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If you're looking for a book of highlights around the park, this is a great reference book. It's organized into a collection of “focused days” each revolving around a specific topic: animals, photography, kids, birdwatching, fishing, geothermal features and more. As we drove around the park, we had this book handy and combined various days to create our own schedule.

Pandora's Star is one of the few books that I've heard glowing reviews about by people with similar interests only to read it and not enjoy it. What's funny is I think the story is amazing. Similar to “The Mote an God's Eye”, it focuses on a far flung star system. In this case, the system, and it's neighbor, are encased in a Dyson Sphere. Did they erect it, or did someone else? What distanced me from enjoying this book was my lack of ability to connect with the characters. It was much more situation focused than character or major plot focused, leading to discussions of things I had no interest in when so much else was happening in the world. Some of my lower rating is also because I gave up on it a few times, which lead to a disjointed reading experience.

Mysterious, dangerous magic, vendettas and high stakes battles keep you on the edge for this entire book. Characters you want to succeed have moments of glory, mixed with despair.

Not as good as their first two books. Maybe after listening to their podcast since episode 1, I had too high a bar set for it. Still funny and amusing though.

I absolutely loved Wool, the first book in this series. That left me with somewhat heightened expectations for Shift - which were unfortunately not met. The story itself is mostly a prequel - following Donald, one of the initial creators of the silos. I enjoyed how the reader is as lost as he is - trying to find out answers constantly.

This is the finale in the Illuminae series. I enjoyed the series, with the audiobook being more like a full movie with different voice actors playing different parts. The format of this series stands out as memorable too - composed of “files” that are each a piece of evidence in a trial. This allows for jumping around between topics while still following a central thread.

What I liked about this series is that it's sci fi in space, but it still focuses on the people throughout. It never feels sci-fi first at the cost of the humans (and AI) inhabiting the world(s).

Even 6 books I'm surprised by how much I laughed out loud while reading the latest in the Magic 2.0 series. Every book in this series has been pure fun. Somehow by introducing a handful of new characters all at once, the series gets new energy while also helping to bridge some of the odd time gaps created. Like all of the others in the series, this is a standalone book, but is best read in order. I only hope Meyer keeps writing these because I love reading them.

I'm a sucker for dystopian environments, and this one hit the sweet spot of optimism coupled with grit and a high level look at why the world is the way it is. The star of the story is the relationship between Melanie, a 10 year old genius girl, and her teacher. Melanie doesn't know it, but a fungal infection has taken over the worlds, and taken over her. It has turned the worlds population into “hungries” – zombies. The story unfolds as Melanie learns how she is different, and how she can fit into this new world.

I've watched a lot of zombie movies, TV shows and post-apocalyptic tales, and this one holds up. I'm excited to see a movie is in the works set to release in 2016!

The idea behind this book is grand. The fight for America's soul... as told by a foreigner (Neil Gaiman). Good characters all around, although I wasn't as tied to the lead as I could have been.

In high school, my sister sent me Wizards First Rule as a Christmas gift. Sadly, I never did get around to reading it back then, missing out on a great fantasy world. This is the first in over a dozen books in Goodkinds Sword of Truth which was also made into a TV series: The Legend of the Seeker. The confessors were the most interesting part for me – women who can touch a person and control them for the rest of the their lives. The wizards of this story seemed all powerful and not powerful at once, which left me confused on their abilities.

I'll read anything Kathy Sierra writes. I actually ordered this book when I was out of town, having it delivered to a hotel because I was looking forward to it that much. What I got was a book that inspired me to think differently about how I plan features, UX, and everything else for users.

What stuck with me the most was the concept of putting users into different “buckets” of ability on your product – beginners, intermediate and advanced. If you aren't moving users up in their abilities on multiple features at once, then people will leave your product. Thinking about things in this perspective was incredibly helpful for me.

My favorite book of the series, but I was reluctant to like it at first. It does a great job of introducing new characters and expanding the world without losing the momentum from the first book.

Not as deep a world at Mistborn or The Stormlight Archives, but Steelheart starts what promises to be an interesting world, filled with villains and heroes. Unlike the Marvel and DC worlds, heroes in this world are general mortal, while villains have unexpected powers which defy physics. With each power also comes a weakness, which can be used to bring them down. For being as short as this was (half the length of Mistborn), it had an impressive story arc. I'm looking forward to seeing where this series goes.

Books on creativity are inspirational for me. They often give me that nudge to continue working on, thinking about or making progress on a passion project. I went into Big Magic looking for that same push, but it somehow fell short. This falls between a memoir about how Gilbert writes and a her own (somewhat unique take) about how creativity grows and spreads between people. While I'm usually able to take inspiration from a book like this, I was left more wanting to read “Eat, Prey Love” than feeling anything relating to creativity.

I'm writing this review at 6:30am, after waking up at 6. I normally never wake up before 7:30am. I think that tells you most of what you need to know about this one.

This is an area I've been curious about for a long time. For some of my most productive years, I woke up promptly in the morning and went to the gym for an hour. That morning workout gave me a lot of strength for the rest of the day - more self-control, more optimism, more sense of accomplishment to start the day.

I'd always presumed that was specific to what I was doing (working out). After reading this book, I believe I was off on that presumption. Instead, doing anything productive to start the day can lead to these benefits. This limiting belief - that I'm a night person and that I can't do it – was quickly shut down, and now I'm hoping to give this early riser thing a try.

A look into what motivates us and how our hidden desires contribute to our behavior.

After hearing about the religious controversy surrounding this series, I was interested. After the Catholic League described it as “Atheism for kids”, I added it to my list. The movie (which is OK, aside from rewriting the ending, and removing all mentions of religion) didn't do it justice though. If the thought of children going off to kill god in parallel universes sounds interesting, check these out.

This one should be required reading in geometry class. A fun story that helps illustrate the idea of higher dimensions through conversation between 2D and 1D creatures and finally 3D and 2D creatures.

I'm kind of interested in estimation and forecasting. This book focuses on how people make broad guesses based on information - with a focus on improving and refining forecasts as new information comes in. This book focuses on the traits that make great forecasters. The top most is an open, growth mindset - being open to change and looking towards what's next. The other major focus is adapting when new data comes in. These traits and more are explored through a number of forecasters – some professional and some amateur.

In modern times, Telsa is thrown using terms like “conspiracy” and “magic”. His legacy has been revived in recent years, with theories about “the government” holding back various inventions of his. Even The Oatmeal (web comic) has jumped on board crediting Tesla as the inventor of just about everything electrical and wireless in the last 150 years.

This book puts these in perspective and helps separate the truth from the myth. The truth is, he was a very smart inventor at a time when a lot of major technical inventions were coming into being. Tesla made his money (which would be 10s of millions in todays dollars) by patenting his work and leasing it out to other companies. This goes against some of the Tesla conspiracy theories that circulate today.

What was interesting to me was that Tesla seemed myopic in pursuit of wireless power transfer, which eventually would bankrupt him. During this time he neglected radio transmission (which let Marcone take credit) and he overlooked X-rays in his experiments, only realizing them after someone else made the discovery.

Tesla seemed like a nerd who loved thinking of world changing electronics, but not always with a plan on how to roll them out to the world who would use them. This, coupled with a love for living the high life, meant that he was dreaming big and living big, but was not able to continually raise more funds needed to make wireless power a reality.

The 4th book in the Dune series was my 2nd favorite so far. The 3rd book build on House Atreides in an unexpected way, veering away from Maud Dib to another darker path. This book takes that darker path and runs with it.

A few years ago, the Stardust movie floored me. It was one of the most surprisingly great stories I'd heard in a long time. In wanting to learn a little more about the world, I decided to check out the book. To my surprise, the movie really did the book justice. There are marginal changes, but nothing serious. Like the movie, it had me enthralled throughout.

I've been a fan of Felicia Day for an embarrassingly long time. Buffy, The Guild, Geek & Sundry, Dollhouse, Eureka – and of course Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Her memoir increased my respect for her even more. She majored in math and violin? That's crazy dedication right there. Hearing her stories of meeting people from the online world mirrored some of my experiences at the time. The build up to starting The Guild was enlightening to hear about as well. It's easy to see something that's created and assume the path was easy. Knowing just how uphill and scrappy a battle it was is inspiring for me in my own creative endeavors.

2nd Book in Asimov's Empire series, and probably the last I'll read. I see why Asimov called this his “least favorite novel”. I only wish I knew that beforehand.

This 2nd book in Asimovs robot series after I, Robot. It is more a detective novel than a serious sci-fi story, but it does set the stage for the world.