Tenth of December

Title: Tenth of December
Author: George Saunders
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 288
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A collection of short stories, ranging from odd dystopian futuristic worlds to stories of teenagers in suburbia.
Thoughts: This book is really hard to rate.  Some of the stories are worth five stars, and some are only one or two.  As a collection, I have to say that they are brilliant, well-written, and the work of a truly great writer.  But that doesn't mean that I necessarily enjoyed them all.  Many of the stories are dark and morbid, and most do not have much hope in them at all.  But I do feel like I learned something from each one, and there were a few that really hit me hard.  I especially liked the final story, "Tenth of December," from which the book gets its title.  Overall, the book was moving, but is probably not for everyone.  However, if you like modern fiction and think you might be interested, I bet you would love the book.
Disclaimer: There is quite a bit of inappropriate content in this one.  I can't recall exactly which ones were fully clean, but if I were reading it again I would skip "Escape from Spiderhead" for sure.

The Wright Brothers

Title: The Wright Brothers
Author: David McCullough
Genre: History
Pages: 336
Rating (out of 5 stars): *****
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: The Wright Brothers get the McCullough treatment, with an in-depth look at their lives and their amazing invention of the world' first flying machine.
Thoughts: This was one of my favorite McCullough books (and I've read a few now).  Thoroughly captivating from start to finish, and with just the right level of detail for my taste.  I especially enjoyed the sections detailing how they performed careful analysis and controlled experiments to arrive at their unique (and, ultimately, correct) solution to the flying problem.  I came away from the book with a great appreciation for their intelligence, bravery, and doggedness in attacking a problem until it was solved.  A really great book.
Disclaimer: None.

The Cay

Title: The Cay
Author: Theodore Taylor
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 144
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: A young boy growing up in the Caribbean becomes stranded on a small island with and old black man and a cat. The Cay is about their struggle for survival and how the boy learns to overcome his prejudice as they work together.
Thoughts: This is a really great book.  My lame description might make it seem like every other don't-be-prejudiced young adult book, but there are a few twists that really make it interesting and worthwhile.  Also, it's super short so it's great for a quick filler when you don't have time for a longer book.  This is definitely one I'll have all of my kids read.
Disclaimer: None.

Hallucinations

Title: Hallucinations
Author: Oliver Sacks
Genre: Neurology/Psychology
Pages: 352
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Hallucinations is a book about, well, hallucinations.  Each chapter describes a different kind of hallucination, going over stories of individuals who have been afflicted with them, and why they exist.  There's nothing more to it than that.
Thoughts: I enjoyed parts of this book immensely.  The parts I liked most were about how the brain will fill in missing information when our senses are impaired in some way.  I thank that tells us a lot about the brain itself and how it is wired to try to make sense of our external world.  It will even hallucinate to try to fill in the missing pieces.  I was also amazed at the wide variety of hallucinations that people experience, and at just how commonplace they really are.  My only complaint with the book is that I found myself drifting off fairly often, not paying attention closely as I listened to it.  Don't get me wrong, I think that Sacks is a good writer, but it didn't all hold my attention.  In particular the parts that were about more severe psychological illnesses didn't interest me as much.  But overall it was quite interesting, and if you've got an interest in psychology you should check it out.
Disclaimer: None.

A Long Way Gone

Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 229
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***1/2
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: At the age of 12, Beah is swept up in Sierra Leone's civil was when his village is attacked and his family is killed.  He is eventually pressed into service as a soldier for 3 years, until he is extracted from the army by UNICEF and placed in a rehabilitation camp.  The book describes his memories of being a child soldier, and his process of coming to terms with what he did as a soldier as he re-enters normal society.
Thoughts: This is a hard book.  The things that we humans are capable of, both good and bad, are simply shocking to me, and I think that this book really highlights the bad.  It also highlights our amazing ability to adapt to very difficult circumstances.  The things that Beah and other soldiers did, indeed had to do to survive, are beyond comprehension for someone like me who has lived an extremely sheltered life.  Frankly, I didn't enjoy reading that section, although that's not necessarily a good reason not to read it.  The second half of the book, which deals with his rehabilitation, I enjoyed more; probably most people would feel that way.
Disclaimer: This book is has extremely graphic depictions of war-time violence.

12 Years a Slave

Title: 12 Years a Slave
Author: Solomon Northup
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 248
Rating (out of 5 stars): ***
Reviewed by: Ben
Description: Solomon Northup was a free black man living in New York, with a wife and several kids and a successful farm.  On a trip to Washington, D.C., he was kidnapped and sold into slavery, deep in Louisiana just a few years before the Civil War.  As the title suggests, he was a slave for 12 years before he was freed when the fact that he was a freeman was finally proven.  This book is his memoir of that experience.
Thoughts: This was a fine book, but I actually didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to.  I guess you don't really enjoy a book about slavery, but I never really seemed to into this book, and then it was finished.  The most interesting parts were about the day-to-day lives of the slaves, how their masters used fear as a constant motivator, and how the slaves adapted to this terrible form of life.  In the end, this is a fine first-hand account of what slavery was really like, but I can't say that I really learned all that much more about slavery than I already knew.  If you're looking to read a book about slavery, this one should be high on the list.  But if not, I don't know that you need to go out of your way to read it.
Disclaimer: There are a few graphic depictions of brutality towards the slaves.