I'm a suburban Canadian, so you might imagine I haven't spent much (any) time in and around gun culture.  My house had no guns, my friends and extended family had no guns, and aside from the gun range next to the archery range I trained at as a kid, had never seen a gun fired in real life.  (I did have a bunch pointed at me, though, due to a misunderstanding at my then workplace where I accidentally triggered an armed robbery alarm thinking it was a device for removing security tags from clothing).

I don't have any particular interest in firearms, but due to frequent video gaming, I've seen my share of brand names and style in digital form.

American Gun by the late Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle tells a brief history of 10 significant firearms that contributed to major points and events in US history, starting with the long guns that tamed the frontier in the early days of the country to the modern weapon of choice, the M16.

This book is a proud American book but a proud member of the military, but he doesn't really make any strong political or loaded statements about guns or gun control.  It's mostly a history of the weapons and their uses, both for good and for evil.

For boys who play a lot of games, particularly first-person shooters and for people just generally interested in military history, this is a good casual read.  It's siimply written and not terribly long.

Not one for the younger set, I'll say.

Is there a sympathetic character in the lot?  It's possible, but look what we've go to choose from.  Glokta is be a merciless, pitiless torturer, even when he knows his prisoner is innocent.  Jezal is a self-centered, womanizing party-boy (and above average fencer).  Logen Ninefingers is an unstoppable barbarian killer who wishes he never picked up a sword, but does anyway.  Not many of the other characters fare much better in the redeeming quality department.


Whatever the case, The Blade Itself and the First Law series of which it is the first part is a fun read.  All of the characters have some degree of wit to them, and if they aren't funny outright, at least they are clever.

It's hard to put together the plot of the series, though.  Know that you won't really know what;s going on at all until the whole thing wraps up.  Nothing really becomes clear until the end.  There is a war in the North, a brewing invasion somewhere to the south, and the King is sick and dying with to idiot sons posed to take the throne.  Trouble is a-brewin' in the capital, so Questions Must Be Asked.  Beyond that, I can't say much more without giving it all away.

I'll say again, though: not one for the younger set.  It's bloody, violent, and mature.  But for older teens, it's fun and compelling.

One day in the near future, plans for a dimensional transporter are released for free on the internet, something so easy and so cheap that children can build it.  When you flip the switch, you move over to another Earth, almost exactly the same as ours except people never evolved leaving it in its unadulterated state.  Flip it again and you go to the next one, on and on.  You can go in two directions, sort of like the number line with positive and negative numbers.  This instantly solves most of Earth's resource problems and overcrowding issues.  There are some minor inconveniences: you can't bring iron in metallic form, and you get pretty nauseous for a while after "stepping". But other than that, the worlds are there for the taking.

There is one man who can do this without a device, totally on his own, and he is famous for having stepped farther than anyone else, thousands of Earths away.  When he gets back to the "real" Earth, his is commissioned by a Tibetan mechanic reincarnated into a supercomputer to go on the longest expedition yet.

They find more than they expect.  There are others out there moving towards our Earth, and they are running from something...

The Long Earth has a classic science fiction feel: this is a story of exploration.  There is no action set pieces, no major violent incidents with lasers and giant spaceships.  (There are in fact no spaceships, though there is a resourceful super-robot.)  This is the first part of a two-part story, and it shows.  It feels like the authors are leading up to something that never quite arrives, but a planned follow up should satisfy those points.  As a reader familiar with Terry Pratchett's work, I can tell which bits are his, but this is nothing like his usual work.  I can't speak to Stephen Baxter's contribution, though this may lead me to read some of his stuff.

Last we heard from Samuel Johnson, he's foiled Mrs. Abernathy's plan to open the portal for the Great Malevolence and his demon army to invade the world. Now Samuel, with all that craziness behind him, is trying to psych himself up and ask a girl out, though he can't see quite well so instead, he's asking a letterbox if she wants to go on a date.
Samuel may have gone back to his normal life, but he's not forgotten. Oh no. Far from it. Down in the Infernals, Mrs. Abernathy, who has lost all her clout with her fellow demons, is stewing and plotting revenge.  She is going to drag Samuel down to her territory this time. But have no fear, Samuel has his loyal dachshund Boswell, and a new cast of helpers: two cops, an ice-cream man and a traveling troupe of elves (who are really dwarfs).
Just like The Gates, The Infernals will delight readers who are looking for funny, adventure, wit, and some great friendships.  The characters are just priceless, and Terry Pratchett fans will be glad to see the same quality footnotes from Connolly.  This continues to be a great series for teens who are looking for something smarter than the usual fare.

