I Want To Go Home

I went to camp, once.
It was a five day affair in which I literally got 130 mosquito bites, was almost crushed by a falling tree, practically starved due to my picky eating, was nearly shot by an arrow, and almost froze to death.
It was not fun.
In fact, I was so homesick, so miserable, that I honestly considered taking off down the road and escaping. However, if I Want To Go Home taught me one lesson, it taught me that escaping camp is easier said then done. If it taught me two, then it taught me that Gordon Korman is awesome.
Admittedly, not all of Korman's books are great. I never liked the Swindle series, or the Dive books. (Also, you can't email him, you have to send a full out letter which is supposed to take three months to get to him and back!) However, when he gets them right, he gets them right! The Kidnapped and On The Run series, Schooled, and many other books of his are wonderful. However in my opinion, he only really struck gold with I Want To Go Home. Indeed, it's one of my favourite books of all time.
The book follows Rudy Miller; a stoic, literal boy with an incredible knack for seemingly everything. At the advice of his school's guidance department, Rudy is sent to camp Algonkian for the summer; perhaps, they think, he'll open up, ditch his constantly unenthusiastic attitude. Upon arriving, he meets Mike Webster, who, like Rudy, hates the camp. United by there dislike, they become friends. And although at first Mike participates in the camp activities, Rudy soon convinces him to take his way out; refusal to do anything.
 However there bunk warden, Chip, is less then enthusiastic about this idea. He tries to get the two involved in the activities going on; after all, there just homesick, and will soon snap out of it. Rudy and Mike have other plans. There obviously not going to be left in peace, and so they begin to hatch daring plans... escape plans. This, of course, will be difficult, especially since the camp is on an island far from the mainland. But Rudy is clever, and has more then a few tricks up his sleeve...
This book, as I've already mentioned, is wonderful. It's the funniest book I have ever read. No matter what I write here, I will not even get close to how wonderful the book is. So buy it. Read it. Study it. This book is amazing.

Thanks for reading,

-Mark

Gadgets

Hi again for another special episode of This Post Has Nothing To Do With Books. Yes, today I've decided to catch you up with some new features on the blog! After signing up for Google+ yesterday, I discovered "Gadgets" on the blog layout page. For those of you who don't know, gadgets are like widgets. For those of you who don't know what widgets are... Well, I don't really get what widgets are either. The best definition a friend could give me was "widgets are apps that you don't have to click on to view." If you are one of those few people who can actually give a good explanation of what widgets are, then please do so in the comments. In English please. I swear, I don't even know what a harddrive is, and everytime I ask someone they're to busy laughing to answer. But then again, perhaps you don't have to put the comment in English, because you can now use a gadget to translate this post, or any other post, into almost any language! (Even Japanese! For some reason thats my favorite language to translate to. The letters are just so different from the ones I am using right now.) You can find that one in the very bottom left corner of this page.
I also found a page view counter. Incidentally, I suspect that later today this blog will have a grand total of two million page veiws!... Wait, what was that?
Oh, sorry folks, it turns out I'm actually at two hundred page veiws. Oh, well...
There is also a gadget for surveys, and at the time of this posts posting you can find it in the upper right corner of the blog.
And last but not least, there is a Random google+ counter thingie!... No idea what that actually does, but oh well.
I was also extremely tempted by other gadgets you could get such as the daily puppy picture and the daily Harry Potter spell gadgets, but in the end I decided to turn those down. This is a blog about books, after all. But then again, those puppy pictures sure looked cute...
And that concludes today's episode of This Post Has Nothing To Do With Books. Thank you so much for reading and please leave a comment!

-Mark Jones

Fighting Fantasy

I think that if someone were attempting to merge video games and books without the use of electronics, the Fighting Fantasy series is about as close as that person would get. We have all seen this type of book before; a book where it is your decisions, as the reader, that determine the fate of the protagonist. These books can, at times, be cheesy. They can be infuriating when you read for two hours only to have your character meet a bloody end. They can also be addicting.
Have you ever had that moment when your watching a movie, and your sure that its a trap/she shouldn't trust him/the character is making the stupidest decision ever, but despite you yelling at the screen the character goes ahead and makes the mistake anyway? In my mind, books where you make the decisions for your character are the equivilent of making a movie character hear your advice. And that, to me, is pretty awesome.
The Fighting Fantasy series is, frankly, a series. Composed of 59 books in the original series, the books are written by multiple authors and, perhaps as a result, few are connected in any way. However, despite the abundance of books to choose from, I have yet to complete a single book. Whether the books are set in space, a dungeon designed to kill you, or in a mountain in which lives a powerful sorcerer, I am always killed within the hour.
These books are wickedly frustrating. At the beginning of the book, I generally have good scores that decide my character's strengths and weaknesses (there are three things that your character needs to make it through the book; high skill (to determine if he or she kills the monster or can make it across the hall without hitting a tripwire) high luck (to see if the boulder the tripwire sent tumbling down towards you misses you) and high stamina (to see if your character can survive being crushed by a ten-ton boulder). However, after an hour or so of cleaving my way through the monsters, my reserves of luck and stamina begin to run dangerously low. Then I decide to jump the pit instead of trying to find another way across the chasm, but this time my luck fails me and I'm sent hurtling to my death. And that is a typical Fighting Fantasy game book for me. And even if you do crawl your way through almost to the end, the writers always have something waiting for you at the end of the road. Almost every book, when you get to the final challenge, there is someone lurking at the end to finish you off. "Just through these doors," that person says with a sneer, "there is that magical object/a cheering crowd to congratulate you for surviving/whatever it is that you've spent the last three hours trying to get to. But to unlock the door, you must have collected three keys or a similar number of some other random item. If not, (and at this point the man guarding the exit pulls out a crossbow) then you will become my slave!" And at this point you put the book down because you know that the game is over.
And so I can see why you might give up on these books after awhile. However, if you like these sort of books, then I would definitely recommend the Fighting Fantasy series. It's an interesting concept that adds a twist to reading, that can entertain you for hours. In fact, if you have a child who dislikes reading, then this might very well be a good way to start them down the reading path.

