Toby Cecchini is kind of an asshole.

He's a bartender, though accidentally, it seems - and once he realizes that's what he is, he becomes very defensive about it.

He claims to have popularized the drink the Cosmopolitan (thus the name of the book).  He provides an interesting rationale for why he is responsible for it, despite, perhaps, how much he ( Read more... )

The Nightly News by Jonathan Hickman is a trade paperback covering the run of the comic by the same name.

There are really no "good guys" in the comic.  The story follows what is basically a cult of killers who hate what the news media in America has become and has vowed to fight it.  Each of them have been destroyed by that very same news media.

The ( Read more... )

Now this was a fun book!

While Straight Up or On the Rocks was more of a historical book, this one is more of a fun recipe book.  Almost all the recipes have anecdotes and history behind them, and at times Ted Haigh (aka Dr. Cocktail) will go into more details on certain ingredients.

After about ten pages or so of introduction, it starts off with the ( Read more... )

Or subtitled: The Story of the American Cocktail ( Read more... )

So back a while ago I mentioned that I was getting a bit disenfranchised with this latest installment in Charles Stross' Merchant Princes series ( Read more... )

Finally, some resolution.

The second in the Merchant Princes series - I mistakenly called it a trilogy before, I believe, and it's up to book five or so I think now - we finally get some closure in the plotlines put out in the first book, as well as some hidden revelations and moving forward.

Principally, we learn about the newest world that Miriam ( Read more... )

This is book one of Charles Stross' "The Merchant Princes" trilogy.  I'd been initially hesitant about picking them up - memories of not being overly impressed with Magic Kingdom For Sale--Sold! by Terry Brooks which seemed to have a similar premise probably influenced that.  Later seeing some good reviews of the books, I decided "what the heck" - ( Read more... )

No, not the recent movie about the serial killer but the novel by Neal Stephenson about environmental espionage.

The book follows Sangamon Taylor.  He works for an environmental group called GEE.  He spends his job being a professional pain in the butt for chemical companies, mostly in embarrassing them.  The most noticeable way is to find their ( Read more... )

I think I'm starting to figure out Max Barry's books.

They're pretty funny, to me, unless they get a bit too bizarre for the situation.  For instance, in Company it was funny, but at the same time set a bit too close to home to be truly hilarious.  Jennifer Government, on the other hand, had a completely bizarre setup from the get go and therefore ( Read more... )

Oops.  I read the whole Max Barry book in one day.  Though, admittedly, once I started it (at the gym) I had a feeling I would; it's only 300-some odd pages, and it's a light read.

But it's a good read.  Especially after you get through the beginning.

It starts off as a rather Dilbert-esque stereotypical corporate satire.  Jones has just started at ( Read more... )