Brushing Up on My History

(review by Julie)
Given everything that's going on in our country these days, I've been feeling the need to brush up on American history to gain a better perspective.  I remember very little of my high school history class (sorry Mr. Minor!) and have been feeling a little lost when I try to discuss current events with my husband (Political Science Major with a History Minor).
 
A month or two ago, while at my friend, Lara's house , I saw Instant American History by Irwin Unger on her bookshelf and nosily picked it up and started reading.  The top banner on the book cover says, "A complete education- without the tuition" which appealed to me on a Good Will Hunting sort of level.  After reading the first chapter, I was pretty impressed that a book about history could hold my attention as well as this one did. (Granted, I had a genuine preexisting interest in the subject.)  So, I borrowed the book and have enjoyed reading it.

Unger is a Ph.D at New York University and, apparently, won a Pulitzer Prize for The Greenback Era, a treatise on American finance in the mid to late 1800s.  I'm guessing it's the sort of book he forces his students to buy and read after they've paid a large sum in tuition.

In Instant American History, Unger mercifully adds a bit of personality to the book with his dry sense of humor and some amusing comics from a variety of sources, some of which I wouldn't have understood had I not just read the previous page.  I also appreciated how cohesive the book felt.  I gained a good perspective of how more than 100 years of American history lead up to the Civil War and how the war was about more than just slavery.  I also can see now why the civil war didn't fix all the race problems in our country. My only real complaint is that the book stops just after the civil war, so I guess I'll be picking up another history book soon. I've heard good things about Don't Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis, so that's what I'm reading next.

A Fun Fast Fiction Fantasy Book

(review by Julie)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a fun series of fiction books by Rick Riordan about the Mythical Gods of ancient Rome, but set in the present day. In the first book, The Lightening Thief, we meet Percy Jackson and discover this strange world that exists, unnoticed, right in front of the humans, along side Percy.  I won't give any more of the plot away (it's predictable enough on it's own) but I'll tell you that Riordan does a great job of incorporating the ancient characters and myths into today's world- maybe I'll even remember a few of those stories now.

I believe the books are considered teen or young adult books. They remind me a lot of the Harry Potter books, but weren't similar enough to be annoying.  They're fun, they draw you in and move quickly- I think I read The Lightening Thief in less than 24 hours between baby wrangling, toddler herding and dinner cooking. It seems like they would be ideal travel books because they would make the miles fly by.  Plus, by the time you get there, you'd be about done with one, so you wouldn't spend your whole vacation with your nose in a book. (I've been told repeatedly that this is rude to your co-vacationers.)

I hear they've made The Lightening Thief into a movie, but I usually avoid seeing a movie once I've read the book, so I don't know much about it.  Have any of you seen it?