seeking the meaning of life from a video game is something new, and the writing style was excellent. These alone would have kept me interested, but what pushed me over was the underlying exploration of the modern geek.* The book really does a good job of looking at how a geek thinks and acts.

I could go on about this book, as I found it interesting, but these are "mini-reviews," but I'd rather discuss it with you in real-time. Definitely pick it up if you're into videogames.

*By geek, I mean someone who is completely and totally obsessed with one thing. In this case, videogames.

Wow, I couldn't even begin to give a good review of this book, so here's what I know. The book is about the development of human societies. The author, Jared Diamond, wrote it after many people claimed that certain races were inherently inferior. This is obviously untrue, but he went to great lengths to prove it.

Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much was because I'd been out of school for a while and this was a serious non-fiction book. You could teach an entire course from this book, but the author was able to make it incredibly readable. I skimmed a page here and there, but I definitely read the whole book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Everyone knows that The People's History of the United States is the de facto cool book for history and political science, but you should know that Guns, Germs and Steel is the same thing for science and some aspects of sociology. I couldn't recommend this book enough.

What time is it? I bet you can find 4 to 5 things where you're sitting that can tell you what time it is, and at least one of them is probably perfectly accurate or exactly 6 minutes ahead. Right? Thought so. James Gleick's book, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything is all about our obession with time and how it effects our daily lives. There was no clear message, except that we are totally and completely in love with time. Still, the book was really intriguing. He spoke about elevator logic, prioritizing events in your day, and tons of other things (normally I would be more specific, but I finished this book 2 months ago).

I definitely recommend this book to people who love to think about how society works. It is amazing to think about our dependance of time. Just about everything we do somehow correlated with a schedule or a timeframe or an era. This book puts that abstract sentence into neatly, highly interesting and entertaining chapters in a great book. [STAMP] (of approval)

Forgive me, for I finished this months ago. Moving on. This book is incredibly thorough. When I first picked it up, I assumed it would mostly be about how the food is processed and how America is fat, which would have made a great book. In fact, if you just kept the chapters on this issue then you would still have a damn fine book, but Eric Schlosser also discussed the effect on bigger business, the effect on rural and corporate farmers, the effect on our culture and everything in between. Now all of this could be incredibly boring, but Schlosser is a very talented writer and knows how to keep you glued to the page.

I am very glad I read this book. When I first finished it, I thought I would stop going to fast food joints for good. Wrong. I couldn't stop. They are everywhere, they are cheap and you know what you're getting into. It's just too easy. Above all else, this proves Schlosser's point; fast food is a part of our culture and there's no escaping it. This can change, but like all serious change, it will take chocolate. I mean time.

Michael Chabon is awesome. I really liked Wonder Boys and I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I started reading this book about nine months ago and wasn't willing to put enough time into it, for it is a mammoth book (640 paperback pages). So I only got about a third of the way through before school work got in the way. Over the last couple weeks I polished off the last 400 pages.

The story is wonderful, and terribly cinematic. I wish I'd read more of his earlier stuff, because I'm curious if he used the same imagery before he had one of his novels made into a film. It's amazing how he was able to really use each of the pages to push forward the story, and not just fill them with unnecessary bable.

Despite the strength of the story, the characters are the heart of this book. It's nearly impossible to dislike or not care about the main characters. Even the periphery characters are well-crafted.

Since this is a mini-review, I'm going to cut out all the details, but this book is just plain fantastic. Lots of entertainment, lots of emotion, and a story based on the rise of the comic book. Can it get much better?

An amazing perspective on a life I've never known. Barbara Ehrenreich abandons her upper-middle class world to try and live, like so many Americans do, on a $7/hour job. The book chronicles three different attempts in three different cities, and as the full title suggests (Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America), she is unsuccessful each time.

I really liked this book because it gave a face to the people who live as waitresses, housekeepers or Wal-Mart employees. I've always known they were there and I understand that the system is anything but kind, but the book really helped to cement that in my mind, which seems to be the purpose of the book. Ehrenreich does not give any possible solutions to the problems the lower class face, even in her final analysis. This doesn't necessarily bother me, but I would have preferred some more discussion.

In the end, this book is for the people who cannot comprehend that the drive-thru guy is trying to make a living. At one point she referrences some research suggesting that most people think that a homeless person can get a job and survive on it if they'd like, which is untrue. So, I am probably a bit greedy to wish for solutions, since just identifying and personifying the problem is a great start.

I am now excited about reading. Malcolm Gladwell is a brilliant writer and this book is like nothing I've read before. It discusses epidemics (of all kinds) and what causes them to tip ("tipping points"). Everyone knows there are certain factors and people who help bring things to the masses, but this gives a name and a description to everything involved.

Gladwell knows when to be funny and when to be descriptive. His examples are great and he has a great command of language. I especially liked the chapter on Sesame Street and Blues Clues, probably because that's what I studied in school. Maybe.

This book is for anyone who is interested in sociology or those who just enjoy a good nonfiction book. Read this.

Oh, being a jew is so much fun. It has that certain...I don't know what about it. Heeb magazine manages to capture that bit and puts it in a pretty package. The second issue has a few really great articles. Worth a read.