The Manga Guide to Physics by Hideo Nitta

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This Manga Guide has more of a story than the electricity one, but less than the calculus one. The style is very wacky - like a comedy manga and it reminds me a lot of Azumanga Daioh with all the digressions, daydreams, and general surrealism. It does a good job explaining physics, especially if you’re learning physics without calculus. Like many other books in this series, it uses real world examples (primarily tennis in this book) to explain the principles and why a student should bother learning physics if they aren’t going to become an engineer or scientist.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, that was quite a ride. I’ve come to the conclusion that calling this book Harry Potter in College does a disservice to Lev Grossman’s creativity and sets the reader up for false expectations. This story is a trilogy, but it does not cover three years in our protagonist’s college life. Instead the first book covers at least 6 years if not more of Quentin’s life. Instead this book is a mix of the idea of a Wizard School and the Chronicles of Narnia. Before I get deeper into that, one more thing to address: the way the main characters act.

The Manga Guide to Calculus by Hiroyuki Kojima

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While the book didn’t happen to explain calculus in the way I best understand it, I think it did do a pretty good job of explaining it. More importantly, I think the book does an excellent job of explaining why calculus is important outside of engineering. I’m not sure if my undergrad requires Calculus for journalism students, but the journalists at the center of this book certainly make an argument for how it can help data-driven journalists derive good first-order approximations for their stories and fact-check data given to them by others. All too often kids fail to glom onto subjects because they can’t see how it applies to them in the real world.

The Manga Guide to Electricity by Kazuhiro Fujitaki

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think it was a cute way to get across the basic principles that govern electricity. I’d recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the way electricity works. It works fine for adults, but if you have a kid who’s maybe 10 or so who’s getting into electricity and the types of kits they used to sell at Radio Shack, this would be a great way to explain the way electricity works. It’s fun while being quite informative.

Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m in a sweet spot now where there are a lot of authors that seem to be about the same age as me give or take a decade. So I’m starting to see more and more references I can relate to. The main character of this book, Ariel Blum, seems to have also grown up in the video game revolution of the 80s. I appreciate his not-Laura Croft, Dana Light, in a way that I doubt those much older or younger than me would. And, while it’s not singular in this respect, a book told mostly through blog posts, IMs, and emails, definitely speaks to me as someone who straddles the Gen X/ Millenial age cutoffs. Ariel’s work on phone games continues to be more and more relevant as clickers and free to play games become ever more prevalent.

Scarlett’s first time at the beach was much younger - five or six months - but with the twins it was just a lot harder to go on vacation. There are two of them to deal with, to pack formula for, etc. Also, for a long time Stella would spontaneously throw up. We’d dealt with that with Scarlett when we went on the trip to her first Christmas - where she kept throwing up in the car. It’s not fun.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finally caught up with all the others on my feed and read this book. I don’t know if it was part of some book club or if it just spiraled as each person I follow recommended it to each other. This is another book from s book bundle I’d bought (I think Humble Bundle).

This was an example of one of times where the book cover kept me from reading it earlier rather than encouraging me to read it. The title “Uglies” together with a sheet over someone’s head and the blue fingernails; I thought it was going to be some teen drama book or something I wouldn’t enjoy. Instead I found a YA dystopia that kept me glued to the page. As a testament to Mr Westerfeld’s writing ability, although I had fun pointing out dystopia tropes in my status updates, he proves that tropes are not necessarily bad by incorporating them in an exciting way. So, if you’re familiar with dystopias (particularly of the YA variety) you’ll be familiar with the story beats, but not necessarily with the execution.

I updated Rawhide and ended up with this login screen. I like it - I think mostly because of the font.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first time I’ve read this book. Until now I’d only read The Hitchhiker’s Guide series. It definitely has a different tone to it while still being a very British and funny book at its core. That might have to do with the fact that it was originally an unused Dr Who script or it might just be that Mr Adams was writing in a different universe with a different tone. There’s definitely something very modern in a sort of 80s or 90s way about this book - the way it talks about computers and algorithms that we just don’t talk about nowadays. We take PCs for granted, but Adams, like Richard, was a computer geek when that was still a pretty new thing.