Skip to content
I am always consuming books, whether they’re physical, digital or audio. Every month, I like to share a breakdown of everything I read, including the books I abandoned. I do this because it gives me an opportunity to introduce you to books you might not have had an opportunity to read while practicing the art of writing concise book reviews.
In January, I read 9 titles to completion, and started several others that I have yet to complete. Here’s what I read:
- Justice League Vol. 7: Darkseid War, Part 1 by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok
- Justice League, Volume 8: Darkseid War, Part 2 by Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok
- Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul by Hannah Anderson
- Nevertheless: A Memoir by Alec Baldwin
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
- Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
- Hal Jordan and The Green Lantern Corps, Volume 2: Bottled Light by Robert Venditti
- Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, Volume 3: Quest for Hope by Robert Venditti
- Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence For Every Believer by J. Oswald Sanders
I covered Spiritual Leadership earlier in January, in a post sharing several of my favorite quotes from the book, so I’ll leave that one at that. Here are my thoughts on the rest.
Books with pictures: wars, rumors of wars, and light shows
Justice League volumes 7 and 8 make up the core of the Darkseid War storyline that concluded Geoff Johns’ run on the title before the big Rebirth storyline kicked off. My goodness these are fun reads, the kind of big, don’t think too hard kind of stories that make make for great relaxation reading. Also, Jason Fabok (a fellow Canadian) is a mind-bogglingly good artist. Sweet goodness, his stuff is beautiful.
Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps volumes 2 and 3 were enjoyable reads exploring a big status quo shake-up (what if the Green and Yellow Lanterns—bitter enemies—actually teamed up?). Despite Hal Jordan’s name being in the title, the character doesn’t dominate any of these volumes, which is also nice. The series has a big cast, and it’s great to see that several are getting the spotlight.
Memoirs, humility, big data and punctuation
The remainder of my reading for this month was… eclectic to say the least. Eats, Shoots & Leaves is the best book on punctuation that you’re probably never going to read (but should). Truss dives into the history behind the marks we use so frequently, and frequently incorrectly, with many laugh-out-loud funny moments in every chapter. Once you read this, you’ll “never” use quote marks incorrectly again.[1. See what I did there?]
Nevertheless caught me by surprise, especially in its portrayal of Alec Baldwin’s insecurities and his views on divorce, which he calls child abuse (particularly the act of putting a child in the middle of it). It was a book that left me thinking, unsure if I actually liked it, but glad I actually read it all the same.
I almost didn’t finish Everybody Lies. The subject matter is interesting—the relationship between what we say on surveys and tell other people vs what we tell Google in our searches reveals that we’re all big fat liars about just about everything. Many of the examples the author uses are helpful, but he tends to spend too much time—way too much time—on people’s searches related to pornography. There was a lot of skipping that had to be done as a result (I don’t need to hear a seemingly endless string of profane search keywords to get the point). From a marketing perspective, it raises a lot of questions about the validity of survey data (in that it’s likely not trustworthy at all), but I’m sure there’s probably a TED Talk on the subject that you could watch instead of bothering with the book.
Finally, Humble Roots is a book I wish I’d read long ago. Hannah Anderson is a talented writer dealing with a subject that most of us have no business writing on (which is kind of the point). But where other writers might fail, she succeeds with a work that feels more like you’re sitting down for a chat over coffee than reading (or in my case, listening) a book. One note about the audio edition: the narrator continually butchers the pronunciation of “theologians,” and it will drive you mad.
That’s it for this month’s round-up. Do you find these posts helpful? Do you have a suggestion for a book for me or someone else to read or want to share what you’ve read? Connect with me on Twitter or Facebook and let me know!
Here’s a look at what I read in:
Pingback: What I read in August
Pingback: What I read in July
Pingback: What I read in June
Pingback: What I read in April
Pingback: What I read in May
Pingback: What I read in March
Pingback: What I read in February