Farf Looks At Books

If you know anything about the movie business, you know that when movies are put in front of test audiences, their success is measured through something called a CinemaScore. CinemaScore is measured through letter grades like in school, and movies that score lower than an A- usually have a hard time finding success at the box office. What's interesting about CinemaScore is that it doesn't ask test audiences "How did you like the movie?" What it asks them instead is more alo

History has been no friend to democracy, as the results have been, at best, mixed. "The American Experiment" is now 250 years old and has been by far the most successful implementation. France's first try at democracy paved the way for Napoleon. Ancient Athens is the basis for Western democracy; that was based on a period that accounted for less than a century of a much larger history, and ended with a self-inflicted Spartan invasion. And even before the Roman Republic en

So here we are, book #3 in the series of Books I Stupidly Purchased Because I Was Served Ads on Facebook. The first book, Dead Station (reviewed back in October), was a huge disappointment. The second book, Theodore Roosevelt and the Hunt For the Liopleurodon , was pretty, pretty good. Now we come to the third book, The Sarvan . This book is absolutely awesome! Set during World War I, the book follows a group of prisoners of war who are being led by German guards from a Ge

Last year I read Eric H Cline's 1177 BC , which surveyed several civilizations across the Mediterranean and Aegean that were thriving up until around, well, 1177BC. Right around that time, most of those civilizations collapsed. We don't know for sure why, or if they were for the same reasons all around, but culprits include climate change/drought, earthquakes, and the Sea Peoples. The follow-up, After 1177 BC , picks up after the general collapse to tell the stories of how

When we last saw Percival Everett on this blog back in 2024, he was earning eight out of ten hot dogs for James , the undisputed novel of the year. For this read, I went all the way back to 2001 (25 years ago! Can you believe that?!?!) for his book Erasure . Erasure is, on the surface, about selling out. But intrinsically, it's about the African American experience and how that is perceived. Erasure is the story of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. Monk is black. He is also

One of the many blessings in my life is that I was able to be at EPCOT Center on opening day. My mother worked for Eastern Airlines (official airline of Disney World at the time!), and one of the benefits of working for an airline at that time was free travel (can you even imagine?). So we were able to make it to EPCOT on the day it first opened its doors (which, to be honest, was so crowded we didn't really get to do anything) as well as many other times throughout my chil

I swear I first found out about this book when Facebook for some reason kept serving me ads for sneakers, and some company did a collaboration with this book about the seminal rap group A Tribe Called Quest. Note: Not a collaboration with A Tribe Called Quest - a collaboration with a book about A Tribe Called Quest (further note: I just did a Google search to see if I could find the sneakers and came up empty so I may be completely misremembering the circumstances but I imp

Longtime readers might remember that towards the end of last year I mentioned that I somewhat dimwittedly ordered way too many books that were directly marketed towards me on Facebook. The first book I read (which I don't care to remember or look up) was decidedly not so good. Didn't have a lot of hope for the other ones. However, it being close to Presidents Day, I figured I'd read the novel about Teddy Roosevelt hunting an ocean-dwelling dinosaur. Again, didn't have hig

There's several ways someone can enjoy football. They can just watch the action on the field and leave it at that. They can watch every single pre-game, post-game, and mid-week program to best understand and predict what has and will happen. They can collect multiple stats and use it to win money through fantasy football and/or gambling. Or they can use the game to explore right and wrong, American values, and existential moral questions. I've often felt on an island on th

I watched the movie The Smashing Machine the other day and I've got a lot of thoughts about it, so I figured I'd share them with you (YES, YOU!!!). Warning that there will be spoilers - but since the movie is based on events that actually happened 20 years ago I don't know if they really classify as "spoilers". For those who are unaware, The Smashing Machine follows Mark Kerr (played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson under an amazing amount of prosthetics) from 1997-2000 when he

Sometimes a book can be too thorough for its own good. You want to read a good story and learn a few things along the way, and instead get pelted by knowledge coming through a firehose. Enemies of All is about piracy, a favorite subject of mine that I know a good deal about - yet after trying to absorb all this knowledge I feel dumber now than when I came in. Enemies of All is extremely thorough. It starts out with the European discovery of the Americas and the colonizati

While spending the holidays in Charleston, I finished a dense, heavy book that I had been reading since before Thanksgiving, and then very quickly whisked through a light, fluffy sci-fi collection. To the reviews! Mark Twain by Ron Chernow In evaluating this book, we have to hold two opposing truths at once: Mark Twain's life is infinitely more interesting than you could imagine This book could have easily been half as long Regarding the first point, while Twain is most fam

I've read a lot of articles lately about how good the Apple+ show "Pluribus" is supposed to be. Not only are there articles about the show itself, prominent entertainment websites publish discussion pieces after each episode. Plus, I've read lists of the top shows of the year, with "Pluribus" always near the tops, as well as articles about awards shows like the Golden Globes not showing enough love to the show, which many critics consider to be a masterpiece. It has even r

There's a VHS cover of a horror movie that I think about now and then. I don't remember the 3rd-rate horror movie (probably some kind of Friday the 13th rip-off) or the exact language, but it was an image of a letter that was in the process of being written, and it said something like "I'm kind of scared here at camp. I don't know, I feel really spooked. I think that...oh no, what's that? Who's walking towards me? Wait, he's got a knife! OH NOOOO!!!!" This was the late

One of my favorite ways to unwind is to watch Rifftrax, the series where three former Mystery Science Theater 3000 performers watch movies and riff. And one of my favorite movies to watch them riff on is Viva Knievel , a late 70s movie starring Evel Knievel as himself along with Lauren Hutton, Red Buttons (!), and Gene Kelly (!!). It's fun to listen to the performers crack wise on this clunker of a film that has Gene Kelly playing second fiddle to Evel Knievel (again, !!!).

Depending on what king of Star Wars fool you are, you may recognize that the title of this book is a joke. After all, the working title of Return of the Jedi was Blue Harvest (also the name of a fun "Family Guy" parody of Episode IV - and yes, I'll still stick up for aughts "Family Guy"!). But this book is no joke. Red Harvest is a "Legends" book, which means it came out prior to Disney purchasing Lucasfilm and thus is not included within the current continuity - although

"Although it was rare for a hostage to go to Barcelona to raise an army against a Carolingian ruler, if we had a nickel for every time it happened, by the end of this book we'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice." Oathbreakers is the story of the last three generations in the Frankish empire, and how the dissolution of the empire (spoilers!) created not only the Dark Ages but also the first flickers of recognition for areas called "Fr

Newsflash: That Facebook algorithm is smart. A few months back, it figured out that this guy over here with the book review blog may...

I first found out this book was coming out by reading an excerpt online - I think it was from The Ringer - months ago. I immediately...

We've covered plenty of Dan Simmons books on this site, and it's no secret that I'm a fan. Last time around we covered Song of Kali ,...