Publisher: Penguin Random House

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1914: The Year the World Ended

1914: The Year the World Ended

1914: The Year the World Ended is an accounting of the origins of World War I.  It takes on myths that surround the war and tries to show why the powers that be in Europe allowed the world to dissolve into one of the bloodiest conflicts in history.  The author, historian Paul Ham, asks why 8.5 million people had to die. There is no denying that Paul Ham is a skilled historian.  His research for this book is thorough and meticulous.  He has a very firm grasp of all the events that built up and eventually lead to the war and the players involved.  This book is very detailed and gives a very complete explanation of the causes of World War I. While as a history text it does succeed, in every other way this book fails.  It is billed as a narrative account and it is anything but that. … Read more »

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The Magician

The Magician

Review by Andy As young adult fiction goes The Magician is okay but needs some work. Even though it is fantasy the chances of a fifteen-year-old killing a millennia old giant lizard seems kind of slim. The weak plot is helped some by a subplot that is pretty good and characters that are interesting and funny. As a sequel it does not hold up to the first book in the series, The Alchemyst. What makes this series work is the setting of Earth where magic is very much alive. The series also brings legends, gods, and goddesses out of fiction and puts them beside famous people from history, who are themselves often immortal.  For anyone interested in mythology this combination comes off as pretty clever. While the main plot is fairly weak it does pick up the story where the first book left off and continues the plot through well. … Read more »

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