May 02 2007

Dave Barry’s Homes and Other Black Holes

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 3:16 pm

Dave Barry’s Homes and Other Black Holes – Dave Barry

In a similar vein to the DIY book, Dave takes a look at the events surrounding buying and selling a house – be they hilarious, heartbreaking or simply horrendous. Although definitely written by an American, most of the pit falls are the same the world over, and I didn’t find myself regretting reading this book.

For all the warning about the subterfuge estate agents will commit, to try and get you to buy a house, Dave has helpfully included a chapter for the other point of view, simply entitled “Getting Some Fool to Buy Your House”. For anyone able to wait until they get the book, I’d like to include a small excerpt from the book, referring to what sort of budget you should plan for…

Q: What’s the best way to determine a realistic price range?”
A: Take your total annual family income, including coins that have fallen behind the bureau, and any projected future revenue you may have been notified about via personalized letters from Mr. Ed McMahon stating that you may have already won 14 million dollars. Then, multiply by something other than 6.

🙂 🙂 🙂

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May 02 2007

Dave Barry’s Stay Fit and Healthy Until You’re Dead

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 2:31 pm

Dave Barry’s Stay Fit and Healthy Until You’re Dead – Dave Barry

If you read the previous book review, you may have guessed that there will be a ‘few’ more Dave Barry books critiqued in this blog.
His style of humour is certainly quite direct, with little clever word-play or surrealism, but personally speaking, I occasionally like to dip into so called ‘low-brow’ humour and not have to actually engage to much of my brain to the book in hand.

This book takes a look at the fitness fads that go through cycles of being and in and out of fashion, and just what you should expect of them. Just don’t forget this is written by a funny man, not a personal trainer.
Whether your interest is in nutrition, running or weight lifting, Dave has it all covered, basically detailing why you should leave most fitness regimes until after Easter. (Just make sure it isn’t NEXT Easter 😉 )

If you know a fitness-nut, and think they need to take a step back from the seriousness of it all, I’d recommend giving them this book. (Read it first by all means, just try not to dribble any coffee stains on it when you laugh too hard – it will look obvious)

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May 02 2007

The Taming Of The Screw

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 1:48 pm

The Taming Of The Screw – Dave Barry

If you’ve not read any of his other books, you will probably enjoy this one. As you’ll see in the reviews coming soon, I’ve read a few of Dave Barry’s books, and didn’t find this one up to the same (relatively) high standards.
It may be I just happened to read this on a day when I wasn’t in the mood for his brand of humour, or it could be that this is one of Dave’s earlier books, where perhaps his writing style was still in the process of being polished up.

Anyway, the book concentrates on DoItYourself, and all the inherent dangers such an activity can present you. From the dangers of power tools to just how much money you won’t save in the long run, I believe the book will make ardent DIYers laugh at the accuracy of his warnings and those people, like me, who see DIY as a masochistic endeavour, feel even more justified in their beliefs.

Despite my earlier comment on this book, I’d still recommend this if your toilet-reading library needs an injection of easy-to-read humour. Just don’t assume his other books will make you laugh at the same frequency – it gets better 🙂

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May 01 2007

American Gods

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 6:27 pm

American Gods – Neil Gaiman

This book is set in a much more contemporary time, compared to the last book I reviewed by this author (Stardust).

The plot revolves around a character (Shadow) who starts off in jail, and is overjoyed to discover he is being released early… Only by one day, but any fore-shortening of his stay in prison must be good, right? Sadly not, as the reason for his freedom being bought forward is that his wife has passed away, following a car accident.

When he tastes the world outside the jail walls once more, he finds himself without aim, and so when he meets a slightly mysterious character, who gives his name as Wednesday, he decides to see what life will throw his way next. Taking up the offer of employment from this man, who seems to know so much more about him than vice versa, Shadow finds himself embarking upon a tour of most of America.

All is not as it seems though, as it turns out Wednesday is a god – an old fashioned hammer & tongs, god. This, combined with the touring of America, enables Neil Gaiman to play on the interests of many of his readers – a look at modern day USA & just what would happen of the gods of olden days were to be placed against those gods who seem to prevail in these times – Telephones, the Internet and Banking.

Whilst some have criticized Gaiman’s alsmost random approach to the plot line in this book, I was happy to read this through to the end, and was honestly intrigued as to where the story would take the character next.

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May 01 2007

The World According To Clarkson

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 5:40 pm

The World According To Clarkson – Jeremy Clarkson

Although this book may at first seem quite like the other Clarkson books I’ve reviewed here, if you like his style, you probably won’t regret buying this book, as not many ideas are repeated. If you don’t like his style of writing, I’m assuming you wouldn’t buy this book in the first place, so I’ll not worry about that section of my readers too much ;>

Some of the style of writing is carried over from ‘Clarkson on Cars’, but this is hardly surprising, as Jeremy started his life as a newspaper (Motoring) journalist, HOWEVER, this books mainly concentrates on the world at large, not so much on the motors.

The World According… is a much more recent book, so if you found the Clarkson oon Cars to be a little dated, fear not, you won’t find many things to dislike here. Jeremy takes a look at all things in life that either annoy him, or simply hold his attention a little longer than most. Althought he format is slightly constricted, due to the book basically being a collection of articles he wrote for the Sunday Times, as I didn’t read that paper in Britain, I didn’t find myself frustrated at having read anything before.

