christianreader | August Books and RPGs

Time Riders: The Doomsday Code
by Alex Scarrow

I'm really close to giving up on this series. This one has the Time Raiders going back in time to search for the Holy Grail, which may have a message on it just for them. This one was super convoluted and way too complicated for its own good. 2/5

Time Riders: The Eternal War
by Alex Scarrow

Yup, done with it. Great potential wasted. 2/5

Worth Dying For
by Lee Child

This time Reacher encounters a domestic violence victim and eventually a family that has a small Nebraska town in its grip. Reacher brings justice for the long-suffering townsfolk and solves a 20 year old mystery in the process. Only 4 or 5 more books to go in this series! : ( I rarely re-read books but I may very well come back and restart this series in a few years. 4/5

Inferno
by Dan Brown

So sometimes while I'm reading a book I'll be writing these little reviews in my head (I do this with Yelp reviews when I'm at a restaurant too). Halfway through this book I was all ready to give it a 2/5 and say something like “This was my first Dan Brown book and will probably be my last” but as it got towards the end I warmed up to it a little more. This one is about a zealous doctor concerned with world overpopulation who tries to release a virus. It took place in Italy and the doctor was an obsessive fan of Dante; I got a little sick of all the Inferno references and history. I also got super tired of “Main character entered the cathedral. The such and such cathedral was built in 1497 by blah blah blah. Then 50 years later this happened. Then 122 years later this happened. Then it was turned into a fish market. Then it was cleaned up and now it's a mall...” Wayyyyyy too much bakground and no enough action, especially in the first half. I'm not going to run out and read more of his stuff, but if someone lobs another book at me I'd probably read it. 3/5

One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey "the Kid" Ungar, the World's Greatest Poker Player
by Nolan Dalla

Stu is one of, if not the most, interesting characters in poker and gambling history. He is considered the best poker player ever, but poker wasn’t even his best game! His best game was gin rummy, but he was so good at it no one would play him. All of his action dried up when he took on the guy who was considered the greatest gin rummy player in the world at the time…and beat him 81 games to 0. The guy never played competitively again. Stu’s poker exploits were equally legendary. But he was the very definition of “degenerate gambler” and couldn’t keep it together in his personal life. He struggled with drugs, especially cocaine, for years before succumbing at the age of 45. It’s a fascinating story; it’s also a shame he died before the “poker boom”. Who knows what he could have done nowadays and how big of a poker celebrity he’d be. Can you imagine him against Phil Ivey? Or Stu Ungar on High Stakes Poker? It’s fun to think about, and this book was fun to read. 4/5

Airframe
by Michael Crichton

Dad had this book laying around and after reading The Great Train Robbery I was anxious to read more of Crichton’s work. Now it’s official: I’m a fan. I had no idea what this book was about going into it; I didn’t even read the back cover. Turns out it’s about an airplane accident and the subsequent investigation/cover-up/media coverage. The story focuses on Casey Singleton, a single mom who is in charge of the investigation and is being set up to take the fall for the accident. I knew from the very beginning what actually happened in the accident, but it didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the story. There was a fair bit of technical detail and “airplane talk”, but having worked in the aerospace industry I was at least familiar with a lot of it. Heck, I shipped a lot of the products they talked about! Fun read and I’m looking forward to reading more of his work. 4/5

Books for August: 6
Books for 2015: 48