The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Author: Victor Hugo
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 577
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The classic tale of Frolo, Esmeralda, and Quasimodo.  Except, the real novel is pretty different from the Disney movie.
Thoughts: Like most 19th century fiction, this book has an excellent plot combined with pages and pages of pretty boring description (of Paris, the cathedral, the costumes of actors in a sideshow, etc.).  So, it takes a little patience to get into the book.  But, for the most part I really enjoyed the novel, and I continue to view Victor Hugo as a pure genius of a story writer.  In this novel, the way he shows how the prejudices of the various characters leads to their downfall is really pretty amazing.  Also, I liked the ending of the real novel better than the Disney movie (although I can see why Disney needed to adapt the story for kids...).
Disclaimer: None.

Scorecasting

Title: Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won
Authors: Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
Genre: Popular Science
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The Freakonomics of sports.  Moskowitz and Wertheim dive into data on every major sport to investigate things like: Does defense win championships? Where does home field advantage come from? Does loss aversion result in more losses?  And so forth.
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book, and if you're a sports fan and like numbers you should definitely read it.  I especially enjoyed the section on home field advantage, as it's something that I've wondered about for a long time.  My only complaint is that the whole "why everything you thought was true is wrong" is way overplayed, in my opinion.  Clearly, telling us that things we think are true really are wrong is a good way to catch attention and sell books.  I just think it was a bit overbearing in this book.  That being said, as an economist and numbers guys, I can't complain about the analysis nor the conclusions, and found nearly every chapter interesting.
Disclaimer: None.

The Boys in the Boat

Title: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Author: Daniel James Brown
Genre: History
Pages: 404
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Jesse Owens is the most famous American from the 1936 Olympics, but this book tells the story of 9 working-class boys from the University of Washington who competed in the 8-oar crew race in Berlin.  Most the book tells their back story, detailing the tough conditions of the depression, and how they came together as a team to beat the odds.
Thoughts: If you liked Unbroken or Seabiscuit, then you would like this book.  It's very much in that same flavor, and it's extremely well-written.  I love that it told a story I had never heard before, and I especially liked the sections that detailed how 8-men crew teams have to flow together perfectly as one group to achieve any sort of success.  Also, the backgrounds of some of the boys was simultaneously appalling and fascinating.  My only complaint with the book is that it felt a bit formulaic, as many sports tales can be.  But other than that, it was great.
Disclaimer: None.

The Light Between Oceans

Title: The Light Between Oceans
Author: M. L. Stedman
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 345
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A couple that lives on a lighthouse off the coast of western Australia find a boat washed up onshore.  In the boat, there is a dead man and a healthy baby.  It just so happens that the couple have recently had a miscarriage and they feel that this baby is a gift from God, so they raise her as their own daughter, keeping it a secret that she wasn't their baby at the first.
Thoughts: This book surprised me.  I was expecting a romantic love story, I think.  But it turns out to be more about honesty, morality, the love of a parent for a child, and the love a couple shares through hardship.  I really enjoyed the story quite a bit.  It was hard to put down, but also thought-provoking.  I'd recommend it.  Also, the reader on the audiobook was fantastic.
Disclaimer:  None, which is very rare for a modern book!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Title: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Author: Mohsin Hamid
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 191
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Changez is a young Pakistani man who recently graduated from Princeton and got a job at a finance firm in New York City.  He attempts to find his way as a Pakistani-American, and does well until 9/11 and attitudes toward him change.  The novel details an immigrant version of finding the American Dream, while attempting to remain Pakistani at the same time.
Thoughts: I enjoyed this book for the most part, but I can't honestly say that I've thought much about it since I read it.  It's fairly well-written and easy to read, but I never found it very gripping or engaging.  The ending is quite ambiguous and is meant to be thought-provoking, but I just found it kind of abrupt and odd.  Overall I'm glad I read it, but I don't give it too high of a recommendation.
Disclaimer: There is one somewhat explicit scene with his girlfriend and a few swear words.

