I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson

Very good. This is now one of my favorites by him. It left me giggling multiple times. It a collection of short essays (usually around 3 pages) that he'd previously published in Britain individually. They are entertaining glimpses of American life as he rediscovers it after moving back to the U.S. after 20 years in England. Definitely recommended for enjoyable giggling and relaxing.

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown

Eh. It was decently entertaining, but it was also fairly annoying. I found particular annoyance in the "OMG! Science and religion are enemies!" thing going on throughout the book. Yes, very annoying. I don't regret reading it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. A number of friends who had read this and The Da Vinci Code told me this one was better. I definitely disagree. I thought The Da Vinci Code was much better. Also, I've never understood the Catholic freaking about The Da Vinci Code, but if I were Catholic, I think I'd find Angels & Demons quite offensive. I'm not Catholic, though, so I'm just a bit annoyed.

My Parents Married on a Dare by Carlfred Broderick

Very good. An enjoyable collection of essays, many of which are more applicable to someone married, but even in my single state I liked those essays. Some essays are applicable to all, though.

Early Christians in Disarray: Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy edited by Noel B. Reynolds

Excellent. It is a collection of articles/essays by sevaral folks, and they are all quite enlightening. This should be a must-read introduction (or even beyond introduction) to study of the apostasy.

Creepy Susie : And 13 Other Tragic Tales for Troubled Children by Angus Oblong

Short, disturbing picture book. I liked it :-).

A Case of Conscience by James Blish

Hated it. Despite hating it, I finished it because I wanted to know what happened. But still, I hated it. The motivations for the actions of the characters are mostly a mystery, and the characters are incredibly unethical. And it just makes no sense.

For example, a group of four people are sent to a planet inhabited by intelligent, sentient lizards to find out if Earth should have some sort of permanent contact with them... or something. Basically it is a first contact group. Two of the men have strong feelings about what Earth should do, and the other two just join a side. One of the men is a Catholic priest as well as a biologist and linguist. He became more involved with the alien world and society than the others, mostly because the others had no interest in learning the alien language, and one guy was downright hostile toward the idea. And this is the first contact team?! How are they suppose to learn about culture without learning the language?! Anyway, the biologist/priest does. However, he learns that they are highly ethical creatures, but that they have no belief or even concept of God. This freaks the priest/biologist out, and his recommendation to Earth is that they have absolutely no contact with these people, ever, because clearly they were created by Satan. He seriously presents that the Earth. And he is taken seriously!

The other guy, one who was most hostile to learning the language, is even a step down. They discover that this planet has deposits that can be used for making nuclear weapons. His proposal is that they tear the planet apart to build weapons for the UN (there don't seem to be autonomous countries at this time; the UN is the big, planetwide ruler), and the aliens can be used as slave labor because they don't have any concept of money. He seriously proposes this! This is our first contact team? Psychotic and unethical?! And Earth decides to go for his proposal.

What the heck?!

After that the story goes downhill. They come back to Earth, and they bring an alien baby with them (he was a gift). The characters then do things, including the alien, but the reason for why they act is either never shown or doesn't make sense.

Bad story.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals : Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost

Loved it. It was funny and interesting. And educational (it's nonfiction). For example, I now know that I have absolutely no interest in running away to a small equatorial atoll. However, it was a great read. It's about this guy and his girlfriend/fiance who go to live on the island(s) of Tarawa in Kiribati when his girlfriend gets a job with an international development group. He plans to write a great novel, but that never quite happens. It's very interesting to learn about that part of the world, and the author's style is fun and easy to read.

Wake Up, I'm Fat! by Camryn Manheim

Pretty good. It's a memoir of the actress's life up through when she won her Emmy for her work on The Practice. It was interesting to read of her struggles trying to make it as an actress in a subculture that values thinness and good looks above all else. She seems like a really interesting person.

