3 Books Belatedly Out of Order

I read What's the Difference? once again by mental_floss! I love these books. They are so funny and clever. I will most certainly have to order more of them (I just got another $25 gift card to Amazon. I love hospital surveys that you can get free stuff for. Though, I suppose, after shelling out $1,200 a day for months, it's not all that much trouble to send me a small gift card.)

WtD explained the differences between similar things (like Manet & Monet, Pool & Snooker, Plato & Aristotle, Idiot & Moron, Lager & Ale, Samurai & Ninja, etc.) and gave a little bit of a back-story to each word/concept in addition to a "quick trip" for remembering the difference. Oh, and "People You Can Impress" with each piece of information. So yeah. It was funny and educational. Read it.


Three Willows by Ann Brashares. Ugh. I gave this book to my mom for her birthday. I am a terrible daughter. She enjoyed the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series (written by the same author), so I picked this up at Barnes & Noble (which might be sold. wah.) for her. It was completely aimed at a middle school audience though, and not an intelligent middle school audience either. It tells the story of three thirteen-year-olds the summer before they enter High School. They live in the same town as the now legendary sisterhood, but they themselves, although they were once friends, are no longer close. The story shifts perspective between the three girls throughout the stories (reminding me far too much of the "Full House: Stephanie and Michelle" books that I read in 1st grade).

Girl 1: Ama, the stereotypical smart girl goes to a wilderness enrichment camp (although she'd much rather go to science camp... or something) and then has to deal with feeling incompetent, not being allowed to keep her hair products, and having to share a tent with a slut. Oh, and she has a crush on a guy, but is far too shy to talk to him. But she, ya know, eventually overcomes all of her fears, rappels down a mountain and texts the cute boy. Yay for her.

Girl 2: Polly is an awkward girl with a mother who never pays attention to her and a father whom she doesn't know. She decides to be a model, develops a very brief and very stereotypical eating disorder, but then starts eating again because she sucks at modeling and wants her life and her stomach to be "full" again. (I'm dead serious. Almost all of her parts in the book try far too hard to make the diet a metaphor for life. It's just overly clichéd, overly stressed, and overly forced. It's awful.)

Girl 3: The only one I was even remotely interested in reading about. Jo was basically a complete slut [she made out with a guy on a bus before she spoke to him, which I guess is cool... if you're into that (note: if the guy/girl is sufficiently attractive, I'm not saying this is awful of anything... )]. Anyway, she makes out with this guy all summer, hangs out with cool older kids (because she's 13 and snogging a high schooler) and completely ditches her true friends. But then the guy has a girlfriend, there's drama including broken wine glasses and Jo decides that her relationship with her divorcing parents and her relationships with Ama and Polly are the really important things in life.

Shoot me.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking was extremely interesting. But, even though it was written for an audience of lay people, I was still slightly confused at times. I found it really valuable and interesting (Gawd... I have to stop using the words "really" and "interesting" in these blog posts. This is getting excessive). I was planning on rereading it (which I may still do), but then I found a great book on Hawking written in comic form. I started reading that, and it makes things so much easier. I think just hearing the theories a second time helps. I don’t have much more to say in this post. Read it if you like physics and want to be educated on time and space and shtuff.