So what have you been reading?

I am glad that I gave this a whirl. The tone of this autobiography comes across as lighthearted and very breezy but by the end some very important things are addressed.  Felicia had a bit of an unusual childhood with being home schooled and having interests in the performing arts even when she was young.  After entering college at 16 on a music scholarship and graduating double major in math and music she decided to move to LA to become an actor. 

The parts I found interesting is she is very open about her personal life as she was trying to start something new [The Guild].  That it took off really surprised her but it did and she is now more than just an actress with a large following but a producer as well.  If you have any interest at all in Felicia Day as an actor or just a social media presence this is a great book to read.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

I picked up this review book because it was about an English Pointer and I currently have two pointers. The book introduces Judy, an English Pointer that was a ship dog in the English Navy and became an official Japanese prisoner of war. The book is grim reading for the most part with Judy barely surviving and tale after tale of her giving warnings of attacks both before and after she was captured. The prison camp section of the book is tough reading of the toll on the men in the camps and every page you almost expected to have something else terrible happen to Judy or one of the men that cared for in the camps. She was awarded the Dickin medal before her death at the age of 13.  Overall the book is dry and very factual but that Judy makes it through all of it makes it a good read.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

I'm a big fan of this movie so when I saw this was availble to review I grabbed it.  It was a fun read of the making of the movie from Cary being cast until the final day of shooting. There is also a bit about when they all got together for the 25th anniversary of the film. If you have love of the movie you will enjoy the book. He talks about stuff that happens on set and how certain shot came into the film even when they were not planned. I had a smile on my face the entire time I was reading this. Just a great happy read and I'm glad I picked it up.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

This is for someone who is a fan of the Fables series. I've enjoyed the comic series and some of the spin offs and this was a great index to all the characters that have been brought to life in the pages of the comic. You find out which ones came whole cloth out of the writer's mind and what was based off of a fairy tale. As I was reading this I could see someone using it for writing a paper on fairy tales and needing a good cross reference for some of the lesser known characters. The short asides from the creator and artists that are dropped throughout the book were fun to read and there are some hints about what might show up in future issues.



Digital copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss.

This is more one person's high points as a hostage negotiator and the reader will recognize the big cases that he worked on. The book was ok but not what I was hoping for. You don't get as much out of what makes him such an excellent negotiator as someone that can analyze a situation and see what everyone else is doing wrong. Not sure if that is more looking at each situation in hindsight since it is a memoir of his time in the job or that he knew at the time when everything was going right and wrong.

IF you are interested in the FBI it does give some insight working and the interdepartmental competition  and it does cover the work it does that most people have no idea is the FBI's job.

I read this book in bits and pieces over a period of time that worked out well since each chapter covered a different piece of clothing. Nothing was gone into huge detail but there  were numerous footnotes and several other books were mentioned that would cover a certain article of clothing in much greater detail. Bits of fashion advice were sprinkled throughout the book and neat tidbits of history as well. A good gift book for someone fashion forward to see the roots of what they love so much.

This is a really lovely looking book that is an excellent guide of pairing beer with cheese. A great book to gift the beer fan in your life that also happens to like good food with good beer. The book breaks down each style of beer and what and why each cheese goes with that style. It isn't a dense book but the photographs are really nice and there is also a index for both the cheese and beer along with a small chart to look up complementing pairings. 

Digital review copy provided by NetGalley

I saw this listed on someone else's blog and since I had never seen it before I though I would check it out. It is mostly a photographic depiction of her life as an apprentice. The photos are beautiful but for the most part there is not a ton of info on her day to day life. The tone of the book is breezy and not scholarly. Nevertheless I still enjoyed it and wished there was more.