Grand Theft Auto is an video game series that is entirely inappropriate for teens.  That said, c'mon.  Of course they have played it.  And of course they are waiting with baited breath for GTA V, due out sometime next year.  The series is infamous for its violent and sexual content, what with the brazen murder of innocent pedestrians, police officers and just general wreaking of havoc.  On the other hand, it's also a beautifully crafted series, each generation featuring groundbreaking graphics, freedom to travel the city and just cruise around absorbing the atmosphere.

Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto by David Kushner traces the history of the game from its humble beginning as a city simulator to the record shattering sales of the 4th edition that in its first 24 hours of sale made more money than any form of entertainment ever before in the same amount of time.  Grand Theft Auto was and continues to be a major cornerstone of gaming, but before it made it big, it was just a fringe game by a small start-up. 

Parallel to the main story, Jacked also discusses the efforts by moral crusader Jack Thompson to get the game banned in the name of protecting child from the violent contained contained in the series.  This obviously never happened, but it serves to create a pretty scary villain for the story of the game.  (Scary, of course, if you like games and want to keep playing them).

The pace is a bit slow for my taste, and doesn't actually get into that much detail about the process, but this is more than I'd ever heard before about the behind-the-scenes of the series, so this is a good, reasonable-length approach to the subject, one that should be able to hold the attention of gamers who enjoy it.

The internet is magical.  For the vast majority of us, the internet begins with a hole in the wall and ends on our screens.  And if we use mobile or wifi, I doubt our image would even extend that far. But for all that magic, the internet is nevertheless a real place with physical parts.  Pretty unimpressive ones, actually, a bit like the router in your house: big black boxes with flashing lights and wires coming out all over the place.

Andrew Blum explores these places, visiting server farms that route traffic across the planet, meeting engineers who maintain the hub through which most of that traffic passes, and even paying homage to its creators in the very room where early strides were made, all the way back in the '60s.

This book isn't intended or designed for teens, but given how huge a part the internet plays in the lives of everyone, let alone kids, these days, it's pretty darn neat to see what is involved as something so seemingly simple as sending an e-mail.

When I was a teen, I hated modern music.  Pop music just washed right over me, and rock music of the day just didn't sink in though I might have preferred it over pop.  My musical tastes were just being formed when the big news hit: Kurt Cobain was dead.  I knew the music, and I knew who he was, but for me, it was all about '70s rock.  My Kurt Cobain was John Lennon, when died when I was a baby.  15 years later, a lot of guys think the same way, but their version of '70s rock is '90s music.  The faces have changed, but the story remains the same.  Modern music sucks; old music is better, end of story. Historical personalities more meaningful, more thoughtful, and just cooler.

Everybody Loves Our Town : An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm tells the story of the music scene that passed me by, but marks a major point in musical history that a lot of young men these days look at the same way I saw Led Zeppelin and the Who.  With interviews with major figures from the Seattle scene, it fills in a lot of details and clears up a lot of myths about what it was really like in the late '80s and early '90s when it hit big.

This isn't for everyone, mind you.  This is best for guys who already know a bit of the history or the music of the era.  Jumping in cold isn't much fun; there are just too many names that wouldn't otherwise mean much.

John Cleaver series #1
People think it is the family mortuary business that makes John immune to the sight of a dead body, no matter how rotten or mutilated, but John knows better. He is not just desensitized. He is fascinated. Why? Because John has all the predispositions to being a sociopath. His study of serial killers has helped establish some rules for himself so he won't live up to his "potential", but when a serial killer strikes his small town, the gruesome murders fuel his obsession as he tries to outwit him. Can John hold himself back and not turn into a serial killer himself?
If only the book has stayed this way... but right when you get into the story, it takes a major plot twist. One of those make-or-break turns for many readers, and for me, it's sadly the latter and I just couldn't get over it to enjoy the novel anymore. Don't want to include any spoilers here, but the story changes genre basically. An otherwise fine cat-and-mouse game is tainted. Still, this thriller can be recommended for Dexter fans and it's got good booktalking potential.

