Book Review: The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee- Sarah Silverman

The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I stumbled across a copy of this at the library book sale last spring and my wife picked it up and read it shortly thereafter. She couldn't stop laughing and we managed to find a few copies of Sarah's stand-up and enjoyed those together. I had been hoping to listen to a different comedy book when it came up in my cycle, but the one I wanted wasn't available and The Bedwetter was.
I didn't find the book as hilarious as my wife did, although a lot of that may be because I was forced to stifle my laughs. I read the book in less than 24 hours, but most of it was listened to with my daughters nearby, with my wife sleeping next to me in bed, or on a bus with my students. Although I don't agree with all of her political views, I do appreciate her frankness and not-punches-pulled approach. She is right that women, Jews, and blacks among others are unfairly ostracized still and that conservatives pick weird things to get on soapboxes about. Furthermore, like many other comedians/comediennes are unfairly criticized when they mock one group, when really they mock many.
Hopefully soon I can find old episodes of her TV show and watch that, the book certainly piqued my interest there. Overall, it was a good book with a great mix of humor and critique.

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Book Review: Red Badge of Courage- Stephen Crane

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a classic that m wife highly recommended to me. I was not a big fan of it immediately and I was able to pin down why pretty quickly. It is probably a lacking on my part, but I couldn't get around it. Ironically, this is also probably why the book was so popular and impacting when it came out. The story is told from the point of view of the main character, but throughout the book he mostly remains nameless [his name is told in conversation a few times, but overall his name is unused]. Being told in this way probably made it easier for the reader to put themselves into the shoes of the main character and imagine that they were experiencing what he was. This in turn, forces the reader to imagine being faced with the same hard choices and consequences.
The book reminded me a lot of a short Crime and Punishment. The main character does something that he previously viewed as despicable ((view spoiler)[desertion during battle (hide spoiler)]) and then wrestles with trying to justify his actions. The difference is that it is much shorter and the main character has a better opportunity to redeem himself.

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Book Review: Walk Two Moons- Sharon Creech

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Out of all the Newbery books I have managed to find on audio, this was one that my wife, a middle school language arts teacher, recommended most highly to me.
The book was good, but I did not love it. Most of that comes from something that is probably my own bias, but I don't like third person limited where the main character knows things, but they are still hidden to the reader. If the main character knows something that they aren't sharing with the audience then the audience is led into this false sense of solving a mystery that isn't really a mystery. In television this happens a lot when you hear everything in the show and then at some critical point something is whispered to the main character which shapes their actions in the closing dramatic scenes, but if you had heard the whispers the closing would have been obvious.
Sharon Creech does a good job with this because the main character is struggling to come to terms with something tragic that has happened in her life, and so is in denial about the reality of the situation and that is why she doesn't think if the things that are kept from us, but it still took away from the book for me.
Also, there was another (view spoiler)[death (hide spoiler)] in the book that seemed unnecessary to me. I loved the grandparents and how the main character switched between the road trip that she was on with her grandparents and the story she was telling them, which was the main driver of the plot, while they were on the road trip. I certainly understand they the book is a Newbery winner and why my wife liked it so much, but for me it was only alright.

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Book Review: Holes- Louis Sachar

Holes by Louis Sachar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've always had the vague goal of reading all of the Newbery books, so recently I added a whole bunch to my listen to later wish list. I then let my wife suggest her favorites and am trying to read those first.
I remember my wife reading this book, but she was uncertain as to whether she ever got around to finishing it. Personally, I couldn't put it down. Sometimes I judge how good a book is by how much work I find around the house to do, just so I can have the excuse to keep listening. Our kitchen is now very clean, and the book was too short so I finished it in under one day. It was not at all what I expected which made it more enjoyable. I thought that like other books or movies [I'm specifically thinking of a similar scenario in The Man Without a Face], the emphasis on the boys digging holes would be to build character, but such was not the case here; (view spoiler)[they were being treated like slaves and looking for buried treasure (hide spoiler)]. The ending of the book was a little abrupt and sudden, but that seems to be the case in a lot of young adult fiction so it wasn't unexpected. I don't know if I'll read the sequel, but this book was well worth the time.</["br"]>

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Book Review: You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself- David McRaney

You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself by David McRaney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I stumbled across You Are Not So Smart a couple of years ago, but was unable to find a copy on audio and never got around to reading it. When I was looking for a nonfiction book to read and stumbled across the follow up You Are Now Less Dumb by the same author I decided to give it a chance.
The book was good, but for me it wasn't that impacting. This happened for two reason I think. First, I've read several other books about pop psychology and they all seem to refer to the same few studies and their implications. Specifically, I am thinking of 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman and to a lesser extent Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman which I read [and reviewed] recently. You Are Now Less Dumb even refers to Kahneman's book a few times. The biggest downside of any book like this is the tendency for information overload and the difficulty that comes with retaining so many suggestions and implementing them all. Also, the organization of the book, at least on audio, was hard to follow. There was a lot of emphasis on how and why our brains work the way they do, but much less emphasis on practical application to your personal life. That is part of why I enjoyed 59 Seconds so much is that it focused on application and continuously strove to debunk pop thinking.