Boys Adrift

Title: Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men
Author: Leonard Sax
Genre: Nonfiction - parenting/popular science
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Leonard Sax, a Ph.D., M.D., and practicing psychologist, lays out his view that there is an epidemic of boys and young men being unmotivated.  He attributes the downward trend to five factors: video games, teaching methods, prescription drugs, environmental toxins, and devaluation of masculinity.  He lays out each issue, and also provides practical solutions to help overcome some of these problems.
Thoughts: As the father of 4 boys, I figured this would be worthwhile to read.  It definitely was.  What I really liked about this book is that it didn't feel like it had an agenda to push.  These are simply the things that the author feels are going wrong for boys today, and his ideas to fix them.  I wish I was able to better evaluate for myself some of his claims, but all of them seem reasonable and really not overly extreme or out of line.  There are definitely things I'll take away that will make me a better parent and youth leader from this book.
Disclaimer: None.

Dad is Fat

Title: Dad is Fat
Author: Jim Gaffigan
Genre: Humor
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Humor from Jim Gaffigan about being a dad of 5 kids in New York.
Thoughts: What can I say?  This book is basically like reading a Jim Gaffigan stand-up routine.  So, if you like him, you'll like the book.  Especially if you have kids.  As a father of four, I found myself relating to basically every single chapter, and laughing out loud often.  Which was bad because I read this between the hours of 11:30 and 4:00am as I rocked my newborn.  The one thing I didn't love about the book is that it seems like he is basically complaining about being a parent the entire time.  It's funny complaining, but if I read too much of it at once it kind of got on my nerves.  So take it in small pieces.
Disclaimer: None.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Title: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
Author: Jeff Hobbs
Genre: Biography
Pages: 432
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Robert Peace was born in the projects close to Newark, NJ.  His mother's sacrifices, combined with his innate brilliance, helped him get into private schools and eventually into Yale.  This book is essentially his biography, from his birth until his untimely death.
Thoughts: I've been telling everyone that I run into that they should read this book.  I'm still mulling it over in my head, trying to think through what I've learned from it - what went so right and so wrong in this person's life?  It might be that this book hit home for me personally because we lived near Newark in New Jersey, and then went from there to the Ivy League, so I can at least understand a bit the culture shock between the two.  But I think anyone would benefit from reading this book.  My favorite aspect is that it doesn't have a moral.  It simply tells the story and you, the reader, have to disentangle the personal, familial, cultural, racial, and societal forces that helped Robert Peace but ultimately undid him.  Read it.
Disclaimer:  A fair amount of swearing in this one, and lots of drugs.  Some references to sex, but it is quite clean in that regard.  But given the subject matter, this was a surprisingly clean book.

Tenth of December

Title: Tenth of December
Author: George Saunders
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A collection of short stories, ranging from odd dystopian futuristic worlds to stories of teenagers in suburbia.
Thoughts: This book is really hard to rate.  Some of the stories are worth five stars, and some are only one or two.  As a collection, I have to say that they are brilliant, well-written, and the work of a truly great writer.  But that doesn't mean that I necessarily enjoyed them all.  Many of the stories are dark and morbid, and most do not have much hope in them at all.  But I do feel like I learned something from each one, and there were a few that really hit me hard.  I especially liked the final story, "Tenth of December," from which the book gets its title.  Overall, the book was moving, but is probably not for everyone.  However, if you like modern fiction and think you might be interested, I bet you would love the book.
Disclaimer: There is quite a bit of inappropriate content in this one.  I can't recall exactly which ones were fully clean, but if I were reading it again I would skip "Escape from Spiderhead" for sure.

The Wright Brothers

Title: The Wright Brothers
Author: David McCullough
Genre: History
Pages: 336
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The Wright Brothers get the McCullough treatment, with an in-depth look at their lives and their amazing invention of the world' first flying machine.
Thoughts: This was one of my favorite McCullough books (and I've read a few now).  Thoroughly captivating from start to finish, and with just the right level of detail for my taste.  I especially enjoyed the sections detailing how they performed careful analysis and controlled experiments to arrive at their unique (and, ultimately, correct) solution to the flying problem.  I came away from the book with a great appreciation for their intelligence, bravery, and doggedness in attacking a problem until it was solved.  A really great book.
Disclaimer: None.

The Cay

Title: The Cay
Author: Theodore Taylor
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 144
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A young boy growing up in the Caribbean becomes stranded on a small island with and old black man and a cat. The Cay is about their struggle for survival and how the boy learns to overcome his prejudice as they work together.
Thoughts: This is a really great book.  My lame description might make it seem like every other don't-be-prejudiced young adult book, but there are a few twists that really make it interesting and worthwhile.  Also, it's super short so it's great for a quick filler when you don't have time for a longer book.  This is definitely one I'll have all of my kids read.
Disclaimer: None.

