The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling My rating: 3 of 5 stars Like, I imagine, most Americans (or at least most Americans 40 and under – ie Millenials and Younger) my only exposure was to Disney’s The Jungle Book. I had no idea the original was a collection of short stories. I’d heard it was…

The Gospel Reloaded by Seay Garrett My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was my second time reading this book. I got it back when I was getting a bunch of similar books – I have Gospel According to the Simpsons and Philosophy of Seinfeld books as well. For this particular one, I didn’t enjoy…

Hippopotamister by John Patrick Green My rating: 5 of 5 stars I interviewed John Patrick Green at Baltimore Comic-Con 3 years ago. You can watch it here! Although I liked the concept behind Hippopotamister, my oldest (the right age for it at the time) didn’t care for it. But now, one of my twins is…

The Mongoliad: Book Three by Neal Stephenson My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book was a great cap to the long trilogy (although – put together I think it’s not longer than a Brandon Sanderson Stormlight Archive book). While the first third of the book continues to build things up, we’ve met just about…

Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man by Tim Allen My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is my second time reading this book. I first read this book in middle school because I really liked Home Improvement. Kind of reminds me of the joke Eddie Murphy tells in Delirious when he sees a…

Spiced: Unlock the Power of Spices to Transform Your Cooking by America’s Test Kitchen My rating: 4 of 5 stars As usual for a book by America’s Test Kitchen, there’s a good combination of educational content and tasty recipes. I’ve already made a few recipes from this book, most recently the spiced ragu which had…

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 143 by Neil Clarke My rating: 2 of 5 stars This issue’s stories didn’t really work as well for me as the last few issues have. Thoughts per story: The veilonaut’s dream: explorers at a spatial discontinuity explore it for money. Partially a tale of exploitative labor and partly a tale of…

InvestiGators by John Patrick Green My rating: 4 of 5 stars Read this to my four-year-olds and I found it to be a blast. Most of the word-play went over their heads. In fact, after finishing it with my four-year-olds, I recommended it to my 8-year-old. We’ll see what she thinks. This is definitely one…

Jumpstarting the Onion Omega2 by Wolfram Donat My rating: 3 of 5 stars A good intro to the Onion Omega2 and Omega2+ boards. Unfortunately, the Onion folks have changed their interface, making a large portion of the book no longer accurate. You can kind of work your way through it if you’re technical and have…

Getting Started with Soldering: A Hands-On Guide to Making Electrical and Mechanical Connections by Marc de Vinck My rating: 4 of 5 stars I haven’t soldered in at least a good 15 years, if not more. I couldn’t remember the technique and I didn’t want to mess up my components for a new project I’m…

Jumpstarting the Raspberry Pi Zero W by Akkana Peck My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is a great introduction to creating electronics projects with the smallest raspberry pi at this time. Seriously, it’s the same size as an Arduino MKR board – like a stick of gum. I wish I’d read it before…

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 142 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars An almost perfect issue (in terms of my tastes) in which I loved all but one of the stories. Here are my thoughts-per-story, which may have some more text than my status updates if I came up against character limits during updates:…

The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan My rating: 4 of 5 stars This trilogy is definitely turning out to be one of those 1 book broken up into 3 trilogies than a series of stories following the main characters. The last book was a slightly cleaner break, but still ended with a lot still unresolved.…

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 141 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of those issues where I liked every story and every non-fiction essay. Read below for my thoughts per story. A space of one’s own: a whimsical dystopia that reminds me of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil. I’m a world…

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 141 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of those issues where I liked every story and every non-fiction essay. Read below for my thoughts per story. A space of one’s own: a whimsical dystopia that reminds me of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil. I’m a world…