Every month we take turns picking one book that all three of us read and review. Our book of the month for February is Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America.

Synopsis from Publishers Weekly:

Not long after Jack the Ripper haunted the ill-lit streets of 1888 London, H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett) dispatched somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, in the churning new metropolis of Chicago; many of the murders occurred during (and exploited) the city’s finest moment, the World’s Fair of 1893. Larson’s breathtaking new history is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it. Bestselling author Larson (Isaac’s Storm) strikes a fine balance between the planning and execution of the vast fair and Holmes’s relentless, ghastly activities. The passages about Holmes are compelling and aptly claustrophobic; readers will be glad for the frequent escapes to the relative sanity of Holmes’s co-star, architect and fair overseer Daniel Hudson Burnham, who managed the thousands of workers and engineers who pulled the sprawling fair together on an astonishingly tight two-year schedule.

Have you guys read The Devil in the White City? If so, please tell us what you thought in the comments! If not, celebrate the romantic month of February with some thrilling true crime. Read along with us and check back for our reviews later this month!

When I first found out the Book of the Month was going to be a science book, I wasn’t completely thrilled. Science and I do not get along and the idea of reading a 500 page book revolving around all things science did not sound like a good time to me. Luckily, while reading Coming of Age in the Milky Way, I found myself enjoying at least 60% of what I read.

I found Ferris’ narrative very engaging on the biographical side, and somewhat engaging on the science side. I admit, it was difficult for me to get beyond the concepts and graphs, but for those brief chapters where I was able to focus on the scientist and not the science, I loved learning about all the crazy quirks that made these people so interesting. The fact that Newton was the definition of socially awkward and reminds me of Sheldon from “The Big Bang Theory?” Or knowing that Lambert would only strike a profile when speaking to someone instead of facing them? Definitely makes this English-lit freak not feel so freak-like anymore.

Ferris clearly spent those years writing Coming of Age in the Milky Way well. I only wish I was more interested in science so I could fully enjoy it!

Final Grade: B

See larger image Coming of Age in the Milky Way (Paperback) By Timothy Ferris List Price: $15.99 USD New From: $8.00 In Stock Used From: $4.94 In Stock Released July 29, 2003.

The controversial Richard Dawkins’ new book responds to creationists’ question, “Where is the proof?” The Greatest Show on Earth generally takes a gentler, more persuasive tone than his previous books, but Dawkins may be preaching to the choir. Given his reputation and the vitriol of his earlier The God Delusion, it would be surprising if creationists can approach the book with an open mind, or if most even care to read it.

Dawkins refrains from creationist bashing for the most part, except for some passages in the book’s introduction “Only a Theory”, which is an unfortunate placement in a book meant to persuade the doubtful. Those who believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old, however, are not spared from Dawkins’ continuous derision. Dubbing these young earthists “history deniers,” Dawkins draws a controversial parallel with Holocaust deniers.

In contrast, the meat of the book is accessible and straightforward. In “Dogs, Cows, and Cabbages,” Dawkins begins with a discussion of artificial selection in domesticated animals to soften up the doubtful reader. He progresses to the process of sexual selection, and finally to natural selection. The transitions are deftly written and considerably persuasive.

Fascinating case studies abound, of which my favorites were the mbuna of Lake Malawi, the lizards of Pod Mrcaru and Pod Kopiste, and Dr. John Endler’s livebearers. While the segments on plate tectonics and sedimentary rock may drag a bit, The Greatest Show on Earth blends powerful evidence with wit. Dawkins relates an amusing exchange between J.B.S. Haldane and woman in attendance of his lecture:

Skeptic: Professor Haldane, even given the billions of years that you say were available for evolution, I simply cannot believe it is possible to go from a single cell to a complicated human body with its trillions of cells organized into bones and muscle and nerves, a heart that pumps without ceasing for decades, miles and miles of blood vessels and kidney tubules, and a brain capable of thinking and feeling.

Haldane: But Madam, you did it yourself. And it only took nine months.

The ire that Dawkins inspires notwithstanding, The Greatest Show on Earth is a much-needed book filled with cogent arguments. I’m inclined to agree with his claim that no unbiased reader will finish the book without recognizing evolution’s explanatory power.

