The Woman Who Died a Lot: A Thursday Next Novel, Book 7 by Jasper Fforde
The book is filled with literary puns and indirect political commentary. There are "smitings" happening from some diety. The Goliath Corporation has some scheme and way to benefit. There are some history from librarians and sushing. All this comes together in a detective story that, alas, is not terribly engaging.
Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's Eyeballs by Gina Keating
Netflix was founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings in the late 1990s. They had worked at a software company together that was acquired by IBM. Randolph was the primary force behind the initial idea and wanted to do something Amazon with video. Netflix was somewhat lucky that the potential competitors like Amazon and Blockbuster were inept, allowing Netflix to grow. An "activist investor" was busy trying to pull money out of Blockbuster preventing them from putting enough money into the DVD delivery operation to compete with Netflix. Blockbuster also had to struggle with the possibility of cannibalizing their existing store's revenue model - including the reliance on late fees. Netflix had optimized fast delivery of DVDs through the mail system to locations where their customers were. This seemed simple, but was difficult for others to copy. This book was written more than a decade ago, so only touches the surface of the pivot to streaming. Netflix did not do things perfectly, but was able to learn from mistakes and pivot to continue succeeding.
The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman
Most people stick with the things they learned when they were young. However, facts decay and become irrelevant after time. Each type of "fact" has a different half-life. Scientific facts change as we learn more. A doctor that only stuck with what they learned in medical school would likely be treating people in very outdated ways. (People were once treated with "bleeding". Cigarettes were once considered healthy.) Continuing education is needed to stay current. It is impossible to know everything. Why waste brain space with outdated facts? It takes effort to keep our general knowledge up to date with current facts.
My First Book of Korean Words: An ABC Rhyming Book of Korean Language and Culture by Henry J. Amen Iv and Kyubyong Park, illustrated by Aya Padrón
This is an "ABC" book of Korean words. The only catch is that the romanization of Korean does not include all the letters. Thus some of the words are English with a Korean translation, such as "F is for flying - nalda". Other words use less popular romanization "G is for gimchi", though most of us would think of it as kimchi. They do have downloads of the words. However, the bulk download did not work properly and the individual words were each in a single file. It did work, but it could be a bit painful. The book was not bad, but kids did not seem too interested.
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Nations succeed when they adopt inclusive government. They fail when the leaders adopt extractive policies. The rest of this book provides examples to prove this thesis and poke holes at other theories of prosperity. Leaders can enrich themselves by extracting all they can for themselves. (One example had Mugabe even winning the lottery in Zimbabwe.) The extraction comes at the expense of general prosperity of a country. Strong institutions can help prevent rulers from extracting too much for themselves. However, they must be strong enough to prevent leaders from changing them even when a leader has popular support. Spanish colonization was built on extraction. Colonies that are built on extraction (such as Spanish or slave colonies) often continue this mindset well after the colonizers have left. Inclusive governments are often democracies, but all democracies are not fully inclusive. There are plenty of democratically elected rules that seek to extract value for themselves. (Is the United States moving more towards that direction?) China has been able to pivot to prosperity by opening up enough while still maintaining communist control. Many poor countries receive huge amounts of aid, yet fail to achieve prosperity. Much of the aid is consumed in overhead and waste, with much of the remaining aid used to enrich the ruling party (either directly or indirectly). Moving to inclusion is the key to maintaining prosperity, but it is hard to do.
Korea: The Impossible Country by Daniel Tudor
There are surprisingly few histories of South Korea in English. Most of those that do exist focus on the Korean war of North Korea. South Korea meanwhile has grown from almost nothing to be a significant economic power. Korea has been occupied by various other powers, with Japan and China both exerting influence. Japan was in the process of wiping out Korean language and culture, and may have wiped out "Korea" had it won World War II. In the Korean war, Korea was a proxy in the West vs. Communism cold war. At the end of the cold war, the country was torn apart and extremely poor. South Korea successfully used import substitution and built up a significant economy. Seoul became a great city. The tight knit, hard working Korean culture has helped to build up the economy. The big conglomerates such as Samsung have been able to compete on the global market. They would often copy, but do things better. Today, Korean media is another popular export. There are still challenges. Korea has a high suicide rate. People work and study for long hours. The outcomes may be good, but other places have achieved similar outcomes with significantly less effort. The book is a good introduction to Korea and their history from ancient times to today.
Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage
A girl does not know who her parents are. She currently lives with "The Colonel". He found her in a river one stormy day. He does not know how he got there and has no memory of his life prior. They live in a rural area of North Carolina, somewhere near Winston-Salem. Things get interesting when a detective comes into town investigating a murder. Later, somebody is killed also. The girl and her friends decide they will help in the investigation. (In part out of guilt because her friend was returning a boat to the man shortly before he died.) The investigations end up merging, and it is discovered that the Colonel was once a lawyer and worked on the case of the murders (who were also robbers.) His former fiancé was the lady in town, who had hoped he would regain some memory. It is an interesting look at small town life and a good detective story in one.
Bean's older sister is going to camp where she gets to do lots of fun things. Ivy and Bean decide they will have their own camp. They will be the counselors and do fun things too. They get some of the neighborhood kids (even boys!) to join them in the camp. They have fun, but it is a lot of work. It is amazing that they manage to stick to it and have fun in the process. The follow-through is perhaps the least believable part of the book.
The Bell Bandit by Jacqueline Davies
Grandma's house has burned down. They try to make the trip out there similar to what it has been, but it is not the same. The boy ends up helping the handyman to fix it. The girl becomes friends with an autistic boy next door. They try to find what happened to the missing bell that is always rung at new years. They also work have some encounters with the "bad boys" who they see torturing frogs. Grandma occasionally loses her mental capacities. One time they find her outside in a teepee in the snow, thinking it was a bus stop taking her to class. The boy pretends to be from the bus company to get her back. By new years, they have discovered the bell - the autistic boy had hid it at his house to keep the mean boys from taking it.The characterizations of the autistic boy and the senile grandma feel too stereotyped.
