"And what have you been reading over the past few months Monkey?"

I'm glad you asked. Here's what I've been reading over the past few months:


Blog buddy Jess Wundrun let me borrow this book and it's a very good read. It goes in depth into the wasteful ways coal is mined in this country and it also gives some of the history of mining. Overall it's very good but towards the end Mr. Goodell gets a too technical for me and I skimmed it. I do recommend this book though, especially to anyone who wants to pursue solar or other types of ways to power their home or business.


I saw this on Captain Karen's blog side bar and it looked interesting so I checked it out of my local library. I've read books about maritime stuff from this time period and they were always very good and this book was no exception. As a historian and writer Mr. Bown does himself proud with this fine history of how scurvy was beaten. It's a sometimes harrowing book, especially when you find out that hundreds of thousands died needlessly because the British government at that time did not want to spend the money needed to procure citrus fruit for it's ships. During the two weeks it took me to finish this book my vitamin C intake increased dramatically. I highly recommend this book.


Thunderbolt Kid is a funny fast read. Bryson was born about ten years before me so what was new and novel to him was old hat to me, i.e. TV, processed foods, other modern amenities. But despite that there was enough shared experience in his book to hook me. I may not have grown up in Iowa where he did but I went through a lot of what he writes about and I recognized places I lived when I was his age in this book. It's a very funny entertaining read.

The main things I learned form this book is that Mario Batali is a huge douchebag and that the author is a glutton for punishment. This one did not live up to it's hype at all and I say give it a pass if you are tempted to read it.

I was blown away by this graphic novel that was recommended to me by my buddy at the library, and not to brag or anything but my buddy is the big cheese at our local library, and by big cheese I mean he's the library director. So when a graphic novel lovin' dude like him recommends something to me, I jumped all over it. This graphic novel is a bout what happened to all those fairy tale characters you read about as a little kid. In this imaginative tale they've all been run out of their former kingdoms and dwellings and they've taken up residence in NYC. I'm not going to delve too much into the plot because to do so would spoil it for you but trust me when I say it's a good read. What I liked most about it is how the writer and artists brought the stale old fairy tale characters to not only life, but to a new and decidedly unfairy tale like life. There's more in this series and I may just have to look them up someday soon. I highly recommend this fine piece of literature.