It's the biography of Terry Pratchett. I thought I knew a lot about Pratchett already - I've been a fan of his writing ever since I was 9 - but i marvelled at his work ethic and drive, which came across in the book. It was crammed full of fascinating anecdotes and takes - some classified as Too Good To Check!

The book is a wonderful tribute to a wonderful author, and it moved me to tears at the end. I think it is an interesting read for fans of Pratchett, but I would recommend reading A Slip Of The Keyboard first, as it gives you a strong sense of the man in his own words.

It's the second time how I'm reading this book but I experienced it totally differently. This is one of those types of books I tend to characterise as you need to be "in that place (psychologically)" to understand it and like it. This is why the first time I read it in high school, I didn't pay much attention to or even remembered anything. This time it stuck with me - the experience with panic attacks, depression and suicide thoughts and the ultimate will to love and live. What were your thoughts on this book?

Such an amazing book. All the feels. All of them. And despite the sometimes terrible nature of the story, at the end, I was inspired.

This was pretty cool following along in my head with the movie that I identify as a great classic. It was interesting to see the parts that were added during filming and cut out during production. I enjoyed it mainly because I enjoy the movie. But to me, it's a one time classic and a one time read, so it'll head over to paperbackswap for me, maybe someone else will find the love for it to give it a permanent home.

Another one of those books I had to read in highschool leading over to my adult life that I looked to see if it's any different in the way I feel about it. Of course, in highschool, I was the guy that went out and bought all the cliff notes to get out of reading books, so I guess it may be the first time finishing it. Good story, sad ending, the characters you seem to dislike in the beginning became the characters you disliked in the end, and mysteries were solve, could ask for anything else. However, not worthy of earning a placement in the lifetime library, off to paperbackswap this one goes.

This was a great book up until the middle, at the middle of the book I was overwhelmed by having goosebumps of the characters development, the ending was sad, I wish it was different, that the character was able to be heard. But (5/5). I'll be adding this one to the bookshelves, placing it in it's permanent home that will stay until hopefully my last two taps.

I can't find the post where someone mentioned this, but I looked it up and was intrigued. Really enjoyed the premise. The ending is abrupt (probably more so in the audiobook which is how I was reading). But it's a fun novella. I got it via my library on Libby.

4 out of 5 stars. Fascinating story described as " tenuously based on the largest art heist in history". Contains a lot of fascinating information about how forgers work and how often they get away with their forgeries.

Short book (4th of 52 this year), so it was easy to crush this in two days while getting my home ready for a move. I was required to read this in school, middle school around grade 6, I remember. But I barely read or hadn't found my passion for books until around my third year in university. Going back, I thought I would have been childish. However, the book engulfed me and kept me reaching for it, even in the later hours when my eyes should've been closed. Was fun to come across a copy; making me think about returning to the many I was to read back in those days. I'd recommend this again to anyway forced to read it back in the day. (4/5 stars).

This book was engaging enough. Though I think the supernatural add it was a bit much for where I foresaw it going, and the ending could have been better, but any book that I'm willing to read all the way through definitely gets 3 stars! (Book 2/52)

This was a free giveaway book that had been left shelved for a while. I never got into the video game world too much, but at the very least, I remember these books and would skim through them to help my brother. Each challenging video game that came in with his birthdays was like a team effort watching him fail and find solutions to his problem, it was a good bounding moment for having many times when it seemed bonding was out of the wuestion especially for liked age brothers. Personally, I rated the book a 2/5, but others may think of it better. However, I would love it he wrote about his experience on a bike for two years during his retirement, that I know I would enjoy.

I freaking love Tommy Caldwell. Seen his Dawn Wall documentary? Makes me want to reread Alex Honnold's Alone on the Wall again but in paper this time. I read it on a Kindle before. Rock climbing books are so fun for me. Lynn Hill's Climbing Free was great, too. And I love how as I become more familiar with the climbing world, everything in the books start to click together. Intitially, I had seen the Valley Uprising documentary and read Alex Honnold's books. A lot went over my head, of course, because the names of the people and places and other jargon were so new. Now I can see the connections ^_^

p. 1: Oh, now I know why the #LumiNerds wanted to follow the wolf.

​

p. 3 "Today is her sixteenth birthday. And today, everything is going to change."

I'm so happy I participated in Susan Dennard's Twitter Adventure in 2019. This book is the result of this six-month-long journey we took together.

