false 31 110 109 true 5686617 read 0 true 4243200 currently-reading 1 true 4243199 to-read 8 false 4264157 crime http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/79204599 to: Bad Things Happen (Hardcover) by Harry Dolan
Read a great review of this book in the Washington Post, which got my hopes up.

The book was pretty much all plot and no character, which made me not really care about the plot. Disappointing. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78332398 to: Child 44 (Paperback) by Tom Rob Smith
The first 200 pages of this book are captivating. The protagonist is an agent in the State Service in Stalinist Russia. The novel starts by showing how Leo loses his faith in the state, a loss that is a capital offense.

The rest of the book is a mediocre serial killer novel with an implausible and predictable twist that's revealed entirely too early.

I liked it, but mostly on the strength of the beginning. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78020050 Michael's review of The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1)
by Suzanne Collins

Gotta space it out so I'm not left waiting too long for the third. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/78020050 to: The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins
Ali gave this book the highest recommendation, which made my expectations commensurately high. I wasn't disappointed.

Ali's right that the end is pretty obvious from the start, but it's a great ride getting there. I'd call this more action/adventure with just a touch of sci-fi, so if you are really into the latter, this might not be the book for you.

But really it's the book for everyone. Go read it. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77276202 to: The Paper Moon (Paperback) by Andrea Camilleri
A solid but unexceptional entry in an extremely enjoyable series.

Good focus on Montalbano here, not as much on the supporting cast. The plot is just so-so. Catarella, as always, is a treat. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76699366 Michael's review of The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak

It's sitting on my Kindle right now.

You should read Black Water Rising. Go! ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76699366 to: The Book Thief (Hardcover) by Markus Zusak
Ali said to pick this up right away, so I did. She was right. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76696453 to: A Darkness More Than Night (Harry Bosch, #7) by Michael Connelly
To recap:

I hated The Poet, liked Angels Flight. Vowed to only read the Bosch novels and skip the rest.

So here I am, with what is nominally Bosch #7. However, it's not a Bosch novel. It's about Terry McCaleb (introduced in a novel I didn't read (see above)), who happens to believe that Bosch killed someone.

This has all of the hallmarks of a Connelly novel that I wouldn't like: serial killer, not a police procedural, doesn't feature Harry Bosch. Despite all that, it was okay. Not recommended, but not a total waste of time. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75265502 to: Angels Flight (Harry Bosch, #6) by Michael Connelly
After really hating The Poet, I was nervous to return to Connelly. Turns out I shouldn't've worried. Connelly is still the master of the police procedural, and Bosch is still a fascinating character. This one features the typical-to-the-series conflict between Bosch's investigation and his own department. Sadly, loses one star for extraneous pedophilia. In the future, I think I'm just going to skip his non-Bosch books. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74278071 to: Coders at Work (Paperback) by Peter Seibel
Four start with a big asterisk.

Overall, this is a fascinating book that any programmer will enjoy. Seibel does a nice job asking questions that are particular to each person, but also trying to get a variety of opinions on the same questions that face all programmers. (E.g., how do you debug? how do you read new code? how do you identify good programmers?)

The problem with the book is the interview with Fran Allen. If you look up "women" in the index, you'll find about a dozen pages, all of them in Allen's interview. If gender equality is an important issue in computer science, Seibel should've treated it as such and asked more than just the one woman about it. If not, why is he wasting space on it? As it is, Seibel treats gender equality as an issue for women in engineering to solve, which is the worst possible attitude to have. ]]>