Why the North Won the Civil War

Awesome collection of essays about the Civil War. All of them have different takes on why the South lost, from political to military, and all of them are pretty interesting. Most of them are pretty short, and it's a good read if you're into military history.

Favorite Essay: God and the Strongest Battalions

Who Moved My Blackberry?

Everyone knows someone like Martin Lukes- the one that thinks they're making the world a better place just by breathing. This book follows a year's worth of Martin Lukes' text messages and emails as he stives to be a "creovative" person. This guy will make you mad. He communicates almost totally with his family by texting, is uninvolved in both of his sons' lives, and blames his oldest son's behavioral problems on his wife's career. So when all of his... activities come back to bite him, it makes you feel warm inside :). Book for adults.

Favorite Texts: Martin Lukes to Jake Lukes: Jake, can you do an exercise for me? Can you think up six key behaviors that will help you going forward, and email them to me? Then I can help you learn to live them. Let's make a new start! Love, Dad

Jake Lukes to Martin Lukes: Dad, you're gay. -J

This Book Will Change Your Life

This book is definitely for adults. There's one activity for each day of the year; half of which you won't want to do. However, the authors Ben and Henrik are hilarious and even the days that wouldn't be the wisest to carry out (shoplifting, writing to a murderer) are great to read. It's a quick read since it's just a paragraph or two for each page, so reading it in a couple shots is pretty easy.

Favorite Day: Day 25-Things You Will Never Do Before You Die.

Reaper Man

This is the eleventh book in the Discworld series. Yes, I'm skipping around; don't judge me :D. This book follows Death and Windle Poons (wizard) through a very interesting time for Ankh-Morpork. The Auditors force Death to retire, which throws reality into chaos because whatever you believe will happen to you when you die is what will happen. Thus, things and people are dying, but no one is moving on; causing Ankh's life-force to start building up and causing strange things to materialize. In the meantime, Death's become Bill Door- a farmer.

Again, the books that follow Death are always wonderful. This one's no exception. Especially since, as a farmer, Bill Door has to kill things...something Death hates. Because Death doesn't kill things, he takes them away after they've been killed.

Favorite Quote: "It is true that the undead cannot cross running water. However, the naturally turbid river Ankh, already heavy with the mud of the plains, does not, after passing through the city (pop. 1,000,000) necessarily qualify under the term "running" or, for that matter, "water".