Catch Me if you Can, by Stan Redding

2012 Book 21: Catch Me if you Can, by Stan Redding (2/1/2012)

This is the autobiography of Frank Abagnale, Jr. a con-man and counterfeiter who made millions passing fraudulent checks all around the world and, meanwhile, posed successfully as a Pan Am pilot, a pediatrician, and a lawyer. I enjoyed the movie based on this book so I hoped the book would be better. Although the book certainly provided more information about the scams and how he got away with it, Abagnale himself was much less charming in the book. He was too much of a womanizer and a…well…con-man. Emotions weren’t expressed (other than relief at escaping one or another of his women), making it difficult to empathize with him. Also, the adult Abagnale (who took part in writing the book) didn’t seem to feel much remorse about his activities. He rationalized: “I never conned a square John out of money,” but ignores the emotional strain that he must have put on many of his victims. Also, I am a little skeptical of the “true” part of this “true crime” story. I believe that the basic idea is true, but there were just too many convenient coincidences for his story to be entirely accurate. He must have taken bits and pieces of different escapades and pasted them together into a unified story, and over-emphasized his own cleverness. Clearly, he’s a genius, but I still would have liked a little more “oops, that was stupid” in his story. It would have humanized him. Not even a genius can be clever all the time! 3/5 stars

Winnie-the Pooh & The House at Pooh Corner, by A. A. Milne

2012 Book 16: Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne (1/28/2012)

2012 Book 17: The House at Pooh Corner, by A. A. Milne (1/30/2012)

I admit that this is the first time I’ve read either of these books. The combined Winnie-the-Pooh stories were very cute and enjoyable. I’m guessing they are meant to be read aloud to young children. From the cartoons when I was a kid, I remember really loving Eeyore, but found him to be much grumpier than I expected in the books. But children often see things in books that adults don’t, so what can I say. 4/5 stars

I’m on a quest to read all the books that I should have read when I was a kid, and didn’t because I was too busy being “grown up,” hehe. I’ve still got to finish the Narnia series and read any of the Oz books, to name a few. This will probably take me a while! If anyone has suggestions about books I ought to have read as a child, let me know so that I remember to read them all. 🙂

Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer

2012 Book 18: Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer (1/29/2012)

An alien lands in Toronto with hopes of studying the ROM’s fossil collection; meanwhile she provides “scientific evidence” for the existence of God. This book had a good idea with poor execution. Sawyer completely ignored the “show-don’t-tell” rule of novel-writing. The book is a clod of sci-religious dialog decorated with a thin veneer of plot. The scientific evidence consisted of debates about: 1)What are the odds? and 2) Where did altruistic behavior come from? Neither argument is fresh, but it’s interesting to have it all thrown into the mouth of an alien (who is also using facts that only the fictional aliens know to support her pro-God arguments). The second argument falls flat since cooperative behavior (i.e. “altruism” as Sawyer was defining it) has evolved in more than just humans. Also, Sawyer adds a short punt about abortion. Although I completely agree with his point of view, I don’t read novels to get a lecture on these views. SHOW-don’t-tell!!!! On the other hand, this book won the Audie award, which means it had a fantastic performance—which I enjoyed on a long car trip I just took. That made the book worth it for me. 3/5 stars

The Chair, by James L. Rubart

2012 Book 13: The Chair, by James L. Rubart (1/26/2012)

Corin Roscoe, depressed thrill-seeker and owner of an economically-challenged antique shop, is confused and mildly annoyed when an old lady unexpectedly dumps an antique chair on him—a chair made by the “best carpenter to ever live.” His life dissolves into turmoil as he explores the meaning of the chair. Meanwhile, naughty people seek the power of the chair. This is a suspense novel in the Christian Fiction genre; however, I was never in very much suspense. Critiqued as a suspense novel, there’s not much to it. Critiqued as contemporary Christian Fiction, however, I think it was pretty good. It had an excellent message without much preaching, and it had realistic characters. I would recommend “The Chair” to people who enjoy Christian fiction, but don’t mind a small amount of violence or imperfect characters (i.e. those who drink alcohol and swear (as in “Corin swore,” not actual swear words)). My star rating is based on a Christian Fiction critique, but it loses points for a few typos in the digital version—I think it’s disrespectful to readers to not carefully proof-read before publication. 3.5/5 stars

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

2012 Book 14: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (1/27/2012)

Wow, this was an awesome book! It discusses the life of Henrietta Lacks, the donor of the tumor that was used to develop the immortalized cell line HeLa. The narrative alternates between the story of Henrietta’s family and a scientific discussion of the HeLa’s huge contribution to modern medicine. This is by far the most human story of science/medicine I’ve ever read. Everyone should read it! Additionally, the audiobook won the Audie Award because of its excellent performance. 5/5 stars.

The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee

2012 Book 12: The Emperor of All Maladies, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (1/25/2012).

The Emperor of All Maladies is a sweeping “biography” of cancer covering archeological/ancient history to present-day. It is very well-informed, well written, and thorough. Definitely worth a read for anyone who is interested in the history of cancer or medicine. Well-deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it won in 2011. I think it was written with the popular reader in mind (he DOES tell us what DNA is at the beginning of the book), but the book quickly delves into terminology and topics that I suspect would be very heavy to someone who doesn’t already know a little about biology/medicine. This is especially true in the second half of the book. Mukherjee also is SO thorough that the book becomes extremely long, which is difficult for those of us with a short attention span. Also, I got great amusement out of his formulaically inserted personal patient pieces. It was good that he had them (they broke up the difficult scientific passages) but I could tell that they were written by a scientist and not a journalist (i.e. they were comprised of literal rather than emotive descriptions). Being a scientist myself, this made me chuckle (alas! an emotion). However, I think the personal patient pieces were interesting and elicited enough emotion to engage the readers. They worked for me, anyway. 4/5 stars.

The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester

2012 Book 11: The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester (1/24/2012).

The Professor and the Madman is about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the “dangerous lunatic” that was a major contributor of entries to the dictionary. It was a fascinating narrative—well told with an interesting and educational topic. I think there were parts where Winchester waxed a bit dramatic or put in theories based upon conjecture rather than fact…but that is what journalists do, after all. 🙂 Quite worth the read. 4.5/5 stars.

A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

2012 Book 9: A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1/18/2012)

A Little Princess is a classic story of a rich little girl who is put under the care of a bitter, selfish schoolhouse matron. At first, the girl is treated as a star pupil; but when her father dies a ruined man, she is cruelly forced to become a servant of the schoolhouse—but her sweet, vibrant nature keeps her alive during these hard times. I have seen quite a few movie adaptations, but the book is much better than the movies. This is a good book for people of all ages to read. 4/5 stars.

The Great Fortune, by Olivia Manning

2012 Book 10: The Great Fortune, by Olivia Manning (1/19/2012)

The Great Fortune is the story of Harriet, a young British woman who must learn to know her new husband while thrown into the strange setting of WWII Romania. The characterization on this novel was fantastic—I really felt like I knew all of the characters intimately. However, I can’t really say what the plot was about. It was a very character/setting-centric novel. The writing is superb, but I tend to prefer a little more plot development; therefore, this book gets only 3/5 stars.