Final Grade: B+

See larger image The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Hardcover) By Richard Dawkins List Price: $30.00 USD New From: $11.99 In Stock Used From: $10.92 In Stock

Hey guys! Hope you’re enjoying the start of the weekend! Just wanted to post a quick update on our campaign for Room to Read. Their Financial Times dollar-matching continued through today, so to maximize the donation value we have donated the money we’ve received so far. However, we are still raising money for Room to Read through Feb 9 and are able to dollar-match up to $50 more in donations. To donate, please see our previous post about Room to Read.

We were able to donate $204.40 ($210 minus Paypal fees) to Room to Read today. Thank you so much for your support! Here’s an ecard about the donation (you can also view it here):

There are plenty of charities out there, but one that has caught our attention is Room to Read, an organization devoted to bringing literacy to developing countries. In 2000, Room to Read began after founder John Wood, a senior executive at Microsoft, returned from a trip to Nepal. He had visited several schools with students eager to learn, but lacking the resources to achieve. Wood quit his high-paying job and focused on building a global team together to work in these rural communities to help meet their educational and literacy needs.

Now, almost a decade later, they have built 832 schools, 7,526 libraries, published 334 books, distributed over 6 million books, given 8,786 girls scholarships, and benefited over 3.1 million children all over the world. Check out Room to Read for more information on their amazing programs and efforts to help bring literacy to the world.

In 2010, their goal is to bring their number to libraries built to over 11,000 and we’ve decided to help. From January 9-February 9, readheadreviews.com is pledging to match the total amount of donations made through our page up to $250. For more information, check out our ChipIn site here. And the best part? Room to Read was selected as a Financial Times 2009-2010 Charity Partner so thanks to the generosity of a few corporate supporters, donations made through mid-January will be matched up to $1.4 million. So we’re going to be making two separate donations to Room to Read: one on January 14 and one on February 9. So any donation made until January 14 will be triple matched! Can you think of a better way to start off the New Year?

First off, I apologize that my review has been a long time coming. I am in the middle of a big move, and I’m afraid my blogging has suffered as a result. However, I would like to offer a brief defense of A Game of Thrones. I initially read the book several months ago and was instantly smitten with the series. While I typically don’t read epic fantasy, the sheer unpredictability of A Game of Thrones distinguished it from similar efforts in the genre.

At times its unpredictability stems from plain good storytelling, and the plot boasts several startling surprises. But more often, George R.R. Martin toys with reader expectations. A likeable protagonist? Martin will kill him off. Time for a happy resolution? Guess again. The end result is that nothing and nobody seems safe from Martin’s calculated brutality, and the reader needs to keep guessing.

I can see how this would not appeal to all readers, and A Game of Thrones has other flaws. At times the gargantuan and intricate plotlines lag under their own weight, and the lack of a clear protagonist can leave a reader feeling lost. But ultimately, Martin’s clever character studies, skilled storytelling, and unpredictable (even cruel) plot twists make A Game of Thrones an outstanding fantasy.

Final Grade: A-

See larger image A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) (Paperback) By George R.R. Martin List Price: $16.00 USD New From: $6.00 In Stock Used From: $4.99 In Stock Released May 28, 2002.

Every month the readheads pick one book that all three of us read and review. Our first book of the month for 2010(!) is Timothy Ferris’ Coming of Age in the Milky Way (2003 edition).

Synopsis from Publishers Weekly:

The ancient Egyptians regarded the sky as a kind of tent canopy. Thirty centuries later, astronomer William Herschel argued that the sun belongs to a huge cluster of stars (a galaxy, as we call it today) and charted great swaths of intergalactic space through a telescope. How the human species slowly awakened to the vast reaches of space and time is the story absorbingly told by popular science writer Ferris (The Red Limit, Galaxies). His narrative humanizes the scientific enterprise […] from Darwin’s and Lyell’s investigations of the age of the earth to modern physicists’ quest for a perfectly symmetrical, hyperdimensional universe.

Have you guys read Coming of Age in the Milky Way? If so, please tell us what you thought in the comments! If not, the start of a new year is the perfect time to learn more about the history of the universe and our understanding of it. Read along with us and check back for our reviews later this month!

