Book Review: Autobiography

Katie January 23, 2015 0 Comments

Autobiography is the story of Morrissey.  I liked that this book had pictures throughout, I didn’t like that it didn’t really have chapters.  However it was really well written and flowed well despite there being no real breaks in the book.  The book talks about his time with The Smiths as well as his amazing solo career and everything in between.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

AUTOBIOGRAPHY (Penguin Classics; On Sale: October 28, 2014; $18.00; 480 pages; 978-0-14-310750-7) is iconic singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey’s life story from his birth on May 22, 1959 until the present day.

During his 26 years as a solo artist, Morrissey has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades and has achieved eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths). His songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others. In his autobiography, Morrissey details his childhood and young adult years in Manchester, the formation and split up of the seminal group the Smiths, of which he was a co-founder along with Johnny Marr and his life as a solo artist. Morrissey discusses his life in Los Angeles, where he spent several years, as well as discussing other cities he lived in, various tours and recording sessions.

An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv.

It has been said ‘Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.’

A #1 bestselling book for 5 weeks in a row in the U.K., where it broke the record for the fastest selling music memoir of all time, beating out Keith Richards’s Life.

Book Review: Veronica Mars: The Ten Thousand Dollar Tan Line

Katie January 23, 2015 0 Comments

Around the time when the kickstarter was going to get a Veronica Mars movie, creator Rob Thomas mentioned there was going to be a book series about Veronica coming out.  The first book is The Thousand Dollar Tan Line which I recently had the chance to read.  It picks up where the movie left off, so if you haven’t seen the movie but plan on it, I’d recommend watching it before you read the book.  If you don’t want to watch the movie first, you should still be able to follow along with the book, but may be spoiled if you want to go back and watch the movie later.

In this story, there is a missing girl that the city of Neptune hires Veronica to try and track down because there has been a tourism decline since her disappearance. She went missing while at the home of a drug cartel heir’s home, which of course gets Veronica suspicious.  Meanwhile, a second girl goes missing as well and it turns out that she is Veronica’s step-sister.  Despite the fact that Veronica hasn’t seen her Mom is years, she is determined to help her and her new husband (and son!) find the missing girl, Aurora.

Loved this book, love Veronica Mars and am looking forward to reading more and more in this series in the future!

I purchased this book for myself to read and thought that my readers would enjoy seeing a review. I received no free product and was not compensated or asked to write this review.

About the Book

From Rob Thomas, the creator of the television series and movie phenomenon Veronica Mars, comes the first book in a thrilling mystery series that picks up where the feature film left off. 

Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case.

Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is no simple missing person’s case; the house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica’s past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined.

In Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas has created a groundbreaking female detective who’s part Phillip Marlowe, part Nancy Drew, and all snark. With its sharp plot and clever twists, The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line will keep you guessing until the very last page.

Book Review: Sand Play

Katie January 23, 2015 0 Comments

Sand Play is a book all about sculpting sand, which is a special kind of sand that doesn’t dry out and can easily be molded.  It is also quick and easy to clean up and is reusable.  The book separates the projects bu their difficulty – which are ranked by 1-3 stars.  There are 6 1-star projects, 7 2-star projects and  3-star projects and instructions in the book.  There is also a lit of tools and supplies that would be beneficial to have. (The book also recommends that if you use any tools from the kitchen that you then continue to only use them for sand and not bring them back into the kitchen to be used for eating so keep that in mind!)  Each project has step by step photo instructions.  I’d love to try to make the crab or the monkey featured in this book!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

Sculpting sand is fun for kids of all ages — especially because the magical, mess-free material is easy to handle and can be used over and over again. This book features guidelines for using sculpting sand to create cute little creatures, including a crab, lizard, caterpillar, and monkey. Author Terry Taylor provides simple instructions and lots of colorful pictures for more than 18 projects, as well as plenty of helpful tips, including suggestions for tools and techniques.
Projects with one star are the easiest and ideal for beginners. Two-star projects are a little more complex, and the ones with three stars are the most advanced. Kids can build their sculpting expertise with simpler figures such as the clown, octopus, and butterfly and then move on to the frog, dragon, and peacock. Meanwhile, they’ll develop skills that will help them express their personal creativity.

Book Review: Psy-Q

Katie January 16, 2015 0 Comments

Psy-Q is a book full of quizzes, puzzles and experiments to see what your psychology IQ is.  I found this book to be a lot of fun to read, it starts with a Rorschach test which was pretty interesting. I’m not exactly sure what my picks mean but some of them were way off compared to what they said most others saw in the images!  I also learned that I rate medium to high in openness to experience (which means I’m curious and creative – I’d say that is true), medium high in conscientiousness (so I am organized and detailed. Not totally sure about that – I pay attention to detail but I am really not all that organized!), medium low in extroversion (I’m not the life of the party), medium in agreeableness and medium high in neuroticism (I’m an anxious worrier. Definitely true!)

It was fun to see how my answers with other situations compared to others who did the same tests and see how often I picked the wrong answer vs the right answer. This was a fun interactive book and if you have any interest in Psychology you should check it out.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

PSY-Q: Test Yourself with More Than 80 Quizzes, Puzzles, and Experiments for Everyday Life (A Penguin Original / on-sale: December 30, 2014 / 978-0-14-312620-1 / $15.00) by Ben Ambridge is Psychology 101 as you wish it were taught: a collection of entertaining experiments, quizzes, jokes, and interactive exercises.

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior: how and why people do absolutely everything that people do, from the most life-changing event such as choosing a partner, to the most humdrum, such as having an extra donut. Ben Ambridge takes these findings and invites the reader to test their knowledge of themselves, their friends, and their families through quizzes, jokes, and games. You’ll measure your personality, intelligence, moral values, skill at drawing, capacity for logical reasoning, and more—all of it adding up to a greater knowledge of yourself, a higher “Psy-Q.”

Take Dr. Ben’s quizzes to learn:

If listening to Mozart makes you smarter Whether or not your boss is a psychopath How good you are at waiting for a reward (and why it matters) Why we find symmetrical faces more attractive What your taste in art says about you

Lighthearted, fun, and accessible, this is the perfect introduction to psychology that can be fully enjoyed and appreciated by readers of all ages.

Book Review: Kid Presidents

Katie January 16, 2015 0 Comments

Kid Presidents tells all about the president’s lives when they were kids. Well, there aren’t specifically stories about all of the President’s in the book, but there is at least one mention of each of them with some sort of factoid.  There are stories about how Grant was told by his father to trade for a horse – that he could spend up to $25 but try to get it for $20 but he ended up telling the guy he was getting the horse from he was allowed to spend up to $25 – guess how much the horse cost? Yup. $25.  George Washington never said “I cannot tell a lie.” Teddy Roosevelt made his own museum. Sometimes bad kids turn out to be good presidents. JFK once changed a “No Dogs Allowed” sign to a “No Hot Dogs Allowed” sign.

A great book geared towards Children to teach them more about our President’s and maybe help them realize that they are not all that different from themselves and that maybe they too can one day be President of the United States.

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review. I was not otherwise compensated.

About the Book

The kids who grew up to be president were like a lot of other children. Some struggled with schoolwork and got into fights; others pranked their teachers and infuriated their parents. William Howard Taft was forced to take dance lessons. Gerald Ford struggled with dyslexia. Teddy Roosevelt had a bedroom “museum” full of dead animals. Kid Presidents features 20 captivating true stories from the childhoods of American presidents, complete with lively text and more than 200 cartoon illustrations. Laugh-out-loud funny and packed with cool facts, it’s the perfect read for all young future leaders of the free world.