My Valentines Day:

Hello all!  I’m back after a short blog hiatus due to crazy times here in the office as well as some time off for a wedding as well as spending time with my wife during Valentines Day.  While I’m not normally a big fan of celebrating holidays (I prefer to celebrate for no reason or for a good reason), Valentines Day is a special holiday for me.  I’ve always considered myself a hopeless romantic and now that I’ve found a love I can share my life with, I guess that means I’m just a romantic.

While this year wasn’t my most crazy Valentines Day gift, what I did was track down one of my wife’s favorite authors (of the moment), Allison Winn Scotch.  I then groveled and begged for Allison to sign an advanced reader copy of her new book (Due out June 1st.  She’s agreed to an interview, so expect that closer to launch date).  Being the kind and generous person she is, Allison came through and got me a copy, of which I will be reading and reviewing as soon as my wife lets go of it (although she’ll probably finish it tonight).

An Update On My Book Challenge:

While I made my declaration of my book challenge – to read 1 book from every major genre – early January, I didn’t exactly start it until about a week ago.  The reason for my delay was actually video games – my guilty pleasure.  Recently, I’ve decided to put the games aside and focus on my many other hobbies/loves.  To get the ball rolling, I decided to pick a children’s book.  I chose Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney.  I’ve noticed that quite a few BookSwimmers have been reading books from this series so it struck me as a book that may have a bit more substance than a book meant for 3-year-olds.

I read the book in three sittings – which gave me a good sense of accomplishment as well as speaks highly of its ability to keep my attention (which is pretty tough given that I’ve only read through about 30-40% of the books I’ve picked up due to lack of interest/grasp).  At first, my perspective of the book was simply as a cheeky humor book – of which it did a good job executing on.  As I progressed, I started to look at it as retrospection from a child.  While I’m far from being old, I can honestly say I’ve nearly forgotten what its like to be a kid and see things from a completely different perspective.  I wouldn’t say I gained anything profound after reading through, but I would say that it was nice to revisit similar moments in my childhood and laugh about them.  Ultimately, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading.  The illustrations every few pages were a very nice accent.  I may just buy up the series and hold onto them for when I have young kids and pass them along.

The next book on my list of things to read is from the Reference Genre.  Its “Operating Systems Concepts.”  Its a textbook and to most people its the most boring thing in the entire world, but I actually am excited to read this – I’m a dork, and I love it

Thanks for listening.  What kids books/reference books have you read recently that you enjoyed?

-Nick