Nancy's friend invites her and her doll over for a tea party. Nancy wants her doll to poor also and in the fight the teapot breaks. They get mad at each other and go home. Nancy learns that she should apologize even though it was an accident. She does, the friends cry and all is well again. It is a good message for little kids of taking responsibility and caring. The book has a number of "big words" that are explained which seems to be part of the character's style. The illustrations seem quite busy.
Calvin Coconut lives with his mom in Hawaii. He has not seen his dad in years. His father's music career has taken off. He now has a hit song and will come to tour in Hawaii. Calvin will get some front row tickets to share with his friends. The bully wants one of the tickets. There is also a girl who wore a shirt of his father's band before anybody knew Calvin was related. He decides to give the girl one ticket, but then renigs out of fear of the bully. He later gets an out by giving it to a girl that the bully liked and helping them to get together. He then gets his dad to give him backstage passes to take the girl he reneged on. The story takes numerous twists and turns. At times I felt like screaming out at thim for doing stupid things. Eventually he did make good decisions and everything worked out.
The Boxcar Children Beginning: The Aldens of Fair Meadow Farm by Patricia MacLachlan
This Boxcar Children prequel was written almost a century after the original. The kids were living happily on the farm with their family. A family has car trouble and comes to stay with them. They become friends and work together to put on a circus, complete with "elephants". The kids are sad when the part to fix the car arrives and they must part. The kids also work together to make buns for their parents to take to the market. Then the book suddenly ends with them hearing from the police that their parents have died in a car crash and they must find family to live with. The book is a fine story on its own, but the linkage to the death of parents and the first Boxcar children book feels artificially tacked onto the end.
This retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk is fairly faithful to what I remember of the story. Jack gets the magic beans, they are discarded, but end up making a great beanstalk. He climbs up to the sky, and with the help of the giant's wife, is hidden away. He grabs the gold and ets away. After the gold runs out, he goes back and gets the golden goose. This time he chops down the beanstalk and the giant disappears. Why was the giant's wife so nice to him - especially the second time around when she knew the gold disappeared?
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by James Dean (Illustrator), Eric Litwin (Author)
I am not a big fan of Pete the Cat and it's aesthetic. In this book, Pete's buttons fly off one by one. There is a simple math problem to identify how many are left. After they are all gone, he finds his belly button. I guess the easy math may be appealing?
Huggy Kissy by Leslie Patricelli
A toddler asks for hugs and kisses and gets them from normal and unexpected sources. This is a fun book to read with small little ones.
The Council of Mirrors, Sisters Grimm #9 by Michael Buckley
The Sister's Grimm series ends with a marriage, so that makes it a Shakespearean comedy, right? It starts with a prophecy that the sisters are the ones to defeat the Scarlet Hand. At first, they try to rely on others, but then they realize that they must be the ones to lead. They make some plans, and seem to have some success, but there are various spies involved. They realize that somebody has put them in the story, which is the true path to success. Since the Grimms are now in the fairy tales, their brother's body will not allow mirror to escape fairy land. They end up defeating the bad guys with love and all live happily ever after - with a marriage as a coda. It feels an appropriate ending to a fairy tale book.
Cinder: Book One of the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
I had earlier read the second and third books in the Lunar Chronicles series and did not care for them much. This one did seem much better. It is a "Cinderella" story, set in a futuristic earth. Lunar people have special powers, but also carry a disease to which they have immunity that is deadly for earthlings. Cinder is the Cinderella character who lives with her cruel guardian and her daughters. She is a cyborg human who had suffered a bad accident when she was long and had many parts replaced. She can't remember any pre-Cyborg life. She works in android repair. The prince comes in to have one of his androids repaired. She does a great job and the prince falls for her, but she rejects his overtures. Her guardian mother has no desire to support her and is glad to enroll her in a trial to help cure the disease. There she discovers that she has immunity and later learns more - she is actually Lunarian. The prince's dad has died and the prince is set to be ruler. The Lunar queen has come to take his hand in marriage. However, he really likes Cinder. Meanwhile Cinder escapes from her family, but discovers the Queen's evil plot and saves the kingdom, but has to spill her state has a Lunar Cyborg to the prince. She also later finds that she is royalty. The story is told in a quick moving, light tone.
Drama: A Graphic Novel by Raina Telgemeier
This graphic novel is set in middle school, but feels much more like high school. It centers around a drama production at the school. The protagonist, a seventh grade girl, is in charge of set design. She likes a baseball player, and kisses him when he says that he broke up with her girlfriend. But, then he doesn't want to have much to do with her. For the play, a set of twins come to try out for the play. They are both good singers. One is outgoing and willing to try out. The other is shy and ends up on crew. The outgoing boy is out gay, The girl gets a crush on both of them. She hopes the other will invite her to the 8th grade formal. The protagonist spends a while trying to get a cannon to work on stage. The performance seems to go well until the final show. The lead female broke up with her boyfriend and got tripped up on stage in the middle of the performance. The alternates are nowhere to be found. Suddenly, the shy twin ends up in drag in the leading lady role. (He had practiced the female parts with his brother when trying out.) He completes the part, even kissing the leading man at the end. Later at the formal, the girl goes with the boy, but he ends up ditching her to go with another boy. She later finds another drama boy that really likes her. It can be difficult keeping the characters apart. Some of them look and act quite similar. It does feel like way to much relationship drama for middle school.
