Book 15 - Chocolat

A few weeks ago I watched the movie version of "Chocolat" on TV, I have seen it several times and it is
"Just Delightful". I never realized before that it was based on a book so I decided to give it a read and I am very glad that I did. I was pleased to find that the basic plot and theme was the same as the movie but it was also quite different so it was a brand new experience as well.

Book 14 - Microserfs

 While I am not raving about this book as much as Generation A, Microserfs was a good enough book I suppose. I don't really have a whole lot to say about it, and so I guess really I wasn't all that impressed. On the surface this book is about a group of young people who work at Microsoft in the early 90s, narrated to us in journal form by Daniel. We meet his closest coworkers as they are rushing to be able to ship out a product, coding and debugging all day and night long.

Book 13 - Bright Shiny Morning

Is it possible to love and hate a book at the same time? Although that is a bit harsh, there were many aspects of "Bright Shiny Morning" by James Frey that I really loved, and almost as many that I didn't care for. I do recall hearing about Frey as most of us likely did, with that whole Oprah scandal. I don't really care too much about all of that, what really counts is the quality of the book itself. I would say that Frey is an excellent writer, but he would benefit from some restraint, the scope of this tale was just far too large.

"Bright Shiny Morning" is a tale of Los Angeles. It intermixes the history of the city, "fun facts" and tales of many different characters. Although there are many (too many) stories that this book follows, the main ones are homeless "Old Man Joe", celebrity couple Amberton Parker and his "beard" wife Casey, Mexican-American Esperanza a maid with ambitions for a better life and young couple Maddie and Dylan who have come to California to escape Maddie's abusive mother and to seek a better life by the sea.