My first recommendation today which is good for 3 – 8 year olds is:

1) The Little Miss and The Mr. Men pocket books

These book are a delight, they are enjoyed by both little 7aki who is 7 and little Buddha who is 2.5.

It all started when little 7aki received two of these books as a present;  Little Miss Sunshine who can’t stop being happy and Little Miss Whoops who goes to visit her brother Mr. Bump and the rest was history. Now whenever I get a chance I get 2 or 3 of them at the used book store.

They are cute short reads and they talk about how people are different. You can for sure find one that best describes your kids.

Mine are:

Little Miss Stuborn would be my beoved buddha. Seriuosly stubborn.

… and Little Miss Brave/Naughty would be little 7aki. There is no Little Miss Brave! Not cool.

My second recommendation that is good for 3 – 7 year olds is:

2) The Pout-Pout Fish.

This book is really adorable; it’s about this pout-pout fish that would not smile even when all his friends ask him to until … well you have to read it to find out what turns his frown upside down.

He goes around spreading his dreary-wearies all over the place. Little 7aki loves to read this part.

And he goes blubing all over imaginable surfaces. This is little buddhas favorite; she traces the bluuuuub with her finger while she says it.

Good book, very clever rhyming, my kids love it.

And that’s it for today. Hopefully I won’t take this long for my next kids review.

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For more of my kids reviews:

Part 1

Part 2

And for more other books go here

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The story behind it is that the book author Justin Halpern had a 2 year long distance relationship with his girlfriend; he lived and worked in LA and she lived in San Diego and wanted to move in with her so he found a job that will allow him to live in San Diego, so he let his apartment in LA go and went to San Diego to surprise his girlfriend but instead of her jumping up and down with joy she broke up with him.

Justin found himself homeless and the only thing he could think of was to move back in with his parents. While he stayed at his parents his father was saying the funniest and weirdest things to him so Justin created the Twitter account “Sh*t My Dad Says” and a phenomenon was  born.

The nice thing about the book that it’s not just quotes from his dad but also has a number of stories about his dad that he collected from family members.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

Put the rake down. I don’t wanna sit around watching you ‘give it your best.’ Either stop sucking or get the fuck out of the way

See, you think I give a shit. Wrong. In fact, while you talk, I’m thinking; How can I give less of shit? That’s why I look interested

This one is a pearl of wisdom:

Don’t focus on the one guy who hates you. You don’t go to the park and set your picnic down next to the only pile of dog shit

This one is my favroite one, soooooo true!

A parent’s only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins a Nobel Prize but the other gets robbed by a hooker, you failed

Loved it and would recommend it for a good laugh.

Here are more of my reviews

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What interested me was the author more than the books themselves; did you know that the author died back in 2004 and the books were published after his death? Interesting I thought.

It’s a story about :

A 24-year-old computer hacker sporting an assortment of tattoos and body piercings and afflicted with Asperger Syndrome or something of the like has been under state guardianship in her native Sweden since she was thirteen. She supports herself by doing deep background investigations for Dragan Armansky, who, in turn, worries the anorexic-looking Lisbeth Salander is “the perfect victim for anyone who wished her ill.” Salander may look fourteen and stubbornly shun social norms, but she possesses the inner strength of a determined survivor. She sees more than her word processor page in black and white and despises the users and abusers of this world. She won’t hesitate to exact her own unique brand of retribution against small-potatoes bullies, sick predators, and corrupt magnates alike.

I know there’s a big hype over these books but I thought they were just alright. Nothing to write home about.

To read more of my reviews go here

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The whole book is written in the plural first person.

This is how we are introduced to the characters:

We were fractious and overpaid. Our mornings lacked promise. At least those of us who smoked had something to look forward to at ten-fifteen. Most of us liked most everyone, a few of us hated specific individuals, one or two people loved everyone one and everything. Those who loved everyone were unanimously reviled.

About creativity in the workplace:

We worked in the creative department developing ads and we considered our ad work creative, but it wasn’t half as creative as the work we’d put in to pad our time sheets every Monday morning since layoffs began.

This amazingly depicts office work at any work place to a T:

The bizarre and wonderful and horrible thing about working here is that we find ourselves all caught up in it so that the rest of the world loses its meaning. The connections we make here take on the strange intensity of playground rivalries and cruelties and ecstasies and revelries. Our world could easily be mistaken for the world that the rest of you inhabit, but we feel our losses more acutely and our joys more profoundly by virtue of sharing them with the rest of us here and only here

Funny, witty and so sadly summarizes office/cubicle life and how pathetic we ( 9-5 zombies) are.

