The Postman - June 2011

34. The Postman - David Brin

400 Pages, Borrowed from Local Library

Civilisation has been destroyed; not by nuclear weapons or a plague but by violent survivalists...

..kind of a BS premise for the book but once you get past that it's a great story.

A guy wandering through the former U.S. of A. hides in an old postal van and finds a warm postman's jacket and a bag of letters. He takes both, hoping to trade the letters for food; and slowly takes on the role of "The Postman"; an everyday hero destined to rid the land of the bad guys and restart civilisation to boot!

A cracker of a read, great way of looking at a post-apocalyptic land and a fun and entertaining read as well.

What more could you want ?!?

I give The Postman 5 "Holnists" out of 5

Roots - June 2011

33. Roots - Alex Haley

704 Pages, Bought in Charity Shop

I was too young to remember the classic 1977 TV mini-series based on this book but was familiar with the general story from it being mentioned online and on various TV shows over the years.

So I was delighted when I saw the book on the shelf in our local charity shop.

I found the story just amazing. It was great that the author had traced his own family "roots" all the way back to Africa and had used their lives as the framework for the novel. I also liked the way it jumped from character to character and generation to generation but I did kind of wish I could find out how the original characters lived out the rest of their lives.

I had very little knowledge of the hardships slaves endured from the moment they were stolen from Africa and using the narrative this book doesn't shy away from letting the reader know just how horrific it could be. Sadly, I believe there was plenty of worse things done to slaves that maybe the author just didn't want to mention.


It's a great historical novel and something I feel everyone should read, just to remind ourselves that humans can survive under terrible conditions...and unfortunately that suffering is nearly always at the hands of other so-called humans.

I give this book 5 "Chicken George's" out of 5

P.S. I've since learned online that Alex Haley was accused of plagiarism for a hefty chunk of the book and had to settle out-of-court with the author; and also there are doubts about his being able to trace his family history all the way back to a village in Africa. I don't care, I still loved the book and still recommend it!

Starship Troopers - June 2011

32. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein

224 Pages, Borrowed from Local Library

Another day, another classic Sci-Fi novel!

If you're a fan of the 1997 Paul Verhoeven film and hoped this was the novelisation of it...you're in for a shock!

The book bares only a passing similarity to film. Whereas the film was all fightin' buggers and gallons of blood everywhere;  in my opinion the book is almost an homage to how much the author loved being in the mobile infantry and how everyone should join and do their bit for God and country.

It was interesting but really the science fiction setting was the backdrop for talking about armies and war.

Great if you're into that sort of thing...not so great if you're not.

It WAS an interesting book though so I'd still recommend it...but more as a military book than Sci-Fi.

I give Starship Trooper 2.5 "Citizens" out of 5

Yes! 50 Secrets From the Science of Persuasion - June 2011

31. Yes! 50 Secrets From the Science of Persuasion - Noah Goldstein, Robert B. Cialdini, Steven J Martin

256 Pages, Bought from Amazon.

Also sold as "Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive"

While researching something for work, I came across mention of this book and had to buy it immediately! [Although as this book is about persuasion, maybe I fell under the spell of a carefully crafted persuasive advert based on the contents of this book !?!]

Basically, this is 50 chapters of varying length that pose a problem and then offer a persuasive solution based on scientific research. Stuff like "Does Fear persuade people to buy" and "Can a simple question improve support for your idea?"

Very interesting topics are covered and if you're in the business of having to "sell" your product, business or ideas than this is a worthwhile read.

In my opinion, this book has one major problem though. The chapters aren't grouped together by topic, so each chapter covers something interesting but the following one covers something completely unrelated. Then 6 chapters later something comes up that is related to the first chapter and so on, and so on. For a book on persuasion, I thought it could have been compiled a bit better.

I give this book 4 "Jedi Mind Tricks" out of 5, it lost one because of the structure of the chapters.

May Round Up

Books Read in May: 4

Orson Scott Card

Total Pages: 1917
Average Pages Read per day: 61.8

Sources of Books:
Charity Shop: 3
Library: 1

Genres:
Sci Fi: 1
Non-Fiction: 1
Crime: 1
Fantasy: 1

Find out more about Orson Scott Card check out his Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card



2011 so far:

Books Read: 30 

Total Pages: 7627

Average Pages Read per day: 50.5
Reading less as the days get warmer and brighter!

Sources of Books:
Charity Shop: 11
Library: 18
Amazon: 1 

Genres:
Fantasy: 6
Sci Fi: 11
Non-Fiction: 9
Crime: 2
Thriller: 2