Books, books, books

The summer reading program has started at our library, so let me jot down the books I read this spring BEFORE the program started.

Gator A-Go-Go by Tim Dorsey. A crazed serial killer as the hero, lots of bad language and drugs, senseless violence --gees, I love these books about Serge. And this is one of the better ones. I also loved the little alligator going up and down along the bottom of the pages to make the novel into a flip book (pity the people who read this in electronic format -- they totally miss out on this).

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. Although I'm not a runner, my interest was piqued by a post on embarrassing your kids over at Nurtured by Love. The shoes seemed a bit over the top for a non-runner to purchase simply for the pleasure of seeing the look on Thalia and AnnaBeth's faces, but the book was fascinating. The author did a great job of presenting factual information in an entertaining format (although I had the impression he was cherry-picking his facts at times). After I read it I started cruising web sites on barefoot running. Oooooh, physiology of running -- I love weird stuff like this that has nothing to do with my life!

Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success by Matthew Syed. I loved this book. I got it out of the library, and dearly wanted to highlight passages and stick post-it notes all over it. I might need to buy it so I can fulfill these fantasies. It's all about the importance of practice; also, lots about how important failure is (yeah, this is the book that got me started on THAT binge). I wasn't so excited about the chapter on drugs in sports (sorry, don't much care, plus it read like a high school research paper), and the chapter on genetics (interesting stuff, but not what I was reading the book to learn about).

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. Such a good author. And we visited Memphis soon after reading it! Which could've been really cool, except it wasn't. More about THAT trip coming up soon.