Although the book is funny it makes you uncomfortable sometimes,  sad other times but as a whole a good read.

Fun read. I give it the 2 thumbs up.

For more book reviews go here.

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I like to review my books so I can keep a history of what I read and also an account of what I thought of the book. I have discovered that while I am reading a book, keeping the idea of reviewing it in my mind, I absorb more and pay attention to more things. Funny eh. Before reviewing books I never remembered anything about them.

Today I will review the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand first published in 1957.

I came to know about this book from the modern librarys top 100 books and it was rated number one by readers.

As you know, Atlas is the Greek God who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and this book discusses a dystopia where how all the smart and hardworking people are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and how all the lazy, unsuccessful “looters” are riding on the coattails of their success.

The Atlases of the world are considered cold hearted, calculating, greedy and the looters are portraying themselves as the ones looking out for the goodwill of society.

So what will happen if Atlas shrugs? The whole world will fall and crash so in this novel all the minds and the hard workers and the geniuses of the whole world decide to shrug , go on strike and disappear and leave the looters to fend for themselves.

I felt that this book is all about defending capitalism to the core; how competition leads to a better society, where a socialist society leads to the loss of ambition and consequently laziness. I do have to say that Ayn takes this idea too far in my opinion since she portrays capitalism as being pure and good all the time.

Some of my favorite quotes:

- Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where the gun begins

- “If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?” ” To Shrug.”

- “Contradictions do not exist”. “Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises”. “You will find that one of them is wrong”

- The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive- a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. The purpose of man’s life is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question.

- So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

This book is long, 1000+ pages and not for the faint of heart but REALLY GOOD. I do not agree 100% with the philosophy of it but I highly recommend you read it.

I shrug and give it a two thumbs up

For more book reviews go here.

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This is the first time EVER in the history of MY LIFE that I read four pages of a book that:

- Was hailed as number 53 on the readers list and 63 on the boards list as one of the top 100 books of the century.

- I put on hold  at the library.

- Drove to said library and picked up.

- Read reviews about it and said, oh great, this is a Dystopia book just like “1984″ and “Brave New World” and I LOVE Dystopia books!

After reading 4 said pages I abandoned the book.

The only way I can describe the book is that it’s like a Dr. Suess book but for adults, you know how Dr. Suess writes; he makes up a lot of words and names for fictional things in his books, but to Dr’s Suess’s credit the names are cute and they rhyme.

Not for “A Clockwork Orange“. The book used the fictional Nadsat slang that is based on the Russian language. So I did not understand ANYTHING while I was reading.

I don’t get how this book landed on the top 100 list! I understand the geniousness (is that a word?) of inventing a slang but COME ON!

Anyway, if you have read the book , tell me , did you like it? Because honestly I wanted to punch it in the face.

There is a movie version of the book so I am going to watch that because I would like to pretend that I am “a learned person”.

I just HOPE it’s in plain English because honestly, life is too short for this kind of stuff.

Click here for REAL book reviews.

The book contains 19 essays that Malcolm wrote in the New Yorker spanning over 8 years I think which makes it an easy read for people with a short attention span or people who don’t have hte time to read, you read an essay, put the book aside until you are ready to read another essay.

The book is split into three parts titled:

- Minor Geniuses:
This part talks about people who are not revered in the media for their achievements but non the less are amazing at what they do. One of the examples of these people is Ron Popiel, a household name here in North America, for those who don’t know the name does the phrase ” Set it and forget it” ring a bell?

Another essay that I found VERY interesting talks about the birth of the birth control pill, honestly this essay was sooooo interesting that getting your hands on the book just to read that is worth it.

- Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses:
This part is so fascinating. One of the essays talked about the fall of Enron, I think people will still talk about Enron 100 years from now, and what caused them to fail.

Another essay talked about true geniuses with an IQ higher than 150. their was a study done on these geniuses to track them through life expecting them to be the cream of the crop once they are older just to be shocked at the end that no, being a genius does not mean you will be successful. Pretty cool!

Another essay in this part I liked is the one discussing the failure of the challenger mission. It basically concludes that it’s not one big huge problem that causes things to fail it’s actually a chain of very ordinary small problems that create a huge failure, very interesting!

- Personality, Character, and Intelligence:
One of the essays talks about late bloomers, mostly artists and writers, and how some write/paint brilliant work and then fizz out as opposed to those who reach their 40s painting and writing full-time all through their lives with no tangible success and then BOOM become an overnight household name.

