non-fiction

Take The Psychopath Test!

“Funny books about unfunny things” (How Ron has described his own work) Spoiler! I scored a 7 on the psychopath checklist, so you should be cautious around me, but I’m not going to murder anyone anytime soon, according to the numbers. I don’t even care what Jon Ronson writes about, I just like his books. [...]

November 11, 2011 READ MORE →

I Shall Not Hate

If you have kids, you might agree with me that it seems like their lives are one near-death experience after another. My son can find ways to get hurt in the blink of an eye, at the drop of a hat, or any other cliche we might throw at it. He can get hurt when [...]

November 3, 2011 READ MORE →

A Short Guide to a Happy Life

To the surprise of absolutely no one who loves Anna Quindlen’s writing, her charming little book A Short Guide to a Happy Life is a treasure. A short treasure, both in size and brevity. The book is about 7” tall and ends on page 50. About half of those pages are touching, sentimental, black and [...]

October 24, 2011 READ MORE →

Julian Baggini and The Duck That Won The Lottery

Julian Baggini’s book The Duck That Won The Lottery was my 160 for the Dewey Reading Project. It wasn’t that tough of a selection. The other dusty books buried in the Reasoning and Thought and Thinking call numbers weren’t all that enticing. Duck wasn’t dusty yet, because we had a brand new copy. But the [...]

August 30, 2011 READ MORE →

Eats, Shoots & Leaves Discussion

Hey everyone, this was July’s book club selection. I apologize for the delay. I completely underestimated the amount of work I would be able to get done while traveling to the two speaking engagements. Lesson learned: mentallyI am incapable of doing anything useful while traveling or attending conferences. Except for talking. I’m also just going [...]

August 11, 2011 READ MORE →

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain – Book Review

Mark Twain has been my favorite author for a long, long time. I’m ashamed to say that it has taken my this long to get around to reading The Innocents Abroad. I now consider it the best of his non-fiction, and one of the funniest books I have ever read. It’s essentially a travelogue. In [...]

July 20, 2011 READ MORE →

Book Review: Skinny Bastard

The full title is: Skinny Bastard: A-Kick-In-The-Ass For Real Men Who Want To Stop Being Fat And Start Getting Buff. The full author list is: Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. The full review is: don’t read it. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I would rather read People Magazine while Entertainment Tonight! blared in [...]

July 12, 2011 READ MORE →

Book Review – Be Ready When The Sh*t Goes Down

So, if you read my review for the first Forrest Griffin book, Got Fight?, you know my hopes were not high for the second. But it actually turned out…okay. Not great, as I think Mr. Griffin still had some involvement in the “writing” process, but style- and, yes, even substance-wise, it was a vast improvement. [...]

July 8, 2011 READ MORE →

The Facebook Effect – Book Review

In some ways David Kirkpatrick’s book The Facebook Effect reminds me of Waiting For The Barbarians–another book about deals and rich people that turned out to be an exciting story that I couldn’t put down. It is also a brilliant piece of non-fiction, managing to make what must have been an exhausting bunch of research [...]

July 2, 2011 READ MORE →

Poll: Best Self Improvement Books?

Every time I am in a bookstore I wind up browsing the self improvement section. Most times I have the same thought: “Hmm…if this book can actually change my life forever, for the better, they should probably be charging more than $20 for it. And they should probably say something that hasn’t been said before.” [...]

June 16, 2011 READ MORE →