​

p. 5 "Rachel holds out a map, a bad copy of a copy of a copy."

#WinnieWednesday and #BlueSergent would be besties. I just know it after chapter 1.

​

p. 14 "If it's not in the Compendium, it's not important."

That's just stupid. Who wrote the Compendium?

p. 15 #UghJay

​

p. 36 Jay or her father for Chapter 0?

​

p. 66 "The wolf howls intermittently, which later Winnie will realize is strange."

Well, well, well I could guess.

​

p. 75 Except if everyone else is dead or afraid of that nightmare.

p. 99 And that "my lord" friends is all the characterization for #UghJay you need.

​

p. 124 If we get an "I'm your father" moment with the Whisperer, I will riot.

​

p. 128 Integrity can be a curse if others don't value it.

​

p. 185 "Back when the Dianas were still part of the society."

This is an interesting tidbit of information.

​

p. 230 f. "And she spots a patch of shiny red skin on the tip of Erica's thumb, where the Band-Aid had been a few days ago."

Nice reminder after the burned finger Diana info. Don't forget where we are.

So spoiler warning bc these are theories for the next book / the end after reading this completely.

1. Jay and the Wolf
2. Father and the Whisperer
3. Erica and the Dianas

I should say first that I've been a Niven Fan for years. The thing that makes me a fan of many of his works is that they always supply such great ideas to play with in your head. His usual area is sci-fi but even in this fantasy story it has me thinking of stories and worlds that we just glimpsed. Like there whole books of stories to be told from this one book about the Nordiks and the Frost Giants and their relationship, and the giants faith and traditions.

Still more stories about the city that grew from mining and trading magic fragments of the meteor that crashed to earth centuries ago.

More stories about the Atlantis before it's defeat.

Tell me more about the life and people of the centaur girl saved from the drowning of atlantis before the book even starts.

Give me stories about the people who were brought to and live in australia and new zealand as the richest untapped lands of mana now grown so scarce elsewhere in the world. And who raise Rocs for the eggs.

I think it's a rare writer that can not only create a character and a quest, but a whole world of things going on in and around the story that speak of so many other things to explore... but not just that, make them interesting enough that some of us wish to visit those as well (even if we have to do so with our own imaginations, because none of those things will every appear as books or stories for us to enjoy).

I was recommended this series by my girlfriend. Bobby Pendragon, age 14, is sent through space and time on a wild adventure of war and heroism by his Uncle Press. The book consists of journals left to his friends Mark and Courtney, concerning his adventures on Denduron, and the battle between the upper class Bedoowan and the working class Milago miners, whom the Bedoowan essentially enslave.

I get a bunch of elements of the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events from this novel, as well as from a text adventure sci-fi game that I played years ago on a site called Rinkworks.com. I don't remember the name of the game except that the hero in it is a man called Kenneth Connell (not sure of his last name).

I relate a lot to Bobby not understanding why he was chosen to be a hero, as well as Mark being an unpopular nerd at school. Mark reminds me a little of Ron Weasley in the first Harry Potter book being overshadowed by his successful older brothers.

Uncle Press is captured by the Bedoowan shortly after he and Bobby arrive in Denduron. This reminded me of what happened to Sally Jackson in the first Percy Jackson book (The Lightning Thief).

Synopsis: a sustained analysis of modern moral ways of thinking and a detailed intellectual history explaining its sources in various philosophical voices. The author gives more history than arguments.

Thoughts: I deeply appreciated this book. It was quite a task, weighing in at 500 pages. I tried to read it as a teenager but never succeeded. Now I feel edified by reading it and it has added great depth to my own thought and puts others' in perspective. It's sad to see the world hasn't made any moral progress on the issues Taylor identified all the way back in the 1980s. His arguments also bolster my own religious apologetics. I really enjoyed Taylor's respect to the romantics and his acknowledgement of the subject elements of the modern outlook, and the need to appeal to it. He's also much more liberal than most of his fans (though he's still pro life). I did try mining some of his citations for more books, which others treat as unusual. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to working through intellectual and existential questions, but Taylor offers much light on how to proceed.

Ask me anything.

Hello! I just finished reading Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson, and I don’t have anyone in my day-to-day life to discuss it with, so I thought I would try and come here!

