Stephanie Plum Series books 9-19

To the Nines, Ten Big Ones, Elven on Top, Twelve Sharp, Lean Mean Thirteen, Fearless Fourteen, Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, Sizzling Sixteen, Smokin’ Seventeen, Explosive Eighteen, and Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich (11 books, 3494 pages)

These books represent volumes nine through nineteen of the Stephane Plum Mystery series by Janet Evanovich.

So, as you can probably tell, I am quickly blowing through this mystery series. It helps that all of the books are light, quick reads with little bits of humor thrown in. If you don’t know about this series, it follows the life of Stephanie Plum, who might be one of the most klutzy, yet still somehow successful bounty hunters in the world. Though she certainly is living the motto “if at first you don’t succeed…” To complicate her life even further, she is so hopelessly stuck in a love triangle, that even she has no idea who to choose. Add in the explosions, dead bodies and comic relief and you get nice easy read.

The only problem I have with the series is its repetitiveness. It seems that once Evanovich found the right “formula” to consistently sell books and make the bestseller list, she just repeats it over and over again. Every book will have the following; dinner with the parents, at least one destroyed car, Stephanie and Lulu getting knocked over by an escaping fugitive, lots and lots of eating and food, and Ranger coming to Stephanie’s rescue. Don’t get me wrong the formula works, but I would love to see this series expand beyond this.

If you need something that passes the time and does not require too much focus or deep thinking you can certainly give this series a try, but I would recommend starting at the beginning.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Hole by Holly Madison, 334 pages



I love me a good memoir, so when I saw this book by Holly Madison, ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, I knew it would be a good one.

Overall, it didn't disappoint. I was hooked from the very beginning--and kept on being hooked--as she described her life from rural Alaska and Oregon to Playboy Mansion to independent lady.

What made this book truly fascinating was the inside scoop of the infamous Playboy Mansion. I think you would be lying to yourself if you didn't at one point in time wonder what it was like on the inside of Hefner's complex (am I right?), and the book details every inch of it. Spoiler alert: it's not pretty. Did you really expect anything else considering that lifestyle?

Madison does an excellent job of chronicling both her life as a "Playboy bunny" and her life as a woman trying to overcome the stigma of being associated with the mansion. At times, I felt as though the writing was a bit superficial, but after spending nearly a decade in a mansion of ridicule and manipulative confinement, can you really blame her?

Girl in the Spider's Web

Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz, 400 pages

Girl in the Spider's Web is listed as the fourth book or the continuation of the "Millennium" series, you know the one with Lisbeth Salander, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I was, when picking up this book very leery about reading it. To often I have see series destroyed and made unreadable with a change of authors, Yes I am looking at you Lustbader. But that is not the case here. Lagercrantz beautifully continued not only the characters that we know and love, but his writing style is so similar to Larsson's that at times I forgot that this was not by Stieg.

Girl in the Spider's Web like the rest of the series focuses on Lisbeth and Mikael. Mikael has been living off the fame generated by the events previously, but Millennium, his newspaper company, is slowly sinking. So when a person calls with a story of vital importance Mikael jumps at the chance. He soon learns that Lisbeth has been investigating the same story and turns to her for help. But what they uncover are secrets that people are willing to kill to protect.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the previous volumes in the Millennium series. I would, however, caution that this book does not work as a stand alone, it needs the series and the backstory to fill out the plot.

The Millennium series, often called the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, ranks among my all-time favorite books/series, and I think is the only series of which I have a complete set. I look forward to eventually adding Girl in the Spider's Web to my shelves.

Passive Aggressive notes

Passive Aggressive Notes: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Writings, and just Plain Aggressive by Kerry Miller, 161 pages

This came through in our collection of best sellers and it seemed interesting enough to merit a read. The book is basically a note per page so that means there are roughly 150 or so notes in the book. Some are quite good and funny. Others are more of meh and move on.
Like most books in this genre it is good for a chuckle before moving on to something else.

Book of Known Knowledge

Onion Book of Known Knowledge by Joe Randazzle, 244 pages

At first this book looked like something I was going to speed through. Short little entries about a wide variety of subjects much like an encyclopedia. And since it is the Onion that made it, I was expecting lots of satire jokes and humor. 
As it was they could have cut out half of the articles with no real lost of context. I still found the satire and weird humor I expected but instead of breezing through it was at times a real slog. 
A note to anyone that intends to read this, make sure to read it from cover to cover as they insert some of the best jokes in the fine print before and after the main encyclopedia