[Book] The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Book cover This is a book that I've known about for most of my life, and Tom Sawyer is a character that I've heard referenced through my entire life.  A fairly large area of Disney's Magic Kingdom is dedicated to this book; one of my favorite places to hang out for an hour.  Yet, nothing of the story was spoiled for me. First and foremost, the "...

21 Aug 2019 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Defy the Fates by Claudia Gray

Book Cover This is the final book of the Defy the Stars trilogy (start with reviews of book one and two).  There are probably mild spoilers for the first and one major spoiler for the second book in this review of book three, so please proceed with that in mind. As I wrote in my review of Defy the Worlds, I do not recommend diving into this book without reading the previous two first....

14 Aug 2019 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

Book cover Originally a play, then released in book form as Peter and Wendy, this book is the basis of Disney's cartoon movie, Peter Pan.  The movie is surprisingly faithful to the book with the exception that Disney's version doesn't portray deaths that the book does. Problematic doesn't begin to describe this experience.  Like a lot of classic literature, defenders will point out that this is a product of its time....

7 Aug 2019 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Every Tool's A Hammer by Adam Savage

Book Cover Subtitled, Life is What You Make It, this is a book about making things.  It has many, many other components though.  It is partly a memoir of the author's career.  It is partly a book about management, especially the end of Chapter 4 which covers delegation and the importance of communication.  It is also very instructional, in that it prescriptively lays out a number of best practices for making, along with illustrative stories of why these practices are so important....

31 Jul 2019 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink