false 8 106 96 true 5752859 read 2 true 4022929 currently-reading 8 true 4022928 to-read 8 false 4057337 mystery-thriller 8 false 4057377 history 4 false 4086039 travel 2 false 4749330 occasionally-reading-from 1 false 6347164 fantasy 1 false 5148603 re-reading <![CDATA[Mark added 'The Amber Spyglass']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76681714 to: The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3) by Philip Pullman
I thought this was the best of the three novels (to the best of my recollection, since it has been a long time since I read The Golden Compass). I liked Pullman's view of religion, his concept of how that plays in multiple universes, and how he called in other mythologies. ]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'Philosophy for Dummies']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75554652 to: Philosophy for Dummies (Paperback) by Tom Morris
I was pretty disappointed in this book. I was hoping for a good survey of philosophy and philosophers. I was hoping to get a basis of philosophic thought that I could apply in thinking about things myself. Instead, the author used the opportunity to tell you what was right and what was wrong, and not give you a real basis for working through that yourself. He had a bias, and he wanted to be sure to debunk the theories he thought were wrong. ]]> <![CDATA[Mark recommended the book Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever to Jeffrey]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book/recommendation/616698 Mark recommended the book Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever to Jeffrey
]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71972137 to: Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever (Hardcover) by Joel Derfner
I was really surprised by this book. Derfner did a great job weaving seamingly shallow things together with much deeper views on life. He did a great job of setting up a low expectation with the self-deprecating talk in the introduction, making the reader think he was just cranking something out for egotistic reasons, but he is a much better writer than he let on.

Each chapter was an essay focussed around a theme, such as knitting, go-go dancing, and teaching aerobics. It is not a chronology of his life, so some of the same events in one chapter come to play in another chapter, but they are viewed froma different perspective, adding an interesting layer to the events.

I felt a couple of the later chapters were not as well written as the earlier, but I was still riding the high of the earlier part of the work to overlook that. ]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'Into the Wild']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72161350 Into the Wild (Paperback) by Jon Krakauer
bookshelves: to-read
]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'The Magicians']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72102203 The Magicians (Hardcover) by Lev Grossman
bookshelves: to-read
]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'Angels & Demons']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71971515 to: Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon, #1) by Dan Brown
]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'The Da Vinci Code']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71971513 to: The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2) by Dan Brown
]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'Brave New World']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71971450 to: Brave New World (Paperback) by Aldous Huxley
]]> <![CDATA[Mark added 'The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps']]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71971434 to: The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps (Paperback) by Heinz Heger
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