How to Train Your Dragon and How to Be a Pirate – First two books about the heroic misadventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, a viking in training of the Hooligan tribe. Picked them up because there’s an animated movie coming out next year and I wanted to catch the story. (And make a lens on it, yes.) Really enjoyed them. The art looks like something a kid (or me!) would draw and the stories are just plain fun. There’s humor that might go over the head of a kid but gave me quite a few chuckles.
Change the Way You See Yourself – Partner to previous book on asset-based thinking. Basically just applied it to three more areas. Maybe when I conquer the other three, I’ll come back to this one. 🙂 blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah bblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blalah blah
The Alternative Hero by Tim Thornton – First novel from this guy and made me feel like I really missed a lot of music in the 80s-90s. Decent book, not raving about it. Fascinated by the trip back into a world before the internet and even wide distribution of PCs and printers. Hard to remember the days when you couldn’t just ask all your Twitter friends for a recommendation.blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blahblah bla
The Draco Tavern – OK, I love short stories. I love Larry Niven. But this collection wasn’t working for me. Not that I didn’t love the stories, but … . Collecting all the ones about the same place just left me wishing for a novel rather than vignettes. You get tired of reading the description of the specific alien types every single time and the tavern just seemed ripe for more depth. Great setting and some interesting things raised for discussion, but possibly shouldn’t be taken in one sitting.
The Spiderwick Chronicles – We watched the movie recently and left it thinking that the book was likely better. And maybe if the book(s) were more than the movie, that would be the case. Finished the first book in an hour, got nothing more than was in the movie so am not proceeding to the rest of them. Maybe if I had read the books first, I would have been more impressed with them. (NOTE: this is one time when being an adult reviewing a kids book isn’t a good thing. These would be fabulous for the right kid.)
Lateral Thinking – had to abandon this one. Just wasn’t in the mood for what turned out to be a textbook. Could never focus enough to make it very far.
(All links above go to Amazon. Yes, I make money if you buy them, probably enough to stay in gum. The people annoyed by my gum popping do not thank you.)
Tarot Card Deck Mockup 
Pizza Truck 
Bus Bench Ad