This month I was really absorbed by other things and put off reading A Game of Thrones until a few days ago. I bulldozed straight through it over the past three days – and boy, is that the wrong way to read this book. I ended up feeling completely swamped by the unending horror and cruelty that just never let up. By the end of the book I was so frustrated I was ready to throw it away.

A Game of Thrones is not only part of a planned seven book series, it is an epic in itself. The major plot lines depict several noble families fighting over the Iron Throne that rules the Seven Kingdoms, as well as the fierce Night Watch, the army of men who defend the kingdoms against the “Others” – an as yet unknown, eerie, and possibly mythological malevolent presence beyond The Wall. If that’s not complex enough for you, there’s also another civilization chronicled on another continent, where an exiled princess plans to return as queen of the kingdoms with her three pet dragons.

But wait, there’s more! Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of an ensemble cast of main characters. The characters come from House Stark, House Lannister, and House Targaryen, and getting a handle on their families and marital ties takes well through the first 100 pages. There is a handy appendix to help you trace the lineages of each family, but frankly, if Martin had done away with several uninteresting characters, there would be no need for the notes and the streamlined novel would flow more smoothly.

Now, I have to admit I’m not much of a fantasy buff – I’ve read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, but not much else – but A Game of Thrones only reminded me of why I don’t usually go for it. I don’t do well when dropped into fantastical universes with intricate back stories that are only explained in dribbles over time. The book starts with a short prologue that successfully introduces nothing, and is told by a character you never hear from again. The painfully intermingled history of the noble families is revealed only in parts and drops even more names for you to remember (or check in the appendix).

But for me, the worst thing about A Game of Thrones is that the world of the seven kingdoms is unrelentingly unjust. The downward spiral has every chapter landing a character in a worse fate than the start, and the fact that no good guy ever catches a break and no bad guy is ever punished is just infuriating. The casual depictions of rape, incest, murdered children (a butcher’s boy is run down like a dog before he’s hacked with a sword)… there were several times when I threw the book down from frustrated disgust and never wanted to read another word. There’s no balance to this book, no sense of hope or joy or triumph of honorable over evil. By the end, I felt completely cheated by Martin. I suffered through his tormenting every single one of his main characters and was rewarded with the death of my favorite one. I guess since Martin has three more books to write he feels he can get away with such a frustratingly unfair first novel, but all he’s done is make me never want to read another word by him.

Final Grade: F

See larger image A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) (Paperback) By George R.R. Martin List Price: $16.00 USD New From: $6.00 In Stock Used From: $4.99 In Stock Released May 28, 2002.

I’m not really a fantasy person. Or maybe I should say I’m only into fantasy if it’s a young adult book, and even then only if the book comes from an author I have been loyal to for years. But a fantasy book, the first in a long series might I add, thrust at me by an author I’ve never heard of? It took me a while to pick it up and even longer to actually get into it, but once I had given A Game of Thrones a fair chance (I think 200 pages is more than fair), I was surprised at how much I took to certain characters and how complex the storyline became.

George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones has three major plots that take place in three different locations, with each chapter rotating between eight main characters. Set in a medieval world, Booklist describes this book as “combining intrigue, action, romance, and mystery in a family saga” but I would hardly call this fun for the whole family. With plenty of violence, political intrigue, jealousy, and incest to go around, Martin clearly had too much on his mind when he wrote this book. There are some great characters and the plots are clearly well thought out, taking shocking twists I never saw coming. But on the whole, I would have rather read a book focusing on one of these plots with two of the main characters, rather than three main plots with eight characters, all with their own tormented drama.

I found it difficult getting into this book, mainly because the storyline comes with so much historical background. The reader only gets a vague sense of the world’s history through other character interaction. The appendices in the back help, but there are so many different noble families, all with very unique but confusing names, and their own claim to the throne, that I still only have the very basic understanding of family ties, friendly rivals, and bitter enemies. The characters themselves have promise, my favorites being young Arya for her anti-noble woman, pro-warrior tendencies (Tamora Pierce, anyone?) and Jon as the bastard son of Lord Eddard determined to make something of himself in the cold north.

