Books

Bri and I just read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  It was wonderful!  I read it again, right after I finished it the first time.  Coraline scared me but I'm a sucker for Newbury Medal winners so I picked it up.  Good choice.  Hopefully he'll write a sequel.

I read Years of Dust: The story of the Dust Bowl by Albert Marrin.  I thought it was a great pictorial history book for children.  I'm going to make Bri and Jake read it for some background on that period of time.

I also read Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud.  Stroud wrote the Bartimaeus Trilogy and thus would be hard pressed to do wrong in my eyes.  It's a good adventure novel with a less likely protagonist.  Bri will love it.

Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst is a fun modern fairy tale.

The Roar by Emma Clayton was interesting.  I'll read the next book in the series.  It's a younger young adult fiction book, a negative utopia.

For adults I recommend The Big Short : Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis.  It's a great read; infuriating and depressing naturally, as is anything that is written about how financial companies robbed us.  But don't let that stop you from reading it.  I loved reading about Michael Burry, a one-eyed physician turned stock picker who was later diagnosed with Asperger's.  (I always root for people on the spectrum to be successful.)