As always, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you in the comments below! As well, if you haven't read my last post ('And Now... A Survey!'), please do and let me know what you think!

-Mark Jones

And Now... A Survey!

Hi again, all. I've been trying desperately to keep the reviews coming on a regular basis, however due to my slow reading and lack of new books that I care enough about to finish, I must admit that, on book reviews alone, I cannot post as much as I would like. And so today, I've decided to mix up my routine.
For a while now I have been wondering when I should release a review of my personal favourite book. However, I don't think that the moment is quite right. And so in the meantime, to set the mood, I present you with a survey; which book do you believe is the best book of all time?
Survey Rules
As there are an estimated 129 million different published books out there (according to Google in 2010), I obviously cannot make a "proper" survey on blogger, as it would take me a rather long time to write down all those titles for you to choose from. Instead you, the reader, will comment on this post (or any other post), what book you think deserves the top spot.
Now, I know that a lot of you will not be sure exactly what your favourite book is. Therefore, I will except up to three choices. You can rank these as your favourite, second favourite and third favourite, but all books mentioned will only get one tally regardless of there rank.
For this survey, I will rank the best books in the world- not the best series.
As for how long his survey will run for, I honestly couldn't say. It could be a month, it could be a year, or it could never end, with periodic updates on the rankings. Or, alternatively, it could be the first book to receive a certain amount of votes.  (Tell me when/how you think it should be decided in the comments below!)
No matter how the winner is decided, I'll be interested to see how this survey plays out (especially to see if my personal favourite does well). I'm sure that it will be a close contest, with many good books put forth. Until that time, however, I give you a sincere thank you for reading. See you next time.

-Mark Jones

The Book Of Awesome

The title says it all, really. Recently, I logged onto goodreads to see what others were saying, and was somewhat surprised by the results. Although The Book Of Awesome has been receiving considerable media attention, it could only obtain 3.9 stars (still a good score, but still...). Most reviews, as expected, were positive. However on the opposite end of the spectrum, the negative reviews were scything. Dan C said that The Book Of Awesome is "not really re-readable." Mr. "T" said that he "slogged through it across six months."  Eva said that the book was "sad... annoying and incredibly stupid." I say that these people have no soul.
Lets look at Eva's comment. She said that this book was "sad." I would just like to point out that this entire book revolves around celebrating the little "awesome" things in life that make life so wonderful. She also said that this book was "annoying." Although I suppose that constantly cheery, bubbly and optimistic attitudes could start to grate after too long, the writing in this book was so sincere, so relatable, that I could never get irritated by the writing. She also said that the book was "incredibly stupid." Well, if celebrating things like popping bubble wrap is stupid, then I don't know what isn't.
This book started out as a blog, 1000awesomethings.com, (I couldn't figure out how to make a direct link, but if you highlight the name and select "search with google" it will bring you one click away from the blog) and eventually became a best-selling book. This book is quite obviously modelled after the blog, with every awesome thing being essentially a copy of one of his blog posts. And so admittedly, you are not going to read this book from cover to cover in one go. However, if you are ever feeling down or are simply in the mood for a laugh, this book is the place to go. It's really incredible how many of the things in this book we take for granted, or that you had no idea other people also did. For example (and now comes what is inevitable for anyone reviewing this book; a list of there favourite awesome things); old, classic board games, the sound of ice cracking in a drink, cutting your sandwich into triangles, and the sound of rain on a hot sidewalk. And my friends, if these things aren't worth sharing and celebrating, then I don't know what is.
And now I ask you to remember Dan C, who posted on goodreads that The Book Of Awesome was not re-readable. And perhaps the chances of this mysterious Dan C actually finding this blog, then finding this post, and reading to the very end are one in 100 million.  However, Dan, if you are reading this right now, then I have something to say. The Book Of Awesome has to be the book I have re-read the most times out of my entire collection. I have never become tired of reading about friends saving me seats, or smiling at strangers, or friends with swimming pools. And I hope that someday everybody can appreciate all these wonderful things that we experience every day, without even realizing it. Truly, the best things in life are free.