I read it, but I don't know if I liked it.  Heck, I'm not sure that over the course of the book if I ever really figured out what was going on.  Nevertheless, I would still recommend it for those guys who can handle rough language and weird situations.

John Dies In the End is the story of David Wong, a young man who happens to gotten involved with mysterious dark forces seeking to take over our world.  First, it seems like a simple case of a few hauntings and vision he sees after ingesting some weird soy sauce-type stuff.  But then it gets weird.  Lovecraftian weird.  His dog explodes, but comes trotting up merrily afterwards.  A trip to a self-improvement guru in Vegas ends up with him and his buddies dressed as the band "Elton John" and a vortex sucking in a bunch of people who turn out to never have existed.

Possible dimensional travel, demons and a monster called "Korrok" all mix together and leave a confusing trail of oddities.  I can't say it all makes sense, but it's an entertaining enough read, with the author bring a fair amount of irreverence, much like his work on Cracked.com, which I've referenced a couple of times before, and of which David Wong is the senior editor.

A sequel is due out in October called This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don't Touch It.

It will eventually be released as a film that will likely become a cult hit.

He started out as a regular guy, did Mark Twitchell.  He was living out his dream as a filmmaker.  A talented costume maker, he made fantastic Halloween costumes, designed his own props for his Star Wars fan film and managed to get the attention of investors willing to make a go of a new feature film.  With his friends and crew, he put together a short horror film to use as a promo piece to attract even more money.

He had a wife and a new daughter, a new home, all in his home town of Edmonton, Alberta.  Everything was going his way.  And then someone introduced him to Dexter.  You've probably heard of Dexter.  A blood spatter expert for the Miami police by day, serial killer by night, initially choosing those who avoid police attention as his victims.  Not exactly a hero, what with being a killer and all, but certain a fascinating character.  Mark Twitchell admired Dexter. Was obsessed with him, actually.

So, using his horror movie as a template, he decide to be like Dexter.  Using a fake personals add on the internet, he lures Johnny Altinger to his film set, and butchers him.

The Devil's Cinema  is the story of the crime, the hunt and the bizarre trial and defence of Mark Twitchell for the murder of Altinger, from the secret diary that described in detail Twitchell's evolution into a killer to his secret affairs.  It examines his Facebook account under Dexter's name where he openly discusses his pending murder plans.

It's an odd tale, but an interesting one.  It's not especially graphic, but, being the story of a rookie serial killer, does included some scenes of violence and butchery, and there is some 'language'.  But what is language compared to murder, right?

This sounds like a fiction premise.  It's almost too ridiculous to be true: A teenager gets into a serious accident at summer camp and nearly dies.  Upon awakening, he has changed.  He needs to relearn absolutely everything, incluging how to eat, how to walk, how to live life again. He has a uncontrollable rage, managed only by intense medication.  He loses all his friends, and retreats to books and the internet. There, he becomes obsessed with serial killers, and on a whim, he writes one a letter.  They reply


This isn't fiction.  Tony Ciaglia really found himself in exactly this position, and placed himself as the only friend to some of the US's worst killers.  Over the course of his correspondence, he tries to draw out more information about their crimes, and even tries to elicit more confessions, information and locations of undiscovered victims.  He even goes to visit some of these killers in prison, and discovers that not all of them are as friendly as they seem. (They are killers, after all.  Who'd have guessed?)

The book includes transcripts (odd misspellings included) of the letters the killers wrote, and many of them are disturbing.  It's a fascinating look into their minds, with their rationalizations for what they did.  While I wouldn't recommend this to just any kid because of the occasionally gruesome tidbits, older teens would certainly find it intriguing.

I don't read many award winners or even nominees, and I generally try to avoid "quality literature".  I don't know what it is that bothers me about it, but I guess I generally lean towards pop culture, not intellectual whatever.  So at first, The Sisters Brother didn't appeal to me.  I didn't bother to read the description.  I didn't even notice the cover: two silhouettes aiming guns, forming the shape of a skull.