What I loved about this book was how easy it was to skip over what I didn’t like. After about 100 pages, I had figured out which storylines and characters I was interested in. Since the chapter titles dictate which character perspective they’re following, it was simple to skip over the chapter following characters I hated to the ones I had grown interested in. it turned an 800 page novel into a 500 page read.

I can see how die-hard fantasy lovers would fall in love with this series. I, unfortunately, am only a friend of the fantasy world, there for the genre when it needs support, but I’m not about to go abandoning my beloved classics. Sorry Martin, but you’re no Bronte.

On a final note, Martin’s series “A Song of Ice and Fire” is in the process of being made into television series, with HBO giving the go-ahead to begin filming the pilot episode. For the details, check out Variety.

Final Grade: B-

See larger image A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) (Paperback) By George R.R. Martin List Price: $16.00 USD New From: $6.00 In Stock Used From: $4.99 In Stock Released May 28, 2002.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a classic novel often suffers the embarrassment of countless adaptations (and hideously misused opening sentences). Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is a classic work that is still widely-read today despite being published in 1813, because while the setting is period-specific, the entertaining absurdities of Austen’s characters and intricate plot are timeless. It is no surprise that the novel has been adapted numerous times for books, movies, and television shows. Off the top of my head, I can think of the books Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (a popular undead re-telling) and An Assembly Such as This (P&P from Darcy’s point of view), as well as the A&E 1996 film and the more recent 2005 feature film.

Add to these Lost in Austen, a four part television series by Guy Andrews that starts from a puzzling premise: what would happen to one of the best-loved English novels of all time if the heroine were removed entirely and replaced with an every-woman from our time? As the brief summary from Amazon.com tells us:

Amanda Price is sick of the modern world. She yearns for the romance and elegance found in the books by her favorite author, Jane Austen. But she’s about to get a rude awakening as one fateful evening, she is propelled into the scheming 19th century world of Pride and Prejudice while that book’s Elizabeth Bennet is hurled into hers. As the book’s familiar plot unfolds, Amanda triggers new romantic twists and turns within the Bennet family circle as she clumsily tries to help the sisters nab husbands and even captivates the tantalizing Mr. Darcy herself. But what about Elizabeth… and what will become of one of the world’s greatest love stories?

What becomes of this great love story is a travesty. I cannot overstate this. Elizabeth Bennet has about four lines in the entire series and disappears for three hours while we must struggle to keep watching Amanda Price (played by Jemima Rooper) royally screw up her favorite novel.

I firmly believe that when done well, anachronistic characters thrown into unfamiliar time periods is a completely legitimate premise for a novel. In fact, I think it’s a fascinating idea. And it’s a premise that has worked many times. Just think of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, or Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home. The reason Lost in Austen fails so miserably in this regard is that it is not a new story with a new heroine, but a substitution of a bright, witty, independent-minded, well-loved and familiar character with a drab, clumsy, and at times tasteless, modern-day inferior counterpart. It’s a hard pill to swallow, yet the original characters themselves seem to have no trouble accepting the substitution.

After resolving to put up with Amanda Price to try to enjoy the series for what it is, Guy Andrews’ revisionist P&P can be amusing at times, due mostly to the anachronistic items Amanda has brought with her, or her constantly proclaiming that events should be happening quite other than they are (she at least understands she’s about to ruin P&P):

“I am not Elizabeth. The entire world will hate me.”
.

How true. For the Austen purist this series is, frankly, lame. As Amanda herself said, it would have “Jane Austen spinning in her grave like a cat in a tumble dryer.” However, for the lighthearted Austen fan who doesn’t mind seeing what the P&P characters get up to in this topsy-turvy retelling, Lost in Austen provides an equal amount of laughs and shudders. The new versions of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet (played by Hugh Bonneville and Alex Kingston, respectively) are excellent, and offset the horror that is Elliot Cowan’s Darcy. The show makes no bones about being a self-indulgent sentimental romance, and the lack of apology demonstrates that Lost in Austen is an amusing diversion that was never meant to be taken too seriously.

Final Grade: C+

See larger image Lost in Austen (DVD) Starring: Jemima Rooper, Elliot Cowan, Hugh Bonneville, Florence Hoath, Alex Kingston Rating: NR (Not Rated) List Price: $14.98 USD New From: $9.19 In Stock Used From: $8.13 In Stock Released April 14, 2009.