Hallucinations

Title: Hallucinations
Author: Oliver Sacks
Genre: Neurology/Psychology
Pages: 352
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Hallucinations is a book about, well, hallucinations.  Each chapter describes a different kind of hallucination, going over stories of individuals who have been afflicted with them, and why they exist.  There's nothing more to it than that.
Thoughts: I enjoyed parts of this book immensely.  The parts I liked most were about how the brain will fill in missing information when our senses are impaired in some way.  I thank that tells us a lot about the brain itself and how it is wired to try to make sense of our external world.  It will even hallucinate to try to fill in the missing pieces.  I was also amazed at the wide variety of hallucinations that people experience, and at just how commonplace they really are.  My only complaint with the book is that I found myself drifting off fairly often, not paying attention closely as I listened to it.  Don't get me wrong, I think that Sacks is a good writer, but it didn't all hold my attention.  In particular the parts that were about more severe psychological illnesses didn't interest me as much.  But overall it was quite interesting, and if you've got an interest in psychology you should check it out.
Disclaimer: None.

A Long Way Gone

Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 229
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: At the age of 12, Beah is swept up in Sierra Leone's civil was when his village is attacked and his family is killed.  He is eventually pressed into service as a soldier for 3 years, until he is extracted from the army by UNICEF and placed in a rehabilitation camp.  The book describes his memories of being a child soldier, and his process of coming to terms with what he did as a soldier as he re-enters normal society.
Thoughts: This is a hard book.  The things that we humans are capable of, both good and bad, are simply shocking to me, and I think that this book really highlights the bad.  It also highlights our amazing ability to adapt to very difficult circumstances.  The things that Beah and other soldiers did, indeed had to do to survive, are beyond comprehension for someone like me who has lived an extremely sheltered life.  Frankly, I didn't enjoy reading that section, although that's not necessarily a good reason not to read it.  The second half of the book, which deals with his rehabilitation, I enjoyed more; probably most people would feel that way.
Disclaimer: This book is has extremely graphic depictions of war-time violence.

12 Years a Slave

Title: 12 Years a Slave
Author: Solomon Northup
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 248
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Solomon Northup was a free black man living in New York, with a wife and several kids and a successful farm.  On a trip to Washington, D.C., he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, deep in Louisiana just a few years before the Civil War.  As the title suggests, he was a slave for 12 years before he was freed when the fact that he was a freeman was finally proven.  This book is his memoir of that experience.
Thoughts: This was a fine book, but I actually didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to.  I guess you don't really enjoy a book about slavery, but I never really seemed to into this book, and then it was finished.  The most interesting parts were about the day-to-day lives of the slaves, how their masters used fear as a constant motivator, and how the slaves adapted to this terrible form of life.  In the end, this is a fine first-hand account of what slavery was really like, but I can't say that I really learned all that much more about slavery than I already knew.  If you're looking to read a book about slavery, this one should be high on the list.  But if not, I don't know that you need to go out of your way to read it.
Disclaimer: There are a few graphic depictions of brutality towards the slaves.

Failure Is Not an Option

Title: Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
Author: Gene Kranz
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Gene Kranz was one of the original flight controllers hired at the newly-formed NASA in the early 1960's.  Using meticulous notes and old recordings, he tells the story of NASA sending the first man into space, the first successful orbit and docking of spacecraft, the tragedy of Apollo 1, the success of Apollo 11, and the near failure of Apollo 13.
Thoughts: This book is really superb.  Kranz does a great job of balancing story-telling with historical and technical details, with the result being a gripping tale of adventure in the "final frontier" of space.  Several things impressed me about the book: first, Kranz's writing style is perfect.  He sounds like a flight director who's not going to take any crap from anybody.  For me, this really helped me get into the setting.  Second, it was amazing how many risks these guys had to take to get to the moon by the end of the decade.  Obviously, the tried to minimize the risks as much as possible, but at the end of the day everything they were trying was brand new, and the margin for error was zero.  I can't believe they actually made it, especially given that they literally survived each mission by the skin of their teeth.  Third, I kept thinking throughout the book about how there really isn't an equivalent national goal today like the Space Race was in the 1960's.  I would love to really see the nation come together around something like we did 50 years ago.  Anyway, this was a great book that I would certainly recommend.
Disclaimer:  A few swear words.