This was my first Shirley Jackson novel, and from what I’ve seen, it seems to be one of her more obscure ones. I’m very excited to read others; The Lottery, Haunting of Hill House, The Sundial, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are next on my list!

Second, what a strange, atmospheric, moody little tale this was. I’ve scrounged the internet for conversations and write-ups about the novel, but I’m curious for those who have read it, what did you think of this story? I have so many thoughts!

I found myself in a constant state of unease and dread (similar to watching an Ari Aster-esque movie) waiting for some ball to drop or some gruesome scene, but it is such a strange little slow-burn that I really was not expecting it to take the paths/have the pacing that it did. I really enjoyed the story, I loved how it made my mind feel like it was stretching, and the language she used and the scenes that she painted truly gave me chills. At times, it also kind of felt like a bad trip or a panic attack, jumping around from thought to thought and not always following a narrative thread; it was very intriguing and unnerving.

Some potentially unanswerable questions that I have: (SPOILERS)

!-What does the title mean and how does it pertain to the story?!<

!- What was the role of the imaginary detective in the first section of the book?!<

!- Was it actually Natalie’s father who assaulted her in the beginning?!<

!- Who was Rosalind/was she even real?!<

!- Who was stealing the girls’ belongings? Natalie? Rosalind? Anne/Vicki?!<

!- Does Natalie just have an overactive imagination, or does she have a severe mental illness?!<

!- Was Tony ever real (I was under the impression that she was a figment of Natalie’s imagination, just like the detective, but at times there are characters who seemingly see the two of them interacting- i.e. Elizabeth outside of the dinner event, also, whose room was she going into after she comes back from thanksgiving break if she wasn’t real)?!<

!- Apparently the story is loosely based on a real life disappearance of a college Sophomore in 1946. What do you make of this as pertaining to the story and how it progresses? Is Natalie a reference to the missing girl who just happened to find herself in the end?!<

I’m not necessarily needing/seeking answers to these questions, because I understand there may not be a right one to any of them, but I would love to hear your thoughts surrounding any/all of them. Thanks for your time!

Synopsis (borrowed from the dust jacket): In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing in the yard with his toy soldiers. Jaime Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister, Reverend Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church...With Jaime, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family's horrific loss. In his mid-thirties - addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate - Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men.

Thoughts: I've read a lot of Stephen King, so when I saw this book and heard good things about it I wanted to check it out. In the end, I thought it was just "meh". There were a few scenes that I thought were mildly disturbing, but none that really stuck with me. Another part of the problem is that the book is slow. I'm not opposed to the idea of a slow burn novel, but there should at least be something of interest going on and a good payoff. The book mostly focuses on Jaime's life, and while not bad, I thought it was dull. Whenever Charles Jacobs appears, the story gets somewhat more interesting, but not enough to wow me. Had this been written by someone else, I'm not sure if I would've made it to the end. However, since this was written by King and got good reviews, I powered through. Additionally, King gave out bits and pieces of information that were just interesting enough for me to find out what's going on in the hope that the payoff would be worth it. When everything is revealed at the end, I thought it was mildly interesting at best, but it didn't make up for the rest of the book. Maybe if this book was shorter, I might have liked it more (or be less disappointed in it). As it is, while it's not the worst thing I've ever read, it's not exactly one that I would be willing to read again.

Would I recommend this book: Some people like the book, I am not one of them. There are better books written by Stephen King out there that are worth your time.

Synopsis: What was supposed to be a normal camping trip on an island for a Boy Scout troop and their scoutmaster takes a turn after a sick man arrives. Soon all hell breaks loose.

Thoughts: Before I read this book, I read another book by Cutter called The Deep. I wasn't too crazy about it. While I said I still wanted to give this book a shot, I wasn't sure how I would react to it given how I felt about the last book I read by the same author. I finally gave this book a chance, and I'm glad I did. This book is much better than The Deep. It's very disturbing and intense, while also being fast paced and having much more likable and interesting characters. It's a good book, but at the same time one I won't read again. Once was enough for me.

Would I recommend it: I think I'd recommend it for someone who is into certain works of horror. The book has a lot of body horror and violence towards animals, so that will most likely put some people off from reading it. Still, I think it earned its praise for what it is. I wanted to see how disturbing it was after hearing how others talked about it, and let's just say it delivered.

Misc.: Apparently James Wan's production company, Atomic Monster, picked up the rights to the book. I can't imagine how they'll try to adapt it given some of the things that are depicted in the book.

