"The Greenlanders"

The Greenlanders (Jane Smiley)

I feel bad not being able to get into this book; it's got excellent reviews, but when it came time to actually crack it open, I barely made it ten pages. I've read that it's supposed to be in the style of a Norse saga, but for me I just found it to be horribly dry, written in snore-inducing this happened, then that happened style. Here's a little taste (page 233):

Another thing that happened after this hunger was that Bjorn Einarsson Jorsalfari declared his intention of remaining year round at Thjodhilds Stead, which was in Kambstead Fjord, at the back of Hvalsey Fjord, instead of spending part of the year at one farm an part of the year at the other, for he hadn't enough men to make something of both farmsteads, and he preferred the location of Thjodhilds Stead, for it gave his ships easy access to the sea but also to Gardar and Brattahlid. For this reason it happened that Gunnhild Gunnardottir would be within a day's walk of her own home when she went to stay with Solveig for the summer...

Did you follow that? I didn't, because I fell asleep halfway through it. Maybe I've just read too many fast-paced novels, but it takes so long for anything to happen that I couldn't stop my attention from drifting away. I'm sure a more patient reader can find a lot to enjoy here, but for me it's going regretfully in the donation pile.

Grade: D

"The Damnation of Pythos"

The Damnation of Pythos (David Annandale)

I'll cut right to the chase here: This is not a good book. There's enough material here for a middling short story, and stretched out to novel length, it's a real slog; I only finished it out of some misplaced sense of devotion, and it was a struggle not to skip pages as nothing happened for the middle 80% of the book. Most of this is waiting for something to happen, which is exactly as thrilling as it sounds; when it does finally kick off at the end of the book, it turns into a long, sub-par action scene that just kind of fizzles out. I can't even recommend this to 40k superfans; there's much better books to spend your time and attention on.

Grade: D-

"The Dark Knight Manual"

The Dark Knight Manual: Tools, Weapons, Vehicles & Documents from the Batcave

Almost exactly what it says on the cover; this is a book about the, uh, tools, weapons, and vehicles Batman uses in the Christopher Nolan movies. The star of the show is actually the "documents" of the title, which are neat feelies (think of the letters from Griffin & Sabine, if you've ever read those); being able to flip through the police report on the Joker or Harvey Dent's hospital file is really neat.
My only caveat is that there's not a ton of material here; the MSRP of $40 is just a bit much, working out to $20 an hour if you're a slow reader (I finished the entire book in two bathroom breaks). Pick it up if you see it in the bargain bin, otherwise it's a little tough to recommend.

Grade: B

"The Adventure of English"

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language (Melvyn Bragg)

I was a little let down about this book; I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this seems more like a book for a middle school student. I didn't really learn much; Bragg's writing keeps things moving briskly, perhaps too briskly. At times I felt like a passenger on a train going too fast past some interesting landscape I wanted to stop and check out. This is easy to recommend if you're just starting with this subject, but I had the sinking feeling that I knew more than the author about the subject through most of the book.

Grade: C+

"The Klingon Art of War"

The Klingon Art of War (Keith R.A. DeCandido)

A look into the culture and backstory of the Klingons from Star Trek, this book is presented in-universe as an ancient collections of precepts for how to live an honorable life, annotated with commentary by a modern Klingon.
And it's pretty good! I always appreciate when a group like the Klingons that can too frequently be boiled down to "angry" and "hits stuff" gets fleshed out, and they're in capable hands here; I guess it helps the book's readability that the Klingons are a culture that values conflict as a way to better themselves, so it's rare to go more than a few pages without something interesting happening. You don't need to be much of a Trek fan to enjoy this book, but if you are, you'll be rewarded with a few "I remember that!" moments from the TV shows.

Grade: B

"Fordlandia"

Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Jungle City (Greg Grandin)

This is a bit of an odd duck. The author uses the history of the titular Fordlandia plantation in Brazil to explore more general thoughts on the unfulfilled promise of Ford's hope that industrialization would lead to a economically friendly, quasi-socalist, peaceful future. This is interesting stuff, but it doesn't quite mesh with a history of the Fordlandia plantation; I also found it a little brief (years are skipped outright towards the end). This is an interesting little book, but not really that easy to recommend; approach it as a curiosity and I think you'll do fine.

Grade: B-

"The Boxer Rebellion"

The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900 (Diana Preston)

I'm a little torn on this book; it's well written (major bonus points for not throwing out untranslated French like many history books do), but the book has a major problem the author herself brings up on page 335: "... most of the available diaries and accounts were written by Westerners." I don't think the author quotes a single non-Western source; it's great to have Western primary sources, of course, but having all the primary sources be Western diaries tilts the book, possibly fatally. If you want the Western view of the rebellion, this is an easy recommend; otherwise, keep looking.

Grade: B-