The Disneyland Story

Title: The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream
Author: Sam Gennawey
Genre: History
Pages: 336
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A blow-by-blow history of Disneyland, from its original conception up until 2012.
Thoughts: Few individuals are as well-known worldwide as Walt Disney, and few places are as patently American as Disneyland.  So, it is surprising that a comprehensive "biography" of Disneyland hadn't really been written before 2013, when Gennawey published The Disneyland Story.  I'm a pretty big Disney fan, and I found all of the details of the creation of the world's first theme park absolutely fascinating.  I especially liked how the book described how The Disney Company's experience with movie-making affected the creation of Disneyland.  It wasn't just a place to go have fun with your family.  It is essentially a true 3-D movie, where you are the main character experience adventure after adventure.  Each scene was carefully created at Disneyland, helping kids and adults alike suspend their disbelief for a day.  That's the key thing that sets Disneyland apart - each detail is taken care of so that the fantasy is maintained continuously.  Anyway, the book was super detailed, with tons of source material and careful attention to detail.  My only complaint with the book is that at times it reads like a timeline rather than a story.  "First this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, etc."  Still, overall, if you love Disneyland and are interested in true innovators, you would enjoy this book.
Disclaimer: None.

The Chosen

Title: The Chosen
Author: Chaim Potok
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 304
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood.
Thoughts: Such a great book.  It's very similar to My Name is Asher Lev, also by Potok, which I read (and loved) several years ago.  What I really liked about The Chosen was its exploration of our relationship with faith and God.  I don't want to give away much about the plot, but for me Danny's relationship with his father was a perfect metaphor for how our relationship with God can feel at times.  By the end of the book, I felt like I had truly learned something valuable, and actually feel like my faith is maybe a bit stronger because of it.  There's a lot more to the book (father/son relationships, dealing with differences between friends, etc.), but that was what has stuck with me.  The writing is great and it's a great story, so I'd highly recommend it.
Disclaimer: None.

The Most Human Human

Title: The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive
Author: Brian Christian
Genre: Non-fiction (Popular science/philosophy)
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In 2009, Brian Christian participated in the "Turing Test," the annual competition in which computers and real people engage in 5-minute instant message sessions with a panel of judges.  The twist is that the judges don't know if they are speaking with a computer or a human, and at the end of the conversation they must vote on whether they think they were talking to a real person or not.  The computer that receives the most votes wins the "most human computer" award at the end of the competition, while the person that gets the most votes receives the "most human human" award.  Christian decides that he's going to go all-out to be the "most human human" in the competition, and prepares for several months beforehand to figure out what really makes him (and us) human.  Holding degrees in philosophy, computer science, and poetry, Christian is ideally suited to tackle the surprisingly beguiling question of how to be human.
Thoughts: I loved this book.  I found it surprisingly profound, and I'm still thinking about some of the ideas in the book a month after finishing it.  I expected it to be a kind of Malcolm Gladwell-esque book that was interesting and well-written.  It wasn't actually all that well-written, but it more than made up for it in super interesting material.  What really surprised me was how much it made me really re-think how I can make myself more human.  By looking at what things computers can easily copy when they are imitating us, we can easily see things we do that are quite pre-programmed, mundane, and robotic.  But there are some things that computers simply cannot (yet) copy, and that's where true human interaction really takes place.  That's where I want my relationships to go, and reading this book helped me understand better how to get there.  Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: None.

Saturday

Title: Saturday
Author: Ian McEwan
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 304
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Saturday tells the story of a single day in the life of Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon who lives in London.  It is a Saturday in February of 2003, and Henry wakes up to see a place with its wing on fire streaking towards Heathrow.  Henry's first thought is terrorism, and although it turns out he was mistaken (it was just an accident), terrorism and threats from unknown persons continue to haunt him throughout his day.
Thoughts: First off, you have to admire McEwan's prose.  Aside from any messages or deep thoughts that one might get from Saturday, I thoroughly enjoyed the great descriptions of everyday events, of situations I find myself in all the time.  And, to be sure, Saturday is filled with a lot of description and detail.  The plot doesn't unfold very quickly at all, so you've got to enjoy the prose if you're going to enjoy the book.  As for the plot itself, it was fine but nothing spectacular.  I felt like things got tied up a bit too neatly in the end (don't want to give any spoilers) for my taste.  However, the book did an excellent job of being a vehicle for thinking about terrorism, clashes of cultures, and more generally, how we handle situations and people that we are unfamiliar (and probably uncomfortable) with.  The book allows you to think about this on many different scales: terrorists (macro), muggers (mezzo), and within your own family (micro).  That is what made the book worth reading for me.
Disclaimer: There is plenty of swearing in the book, and some love-making between the main character and his wife.

