PANIC.

When reading books on finances either personal or involving the entire economy, it baffles me when people complain about it not being interesting, or being misleading. These people are writing books on the facts, you can’t really mess with the facts, and regardless, facts ARE boring. If you really want to be entertained, pick up a thriller, a murder mystery…ANYTHING but one based on modern finances and the stock market.

Now to my point…PANIC: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity Edited by Michael Lewis is a bit dense. It is also a little hard to follow, BUT it is filled with good information. Isn’t that what really matters when reading boring shit like this? If you want to know more about this topic, JUST READ IT.

Daemon.

“Daemon” is a book about BIG things, a thrilling ride from beginning to end. Anyone involved or interested in online gaming and virtual environments should find the technology aspect of this book especially intriguing. The plot revolves around an online game where it becomes a fine line between a virtual world and the material one. It makes you seriously wonder if it could happen in real life.

This book just so happens to be the debut of author Daniel Suarez. I love when I can write polite shit about first timers. I thoroughly enjoyed myself while reading this book.

HIPPOS!

A legendary manuscript co-written by Beat Masters, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, has finally come to light as "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks." Written when both were unknown and unpublished, leading hardscrabble lives in wartime New York, the real-life story centers on the doomed relationship between Lucien Carr and David Kammerer, mutual friends of the would-be Beats. Though the names and some facts are changed in the book, "Hippos" is for the most part a deadpan account of the relationship (which ended with Carr stabbing Kammerer with a Boy Scout knife and dumping his body in the Hudson…crazy) from the perspectives of Kerouac and Burroughs, who alternate chapters as "Mike Ryko" and "Will Dennison," respectively.

This book has been called an “unexpected gem,” and I completely agree. For you freaks (I am one of them) who love reading about murder, here is a bit of true life for ya. Enjoy!

Body With Soul (uhh..)

Oh Randy Jackson, look at you writing books.

Let me tell you a little something about this man, he had weight loss surgery to loose weight. That is not exactly the best solution for everyone. So he decided to write a book to help ‘real people’ take control of their weight. Um, Randy Jackson you are not a real person, you had surgery. But whatever, I know real people do undergo gastric bypass and I’m not here to judge.

I recommend this book for people with diabetes and who have gone through gastric bypass surgery; this book is really designed for you folks. Do your thing.

Second Time Around.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but sometimes I get in these really corny moods where I want to read a book about family and friendship, like a really bonding - blood brothers kind of friendship. People who inspire each other and lives change for the better after meeting. I was in that mood the other day, and found the perfect book for my corny fix. “Second Time Around” by Marcia Willett hit the spot.

Due to the splintering her family years ago, never married eighty-four years old Mathilda Rainbird has no obvious heir to bequest her large South Devon estate to once she dies, which the octogenarian knows is soon. As such with the help of barrister James Barrington she leaves her property including her seaside cottage three cousins she never met and she believes never met each other.

Can this family come back together again? DUM DUM DUMMMMM….read it and find out silly.

Sarah's Key - By Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah Starzynski, a ten-year-old Parisian girl born to Jewish parents, is captured in June 16, 1942, and imprisoned with almost 10,000 others in an indoor cycling arena, the Vélodrome d'Hiver, awaiting transportation to Auschwitz. When the police arrive, she has just time to hide her younger brother in a concealed closet in their apartment, locking him in and promising to return.

Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist married to a Frenchman, researching for a story on the "Vél d'Hiv," stumbles on the trail of Sarah's family, and becomes obsessed with trying to discover her fate. She is struck by the fact that the round-up and subsequent disposal was carried out, not by the Gestapo, but by ordinary French policemen, enabled by a citizenry that for the most part looked the other way. A coincidental discovery leads her to question the involvement of her husband's family at the time and to re-examine her own marriage.

I have read a number of books dealing with the Holocaust, either it interests you or it doesn’t. If you enjoy this type of book normally, then you will for sure like Sarah’s Key.

DONT SLEEP, THERE ARE SNAKES!

Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel L. Everett was SUCH a good book. I could not put it down. It was filled with strange languages and exotic adventures, which Everett experienced first hand. It was crazy.

In an intense and deeply absorbing account, Everett opens up completely and lays his encounters with these mystifying people out for all to see. Taking on the Pirahãn "The past is the past and does not matter. Only now matters." attitude, he includes all of the most gruesome, embarrassing, and enlightening details of his journey with no regard to how any of it may be perceived. What results is a genuine and engrossing book that is both sharp and intuitive.

I love, love, LOVED it.