Week Twenty Eight: I Am Number Four

I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore, is not by Pittacus Lore. It's the brainchild of James Frey (The kind of discredited author of A Million Little Pieces) and an unknown writer. The project was to get unpublished writers, collaborate on new works and get them out in the market place.

This book was optioned for a movie before it was even on the shelves, and I can see why. 300 odd pages of fun and predictability, but in a good way.

Reminiscent of Roswell, The Powers of Matthew Star and plenty of other books - this is escapaist fun suitable for teens.

There are zero surprises, pages of cliches and even a few digs at modern morality. It's also a wish fulfillment exercise for one of the authors, bullies being vanquished, the hero secretly being faster, stronger, brighter than everyone else - but hiding it.

Pure teen fantasy.

Week Twenty Seven: Sex, Bombs & Burgers by Peter Nowak

Sex, Bombs & Burgers: How War, Porn and Fast Food Created Technology as we know it - by Peter Nowak is a book that delivers pretty much what you see on the cover.

Week twenty seven and into the second half the year with a light weight science and history book which details how the big three of Porn, War and Food made waves, created innovation and generally re-purposed a whole bunch of stuff that became a bunch of whole other stuff. Some of this I knew, DARPA and the ARPA Net - which is how the internet was born, and microwaves came from RADAR etc...

There's also a bunch of stuff I didn't know, like how Barbie was based on a German sex toy, Playboy centerfold Lena was the test subject for JPEG and GIF type file format engineering and plenty of other interesting facts.

The book is essentially a bunch of interesting facts but lacked a single coherent narrative to join it all together except the recurrance of the big three - which is not much of a theme.

Next week I might talk about Kelvin, because we need to...

Week Twenty Six: How to Win a Cosmic War by Reza Aslan

How to Win a Cosmic War: Confronting Radical Religions by Reza Aslan. This is one of those books that gave me an epiphany when reading it. Like Guns, Germs and Steel and Ender's Game - I'd have to rate this as one of the best books I have ever read.

A few weeks ago I thought that Reflections by Tony Judt would be the most clear and logical representations of history, politics and religion, until I read this book.

I saw this book reviewed on the Daily Show and found it by accident in the Whitcoulls closing down sale and I'm glad I gave into the impulse and bought and read it.

It deconstructs the history of Islam, Judaism and Christianity and ties all three up in the same bounds and cords, in a way that was both unbiased and unforgiving and yet incredibly precise.

I was given a very religious education and know quite a lot about the "facts" and "myths" and history. But this book is the first time I have had a conversation with myself about what I believe without someone trying to sell me the alternative. Instead it reminded me that I have grown and no longer accept certain things. Not about the existence of god, or the truth of a religion, but simply put there is no excuse for the killing of children.

I am impressed.

I'm also halfway through my year at 26 weeks, 26 to go.

Next week either a science book or a book about Porn, Burgers and Bombs.