Lone Survivor

Title: Lone Survivor: The eyewitness account of Operation Redwing and the lost heroes of SEAL Team 10
Author: Marcus Luttrell
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 464
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Tells the story of how Luttrell became a Navy SEAL and was eventually deployed in Afghanistan.  While out on patrol, his team was attacked by the Taliban.  Miraculously, Luttrell survived the ordeal.
Thoughts: This is such an amazing story that you can't not enjoy reading it.  Luttrell spends considerable space writing about his SEAL training, and I actually enjoyed that as much as the story.  It really gives you an insight into who the SEALs are and how they are trained to think and act.  The story itself is amazing, sad, and patriotic all at once.  My only complaint with the book is that Luttrell goes off on random diatribes about a few issues (such as the liberal media) here and there, and that kind of detracted from the story.  Not that he doesn't have a right to express that, but it comes off just sounding like a rant and it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  All in all, though, I enjoyed the book and am glad that I read it.
Disclaimer:  Like most military books, the language gets salty at times, and there is plenty of wartime violence and gore as well.  However, I'd say that this is actually cleaner than many war books that I've read.

Foundation

Title: Foundation
Author: Isaac Asimov
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 320
Rating (out of 5 stars): **1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Set far in the future, Foundation tells the story of a galaxy-wide Empire that has enjoyed peace for thousands of years.  But a brilliant psychologist named Hari Seldon has worked out a set of mathematical equations that predict the future, and what he finds is that the Empire is on the verge of collapse.  He sets up a foundation of scientists designed not to prevent the collapse of the Empire (its too far gone for that), but rather to shorter the dark ages that he knows will follow by retaining the accumulated knowledge of mankind.
Thoughts: This is one of the first, great sci-fi books out there; the predecessor to Star Wars, Star Trek, the Ender series, 2001, and basically every other sci-fi bit of media you've ever seen.  Written way back in 1951, it is quite imaginative and, in some ways, maybe a bit prescient.  But, I'm just not much of a sci-fi fan, I don't think.  I never really got into it; much of the story seemed too contrived so that everything tied up just a bit too neatly.  And the writing itself isn't great either, although I'm willing to let Asimov slip on that given that he was just 21 when he wrote the book.  Anyway, if you like sci-fi, you should read it.  Otherwise, it might not be worth your time.
Disclaimer: Maybe a swear word or two??  Pretty clean.

The Devil in the White City

Title: The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
Author: Erik Larson
Genre: History
Pages: 447
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Larson weaves together the story of the building of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 with the tale of a mass murderer far worse than Jack the Ripper.  Both stories are so outrageous that you might think he made them up, but they're both true, and they happened at the same time in the same place.
Thoughts: It took me about a hundred pages to really get into this book, but by the end I was hanging on every word.  Having moved to Chicago a year ago, this was the perfect time for me to read The Devil in the White City; I've been here long enough to know my way around, but I'm still trying to figure out its aura.  Knowing a bit of the history helped with that.  And the World's Fair is a huge part of what put Chicago on the map (and its imprint is still quite visible on the South Side).  I was mind-boggled at how many firsts there were at the fair (a small sampling: first shredded wheat, first usage of AC current, first Ferris wheel) and at the vastness of the project of just putting it together.  It left me wondering why we don't have World Fairs any longer; it's a shame they've gone away.  At any rate, throw in the true tale of a truly clever and sick mass murderer to boot, and you've got a great book.
Disclaimer: The descriptions of the murders were somewhat gruesome.