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Book Review: Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences- John Moe

Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, Darth: And Other Pop Culture Correspondences by John Moe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book both because I am an Star Wars fan and was attracted to the title and because of Jim Gaffigan's review of the book.
It was a quick read and I was laughing so much at first that I had to replay several sections of it for my wife. We laughed together on a snowy weekend at the "Wanted Dead or Alive" APB for Bon Jovi and the concerned letter from the teacher with a speech impediment to the absent parents of the Peanuts gang. But as with any comedic book it seems to be hit or miss with little in-between. Impatient to listen to the book on my own in my free-time and while shoveling I listened ahead of my wife and then played the best of later on. Maybe a third of the narratives were great the rest were OK. Furthermore, as with any pop culture book, there are occasions where you don't get the reference and then the whole bit is lost to you. None-the-less it was an entertaining and lighthearted read that I enjoyed and enjoyed sharing.

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Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation- Bill Nye

Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation by Bill Nye
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having recently finished The Origin of Species I figured a book on a similar theme for my science book would be a good choice. My wife and I watched the Bill Nye & Ken Ham debate live when it happened- streaming on a laptop on the couch. I think that I come from a unique perspective in that I was a self-taught Creationist who went to a conservative, private Christian college that taught Creationism and Intelligent Design as literal science and who claimed to teach evolution so that you would be well prepared to argue against the enemy. At one point I was a member of the Creation Research Society and I have visited the Creation Museum. I then went on to teach at a public high school in a rural community and was questioned on my Creationist beliefs during one of my two interviews. As I have taught science I have always encouraged my students to question and to learn and I myself have done the same. As I did so my own understanding of the overwhelming evidence began to convince me that I needed to strongly reconsider my position. This eventually became a major existential crisis in my life as I sought information from both sides. All the while, at church I professed and even taught a literal 6-day, young-Earth creation. However, as time went on I became convinced that I must find some other way to make the scientific evidence that I see and the faith that I hold come to agreement or to abandon my faith. I kept the crisis from my wife for a while, but eventually this debate led me to the opportunity to be confidence enough to talk with her about my doubts. She had already started moving towards the conclusion herself that the two systems must find a way to work together because the science is pretty staggering. I don't agree 100% with my wife's position, I'll write about it another time, but she was instrumental in helping guide me to an understanding of faith and science. I don't know that I have been as critical about my beliefs as I need to be, but it will come.
Honestly, until recently all the evidence for old Earth and Universe made sense to me, except for evolution. Part of that was willful blindness and part of that is honestly just a lack of understanding due to incomplete education. My high school biology teacher barely taught the subject as was so afraid of the can of worms of discussing criticisms that he simply didn't take any questions that week, taught the material, and told us that we had to know if for the test, but that was it. My university taught some archaic, twisted version of it as essentially a cheery-picked and straw-man argument. The debate itself was a bit of a debacle. Both sides have claimed victory. However, and this might be bias, I think Ken Ham was smoked. In the end that is what led to his book.
To summarize the book quickly Bill Nye wanted a chance to elaborate on some of the points he made during the debate, as well as a chance to refute some of the other crazy ideas that Ken Ham tossed out. The audiobook version of this book was read by Nye himself and although books read the the authors are frequently bad, Nye with his performance background, pulled this book off wonderfully. There were plenty of enjoyable puns throughout the book, although at times they got irritating because they became distracting [although the recurring joke of his former boss being unevolved was hilarious- it just lacked the rimshot after each telling]. The book didn't teach me a lot, but it was enjoyable and easy to understand. It would be a great book to give a non-scientist who is sitting on the fence about the issues, or to a student who is learning the science and wants to dive deeper. There are a lot of examples that I had previously been unaware of and could see being useful for a teacher.
I have two criticisms of the book: first, I'm not sure that it will convince a Creationist/Intelligent Designer because although it does do a good job of presenting the science, Nye frequently oversimplifies the creationist perspective and that in the end will not win him any battles. Honestly, that is part of why the two sides disagree is because they talk past each other and because they focus on the weak spots of each other's theories, rather than on foundation positions. The other criticism is that Nye seemed to at times (especially at the end of the book) promote scientific hypothesizes that are not well tested, supported, or that he agreed with, just to make the point that science is testable and that there are other arguments, that if proven true, would argue against Creationism.
The one other point I want to address before concluding, is that I was surprised about Nye's position on GMOs. He is against them because as he points out there are untested, potential environmental consequences. I'm not sure how these could be tested without doing what we are doing already, but I do understand the concern.
Overall, I really liked the book. Bill Nye was more than able to explain the scientific view in an easy to approach and understand way. It would can serve as a great springboard to anyway wanting to learn more.

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