Subjects covered vary from the sad ending to Concorde’s career to why you shouldn’t trust a man with a beard. As the majority of subjects covered are from newspaper articles, each is only a couple of pages long, so you can easily read this in little sections, so ideal for a plane journey, toilet reading or just something by the bedside table.

To summarize, if you like Jeremy Clarkson, and DON’T read the Sunday Times, yes, I’d recommend this book.

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May 01 2007

The Last Templar

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 5:02 pm

The Last Templar – Raymond Khoury

I bought this book at the airport, just before leaving Britain to live in Kazakhstan.
As with most books I buy at an airport, I was really looking for something relatively light to read, that could be read in small batches, whilst waiting for connecting flights etc.

As it turned out, I didn’t get around to reading until we’d started to move into our own flat over here in Astana. The basic outline of the story is split between two times – present day and the 13th Century (AD). For anyone not familiar with the stories and legends surrounding the Knights Templar, it wouldn’t do any harm to do a 5 minute research session before starting the novel. Luckily I’d seen a short documentary on TV a few months previously (hence my interest in the book), and was really looking forward to reading it.

The action really starts when a daring robbery is committed in present-day Manhattan, and a detective is assigned to investigating the background to it. Soon, the reader is given a small glimpse into the last breaths of the Knights Templar group, and their efforts to hide a priceless/vital piece of evidence from the people who are trying to obliterate the Knights.
Just what this item is, and why so many people were, and still are, interested in it, is explained in the book, and the climatic ending, although predictable in some ways, was still worth the reading.

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May 01 2007

Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld

Category: Books,Kazakh Driving — ChrisM @ 4:27 pm

Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld – Jeremy Clarkson

Despite not having seen the original TV series that this book is based upon, I do tend to like Jeremy’s style of presenting and writing. Aware of his own foibles, he still is very happy to talk about his greatest love, which is motoring. For those of you who have seen him in the Top Gear TV series, this isn’t simply a car review show in paper, it is so much more than that.

He travels around the world, to 12 different countries, and observes the different ways people interact with motor vehicles.
I do so wish he’d do an update on this series, and try and fit in a trip to Kazakhstan. (See my previous articles (You Drinking. Other People Driving , Driving Contd. and a few other shorter posts can all be found within the Kazakh Driving category on this blog) on the Kazakh driving style so prevalent over here.)

Enough shameless plugging of my own posts, back to the review :=>
From the khamic beliefs of some Indian drivers (seatbelts? why, if today is my day to die, it will happen anyway!) to the draconian laws in Switzerland, he takes a very light hearted look at the global relationship with cars. Although the book does now show its age in parts, I still believe it to be a worth read.

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May 01 2007

1984

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 4:03 pm

1984 – George Orwell

This is one of those ‘must-reads’ for anyone who occasionally dips into the odd book or two.
It can be read on a few different levels, just like Orwell’s Animal Farm.
As a straight novel, the storyline is compelling, and keeps your interest right to the end, even if it is a little predictable in places.
As a political essay on facism and totalitarianism, the underlying message can be a little blunt at times, but nowhere near as bad as Animal Farm. (Review on that book coming later)
I’m pretty sure he wrote the novel in 1948 (swap the 4 & 8 to get 84…), and he appears to have imagined what the world could come to, given the current political situations across the world, post WWII, as he was penning the story.
Even without reading this novel, most people will have come across references to it, be it from the UK ‘comedy’ series Room 101, or even Big Brother, the much-franchised ‘reality’ TV show. I wonder how many obsessed viewers of this show even know where the phrase comes from?
Although Orwell was apparently in favour of a Socialist system, I do sometimes wonder whether he is referring to the events in Russia, post-revolution, when it comes to the corruption of the revolutionary process by the original instigators, to the point that the idealogies underlying the original motivation for change are themselves re-moulded into a quite different end-point.
The plot follows the life of one particular citizen of this future landscape, and his innermost feelings regarding the state of the world,and what may be to come. Love, sabotage, distrust & betrayal are all common themes throughout the book, and parts towards the end may be a little harrowing for very young readers.
I read this book last year, having not read it in about 14 years, and was (pleasantly) surprised how much I still wanted to read it to the very last page – I normally can’t last a whole novel, if I’ve read it in the past at all.

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Apr 28 2007

Well Thats All From Lois

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 4:34 pm

McMaster Bujold for now.

You’ll now see a little more variety in the book reviews, but I wanted to write out all those that I’d read in one go, to try and ensure some sort of continuity with the reviews.
There are a few more collections to come, but they are much smaller.

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Apr 28 2007

Paladin of Souls

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 12:11 pm

Paladin of Souls – Lois McMaster Bujold

This novel focuses on a character from the previous book (The Curse of Chalion), Ista, and her journey, in both the physical and meta-physical sense.
Ista was previously portrayed as a tortured soul, on, or over, the edge of insanity. However, without wanting to spoil the storyline too much, we now know her to be released from the grips of her tormentor – one of the five gods who exist in this fantasy.

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