So to my surprise, I enjoyed it, mostly.  It's a bit of a western.  The brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, are hit men working for the Commodore.  Eli is getting tired of the work, but commits to finishing this one last job.  the first half of the book is a series of anecdotes from the journey from Oregon City to San Francisco, including a run in with a bear, a dentist appointment where they discover the pleasures of tooth brushing, and a weird old lady who may or may not have cursed them.  About halfway through, the story coalesces into a more standard, straightforward plot.  The brothers discover that their target may be a ticket to riches if they keep him alive. 

I won't suggest this book is for everyone.  While it isn't difficult, it also isn't a rousing action adventure.  It reminded me a lot of True Grit in its pacing and odd diversions.  The appeal to a general audience of teen boys may be limited, but it is certainly worthy of consideration for more thoughtful young men, though more forthe upper teens than lower. 

ALA announced its latest Alex Award winners for adult books that have special appeal to younger adults.  To be honest, even though this is what we do at Boys Do Read (finding anything that might appeal to boys regardless of genre or target audience), I still can't quite figure out how you can give an award on it.

I get that there are certain books on certain subjects that have a broad appeal, that can work quite well for any audience, but it still strikes me as odd that they could pinpoint 10 books that 'win'.  Based on what exactly?  Are they the best books of the year for adults? Does the public think so?  Are they the best written?

I don't have a problem with giving adult books to teens; they're all I read by the time I was 14.  It hardly stunted my emotional growth to not read the teen 'issues' books that we out there, instead going into Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett, and lots of classic Sci-Fi authors.  But looking at the award winners makes me wonder how it even works.  Who are these 'teens' that these books supposedly appeal to?  'Teens' are a huge demographic.  There are boys, girls, jocks, nerds, hippies, artsy types, hipster wannabees, wallflowers, punks, and all the other cliches that I can't think of right now.  They could hardly agree to read any of the winning books.

Ready Player One is a great example.  The book is about video games and movies, which is all fine and good, and why I loved it.  But here's the thing.  I didn't get a number of the references in it (not that it matters that much; it's still a good quest story), and I'm 31.  It's a love letter to the 80s, and I was 10 in 1990. Teens these days weren't even born yet and I would think that the appeal of the book is actually pretty limited.  There are certainly lots of kids out there who would like it, but not the majority by far.

These probably aren't bad books.  I don't know, I haven't read most of them.  It's just that the idea of this award is pretty nebulous to me.  Can anyone out there help clarify?

Guys have always traditionally been interested in gross or weird bodily functions, and we have always provided, at least for younger kids (see Ripley's Believe It or Not et al.)  The fun doesn't stop there, though.  There are plenty of questions that remain that aren't really covered by those slightly more kid-friendly titles, ones that we aren't really likely to present to the younger crowd, like the titular question.  It's not that it's a bad question, but it can be awkward.  After all, while there is nothing wrong with feeding one's baby, it is not a comfortable subject for everyone.  But, well, here: some men have indeed put them to use. 

Why Do Men Have Nipples? is an entertaining read aimed at adult audiences written by an emergency physician and a humorist, so the topics are approached with a pretty relaxed attitude.  They are not entirely family-friendly, but I wouldn't worry too much about giving them to older teens.  This is factual, educational stuff, and in some cases could encourage young readers to take up medicine.  The human body is weird.

Learn why asparagus makes your pee smell.  And why can't some people smell it?

Why do old folks have hairy ears?

What's the deal with ice cream headaches?

There is also a follow-up book, Why Do Men Fall Asleep After Sex?, covering more of the same, with an added touch of the Battle of the Sexes.  These are older books, but they are great examples of well-focused trivia books, and they aren't too out of date.

The first Sherlock Holmes novel commissioned and authorized by the Conan Doyle Estate is written by none other than Anthony Horowitz, a household name in teen lit, thanks to his Alex Rider series.  (Incidentally, you should go read his earlier works for the younger crowd. They're shockingly funny. Still can't get over Groosham Grange)

After watching the second Sherlock Holmes movie, which I find as entertaining as the first, I was inspired to pick up The House of Silk. An art dealer has asked Holmes for help. He fears that his life is in danger because he has accidentally crossed paths with the Flat Cap gang while in Boston, and now, a year later, someone in a flat cap has been stalking him. This menacing stalker is believed to be the only survivor in the gang and he's here to finish him off. In trying to solve this case, Holmes employs a few street urchins and one of them ends up being brutally murdered. From then on, it becomes personal for Holmes, but he and Watson are about to get too close to a dark and dangerous secret, and more than a few people are not too happy about that.


