44:120 God, No! by Penn Jillette

Otherwise titled "Signs you may already be an atheist and other magical tales".  I bought this for my husband who really enjoys Penn & Teller and happens to be an atheist.  He read it and enjoyed it and I figured I'd read it too.  After seeing Penn & Teller in Vegas a few weeks ago, this seemed an appropriate time.

There was nothing new and earth shattering in the book  There were some stories of people whom have come out of the atheist closet due to listening to Penn talk about it and some of his thoughts on atheism and God and such.  There were also a lot of stories just thrown in there of things that he has done and lived through that really don't have much to do with atheism at all but are just things he wanted to tell about.  That's fine and some of them were interesting and some were less so.

I wanted to like this book more than I did.  I felt like things didn't flow well into each other and had little connections to each other except that they all happened to one man and very few of them had much to do with atheism or religion.  Also, I have zero problems with cussing and I get that he wrote this as he would tell each of the stories but it's not being told, it's being read and that much cussing just gets boring when it's read.  It stops lending emphasis and starts reminding me of Dickens and makes me wonder if he was being paid by the word.  Maybe that's because I've been reading Dickens (and oh my dear lord is that man wordy!) but a lot of it felt almost forced in there for shock value and it ruined the flow for me more than anything else.  My husband has a mouth on him and his uncle is a stand-up comedian so there wasn't anything in the book I hadn't heard before and seriously, how many times must "mother f***er" be in one book???  It's not needed.  If you really want to include that much profanity, please be a little more creative at least.

Page count: 231p/10,685p ytd/191,677p lifetime

43:120 Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

The 8th book in the Mercy Thompson series.   When Adam's ex-wife calls and says she is in serious trouble, Mercy is worried that it will blow up in all their faces but even she couldn't predict how right she would be.  Turns out Christy has attracted the attention of something much more supernatural than a mere werewolf pack and he is not about to give up what he feels belongs to him without a fight.  Adam will not leave Christy defenseless even to save himself or the pack but can anyone figure out just how to get a volcano god to back off?  If anyone can, it might just be Coyote but at what cost to Mercy?

I absolutely love this series and my biggest complaint is that it's a year between books which seem so short and I read in just a day or two because they are too good to put down and this one was no exception.  I didn't like how manipulative Christy was (which was totally the point) but I admired Mercy's self-restraint.  I did feel like Adam could have done a better job of handling the situation but at the same time, you can also see why he struggles balancing things.  In all, a great installment to the series and I am now saddened that I have to wait another year (or more, please don't let it be more!) until the next one.

Page count: 341p/10,454p ytd/191,446p lifetime

42:120 Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Ok, this is a simple story.  Macbeth is told by three witches that he will be king but Banquo's children will be kings for generations.  Macbeth isn't even king yet but hey, a few well placed daggers takes care of that problem.  Hey, kind of worried about Banquo and his kids so hire some murderers to take him and his kid out except they miss the kid.  Hire those same murderers to take out Macduff and his family only they let him escape and only take out his wife and kids which is enough to piss anyone off so of course, he gets some friends and their armies and kill Macbeth.  Self-fulfilled prophecy done.

I think this is definitely one of those plays that works better in a stage setting because reading it was boring and predictable.  I have a couple of different theatrical productions that I now just need to find time to watch.  I will grant that there are definitely some great lines from it even if the plot was tired.

Page count: 132p/10,113p ytd/191,105p lifetime

41:120 Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire

The third book in the Incryptid series told from Alex Price's POV.  Alex is in Ohio as a visiting herpetologist. from San Francisco.  In reality, he is there to try and breed a pair of basilisks and check on the local fricken population as well as help with his cousin's recovery from saving his sister Verity.  It was supposed to be a quiet assignment until people started dying at the zoo where he works by petrification.  Since people turning to stone is not a normal way for them to die and it's happening very close to him, his assignment has just had a major change of scope.  To make matters more interesting, his girlfriend who is a visiting big cat specialist from Australia is more than what she appears as well.

Lots of twists and turns, some predictable and some not.  Lots of fun little throw away things that caused me to snigger.  I enjoyed Alex but my one complaint was that I got the fact that he was normally a researcher after the first time it was said and I get putting it in a second time in case people weren't paying attention but it just seemed like we were constantly being reminded of that fact and I found it a bit repetitive.  Otherwise tho, a fun fast read which was a true pleasure after reading nothing but school stuff for several weeks.

Page count: 356p/9,981p ytd/190,973p lifetime

40:120 The Ancient Greek World by Jennifer T. Roberts & Tracy Barrett

A look at history from the earliest civilizations that we have records for and how those civilizations eventually came to be called Greek through cultural similarities, language, and religious beliefs but how the lack of true community and nation forming eventually led to it's downfall.  Again, a rich look at the culture not just the bare bones history and mythology.

Here's what I said when I read it a few years ago:
 I felt this did a very good job of going through ancient Greek history.  It didn't focus over much on religion and mythology as I've seen so many others do.  It focused more on how people lived and how their lives developed.  Lots on the wars since that was, unfortunately, a fairly common occurrence but also on the development of the poleis (Greek city-states).  They told of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans against Xeres of Persia (the basis for the recent movie 300).  Lots on the inventors and philosophers as well.  Overall, very pleased with this series for middle school history.

Page count: 192p/9,625p ytd/190,617p lifetime

39:120 Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Winnie has been leading a sheltered life all of her ten years with people admonishing her constantly to stay cool, stay clean, be polite, etc.  She decides one day that she will run away and goes off for a walk in the woods next to her house.  There she meets Jesse, a 17-year-old boy, who is pleasant until she tries to drink from the little pool of water next to him.  They argue until Jesse's mother finds them and not knowing what to do takes Winnie home with her to try and explain why she must never drink from that spring.  The Tuck family drank from it years and years ago and now no longer age and they can't be killed.  When Winnie was taken however, a man who had heard the stories sees her and strikes a deal with her family to bring her back in exchange for the woods the spring lies in.  Will the secret of the spring get blown open to the whole world or will the Tucks' figure out how to stop this secret from getting out?

A charming little story about how living forever may not be as great as it seems and how that responsibility can be heavier than you would ever imagine but also about friendship and trust and making grown-up decisions even when you are young.

Page count: 140p/9,433p ytd/190,425p lifetime

38:120 The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster

Second time reading this one, this time with the youngest who is 8.  Here's my previous review:

Milo is bored.  School is boring, home is boring, his toys are boring, everything is boring...even that mysterious box that shows up in his bedroom with a strange tollbooth in it.  But what he finds on the other side of that tollbooth is anything but boring.  A whole new world opens up before him: one where you eat your own words,  can collect sounds in a bottle, a symphony colors the world, and a little boy must rescue Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason from the Castle in the Air with the help of a watchdog named Tock and a Humbug.

One of those timeless children's classics that I somehow never got around to reading when I was actually a child.  I decided to rectify that by doing a novel study with Jon.  He was reluctant at first but after the first few chapters, we were both hooked.  A lovely book that takes so much of what we say figuratively and literally turns it upon itself but in the end you learn that so many things are possible so long as you don't know they are impossible.

Since this was an assigned read, Nick just went along with it and he was a bit bored by the beginning but within a few chapters he was talking to me about what was happening and it was never an issue when I told him it was time to do his reading.  Many times, he would read the next day's chapter as well to see what would happen next.  It truly is a lovely book with some wonderful words of wisdom scattered throughout.

Page count: 256p/9,293p ytd/190,285p lifetime