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Bill Bryson can somehow take the most mundane sounding of themes and turn it into an adventure spanning the globe with seemingly little effort. At Home: A Short History of Private Life takes readers on a magnificent journey spanning our entire existence and every facet of our lives and introduces us to people, places and events that have shaped our everyday lives whether we know it or not. Bill Bryson's great skill is in presenting facts and history that serve as a launching pad for you to think more closely about everything you encounter and to be curious about the smallest of things. Something like that cannot be praised highly enough.

It's one of those books that once you start reading it you will struggle to put it down. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If you're at all familiar with Bill Bryson's other books then this is a must have. If you're at all interested in interesting and strange facts then you'll fall in love instantly with this book. In fact as soon as you're done reading this review I've written go out and buy this book as soon as possible!

If you're looking for a book to introduce you to the indie gaming scene then you can go far wrong with this one. It presents a nice selection of some of the best indie games out there from the absurd to the wonderful.

With independent developers and games becoming the next big thing in the gaming industry it's great to have a foot in the door with 250 great games that show you the wonders that indie developers are capable of.

Reality is Broken is a breath of fresh air. These days gaming as a culture is so often vilified and derided as something which is of no value to society at large. Jane McGonigal manages to show us the other side of the argument, that games are of great benefit and in some cases even necessary for us to improve ourselves and even the world around us.

Her book is easily accessible for anyone to read no matter what your background is in terms of gaming. so even if you've never played anything in your life other than a game of monopoly bcd in your childhood you'll still be able to read Reality is Broken and see how her theories will pan out.

Better yet is that she gives plenty of real world examples of how games have indeed been used to improve peoples' lives and the quality of life for many others. Rather than writing a book that merely focuses on thew potential of games without showing any real world examples she uses her long career of developing socially rewarding games to teach us how games have improved our world.

If you're a parent who is worried about the negative impact games might have on your child then read this to see that when approached in the correct light games can be something that will give your child a huge boost in their later life. If you're a gamer then read this and discover how you can tap into a wealth of experience and potential that you may have not even known you had before!

Anansi Boys is one of the most humorous and wonderfully crafted books I have read in ages. Neil Gaiman is in phenomenal form here and the book is like a dream combination of Robert Rankin's off-the-wall humor, Terry Pratchett's wit and Neil Gaiman's take on life, the universe and everything.

There is not a single moment that I was bored or zoned out while reading Anansi Boys. Every single page is dripping with character and every sentence drags you onwards without pausing for breath.

I can highly recommend this to anyone who is in any way in the slightest a Gaiman fan as well as anyone who is in search of a gripping, funny, serious, wonderful story of family, gods and fantastical stories.

A wonderfully written book that looks at the intricate lives of those of us who call ourselves introverts. Reading this has certainly helped open my eyes to some of my own behaviors and also made me realize that being an introvert is nothing to be ashamed of. To acknowledge one's personality traits and give yourself the space you need to recharge is essential. At the same time you don't have to become an extrovert just because modern life seems to demand it.

A great read and one that I highly recommend to both the introverts and extroverts out there.

This is the second time I've finished both this book and the Dark Tower series. While I still feel the first 3 or 4 books of the series are the strongest I can't deny that I finished this last book with a slight smile and a bit of sadness at saying goodbye to Roland and his compatriots. After Song of Susannah it's refreshing to once again return to Roland's world with it's many mysteries and rich backstory. If there's anything that King has managed to accomplish with this series, it's the creation of a richly detailed world with endless possibilities for future stories. I look forward to what he and others will be able to create using it's detailed tapestry of history.

I'm really in two minds about this book. On the one hand it's a raw and no holds barred look at the life of an Australian JET ALT with all the hilarity and emotional highs and lows of living in Japan. On the other hand it's a poorly written and seemingly mean spirited criticism of the Japanese people and their country.

The author himself has stated that he has written many of the stories in a tongue in cheek manner and that readers need to keep that in mind. While that is true, the humor fails to be funny in almost all cases and does not work in the written form. Instead of laughing with the author, we as readers are usually left feeling as though he bears grudges against the Japanese people simply because they fail to act in a way that he expects them to.

On top of that the stories are often disjointed and loosely structured so that it is hard to follow along before coming to an abrupt end.

I appreciate the fact that he has taken to time and effort to share his life and thoughts on Japan and I realize that he may well be a wonderful teacher and have loved his time in Japan. But at the same time, the absence of any teaching anecdotes and only brief mentions of his fondness for his students will leave readers with the sense that he merely spent two years traveling around Japan to party and get drunk.

I certainly hope that if he writes about his life in China he will take any criticism of his work to heart and present us with a wonderfully crafted tale of what living and teaching in Asia entails. Both the good and the bad.

A decent tale that enlightens us a bit more about Roland and his ka tet. It's not up to the best that King wrote in the other Dark Tower novels, but neither is it his worst. Fans of the series will certainly get their money's worth and be eager for more afterwards.