-Mark Jones

If you'd like to hear Neil speak, use "search with google" on http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome to hear his speech at TED talks in 2010. As always, thanks for reading and leave a comment below!

Boys Own Stuff

When a book's pages fall out in chunks of 100 at a time, this can tell you three things; 1. The book was poorly made. 2. The book received constant attention and eventually fell apart from to much love. Or, 3, the owner is just a crappy owner and let harm come to his or her book. In my case with Boys Own Stuff, I believe it was a combination of the three. Now I know that at the moment you are probably ignoring the second point, and probably the first to a certain degree, and so I want to impress a point upon you. I do not intentionally let harm befall my books; on almost all occasions it was a simple mistake. For example, don't wrestle with your father when books are in the vicinity. Don't let your book and food come within one meter of each other. Never overlook the fact that backpacks, suitcases and messy lockers are death traps for book's covers. And of course don't huck books onto the floor or a bed. Follow all these rules, and you will be a better person then I am in the art of book preservation.
However I repeat that I still take good care of my books. Aside from the occasional ripped cover or stain, only two books of mine have all-out fallen apart. The Lord Of The Rings, in my defense, was something like thirty years old. As for Boys Own Stuff, I have already presented the reasons in the first sentence of this post. And if now you will ignore the first and third reasons, you will see that Boys Own Stuff was damaged mostly for one reason; it was a great book.
Boys Own Stuff is comprised of dozens of different guides on subjects that will lead you to "boyhood like it's meant to be." These range from "how to polish your shoes" to "build your own stomp rocket" to "SAS survival skills IV: finding and purifying water." as well as activities like these, the author included interesting stats such as those on fighter aces, and several entertaining stories. Perhaps one of my favorite features of the book is the section entitled "fifty movies every boy should see." As the title of the section implies, all the movies that I have so far seen I would recommend. If you are more into books then movies, however, lists of recommended books are also included. I however, was not to interested in most of the mentioned titles (ironic how I'm writing a book review blog and yet liked the movie list better...) and so couldn't tell you if the books mentioned truly deserve the spotlight. And perhaps that is the beauty of the book; I didn't care for that particular section of the book (or many others for that matter),  but I still found dozens of sections that I enjoyed reading and re-reading. This book has a medal in the mind of yours truly for the best travelled book in my collection; ever since receiving this book two or three years ago, I have not gone on vacation without Boys Own Stuff in tow.  It is truly indispensable. 8/10 stars.

-Mark

As always, thanks for reading and leave a comment below! You can contact me at m.jones10@hotmail.ca or in the commons if you have any questions. Thanks!

An Abundance Of Katherines

It never fails: when reading a book I am always the most likely to be interrupted when I am about to finish. The battle is raging at full swing, the character is about to make some deep philosophical discovery about themselves, or the mystery is about to be solved when, suddenly, someone comes stomping in and completely snaps my concentration. And then of course I can't recapture the moment, because by the time it takes me to get back in to mood of things you've already missed the crucial moment. I'm sure you can relate. It happened during The Fault In Our Stars. It happened during The Book Thief. And literally thirty minutes ago, it happened during An Abundance Of Katherines. (Twice in fact. In the last two(!) pages.) I mean sure, on most of these occasions there was good reason to interrupt me; I've been reading for an hour and a half on the toilet perhaps, or maybe it's just getting late. But still, you'll excuse my rant. To clarify, all you really need to take from that is I may not have fully comprehended all of the deep revelations that the main character, Colin, was making, and so my view of the book may be slightly diminished. Not to say that it wasn't a good book; quite the opposite in fact. But lets back it up here.
This story follows the aforementioned Colin; a child prodigy who longs to become a genius and, perhaps more importantly, not be forgotten when he dies- something I can personally relate to (the being remembered part only, I'm afraid...). For reasons mostly unknown (coincidence, he says, though this seems odd), Colin has only ever dated girls with the name Katherine. It is after a breakup with Katherine the 19'th that he, in an attempt to recover, takes a road trip across the United States with his happy-go-lucky friend Hassan. They soon find themselves in Gutshot, Tennessee, where Colin has his "eureka moment;" the idea of creating a mathematical formula that will predict the outcome of any relationship. This he hopes, will turn him from a prodigy into a genius. From someone who does what others have done and knows what others have known to someone who is the first to discover, the first to do. This proves to be just a little trickier then previously thought, however...
All in all, I was very satisfied with this book. It was short and entertaining enough so as not to drag on, but long enough so that I walked out satisfied with almost all loose ends seemingly tied down. I had heard that all of John Greens characters were similar from book to book, however I did not find this when comparing to The Fault In Our Stars. This book was funny, interesting, and overall simply well written. 8/10 stars.

-Mark Jones (well, he is the only person writing on this blog at the moment... :)

If you enjoyed this review or any on this site, it would mean a lot to me if you would leave a comment below. As always, thanks for reading and I'll be back as soon as I can.