Wreck the Halls, by Jen Yates

Hee hee hee hee hee! I love Cake Wrecks, and also Cake Wrecks, and really just cake wrecks in general. I love stopping by the cakes on display at Publix and hoping one of them might be terrible enough to go on the internet, but also hoping that none of them are.

Unlike the previous general-wrecks book, this one is particularly focused on the end-of-year holidays. And Star Wars. Obviously. There are phallic poo-turkeys and a Super Bowel cake, really terrifying Santas and gingerbread men and Care Bears, and the last cake on this page that made a finals-addled husband of mine practically pee his pants laughing. It's not that funny, but law school is apparently very difficult.

There's also the patented Jen Yates patter, which here includes some re-written Christmas carols and several pun-laden paragraphs, which I would reproduce for you here except I do want to you keep reading my blog. Let's just say there's some fantastic wordplay involving bread and also poo, because this woman cannot stop talking about it.

Someday I will get that coffee table and then I will purchase this and its predecessor and any future Cake Wrecks books and scare people away from my home with them. And you should, too.

Rating: 8/10

The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha

So I started reading this book waaaay back in January, and then got distracted by work and audiobooks and never managed to make it back to the book until I got that irksome little notice I get so often that says, "Hey, you. Yes, you. Stop hoarding library books. No, you can't renew it. Yes, I want it back in three days. Get on that."

I couldn't rescue the other three books mentioned in the notice... sigh... but since I was quite close to finishing this I zoomed through it, sneaking the last bit during a slow time at work. Don't tell my boss. :)

So. This here book is based on the website 1000 Awesome Things, which, in looking up that link, I discover is ready to become a second book, there are so many awesome things in the world. I can get behind that.

And that's what the book is — it's basically an annotated list of things that make life awesome, from old friends like finding money in your pocket and getting a snow day to things I hadn't realized were awesome until I read them and thought, "Hey, that is awesome," like that first scoop of peanut butter in the jar and the feeling of new socks fresh out of the package. Dude, awesome.

Some of the entries are really short, some go on a few pages, the entry on silence is, well, blank. It's not really a sit-down-and-read-this-in-one-go book, though obviously you can, but more of a book to reach for when you need a reminder of awesomeness. And it is awesome.

Recommendation: Not for people who have a problem with the word "awesome," which makes up probably 20% of the book's words (possibly an exaggeration). Otherwise, for everyone!

Rating: 9/10
(A to Z Challenge)

Cake Wrecks, by Jen Yates

Haaaaaaave you read Cake Wrecks? No? Well, read this first, 'cause it's short, and once you click on that link I can't be held responsible for your lack of productivity over the next several hours/days/weeks.

The book version is perfect for my hypothetical coffee table (I should really get one of these) — it's small, it's mostly pictures, and it is hilarious. There are cakes on which the baker has written the customer's instructions, like a white cake with ("Olympics Rings") written in red. There are cake decorations that look like poos and cake decorations that look like phalluses (Chrome informs me that "phalluses" is not a word, but "phalli" just looks silly). There are misspellings, like "Heppy Bertty" and "I Lave You." There are wedding cakes gone horribly, terribly wrong.

A few of the cakes in this book I've seen in my browsing of the web site, but the introduction informs me that there are never-before-seen cakes as well. Yay! There are also some funny cake stories, in case you start to forget how to read after looking at all the terrible cakes.

Okay. Go look at some wrecks now, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Things That Make Us [Sic], by Martha Brockenbrough (10 April — 11 April)

Did you enjoy Eats, Shoots & Leaves? You will probably enjoy this book. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read on.

Things That Make Us [Sic], besides having an awesome title, is a book about grammar and punctuation in the real world. Brockenbrough lays out the fundamental rules of grammar and punctuation in an easy-to-understand way and throws in a few references to Princess Bride and lesser pop culture, too. So if, say, you have no idea what a comma splice is or whether to insure or ensure, you can read this book and find out.

Brockenbrough starts each chapter with a letter to someone complaining about various grammar slights they have perpetrated. This is often amusing, especially when the Toronto Maple Leafs fight back (with what I consider a good argument). She also gives lots of lists of proper usage of various constructs and covers a lot of the big complaints (split infinitives and the like). What I like about her stance is that it's both prescriptive and descriptive, which is as things should be. But, of course, "irregardless" has to go.

Also of course, if you're nerdy enough to pick up this book, you probably don't need it. There were a few times I found myself skimming her lists to find the jokes because I just didn't want to think about all those words that other people use incorrectly. And, for a book on grammar that also makes fun of people for bad spelling, I found the mangled "Germam, Shepherds" (instead of "German Shepherds") baffling. I'm sure the next edition will fix that.

Rating: 8/10
(Support Your Local Library Challenge)

P.S. Brockenbrough has a blog which is, like the book, often entertaining.