Friday, October 9, 2009

Sept.14, 2009

Well, let me try and get to some lighter matters. Books I've read since my last book posting: Well, since I decided to do little mini-reviews, let me skip back to one I mentioned I'd read last week, but I didn't review:

To See every Bird on Earth, by Dan Koeppel : Non-Fiction. This is by a guy who is an outdoor adventure/cycling author normally, about his dad, who's been a doctor most of his life, but is one of the world's top bird "listers". For those of you who don't know, that's a birder (or "birdwatcher", if you want. But they - we, I guess, since I've always liked to watch wildlife, and I have begun tentatively birding and listing- like that term about as much as a football player would like being called a "feet-dude".) that keeps a list of each species they've seen in their lifetime. For North American lists, anything over 700 life birds is awesome; this guy has over 7,000 for the world. Only a few people have every seen that many (there's around 9,000 - 10,000 species in the world, depending on who you listen to, and there are certainly some that still haven't been discovered). Anyway, this is a story of his dad, and the author's attempts to understand his dad and his obsession with listing. It is excellent. Good story, very good human insight, plus it's a subject I like, so I rate it a 4.

I read a bunch of graphic novels at the public libraries over the lst week also, but I'm not going to try and list all of them, or rate most of them. I'll just mention them if I think they're worth mentioning. All-Star Superman was very good (rating= 5). So was Silver Surfer: Requiem (rating= 4). I've always been a big X-Men fan (used to have a big collection), and I try to keep up with them as much as I can via library graphic novel collections. I read the first four Astonishing X-Men g.n.s (I'd read the first two in the past), and continued to enjoy them. I'd give them as follows: vol.1 and 2, I'd rate as a 5; volumes 3 and 4, I'd rate as 4.

I also just finished a book Monday night:

Birdsong for the Seasons, by Don Kroodsma, 2009. It was interesting. Comes with 2 CDs, which I wasn't able to listen to, due to my circumstances. But I'd recommend it, if you like birds. I have another book of his, called Birdsong I think, and it's very good; I would give it a 5. He is kind of the guru of birdsong and audio-science when it comes to birds. I rate it: 3 (I may give it a higher rating down the road if I can listen to the CDs).

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