Friday Book Catchup

It's been awhile since I've done a book review so I figured I'd do one blog post to catch up on what I've been reading lately.

Business Books

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  Linchpin by Seth Godin is a must buy book. So people are looking for a blue print to follow to become successful, well this is it. Wonderful advice from Seth on overcoming your internal fears and becoming indispensable.
  
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  Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson is another must buy book. It is short but packed with great advice from the founders of the successful startup 37signals.
  
  
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  Crush It!: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk is a borrow. I was much more interested in the passion that Gary used building a family liqour store into a multi-million dollar business than the social media tools he used to do it.
  

Graphic Novels

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  Mysterius the Unfathomable is a fantastic book by Jeff Parker and Ottawa's own Tom Fowler. Mysterius is a real magician who everyone assumes is a scam artist. When an seance goes wrong hilarity ensues. This book is a must buy and not to be missed.
  
  
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  I recently re-read Grant Morrison's run on Batman including Batman and Son, Batman: The Black Glove and Batman R.I.P. I must say that it holds together much better when you read it all together as it is much easier to pick up on all the threads that Morrison is laying down. God help you if you were trying to keep it all straight on a monthly basis. I have to rate this series as a borrow. It is some good comics but not Morrisons best work.
  
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  Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality is the most meta piece of fiction I've read from Brian Azzarello. The basic conceit is that we follow Doctor 13 who runs around the world debunking supernatural and alien phenomenon. Which is nutty considering he lives in the DC Universe where this stuff really does exist. Humour abounds as Doctor 13 is continually confronted with real examples of supernatural phenomenon that he hilariously tries to debunk. The book is quite funny and you should borrow it if you can.
  
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  Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, Vol. 1 is one of the most ambitious books I've read in awhile. It is a re-imagining of a story line from Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy updated for our century. And I really have to say that artist Naoki Urasawa and writer Takashi Nagasaki really pull it off. Even though I've read the original story in Astro Boy I'm constantly surprised by the story and art of this book. I certainly is a worth predecessor of the Astro Boy legacy. Go ahead and buy it.
  

Science Fiction

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  Boneshaker by Cherie Priest was awesome. Told from alternating point of view of two characters, a mother and her headstrong son, we get an alternate history steam punk story about life in Seattle during the civil war. This book gets a buy rating from me and is available in audio book format read by Wil Wheaton and Kate Reading. Which means I may just have to buy it again!
  
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  I was pretty psyched up about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
  by Seth Grahame-Smith but ended up being a bit disappointed. The concept of a young Abraham Lincoln becoming a vampire hunter seems to write itself but I was a bit disappointed by the execution. This book is a borrow.
  

Young Adult

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  The Kane Chronicles, The, Book One: Red Pyramid is Rick Riordan's latest young adult series. In this book we are introduced to Egyptian mythologies. It is a worthy successor to the Percy Jackson series of Greece mythologies. I like how Riordan is teaching kids about various cultures and mythologies while entertaining them. This a good read for your 10 year old or older child. Buy it!