The book, however, suffers mightily from punctuation errors - not the kind that could be dismissed as personal style or a way to create a tone (though there are those, and they really needed to be toned down a bit), but the kind that are just simply wrong. Did this book not go through an editor? If so, did the editor have the flu at the time? It was really annoying.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Brilliant. Another book from Neil Gaiman that I love. Love, love, love. I love how he intertwines a bizarre, fantasy world with our normal, modern world. It creates fascinating reading. In this book, a man named Charlie hears that his father has died. He flies from his home in London to Florida to attend the funeral, and from there everything goes weird. He finds out that his father was actually a god (a spider) (and might not really be dead, but he doesn't play a direct role in the novel, so he may as well be dead for our purposes as readers) and that he has a brother (sort of) who has his father's god-like abilities, which Charlie does not have. Sort of. Charlie invites his brother into his life, and Spider (his brother) makes a mess of Charlie's life and then Charlie has to figure out how to get rid of his brother. And then he has to figure out how to save his brother when Raven takes him. Great story. Great worlds.

Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn Mccrumb

I have very mixed feelings about the book. I can't decide whether I like it or hate it. It's a clever premise. It is a murder mystery set at a science fiction convention. The title of the book (and it's a great title) is also the title of a book written by a minor author invited to the con; he is our protagonist. However, the author's agent/editor/girlfriend seems to be voice of this book's author, Sharon Mccrumb. And she's annoying.

And this is where my mixed feelings mostly come in. She seems to have a very cliche view of con-goers, incredibly judgemental about what losers they all are. The geeks are all superfically characterized. At the same time, I had to admit I'd met con-goers like those portrayed. Thus I was constantly bouncing back and forth between offense and laughter.

As for the tale itself, I liked the premise. It was a fairly interesting read (I don't normally read murder mysteries), and they way the killer was brought to light at the end (through a Dungeons and Dragons game) was a great idea. Unfortunately, the events at the very end of the game when the murderer is revealed led me to roll my eyes. I didn't buy it. I think that the suspension of disbelief was lost because of the weak characterization. We as readers had not been given a deep enough understanding of the murderer - or any of the characters, for that matter - to accept what was then told us about what he did and his motivation.

So... mixed feelings. Clever premise, fairly good read, but weak characterization, which damages the entire story.

Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein

Good book. It's a tale about an actor who is hired to impersonate a politician who has been kidnapped. His kidnapping threatens the relationship between Earth and Mars because the Martians have an intensely ritualistic culture that makes it impossible to just not show up for an impending important ceremony, and this politician is expected to participate in this ceremony.

I had a hard time getting into this book. For the first half of the book, I thought it was quite dull and was disappointed. I just wasn't caring about the actor - actually, he was kind of annoying, and he wasn't supposed to be annoying. But then around the midpoint, I suddenly got really into the story and quite enjoyed the rest of it. The ending was predictable, but it was a good enough tale that I didn't mind.

Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel

Painfully boring. I didn't finish it, and I generally don't write a review about books I don't finish, but I feel the need to warn people away from it. I kept thinking the story would have a point and get better, but finally gave up about midway through. It's about a guy who can't make decisions and just sort of stumbles through life. Plot? Who needs it. Interesting characters? Waste of brain power. Abundant profanity and vulgarity? Got it.

The few hours I spent reading it, thinking it would get better, have been pointlessly lost forever, and I'm bitter.

The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

Pure fluff chick lit, but I liked it. It made me happy I have absolutely no connections to the fashion world, though. I read some reviews where the reader found it an annoying book because the narrator didn't realize how out-of-touch she was from reality, but I think I understood the narrator's perspective better than the perspectives of her friends and family and became annoyed with them for not getting how important this was to her. It was a fun read.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

Since it's Christmas-time, I wanted to read something Christmas-y. I haven't read this book since I was a wee beastie, so I broke out the book Saturday. Yep, it's still a fun, good story.

Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Bushman

Excellent.

History just isn't something that interests me, especially American history after the Revolutionary War (ancient Greece and Rome are much worse than American history and make me want to poke my eyes out with a spork, but Europe earlier than 1200 AD and Asian history are quite fascinating). Thus, Church history gets folded into the category of "boring" and I generally ignore it. But this book was such the hot item, I gave in and read it. I learned quite a bit from the book. Nothing was particularly shocking; I love studying LDS doctrine, and Church history gets sprinkled in when you study that. However, it provided more detail and context than I'd previously known.

Context is the thing Bushman is quite good with, and it makes all the difference. He provides a contextual interpretation of why Joseph did what he did and how he became who he was. He firmly places Joseph in the human category, and yet as believing readers, we see how he was a prophet despite his humanity. It's inspiring, actually, providing hope to us mere mortals who hope to be great (or even just kinda good and not a waste of carbon).