Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Press Start to Play

By Daniel H. Wilson, Charles Yu, Hiroshi Sakurazaka, S.R. Mastrantone, Charlie Jane Anders, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire, Django Wexler, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Avellone, David Barr Kirtley,T.C.
Forward by Ernest Cline
         This is a book of a lot of short stories by writers from around the globe. Each short story is slightly longer than a chapter and stands alone from the test of the book. Each of the short stories are about video games in science fiction. I really liked this book because each story was different. This made my full attention always be on the book because there was never any room for unneeded material in any of the stories. I would recommend this book to almost anybody, especially if you liked Ready Player One or Armada.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

The Complete Guide to Pitching

By Derek Johnson
Forward By David Price

        This book is a non-fiction book about pitching. It is written by Derek Johnson who is the pitching coach at Vanderbilt. He knows a TON about baseball and pitching. This book talks about the strategies of baseball and the smallest details. I really liked this book because it is filled with tons of facts about baseball that I never think about. It comes with a dvd where he goes over the basics of pitching. I also really like this book because it has drills that allowed me to use the information in this book in my actual pitching. I would recommend this book to anybody who really likes baseball and also likes to pitch.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Aristotle and Dante Discover The Secrets of The Universe

By Benjamin Alire Saenz

 
             This book is about two teenagers named Dante and Aristotle. They are both Mexican-American and loners. They met each other at the pool when they were both 15 and when it seemed like they had nothing in common, but they got along. Dante had a different perspective on the world and Aristotle had a father who had been in Vietnam and a brother and jail. Their friendship kept them alive and the power of their friendship helped them get through some rough times. Their friendship turns into more and Aristotle starts to learn more about himself that he had been fighting unconsciously. This is a good book and I would recommend this book to anybody who likes a story about two boys growing up.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

I kill The Mockingbird

By Paul Acampora

           I Kill a Mockingbird is about a girl named Lucy and two of her friends Michael and Elena. They are just finishing their 8th grad year. The teacher gives them a summer reading list. One of the books on it is To Kill a Mocking Bird. When they are leaving school they hear some of the kids talking about how they are not going to read the book. Lucy remembers her old teacher, Fat Bob who had said that he would only assign To Kill a Mockingbird. Lucy wanted to do something that would make everyone want to read the book. They hide To Kill A Mockingbird in all of the stores so it cannot be found. In it's place they left a poster that said I KILL THE MOCKINGBIRD. When it starts to get out of hand and other people start hiding the book in bookstores all over the country, they have to find a way to stop it.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

By Robin Sloan

Genre- Mystery

       This book is about a guy named Clay who is a programmer and lives in San Francisco. He was broke so when he wandered  into Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and found that they were looking for employees so he then started to work there. He noticed that they had very few customers yet they stayed open all of the time. When there was a customer, he had to write all about the customer in a special book. All of the customers wanted books from the shelves that he was not allowed to touch or look into. One day he finally decided to open it and was surprised to see the book was in code and he could not read it. The next day a girl from google named Kat walks in and they start to talk. Clay was making a 3D model of the store on his computer and Kat walked in. She suggested to make it so that Clay could see when the books were taken and when they were returned. This lead to scanning a book at google and when you watched the animation of books going in and out a face formed. When Clay shows Mr. Penumbra he gets excited but the next day he was gone. From rumors he found out he was going to New York and Clay decided to follow Mr. Penumbra and that is where the real adventure began.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Grandmaster

By David Klass

Genre-young adult

                Grandmaster is about a kid named Daniel who plays chess. He was invited to a father-son chess tournament but he did not understand why. He was not a great chess player and Daniel did not think his dad even played chess. He found out that his father was a grandmaster and that he was one of the best chess player when he was a kid. Daniel finds out that his dad had quit chess because there was just to much pressure. He eventually faces off against one of his old nemeses. Daniel learns things about the game of chess and his father that he never expected to learn.

                Grandmaster was a very intense and a great book. I liked it because it was one of those books where I just could not put the book down. I liked the plot because it was intense and there were parts in the book when a character would make a decision that completely changed my views on certain people. The story was good but the writing and descriptions made the book so much better.

 

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

The Island of Dr. Libris

By Chris Grabenstein
      This book was a short and fun read. It is about a kid named Billy who is spending the summer in a cabin that they were renting. It was in the middle of no where and he did not have anything fun to do, like video games. After getting board he goes to the library and finds a clue to the key that unlocks the book cases. After getting a book and starting to read it, he hears the story that he is reading, happening outside. After checking it out, he thinks that he sees the giant in his book on the island, After getting curious he uses a boat to get to the island and check it out. He sees the story he was reading early taking place. This book is about how he deals with it and how others react to it. This author also wrote Mr. Limencello's Library.