For those of you who have read the book, what did you think of it?

I haven’t cried this hard since A Little Life and Marley & Me. I loved Adriana’s writing. Her description’s of each character really stood out to me. If you’re a fan of historical fiction, give this gem a try. You won’t regret it.

Synopsis: Nicholas and Nakota find a strange hole in the storage room in an apartment building. Stranger things happen the more they interact with it.

Thoughts: I heard good things about this book and it won the Locus and Bram Stoker award. The concept of hole that does weird things to who or whatever gets close to it is an interesting one for a horror novel. There were a few scenes in the book that were somewhat disturbing. That being said, I was disappointed with this book as a whole. It felt like a total slog to get through and had to force myself to finish it (I'm thankful that it's a short book). I didn't really see what the big deal was. Maybe I had my expectations too high, but this wasn't for me.

For those of you who had read the book, what did you think of it?

Excellent musings on discovering the balance between “two cherished ideals: community and freedom”, at an individual level and among nations. The author writes with a stone-cold practical realism and not one whiff of polarizing political nonsense. He and a group of friends take a gritty and sometimes dangerous 400-mile walk along US East Coast railroad lines. They find solitude in nature, decay in forgotten industrial towns, and satisfaction in pushing their bodies to their physical limits. Their experiences form a parallel narrative to a discussion on the human desire to be free while also enjoying the benefits of a community. The book is divided into three parts. In RUN, he writes about the strong desire to be independent and self-sufficient, and tracks these narratives throughout American history in particular, from both colonial settler and Native American perspectives. In FIGHT, he writes about the difficulties of defending that independence without giving up some freedoms to a wider community. And in THINK, he concludes that true freedom can only be attained by careful consideration to find a balance between the two, and that anything less essentially denies humans their full potential as rational, thinking beings.

-Earlier this month I finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I recalled a saying that when one settles down to read, one is engaging in a conversation with the author. In reading Tom Sawyer, I felt as if Mark Twain had playfully held up a mirror to remind me of the foolish, carefree days of my own youth. Tom Sawyer was fun, untroubled, a recollection of the moments when life was free and easy. Huckleberry Finn was something much different, much darker. With Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain puts away the mirror, inhales deeply and prepares for a conversation more serious. A discourse in humanity, if you will. I respect that immensely, especially given that he prepared this conversation in the 1880's, a mere 20 years after the conclusion of the America's Civil War over slavery, and right at the tail-end of the Reconstruction era. He prepared this conversation with folks wholly ingrained in the belief that a man's race determined his supremacy. It was a difficult conversation then, when passions and prejudices flared so hotly over this belief, that innocent blood was spilled regularly over the notion that the black man was sub-human. It is a difficult conversation now, when these tragic occurrences continue to happen today.

-Reading Huckleberry Finn, I really got the sense from Twain that much of this was a conversation about abuse. Jim and Huck both, several times over, meet with different sorts of abuses from the various characters they encounter, both subtle and obvious. Huck receives bullying from Ms. Watson, his father, the Duke and the King, even his buddy Tom Sawyer. His alcoholic father continually wallops him, and nearly flat out murders him on a drunken bender. Jim, a true man of dignity, constantly receives mistreatment by all the white folks in this story. It is agonizing, uncomfortable but necessary to this conversation. He is unmercifully toyed with by Tom and Huck, boys he considers his friends. He is sold out by the King and the old doctor, despite serving them and treating them with kindness. He is always on the run, always hiding out- can't ever sleep easy with the threat of being caught lurking on every bank of the river. Jim is a portrait of what black people had to deal with living in a free America, in the 1800's. And, what anyone who is different still have to occassionally contend with in today's U.S.A.