Sum

Title: Sum: Forty Tales of the Afterlives
Author: David Eagleman
Genre: Modern Fiction / Philosophy
Pages: 128
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, writes 40 different vignettes of what the afterlife might be like.  In one version, you re-live your life but with events grouped together so that you sleep for 30 years straight, spend 200 days in the shower, five months on the toilet, and so forth.  In another, you find out that God created humanity but then lost control and is farming out the work of managing people's lives to individuals who have passed away.  Each chapter is only 2-3 pages long.
Thoughts: I really loved this book.  It is amazing how much the afterlife can teach you about THIS life, and Eagleman does a really amazing job of delivering a new insight or deep thought in an incredibly creative way by forcing you to consider what each type of afterlife would be like.  What if in the afterlife you were stuck in a room until no one remembered you any longer?  How would that change how you behave?  I found myself underling the last couple of paragraphs in nearly every single chapter, finding new thoughts that made me think about how I'm living.  Eagleman's book was so good not because he writes about what the afterlife will actually be like, but because each different afterlife made me thing about what my current life is all about.
Disclaimer: None.

Confessions of a Public Speaker

Title: Confessions of a Public Speaker
Author: Scott Berkun
Genre: Advice
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): *** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Scott Berkun is a professional public speaker.  This book gives his advice on how to prepare and give a great talk, as well as advice on how to handle difficult situations and what to do when things go wrong.  It's also full of funny stories about public speaking.
Thoughts: I find myself doing a lot of public speaking in my career, so it seems worthwhile to try to get better at it.  Berkun's book had a lot of good advice, and it was fun to read as well.  I really liked that it didn't come off as preachy at all, but more, "I've made a whole bunch of mistakes; hopefully you can learn from some of them."  Berkun is pretty funny as well, which is always a plus.  At the end of the day, I didn't come away with any earth-shattering new advice, but all of it was solid and helpful.
Disclaimer: Maybe a few swear words in this one, but not much.

Quiet

Title: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking
Author: Susan Cain
Genre: Behavioral Psychology
Pages: 368
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Susan Cain's goal in this book is to dispel misconceptions about what introverts are, to remove any negative stigma there might be out there about introverts, and to try to convince the world that we should not cater only to extroverted types.  Laced with lots of anecdotes and scientific research, she tries to champion introverts in the same way that feminists began to be advocated for back in the 60s.
Thoughts: I loved the topic and the content of this book, and I really think that everyone should read it.  Whether you're and introvert or not (and you may be one without even knowing it!), this book is full of useful information that might change the way you structure your life, or at least make you more understanding of how others choose to structure theirs.  It has totally helped me understand better what motivates and energizes me. (I'm a total introvert, for the record.  Like, 100%)  My only complaint with the book is the tone.  It's written almost as a manifesto.  Cain is very upfront that she wants to spark a social movement for introverts similar to how the feminist movement was partially sparked by Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique.  To me, the book came off a little bit too much as a "Rah! Rah! Introverts are amazing!  Extroverts just don't get it!" kind of a message, despite it being chock full of really great insights.  In my view, she would have been more effective is she had just kept it more informational and let the reader decide what to do with the information.  But, you should read the book, and just ignore the tone.
Disclaimer: None.

The Road

Title: The Road
Author: Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Modern Fiction
Pages: 287
Rating (out of 5 stars): ****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: In a post-apocalyptic world, a man and his son are barely staying alive.  Due to some worldwide destruction (that is never specified), nothing grows and ash is constantly falling from gray skies.  Meanwhile, the man and his son travel along the road, hoping to find a better place, hoping that they can find enough food to last for a few more days, and hoping that they meet no one else along the way.
Thoughts: This is a book that will stick with me for a long time.  I couldn't figure out why anyone would write such a book for most of it; it's just so dark and depressing nearly all of the time.  Is it a commentary on how humans are essentially animals?  On how easily our society could come apart?  On the human spirit's amazing drive to survive?  Yes, it's about all of those.  But, when you come right down to it, this is a book about a father who knows he can't protect his son from the hard, dark things of this world, no matter how much he wants to.  And that certainly resonated with me.  Aside from the themes of the book, I also loved the writing style.  It felt almost like Hemingway to me, and I really like to read Hemingway.  All in all, I would definitely recommend it.  And, I must say, that despite how dark the book it, I do think that its main message is one of hope.
Disclaimer: There is some bloodshed in this book, and probably a swear word or two.  Mostly, though, it's just a mature-themed book.

