Star Wars ABC

Star Wars ABC by Scholastic
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It only gets 3 stars because it has some stuff from the "first three" movies, which I can't stand. Luke, Han, & Leia all the way (and no CG Yoda)! Darth Vader and the Emperor - really? do you need more sith lords? I didn't think so. That's what all the published fiction is for.

Anyway, it has R2-D2, so Seth is happy. And he wants to know the names of the individual stormtroopers. Maybe I'll have him write to George Lucas about that. ;D

Otherwise, it's fine - I have no other complaints. Geek parents and their geeklings will love it. :D

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Art Attack

Art Attack: A Brief Cultural History of the Avant-Garde by Marc Aronson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not a lot of new information here for me, but it's an excellent introduction to the avant garde in the arts during the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Written with teens & young adults as the target audience, it would also be appropriate for any layperson looking for a place to start on this subject. Very readable. Aronson has done well - the only way it would be better would be if the illustrations were in color.

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Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights by Maggie Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book gave me a lot of insight into Wuthering Heights' enduring status as a classic. I think the reason I disliked Wuthering Heights so violently was because I'd always heard it was a love story & that isn't the case at all. Heathcliff is pretty much a psycho and Catherine is a drama queen. Both are definitely narcissistic. Passionate, yes, but still damaged goods (I mean seriously, who'd dig up the corpse of their beloved - twice?). I liked this analysis of the book because it discussed the fact that all the action in the book is interpreted through at least one filter (Lockwood) and mostly through 2 - Lockwood telling us what Nelly told him what she observed and what the other characters told her. I can appreciate the unreliable narrator aspect and I think I can more fully appreciate the text - even though I still find it disturbing.

I would definitely recommend the book - with the caveat that I think the readers should read something else *about* the book also (doesn't have to be this particular work of criticism). I definitely got a lot more out of it that way.

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