Furiously Happy, by Jenny Lawson

Summary: a series of essays about Jenny's adventures, strange thoughts, and struggles with depression and other mental illnesses.

Thoughts: a lot of the book is incredibly amusing. It's hard not to laugh about attempts to get a taxidermied raccoon to ride cats, for example. But the subtheme about the value of being open and honest about mental illness because it affects a lot more people than you realize is also very important. The two parts tie together well to make a book everyone should read and most people would enjoy.

The Quotable Cyclist, by Bill Strickland

Summary: As the title might imply, this is a collection of quotes from a wide assortment of people about various topics related to biking.

Comments: This was a really interesting book. The parts related to racing aren't necessarily things I can relate to, but it was kind of a glimpse into a part of the world I know little about. And there was plenty besides that. Quite possibly the most interesting part is that the quotes don't just come from people in the cycling world but also people such as Albert Einstein and Shaquille O'Neal. This book has the advantage of being something you can put down, pick back up, and skip ahead without losing track of what's going on since each chapter is fairly self-contained and only sort of has a thread going (though there does seem to be a decent amount of organization to the quotes).

How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, by Larry King

This is another of those books about how to talk to people in a variety of situations, this one written by a talk show host and, to use his words, professional talker. Much of what he says is sort of common sense, but common sense is easy to lose sight of in stressful situations. Some of the big tips are be prepared and be yourself. I'm not sure how much I actually learned, but the reminders of things I ought to already know were helpful, and the anecdotes made the book interesting and kept me hooked.

The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce

Summary: In a nutshell, this book is a collection of snarky definitions interspersed with some poetry relevant to those words.

Comments: A number of the definitions are incredibly amusing, some aren't, and some probably made more sense a hundred years ago before some of the context was lost to the mists of time. I marked some of my favorites so that in the future I can skim the book looking for the amusing parts as opposed to read it cover to cover as I did over the last couple months. I'm not sure what the hit to miss ratio is for how many of the definitions I actually found amusing, but I think it was worth getting for the good ones.

Night Signals, by Cynthia Wall

Summary: After Marc falls and breaks his leg while hiking in the mountains, his chances of survival are grim unless Kim and the search and rescue operation manage to find him.

Comments: This is very much an emotional rollercoaster of a story, particularly the heartache of the people trying to find Marc. A few more things that it shares with Hostage in the Woods, besides the multiple viewpoints, are the author's love of adjectives, and the fact that rescue comes at basically the last possible second - any later, and it would have been more of a cleanup mission. I rather enjoyed reading this book again, but damn does it mess with my head.

The technology changes over the last 20-some years are less noticeable than in Hostage in the Woods, since cell phones and so forth probably wouldn't have helped much - I would guess that the area where Marc was doesn't have very good cell coverage even now, so it wouldn't have helped him any. And I can't really picture him saying much about the hike on twitter or facebook, so it's hard to say if the search and rescue operation would have had any additional clues as to where to start looking.

The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley

Summary: Alec is captivated by the untamed black stallion as soon as he sets eyes on him, on the ship home from India. After a shipwreck leaves them stranded for several weeks, the stallion comes home with him, where Alec longs to race him against other horses.

Comments: This is another book that I decided to reread for some reason. Or maybe I was more interested in one of the other books in the saga. Regardless, it's been long enough that I had forgotten most of the details of the book, so it was almost like reading it for the first time.

I don't think this will ever be counted as among the great works of literature - it lacks the complexity and layers that you seem to find there - but as an enthralling story, it certainly qualifies as worthy of the time it takes to read it. And now I want to find the next book so I can find out what happens after.

Reading the forward of this book, I learned that the author started working on this book during high school and that it was his first published work. That may be somewhat evident from the book itself. One thing that really caught my attention about his writing style is his love of adjectives and exclamation marks. That might be to follow throughout the books - how Farley's skill as a writer develops over the years.

Hostage in the Woods, by Cynthia Wall

Summary: When Kim is kidnapped by bank robbers and forced to help an injured member of their group, she must rely on her wits, and her ham radio, to rescue her from her predicament.

Comments: This is another young adult book that I reread, but that doesn't disqualify it from being enjoyable once again. Though admittedly, I may have kinda skimmed over the mushy romantic parts.

One thing that I like about the book is that it's from the perspective of a variety of different people - the protagonists, bank robbers, various law enforcement officers, and some random people who only show up briefly. And the various random people seem to have a whole history and be very well fleshed out. The bank robbers also have distinct personalities that a reader can come to recognize.

One thing that struck me this time around is how much technology has changed since the book came out (1990). That was before the internet, cell phones, and email became a thing (I'm not sure if they existed back then, but they sure as heck weren't widely available). And some of their ham radio tools fill basically the same needs. For example, when Marc and Kim almost get run off the road by the bank robbers, they're able to call the police and report it because someone they know who happened to be on his radio at the time has a radio that's connected to the phone system, so they with their radio were able to communicate with the police's phone. I have to wonder how this story would be different if it were set today. For starters, Kim likely would have had a much harder time keeping hold of a way to communicate with the outside world as the bank robbers would have assumed that she had a cell phone and would have taken it away from her almost immediately.

One other thing that I have to mention is that, for better or for worse, this is kind of an emotional roller coaster of a book. Then again, you probably could have inferred that from the fact that the protagonist gets kidnapped and that we get to see the perspectives of other people. For example, her boyfriend.