Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (#4) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the one with both the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament. Mad-Eye Moody might be my favorite Hogwarts professor ever even if I also feel like I don't actually know him.

The second challenge in the Triwizard Tournament makes me cry. I'm a total sap!

Goblet of Fire is like 2016. It's when things get dark. When all the (anti-muggle and mudblood) racism comes back out of the shadows, and innocent people pay the price. I'm glad that Rowling has prepared a generation for this.

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Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Our May book club selection. I found the first half pretty boring despite of or because of how beginning spoiled the end, but I enjoyed the end a little more. Still, it was a little predictable, and didn't have a lot of deeper literary value.

It's interesting though that a lot of research went into the book to make both the experience of working on a circus and the actual elephant realistic. I respect that.

I also agree with my dad that the book could have used "more elephant."

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The Game by Neil Strauss

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is super weird. It's both interesting and gross. Like rubbernecking.

The book starts heavy on the gross side by following a group of sad pickups artists that basically gamify the ability to pick up women with great success. It's a little rapey though the author repeatedly gives women a chance to back out of any sexual contact and gives the "target" women a chance to say no or leave. But the rapey tactics include (from least to most): deception, psychological tricks, and hypnosis (?!).

But then the book starts to interest us in the individuals' problems and neuroses. Plus all the psychology is interesting even if I spitefully don't want it to be. The author also dishes on a number of celebrities he met while working his regular journalism job during this time period.

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Anastasia by Carolyn Meyer

Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess, Russia, 1914 by Carolyn Meyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this simplified look at Russian history through the eyes of a young child.

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The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Total weirdness. Made very little sense in the beginning. The issue of the daemons was pretty straightforward, but "dust" still basically makes very little sense. Eventually, the other characters explained to Lyra (and to me) what was going on but I wasn't that impressed by then.

I like that this takes place in an alternate universe that acknowledges the possible existence of ours. The story seems like it would be especially fun if you first read it as a child. I also like that this is the anti-Narnia series (though I did love Narnia).

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Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hsieh sounds like a lot of fun. I appreciate that he considered his career in terms of greater life satisfaction, and did some reading on the topic. I appreciate that he also applied these principals to his employees and clients. He's done a great service to business in this country, and I hope the trends he's created continue to grow.

The book could definitely have used a ghostwriter though. Some parts just seemed extraneous or annoying... the sections on raves or his apartment, for example.

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Poor Economics by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I actually took an edX course about this topic and read the book as part of the course, but most of the lectures are covered in this book. Although this book is primarily about solving problems in developing countries, and all of the examples deal with India specifically, the way of analyzing problems and testing solutions really changed the way I think about social and political problems in this country. We need to stop philosophizing, guessing, and bickering and just do case studies of possible solutions.

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (#3) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

(#3) This one is much better than the second one. It has a lot of moving parts and interesting and developed new characters. I recently reread this and seeing Snape's intentions in the correct light is really interesting.

Favorite parts: discussions about Hogsmeade, Lupin, Scabbers, Sirius Black, Hermoine's school schedule, the introduction of Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang, the Hippogryph, and of course the map!

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Virtual Book Club- May 2013

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

In case you want to follow along with us, our May book club selection is Water for Elephants. We talk about it on Google+ Hangouts at the end of the month. Let me know if you want to join us.

Since I started this blog, this is the first book I'm reading (finally!) that my dad actually read. He read it shortly after I asked him to join Goodreads, and his review of it was, "Needs more elephants." I love you, dad.

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The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jaime, Michele, and I started a virtual book club, and Michele picked this for our first book in April. [Lot's of spoilers below.]

Here's what I liked: he tried to write a book about male platonic love. Not friendship, but love. He contrasted it to male romantic love, though he didn't necessarily do a great job with that, maybe because it was unclear if one of the gay characters was actually gay, and their was no part of the book from the perspective of the actually gay character. The least compelling relationship was the heterosexual romantic love which seemed opportunistic at best.

I also liked how he layered Moby Dick, and the fictional book that President Affenlight wrote about Moby Dick, and the fictional book called The Art of Fielding. Male platonic love, obsession, and introspective panic are all layered on top of each other.

Harry is infinitely more interesting after he starts freaking out. The line about how he expected life to improve little by little, but that that was not reality could have been my own diagnosis, and has stayed with me.

I also like Pella eating her earrings, because why not?

Here's what I didn't like. There's some problem with the pacing of this book, it goes very very slowly for the first 60% or so of the book, and then it moves quickly and somewhat unbelievably towards the end. My biggest problem with the plot is that Schwartz forgives both Harry and Pella. In real life, I think he could forgive one of them, either one, depending on how passionately he felt for one or the other, but not both.

The ending also felt like forced drama. Otherwise, no one is forgiven, nothing in particular happens, and everything just ends. But the baseball ending was forced drama enough- the rowboat scene is just too much. Oh look at us! Our friendship is so deep that we can rely on each other to grave rob! Sure.


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