For a full list of the essays click here

This book opened my mind a bit and I felt I learned something from it and applied it to my day-to-day life.

Go to your public library today .

For more reviews click here

I have not read a non fiction kinda scientific book (biology) in a while that was sooooo much fun, the author, Hannah Holmes, is hilariuos.  At one point in the book she stood in the front of the mirror naked and used herself as a study specimen and OMG I couldn’t stop laughing.

She manages to use self deprecating humor in such a great balance that I giggled throughout the whole book but still got SO much information out of it.

The book is VERY informative but NEVER boring. It’s like the books : A short history of nearly everything and a short history of progress.

Well as the title suggest the book talks about humans and studies them as if they were animals, talks about the food they eat, their habitat , mating rituals, their brains , even why they have hair and many many things.

I urge you to read it, not a lot of times do you find books that educate you AND entertain you at the same time.

I am going to bookmark all her books.

3 thumbs up! Maybe in 10000 years after humans evolve another thumb.

Read more of my reviews.

By the way I LOVE THE LIBRARY. I remember once saying I really don’t borrow a lot of books from the library well now I ONLY read books from the library. The library is like owning thousands and thousands of books!

Anyways back to the book, it was funny and entertaining.

The end
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I am SURPRISED it was voted to be one of the best books or whatever. I mean, it wasn’t bad or anything, it was as I said funny, entertaining and well written and the author is very imaginative but it was not THAT amazing.

So I would not like run to go buy it or anything but it’s a good read non the less.

Read more of my reviews here.

The book talks about how people become successful and how much effort a person needs to put into something to become great.

The whole idea of this book is that , although you also need to put in a lot of work to actually become successful , turned out the magic number is 10,000 hours which is the equivalent of doing something obsessively everyday for 10 years, you also need lucky breaks and people connections.

Gladwell used Bill Gates as a study case to show how he managed to get where he is today; with hard work, 10,000 hours worth of it, family connections and luck; he happened to be born in the right year, go to the right school and get involved in the right thing at the right time.

Fascinating stuff really.

The book also discussed athletes , specifically hockey and soccer players and how their birth month played a big role to them being recruited in the professional leagues.

Tons and tons of interesting information.

Totally enjoyed it as I expected and I look forward to more work from Gladwell.

For more reviews click here.

I kept saying to myself, there is NO WAY there are people in the United States who lived/live like this!

This is the story of the author Jeannette Walls, her Mom, Dad and her three siblings.

The story starts with her 3-year-old self cooking hotdogs on the stove and sustaining 3 degree burns that left her scarred for life, which goes to show the degree of negligence she was living with. What does she do when she goes home from the hospital? She gets hungry and starts cooking hot dogs with  her parents cheering her on and telling her , way to go kid, this is how you should face your fears.

With a very intelligent alcoholic father, that taught his kids everything they knew, who unfortunately always spent the family money on booze and only thought of his next drink, and a mother who failed to grow up and refused to face reality. Despite that the story still manages to be a story of triumph and success.

As sad as her childhood was , no food for days on end, living in the desert because they had no place to stay, walking for miles when their car broke down on the highway, living in a home with no heat, electricity or in some cases even stairs to go into the house, they had to climb through a window to get in , I found myself unable to hate her parents who are without a doubt the reason of this families trials.

Jeannette managed to write a powerful memoir that made you understand the weakness and limitations of some humans, you could be the most intelligent and loving father but still fail to provide and protect your family because of reasons beyond your control.

I absolutely enjoyed the book, it opened up my eyes to a new world I thought never existed!

If I could take only one message from this book it is no matter what difficulties you face in life if you are smart and determined you will always succeed.

I give it the 2 thumbs up

Currently reading: What the dog saw by  Malcolm Gladwell

For more reviews click here

I’ve never encountered this style of writing before and it took me by surprise! I couldn’t stop giggling all throughout the book because the writing style was refreshing and funny although the subject matter that it tackled was not funny at all.

This book talks about a 17 year boy who is having trouble adapting to life and mostly to his brothers death and thus keeps getting kicked out from school after school. All throughout the book he questions life and the purpose of it all.

The book starts by him getting kicked out of school again and it follows him for the next three days where he leaves school early and instead of going home wanders New York City.

The readers see what’s going through this teenage boys mind ; how he hates everything because it all seems “phony” to him. His college friends are “phony” , his teachers are “phony” , his girlfriend is “phony”, life is “phony”. The only person he really likes who he thinks is real is his 10 year old sister who just “kills him” and his dead brother who he considers as his favorite person ever.