-Yet, if part of the conversation is about the abuses mankind can heap on to one another, the other part of the conversation is about the enlightenment we gain when we truly love and care for each other as brothers and sisters. As I said earlier, this was a discourse in humanity. This enlightenment finds Twain's main protagonist Huck Finn in waves throughout the book. Huck's introduction is as a young, undisciplined boy, as ignorant of the injustices faced by black folk as anyone else in his Missouri community. In his world, blacks serving as slaves are as normal as cats being pets. Yet, the more time he spends alone with the runaway Jim, the more human to him Jim becomes. He sees Jim weep alone, hurt that he won't be seeing his wife anymore. He sees the agony in Jim's eyes when Jim recalls the moment he learned his daughter was deaf. He sees the fear and anger in Jim's voice when he thought he had lost Huck in the fog of the river, and the love he openly shows Huck every time Huck returns to him after being separated. Huck eventually comes to the conclusion that he cannot be without Jim, and that moment of clarity is so powerfully written here by Mark Twain. Huck is in the midst of a war within himself, a nagging battle over doing the "righteous" thing and sending a letter to the Widow Douglas to clue her in where Jim was, or rescuing and freeing Jim, and facing eternal damnation:

"I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in all my life, and i knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was that all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me, all the time, in the day, and in the nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we are floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I came back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and suchlike times; And would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see the letter. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then I says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell." And, tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And, I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming."

-This is humanity. This was the crux of the conversation, with all other components of the story making up the foundation. This is brotherhood, looking out for the fellow man, Jesus's commandment to love thy neighbor as thou loves thyself. This is salvation and enlightenment. This was Mark Twain's Reconstruction conversation, applicable today as it ever was.

“It's the little things that smoothes people's roads the most.”

Wow, this was a book. At just shy of 1,000 pages, you are going to get an in depth visual with excellent writing view of Vincent Van Gogh's life. And my opinion about his life. I hated it, not the book, I hated the life that he had to endure, and yet in the final pages, I felt terrible for thinking that. It was a good book, and though my need to understand art is there, I didn't think I could have ever seen this as a life of the artist of the Starry Night.

I'm sure lots of people know of this book since Orwell is such a famous author. I'm not the biggest reader in the world, I've only started going to the library in the past year. Despite this, no other book I've checked out has made me think this much, let alone driven me to finish it. So far this is the only book (besides Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants) that I've ever finished on my own time, and I'm amazed it hooked me so deeply. From now on, I'll be looking at Orwell and similar authors during every trip to the library. If anyone knows of any other books I should read, feel free to comment.

And yeah, I know about 1984, though I haven't read it. I only got Animal Farm because 1984 wasn't at the library. I plan on checking back everytime I visit, so hopefully my library actually has it.

This book traces how scientific revolutions begin, how their core ideas compete with established paradigms, how they overcome that resistance, and how they become the next paradigm that will later be overthrown by subsequent revolutions in science. As a big fan of the history of science and technology, it was easy for me to pluck it from a used bookshop shelf. But the book was a bit of a struggle because it was intended for professional historians of science, not lay readers. The author describes the book as an essay based on college lectures. While I found some gems for my own writing, the book is very abstract, verbose, and extensively argues points of unclear value. The wordy style can be tiresome. For example: “Restrict attention for the moment to the problem of precision”, rather than just saying “Consider the problem of precision.” If you want to understand scientific revolutions or paradigm change at an extremely granular level and within an academic context, this is your book.

A choice quote: “[E]ven resistance to change has a use…ensuring that paradigm[s] will not be too easily surrendered…[and] scientists will not be lightly distracted.” (p65)

Overall, I gave it 2 stars on Goodreads.

This is my first full novel by Murakami, having read his collection of short stories “after the quake” and loving it.

Murakami quickly became the high standard for me as far as an author being able to facilitate an emotional investment in the reader (clearly, I’m not the only one who feels this way). I even waited to crack the cover until I felt like I wanted to be impacted by a story in the way I imagined he would with this book.

What I do love about the book is just the idea itself. It’s a single night in Japan and we follow a cast of characters, with the main focus being Mari. Mari is a 19 year old student, who just decides she doesn’t want to be at home tonight and decides to spend the whole night reading at Dennys. A random encounter with someone her sister invited to swim once changes the course of the night and sets up the events of the book.

Every interaction between characters leads to some deep self examination or commentary, which at times can feel… unnecessary I suppose, but is effective nonetheless. Murakami does shine when creating dialogue, but sometimes it’s hard to separate the character from what I imagine he just wants to tell the reader to think about directly. I also really enjoyed the more surreal aspects of the novel and almost wish that it would have had more of a role in the plot of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed and would recommend. It’s a quick and easy read that can be really difficult to put down at times and it’s certainly not lacking the Murkami charm that people gravitate towards.

This book is a masterpiece as it walks us through USA’s history from a Capitalism perspective - how the economy evolved, centered around innovations of the day and it gives a good insight into how people and industries coalesced around the demand of what people wanted.

