Joseph Green read and liked Ben Thompson's review of Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live:

"I gave myself five stars in a flagrant, unabashed display of shameless self-promotion. "

Joseph Green read and liked jill's review of The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3):

"I can't get into the Dan Brown hate. Yes, I roll my eyes as I'm reading his books. His characters are flat, and some of his sentences are just weirdly bad, and there's usually at least a few moments in his plotting that he just clearly never bother...more I can't get into the Dan Brown hate. Yes, I roll my eyes as I'm reading his books. His characters are flat, and some of his sentences are just weirdly bad, and there's usually at least a few moments in his plotting that he just clearly never bothered to think very hard about. But, I like trivia. I usually pick up some trivia I was unfamiliar with while reading his books. And he makes good use of the short chapter, quick cuts between different plot lines to keep the narrative going.

I was irritated by the unnecessary secretiveness of some of the characters in this one; there were several points were things were kept secret clearly just so the audience would keep wondering, but the narrative explanation for keeping those things secret was nonsensical. I think Brown could have come up with better ways of handling that. And, frankly, at the end, I was left with little understanding of why anyone cared what the villian was doing at all. I'm pretty sure no one else at any point thought his diabolical plan was an actual threat, so why not just give him what he wanted? Or why not have a character who seemed to think the madman's plan might have horrible consequences? There were enough people who bought into some sort of mumbo jumbo that someone could have believed crazy dude's plan would unbalance the universe, thus giving some validity to the whole flimsy plot.

But, whatever. I could complain about the details all day, but the point is I read through the novel right quick, and I got excited about a lot of the D.C. landmark mentions, so it was a successful read. I only wish he'd killed off the noetic science lady so we could have dispensed with some of the post-climax philosophical prattle. But, as I said before, whatever.(less) "

Joseph Green read and liked Becky's review of The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3):

"This book is both poorly written and impossible to put down.

I think that about sums it up. "