I hardly ever get inspired to read aloud to someone but this book made me read many paragraphs to my husband, it makes you want to quote it all the time. I honestly could quote it forever. And the phrases the author uses in the book are cool. I feel like I want to say “it kills me” or “ I am not kidding” or “ I am serious” or ” if you want to know the truth” at the end of every sentence because the main character says these phrases all the time.

This book kills me!

I really felt as if a 17 year kid was talking all throughout the book. The confused thoughts, hating people one second and wanting to marry them the next, the crazy hormones all teenagers suffer from, the uncertainty of life and what he wants out of life.The angst and alienation that comes with being a teenager.

No wonder “The novel was included on a 2005 Time Magazine list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923,^[8] and it was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century“

This book is brilliant and it is a classic because even 59 years after it’s inception it still manages to be fresh and current.

Love it. Give it the 2 thumbs up and I would love to read it again!

Click here for more reviews.

I loved watching the first 2 seasons of the show True Blood so when I knew there were NINE books that inspired the show I jumped right in and started reading them.

I really enjoyed reading the books which were very entertaining and quick reads!

The show differs from the books but I think the difference is actually good, I like the changes they made which makes watching the show exciting, like Jason’s character plays a very big role in the show not so much in the book, also Lafayette is awesome in the show and he is barely mentioned in the books. There is one exception though, Tara plays a big role on the show and is barely in the books and I hate Tara’s Character,  if Tara dies tomorrow (on the show of course )  I would be glad, she KILLS ME.

Back to the books. I will not deny that these books are by no means literature feats but they are fun and an entertaining diversion from the real world since they are based on fairies, vampires werewolves witches and telepaths. They are filled with mystical creatures and worlds.

So if you are tired of reading serious books and you like vampires, hop on the true blood bandwagon and enjoy the ride.

More book reviews click here.

Unlike the pillars of the earth that revolved around building the Kingsbridge cathedral and was rich in architectural history this book focused more on the social aspects of life in the early 1300’s and all the politics that surrounded Kingsbridge priory .

You see the struggle of young against old, new ideas against well established traditions , women’s fight against prejudice and most importantly it talks about a love story that spanned decades of hardship and struggle.

One of the things that fascinated me is how women used to live and how they had to fight hard for their rights , for example if a woman speaks up or is gifted somehow and is a threat to the old based traditions or is against certain cultural issues she is deemed a witch and gets hanged or whipped to death.

It also talked about the black death and how thousands upon thousands of people died leaving behind empty cities and homes. It talks about how doctors used to treat patients and how one woman made a big difference it fighting the plague.

It’s not a short book to read, it’s about 1000 pages long but it kept me hooked and kept me wanting more.

You know a book is good that when it ends you are sad it did.

I give it the 7aki Fadi thumbs up

Currently reading: The Glass Castle

For more reviews click here

The Outlander series is a story about a woman who lived around the time of world war II in the 1940′s who while visiting Scotland finds herself suddenly and inexplicably back 200 years in time in  the Eighteenth Century.

As per wiki:

The novels are not easily classified by genre. On one level, the works are romance novels with a focus on the romantic relationship between the two main characters. However, the books break certain romance genre conventions—the heroine, for instance, is slightly older and more experienced than the hero. The books could be described as a work of historical fiction with a detailed account of eighteenth century Scottish clan life. The novels could also be considered science fiction with a plot propelled by time travel when Claire journeys from the 1940s to the eighteenth century.

So the books are truly  enjoyable. There’s a lot of history that starts in Scotland then goes to France and then moves on to North America. It talks about many wars and battles in detail. The books are really rich in history.

So you can imagine how excited I was when I picked up An echo in the bone. I couldn’t wait to buy it and start reading it and I tell you this book took me FOREVER to finish.

I don’t know what it was with this book that I didn’t like;  it was just too long with too many details . I only started getting into it after 200 pages in.  It took forever for the action to start.

But because I am a fan of the series I was patient of course since I have invested interest in the characters and the story and I  did enjoy it but not as much as I did with the other 6 books.

I even saw a woman on the train who approached me while I was reading the book and said: ” I love the series I read all six books but I am having a hard time getting into this one so I put aside and started reading something else” I told her that it did take me a while to get into it.

Also the ending I felt it was left with too many loose ends, I understand that Diana wants to write the 8th book but come on, at least tie some of those loose ends!

All in all I think loyal fans will read it because you must have read the previous six books to enjoy this one.

Currently reading:
- Dead as a doornail by Charlaine Harris.
- Lion Of Jordan – The Life Of King Hussein In War And Peace