The Brothers

Title: The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
Author: Stephen Kinzer
Genre: History
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): *** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen Dulles were the Secretary of State and the head of the CIA, respectively, under Eisenhower.  Working jointly as the overt and covert foreign policy directors for the U.S., this book describes their shaping of American foreign policy during the darkest times of the Cold War.
Thoughts: I've joined a men's book club, and this was the first book of the year.  It was extremely fascinating, and I'm surprised that I had never heard much about the Dulles brothers, despite the fact that a major airport is named after them.  The book is really well-written with amazing details (from de-classified documents) about the secret workings of the Cold War in the U.S. that I knew nothing about.  My only complaint is that it's clear the the author really hates the Dulles brothers, and his bias taints nearly all of the book.  It's clear that Foster and Allen were no saints and did plenty of bad things (with Eisenhower's sanction), but I would have preferred for Kinzer to just tell the story, and let the reader come to that conclusion on their own.  Other than that, though, this was fascinating and really taught me a lot about a period of U.S. history that I knew almost nothing about.
Disclaimer: I ran out of time to quite finish this book before our book group met, so I didn't get all the way through, but read enough to feel confident saying that it's quite clean.

The Indian in the Cupboard

Title: The Indian in the Cupboard
Author: Lynn Reid Banks
Genre: Children's Fiction
Pages: 240
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Omri receives an old medicine cabinet for his birthday, and discovers that plastic figurines come to life in it when it is locked with his mother's special key.  The Indian in the Cupboard tells the story of Omri's efforts to help "his" little Indian, and his realization that responsibility often accompanies new privileges.
Thoughts: Henry and I listened to this book during the drive to Virginia over New Years, and we both enjoyed it a lot.  I read it first in 3rd grade, I think, and had forgotten nearly all of the details.  It's a great story: funny, touching, and captivating, with a good (but not overt) message at the end.  It's a great book for an 8-11 year old.
Disclaimer: None.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author: Bill Bryson
Genre: Non-fiction (science/history)
Pages: 544
Rating (out of 5 stars): **** 1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Bill Bryson sets out to write a science book that is actually readable.  In it, he briefly covers everything from  the Big Bang to evolution to the discovery to gravity (and much, much more).  The focus of the book is not on the what so much as the how.  How did they figure out the distance to the sun?  How do we know what we do about dinosaurs?  And so forth.
Thoughts: I ate this book up.  It's been a long time since I had read much about pure science, and this book filled that gap for more.  Bryson's writing style is extremely readable, with just the right level of detail that it's quite easy to follow along.  He is also very adept and moving from topic to topic in a very natural way.  Interestingly enough, my biggest takeaway from this book is how little we really know about our universe.  For example, only a tiny fraction of all animals that die end up creating fossils, and then we only find a tiny fraction of the fossils that are on the earth.  There are huge pieces that we are just missing.  Given how little we know, the other surprising thing for me was just how difficult it typically is for new discoveries to become widely accepted.  Bryson details multiple times how the established scientific community discredited new evidence for years and years because it didn't match with their conception of the world, only to be proven wrong later.  Anyway, I would highly recommend this book.  It only missed out the extra half star because I felt like it dragged on a bit towards the end.  It needed to be 50 pages shorter, and it would have been perfect.
Disclaimer: None.

The House of the Seven Gables

Title: The House of the Seven Gables
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Genre: Classic
Pages: 416
Rating (out of 5 stars): **
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A twisting tale of the Pynchon family, a venerable bunch from a small New England town in the 19th century, who own the House of the Seven Gables.  The story focuses on two members of that family who have been shut up in the house for many years due to some dark past and terrible rumors, and how they finally break loose of those chains with the help of young Pheobe, who comes to live with them.
Thoughts: I never liked The Scarlet Letter or The Cruicible when I studied them in 11th grade English.  Turns out I'm still not a fan of those kinds of harsh, New England, gothic stories.  I found my mind wandering nearly every time I listened to this book, and when I'd snap to I'd usually find that I hadn't missed anything and that the story was still describing some ancient relative of the Pyncheons that had little to do with the plot.  Overall, I just never got into the book, and the best thing about it were the names of the main characters: Hepzibah, Jaffrey, Phoebe, and Clifford.  After living near Concord for the past five years, I'm glad to have read the book, but it's never a good thing when you're relieved that it's over.
Disclaimer: None.