A good mystery is always fun to read. Fans of the genre or of Sherlock Holmes will be not be disappointed with the intriguing plot Horowitz has created. The voice of Watson is very comforting throughout the whole book. He watches Holmes' signature deduction like all of us, constantly amazed at his brilliance, and his good humour and optimism. This is a good adult novel to introduce to teens already familiar with Horowitz, and it may inspire them to go read some of the originals.

Samuel Johnson just wants to take more advantage of the whole Halloween business by trick or treating a few days earlier than everyone else. He never would have thought he would witness the opening of the Gates of Hell at his neighbour's house at 666 Crowley Avenue.

The Abernathys, aka the neighbours, just want to have a fun evening by pretending to contact the dead. They never intend to summon the one and only Great Malevolence himself.

Of course, it can't be that easy to open a portal between us and the Underworld, but a group of scientists in Switzerland have made a particle accelerator in the hopes of recreating the Big Bang, and just at the right time, something "escapes" from it and creates an opportunity. Thanks!



Samuel tries to tell his mom about what he saw at the Abernathys, but of course she doesn't believe him.  When will adults ever learn? Now demons, monsters, unpleasant things in general, are taking over the human world, trying to pave the way for the Great One, but humans are not going down without a fight.

John Connolly is most famous for his Charlie Parker detective series. This standalone novel is in the adult section of my library, but the whole time I'm reading it I feel like this can be an older kids'/teen book, and it looks like it's been re-released as such just a few months ago. The Gates is a lot of fun to read, complete with cheeky footnotes and over-the-top characterizations. The demons' naivety, like Nurd's first experience in a Porsche and encounter with the police, is rather amusing. Other reviews have pointed out the humour in this is quite similar to Hitchhiker's Guide or Christopher Moore or Neil Gaiman, and I think those are all fair comparisons. As my co-worker, who recommended this book to me, pointed out, you need to be able to accept and like strange and twisted things to enjoy this book.

Anyone out there read his crime novels? What do you think of them? Leave us a comment.

Given the final book in the trilogy just came out about two weeks ago, it's a good time to take a look at the book that started it all.

Another plane has safely landed at the JFK airport, but it shuts down suddenly and every light goes off. When all attempts to communicate with the plane fail, they call in various emergency response teams, including Dr. Eph Goodweather of Disease Control, fearing that something has happened to the people on the plane. Something did...and it's going to spread to people on the ground. Eph reluctantly teams up with a seemingly out-of-his-mind professor and Holocaust survivor and together they battle an ancient evil.

Pan Labyrinth's Del Toro has taken the classic vampire and given it a make-over and drained anything that is "romantic" about the concept. Instead, he gives us something totally gruesome and horrifying and definitely not for the squeamish. Everyone has his/her own demon to deal with literally, and the humans seem to be fighting a long losing battle right from the start. It's kinda hard to keep up with the big cast of characters, and there is only so many times you can truly feel scared and worried as you read about these vampire attacks.  Still, there are some great cinematic scenes and it's a good one to suggest to mature readers who are looking for something that will "scare your pants off" (what a kid told me she's looking for the other day)

With the recent passing of Steve Jobs, there has been much about what he helped do to create the modern world.  Much of the focus is on his more recent achievements, such as helping conceive the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, but his influence starts much farther back, in the early days of microcomputing with the Apple I.  His influence reminded me of previous visionaries.  To whit, Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick and  2001: A Space Odyssey.

Published in 1968 as a companion work to the film of the same name, it was ahead of its time in many of the predictions it made.  While not particularly accurate on a large scale (no bases on the moon, no tourist travel to space stations, etc.), computers were represented relatively accurately in their abilities.  Sure, there are no superintelligent computers out to kill us, but they do play a mean game of chess.

