Alice In Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Sadly I purchased this book for my 21st birthday; I've had it for quite some time and just never got around to reading it. Since there is a new Alice in Wonderland movie is in the works and set for release in 2010 I decided it was time to finally read this book. I also watched the SyFy Alice mini-series, which was much better than I expected, made the desire to see the original story just a little bit greater.


Basically this book is crazy. You jump from one place to the next at the author's whim and nothing is ever fully explained. I'm sure if I felt like looking up an explanation for the insanity between these covers I'd have a better understanding of what happened, but I'm lazy and doubt I'll get around to it. But it's still a good book to read if only to touch on a classic or put the Disney version in a better perspective.

Dragons and Dwarves

Dragons and Dwarves: Novels of the Cleveland Portal by S. Andrew Swann

A shorter book than my last selection, but no less full of its own world. This 436 page book is actually 2 novellas in one. The first titled Dragons of the Cuyahoga, second The Dwarves of Whiskey Island.

The main character is a political journalist in Cleveland named Kline Maxwell. Sounds boring right? This is actually one of the more suspensefull and action filled books I've read in a while. I'd get rather grumpy when I was interupted while reading this because the action is so constant.

The world in this book is an alternate reality where a portal has opened up in Cleveland where dragons, elves, unicorns, and anything else magical that comes to mind has leaked out into our world. The entire history and how the portal came into being is very well explained in the book and is very well thought out.

Name of The Wind

Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

It took me around 2 weeks to finish this one seeing that I no longer have the time to kill at work that I once had. I did end up spending a lot of time on my days off reading it because it's a good book, and because Alex lent out his PS3 controller and I couldn't play assassin's creed 2.


The book follows the life story of a legend among men named Kvote who begrudgingly agrees to tell his story over 3 days. This book is day 1. It covers his childhood, early teachers, and beginnings of his formal education. The larger story that is going to carry you through the next two books is started and there are hints of things to come that make the anticipation of the next book high.

I've discovered that long book (at least 500 pages) tend to have a more complete world in their covers. This book has songs, language, magic, and a long history completely thought out between its covers making the story far more enjoyable. While it looks like a daunting task to make it through a book that long the easy movement of the story and the richness of the world that it takes place in makes the task feel easy leaving you longing for the next installment or wishing that this book was longer.
Overall though it's a very good book and I'm looking forward to the second one in the series, but that's not coming out until August of 2010 much to my dismay. So if one has the patience for a book over 700 pages I strongly suggest picking it up.

A promise to myself.

I read too much. Probably too much for my own good, must less anyone else's as well. It drives the people around me nuts that I go through as many books as I do and so quickly. So with the start of 2010, if not a little early, I am going to start posting a blog that will make me do more than just read a book.


I will give a quick summary (hopefully not something that spoils it for others) and my opinion of the book. Doing this should at least allow me to keep track of how many books I read, since I really have no clue how many books I went through in 2009. I'm not sure if anyone will read this, but doing this is really for me more than anyone else.