The author leaves it for us to answer whether capitalism is good or bad, he provides us both sides arguments though. The ultimate decision maker in capitalism is the consumer. For a long period, the consumer and laborer were on the same level but now the gap has widened. The consumer wants cheaper clothing, but not job security for factory worker.

Consumer has sympathies from the heart for the worker, yes, maybe;
Actual $$ from the purse - no!

The author says somewhere - if American capitalism ever found itself on trial, Andrew Carnegie’s career would be defense exhibit #1. Similarly, prosecution’s exhibit #1 would be the ask placed upon a significant population enslaved for 200 years, legally segregated for another 100 then blocked from housing options by developers/landlords/mortgage and real-estate agents - to pick themselves by their bootstraps.

More thoughts here https://musingsmith.blogspot.com/2022/02/americana-how-capitalism-molded-usa.html

- I remember hearing somewhere once that when you settle down to read a book, you are preparing to embark on a conversation with the author. And if that be so, one could do a lot worse than spend some time with Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens). Known for being anti-slavery in an era where that notion wasn't purely a given amongst the majority of Americans, Twain weaves these tensions and attitudes bluntly into his characters- even our protagonists. I appreciated that, especially as a fan of history. There was no hiding from the prejudices of Tom Sawyer's community, and that's part of the immersion process. That's an integral part of the conversation with the author, and Twain never shies away from it. It lingers amongst the village like an uneasy spectre. It's part of the conversation. Alongside the stereotypes of the 1800's, readers are also gifted glimpses into the fantastical superstitions of the South in St. Petersburg, Missouri. Dead cats tied to strings, dreams of rats, ill omens of Fridays all place us in a time far different than our own. How different the country looks separated by a mere 150 years.

- I read several reviews of Tom Sawyer, all which in one form or another portray this novel as a type of "chronicles of a naughty boy". I never got the sense that Tom was particularly naughty, but that Twain had simply written a character so well that he was unmistakably human. He is labeled naughty because we see ourselves in him, and often in the times when he is most carefree, mischevious, immature and curious. The spectacles of him acting out, running wild, behaving generally crazy to gain the affections of adolescent crushes- that was me. I did that. Mark Twain is reflecting this in the character of Tom Sawyer, and the story becomes intimate. I read many casual reviews lambasting the book for lacking a strong plot. I suppose this could be true, but does a plot need to be the strength or meaning behind every tale? With Tom Sawyer, I felt what Twain was attempting to do with his main cast- Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Becky Thatcher, Joe Harper, Ben Rogers- was to invoke in us reminiscence to our own youths, both joy and melancholy, through the moments of his characters. Tom Sawyer's misery at painting his aunt's fence on a Saturday... Joe Harper's sickness at smoking too much tobacco... Huck Finn's reluctance to save money armed with the knowledge his alcoholic father would blow through it all... Amy Lawrence and Becky Thatcher trading jealous moments of frustration and sadness felt by young girls... These moments may not necessarily be plot points, but they are windows into the more subtle moments of our own personal histories, moments as adults we can transport back to if only for a page. In this sense, how meaningful truly is this conversation about Tom Sawyer with author Twain as it correlates with our own childhood journeys?

- I took each chapter bit by bit, as at times a chapter was a one-off story never to be returned to again. Forgetful Tom's collecting of Sunday school tickets to redeem for a Bible, purely for fame, then being made to answer questions of Scripture for honorary guest Judge Thatcher despite not knowing a thing about the Good Book is hilarious. And, never really mentioned again outside that chapter. Each chapter holds a semi-conversation, each chapter holds a salient point of sarcasm, satire, and comedy by our author. And, I was blessed to have gotten to know Twain well. Yet, outside his wit, Twain pens some incredibly powerful passages as well. Passages that really made me call out to him to pause, while I mulled over his words. To this point, I leave you with this passage about the life of a stalagmite, of all things, and see if it doesn't grab you as it relates to our own temporary histories:

"In one place near at hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone, wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock tick- a dessert spoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British Empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was "news". It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall have sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion."

-Now, that's bully.

This book must be wildly out of date with the salary figures, however there were some jobs I'd definitely choose to avoid in this book. Rat catcher & B-list celebrity assistant comes to mind. I think it was interesting, a short book to break up the longer titles I've been reading at the same time. Book (6/52) Completed.