Neverwhere: A Novel
This is another stellar job by Neil Gaiman! American Gods was my fist serious foray into the world of Neil Gaiman. I fell in love and it was moved into the category of one of the best books that I had ever read. When it came to Neverwhere, I had already read a handful of Gaiman’s other works. Although I enjoyed everything I have read from him, I was not sure I would enjoy a book as much as I enjoyed American Gods.
Anansi Boys was also quite good, but Neverwhere had a different feel to it than the other works of his that I read. Oh, Neverwhere is distinctly Gaiman, but at the same time he takes you in a different direction. You can see the influences Neverwhere had on both American Gods and Anansi Boys. As much as I revere American Gods, for me, it is not a re-read novel. I’ll certainly return to it again one day. Neverwhere, however, is for me, a novel that will not get old.
I grew up enjoying roll playing games (RPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons, Gamma World, Twilight 2000 and Call of Cthulhu. I thought that Neverwhere had a real RPG feel to it. I could easily see this as a much better RPG than Call of Cthulhu.  Hmmm, a new business opportunity. 😉
The Marquis de Carabas is an excellent character and has now become one of my favorite literary figures of all-time! The duo of Mr. Croup and Vandemar are also a treat. I’d love for Gaiman to explore more of the world of London Below. It would also be interesting to know what became of Richard Mayhew. Since reading I have heard rumor and conjecture that there will either be a sequel or a companion novel set in the world of London Below, although it will likely be in a different “Below” setting (meaning, not London but some other city’s Below world). I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
WhereIF Rating: 5 sets of wings out of 5, our highest possible rating!
5 of 5
I had put off reading this for a long time. Einstein is someone I am interested in, but enough to read an entire biography? WOW was I surprised how good this book was! If you think this book is all about physics and relativity, you are wrong.
Einstein was a complex, loving, flawed, amazing individual. From his boyhood in Germany through his struggles in Switzerland back to Germany to his eventual residence in America at Princeton University, Walter Isaacson brings us on an incredible journey into the life and mind of a seminal character in our human evolution. We learn of his politics, faith, cultural impact, philosophy of science, lustrous affairs, powers of abstraction, secret daughter and how he helped shape science for the rest of human history. All while dealing with rockstar fame in the second half of his life!
Seriously, I really didn’t think I would get drawn into this book as much as I did. Einstein’s personal life was fascinating. Did you know he was asked to be President of Israel? For those who are interested in his science and theories, that is in the book as well. The book takes us through Einstein’s major thought experiments, his Theory of GEneral Relativity, Theory of Special Relativity and more. Isaacson has the ability to give us Einstein’s science in a manageable and understandable way. You will not get lost in Physics while reading this book.
Einstein: His Life and Universe should not be missed. Learning about the humanity of one of the foremost minds the Earth has produced is worth the time.
WhereIF Rating: 5 sets of wings out of 5, our highest possible rating.
I just installed WordPress for iPhone 2 and have used it to write this post. It is a pretty simple interface. It let’s you manage posts, comments and pages. The functionality is pretty light, but it is a good start.
Cons so far: I have only been using it for a very short time on my iPhone 3GS and it has crashed 3 times. Not a very good track record. I would also like to have more control over pictures that I want to add to posts. It looks like pictures can only be inserted at the end of your post. I would also like to see a little more from the text editor. The ability to bold and add lists would also be nice.
When you open your WordPress blog from the app, you are connected to your blog’s comments. I’d like to be able to change this default behavior. I guess they assume most folks will want to use the app to manage their comments more than working on posts.
I don’t know how much posting that I will do from my iPhone, but it could be useful. Of course, I can use mobile Safari to edit my blog, but managing it through an iPhone app just seems more sophisticated!
Note: I moved the WordPress image to the top of my post via the browser-based editor after posting the article. I also added the ratings image using the browser editor.
Final rating on the initial release? I give it 2.5 sets of wings out of 5. I’ll stick with it to see how it improves.