The story itself is about the evolution of man from its apelike origins to space exploration, all due to a big black monolith that just sort of sits there, in Africa, then the moon, and finally orbiting Jupiter (or Saturn, depending on which version you are reading).  And then some weird stuff that no one understands.

While targeted at older audiences (20s-30s), the Onion A.V. Club covers a broad range of pop culture topics, including music, movies, video games, comics and more.  Unlike the Onion, though, the news and stories are all real, though they still approach the subject matter with some humour.  Think of it as the online version of your local alternative newspaper, without the, ahem, 'adult' classifieds in the back or the boring local politics.

The website usually delves into the deeper recesses and lesser lights of the entertainment industry, covering bands that don't make the Top 40 and movies that don't win the weekend box office (though they still do that, though generally just to mock them): things that a lot of clever and with-it teenagers seek out to escape the norm.  For example, today's features are an interview with Mark Hamill and a video of They Might Be Giants performing Chumbawamba's Tubthumping.

More relevant to us here is the occasional features that they put up, in this case, the A.V. Club Inventory.  Roughly every week, they produce a list on a random topic, like "11 Videogames That Prompted Fear and Outrage" or "6 Keanu Reeves Movies Somehow Not Ruined by Keanu Reeves".  The lists were compiled into book format and they added a few by celebrities.

The lists are of a general theme, not so much just enumerating movies and songs, but actually giving a short discussion of the merits (or lack thereof) of the subject matter.  While they are often oddly specific (the full title is Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists, with emphasis on Obsessive), they often lead to new discoveries, something kids that age are looking for, something obscure that will make them feel special.

Not all of the lists are family-friendly, but that's not unusual for books of lists, and is in fact part of the appeal, the risque.  That does mean that this is more appropriate for older teens, 16 and up, partly because of the mature themes of some of the lists, but also because the older kids are more likely to know the topics of discussion.

Gibbons remembers the walk to the execution chamber. He remembers the gathering of spectators: reporters, victims' families...all here to watch him die.  He remembers the doctor giving him the lethal injection and slowly losing consciousness. He remembers dying...So why is he now wide awake, struggling to get out of a body bag? 
Dr. Lee Hartnup is the town's only mortician, so he knows of a hush-hush secret: they're bringing one of the century's most notorious serial killers back here for burial. But that day when he goes in to prepare the corpse, there is no corpse. Homer Gibbons is sitting up, very much alive, scrutinizing his surroundings.  And then all of a sudden he lunges for Doc and takes a big bite out of his face.
And so it begins... This is the way the world ends.  Not with a bang…but a bite. 



You may know Maberry from his teen books Rot & Ruin and the recently released sequel Dust & Decay. And just like in those books, there is nothing hot, sizzling or romantic about the zombies in his latest adult offering either. You've got to read some of Maberry's first-rate descriptions of the living dead. The words assault all your five senses and you just want to touch your face to make sure everything's intact.
The book doesn't feel like a mere gore fest though, because you feel pretty connected to the characters that got thrust into this apocalyptic world. Dez, the dysfunctional (understatement) cop whom you don't want to mess with, Billy the reporter who will do anything for a piece of news, JT, Dez's partner and the father-figure, and Dr. Volker, who in his twisted sense of logic and justice created the zombies in the first place. Maberry also creates a whole background story as to why Gibbons is turned, and it will satisfy conspiracy lovers. I also like how we get the narration from Doc after he's been turned into a zombie. It adds a nice "insider" look.  There is a fair bit of swearing in this book, but given the circumstances, well, do you blame them?
And this chilling piece of horror fiction brings me to a TechCrunch blog post I read about a new app called Booktrack.  The app boasts to add a soundtrack (sound effects and ambient background music) to the book you're reading. In their promo video, it shows how as you're reading the word "nightclub", you'll hear a bunch of people chatting and mingling, like you would in a nightclub. Really?  You think readers seriously need that?  It's like those kids' toys. You just have to press one little button and it plays a whole minute of noises for you.  Umm... I think we're capable of doing that ourselves, thank you very much. I definitely had no trouble picturing Maberry's zombies, and in fact, wished that they weren't so burnt into my brain right now.


To be released in October 2011. Thanks for making this advanced copy available, St. Martin's Griffin, imprint of MacMillan, and thanks Netgalley.