Review: 25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know

25 Bridge Conventions You Should Know by Barbara Seagram
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

According to GoodReads, I first read this book in 2010. That seems reasonable, since I was playing a decent amount of bridge back then. The last time I was playing regularly was at least five years ago, but it's probably been longer.

This is a great introduction to a variety of bridge conventions. I really like the way they separate the conventions into the basic, advanced, and sophisticated conventions. I definitely didn't start including them in that order when I was first learning, though, since I was definitely trying to use FSF and NMF (mostly incorrectly) from almost the very beginning. The quizzes at the end of each section are a nice way to recap, and their explanations for those bids are really helpful.

I guess I wish there were some more comprehensive questions that aren't associated with a convention, since sometimes it's hard to recognize that a certain convention applies when you hadn't just finished reading about it.

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Review: The Plot Against America

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book along with many others by Philip Roth from the side of our apartment - someone disposing of a bunch of old books, I guess. This was the only one that I kept, though I read all the others.

I first read this shortly after the 2016 election, which was an uncanny time to be reading this book. I had no idea what this book was about, but the similarities were so uncanny then, and continue to be now.

Besides that, though, I guess I'm not really a fan of Roth's style of novel. I've read American Pastoral, Portnoy's Complaint, and Goodbye, Columbus, which all came from that same stack of old books, but I really couldn't get into any of them, and I think the only reason why I keep this one around is because of the parallels to the situation today. It's pretty dense and verbose with long backstories to support a single punchline that doesn't really contribute much.

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Review: Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My husband received this book as a gift from a friend, but it sat ignored for a while until a different friend highly recommended it to us as a good read. Now I'm interested in checking out the show as well.

I am an uncomfortable cook at best, so there were a lot of things I learned from this book. I think there are five take-aways that I will immediately start incorporating into my routine:

1) salt meat a day in advance
2) greatly increase the amount of salt in the water whenever boiling vegetables or pasta
3) use a salt bowl rather than a shaker
4) heat the pan before adding oil
5) take meat out an hour or so in advance of cooking to return to room temperature

I'm really excited to start trying this out as well as the menu suggestions at the end.

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Review: The Book of Joan

The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I borrowed this book from my brother-in-law. I could be misremembering, but I think someone else recommended it to him, but he hadn't read it yet. He was wary of it because it is rated so low, but he knew I basically read anything.

I feel like this book is what happens when an author doesn't understand the science in their science fiction... I'm guessing Yuknavitch has a good understanding of the human elements of this book, but I just couldn't understand the point for any of the science fiction/dystopia aspects of this book. They're not convincing, and I spent most of the book wondering why she decided to write a book about de-evolving and beings between human and matter (since when were those two things on the same spectrum?). None of that made any sense.

Maybe this book would have made sense if I was more familiar with Joan of Arc, but I'm not sure the historical aspect works with the dystopian future.

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Review: Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I purchased this book at Chapter Two Books in Williamstown, MA.

I was really looking forward to reading this book because I think this is probably his most well-known popular science book. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I actually like many of his others much better. I found his first few chapters a little dull, but things got exciting once he got to the chapter that he sets up as a play.

I'm also not entirely happy with his epilogue. Yes, Pikaia and its proper classification is important. And he had just spent a paragraph saying that he's not claiming that it's the ancestor of all chordates...but then the last two paragraphs talk about how no chordates would be alive today if Pikaia hadn't survived the decimation. I know that Gould realized this is a symbolic simplification, but I think it would be easy to get the wrong impression, especially since it is the last thing you read.

I love that Gould references a Stephen King book! I actually haven't read The Tommyknockers, but now I'm interested.

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Review: The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I purchased this book using Amazon eBook credits for Great on Kindle.

A great message, but repetitively delivered. I felt like a nail getting repeatedly whacked on the head. It seemed like Hinton was saying the same thing in different ways in rapid succession. Hinton really hammers things home. I felt like a school child copying a sentence over and over to learn...you get the idea.

That aside, this is an amazing story. Every step of the way, something incredible happens, most of it negative, but sometimes positive. Hinton's positivity is unbelievable and probably a major contributing factor to his ability to survive his thirty years. I really can't imagine going through what he did.

My favorite part was probably his relationship with Henry Hays. I hope stories like that are happening off of death row.

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Review: The Little Book of Mahjong: Learn How to Play, Score, and Win

The Little Book of Mahjong: Learn How to Play, Score, and Win by Seth Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a signed copy from the author when we told him we play a lot of mahjong. Unfortunately, we play riichi mahjong, and this book only has a few paragraphs on that variation.

But this was a really interesting way to learn about the International and American styles of mahjong. I grew up playing a very simplified version of riichi with my parents (they didn't really know the scoring or many of the rules, but I was a child, so it was still fun), and had only a vague idea that American mahjong had yearly cards and International mahjong was more forgiving in terms of open/closed hands.

Now when someone asks me what's the difference between riichi and either of these other two types of mahjong, I feel like I will have a clearer and more articulate answer, thanks to this book! And this was a question I had to answer a decent amount when I worked a riichi mahjong booth at a board game convention. There really are a lot of differences, so it seems like it would be difficult to play multiple styles and change strategy to match each style.

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Review: Little Fires Everywhere

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I purchased this book at Kew & Willow, using the gift card from my siblings-in-law. I had seen this book in a lot of places, but I decided to read it because this was one of the books the school where I formerly taught considered for their high school summer read. The students ended up choosing The Hate U Give. I think that's a better choice for a high school summer read, but I enjoyed this book more.

This book is about mothers and daughters, which is definitely a topic close to my heart. It's also one of those books where you know some of how the story ends at the beginning of the book, which I like. But until I started reading the book, I had no idea what this book would be about, and I was definitely pleasantly surprised, especially after the not that interesting start. My mind drifted during that introductory description of Shaker.

A random note: I had seen this cover all over, but mostly from a distance and never carefully, so I always thought that they were leaves of a plant. I finally actually looked at it to see that it's a street-scape.

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