The Snow Queen

Woo hoo! I have reached my goal of 26 books for the year. Of those 26 books, 12 were audio books. Audio books have been a new experience for me and one that I've had to adapt to because your brain works completely differently when you read a book to when you listen to one. It has given my eyes a break and allowed me to hear stories I already knew through someone else's reading. It is true that I mainly used audio books to re-read some of my favourite books.

Book 26 of 2014 is a free audio book as a Christmas present from Audible. I recommend Audible US because it has many more titles than the Aussie site. Shoosh, don't tell them I live here.

The book was The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, read by Julia Whelan who was Audible's narrator of the year.

This a story I know very well from my childhood and has been one of the reasons I have avoided Disney's version - Frozen. They never tell a story the way it was written and tend to make the women weak and the animals sing.

This is worth the read or the listen. I'd recommend that if you read it in Darwin that you do so with the air conditioner on full.

4 evil shards of glass out of 5.

Should I read this? Yes. It is delightful.
What did I learn? People are not evil. They just have shards of evil glass in them.

Eragon

Book 6 of 2014 in my reading quest is Eragon by Christopher Paolini. It is the first book in the Inheritance series. It is nice to read a book that has a dragon that isn't just a beast. Although, this book has that Like Skywalker kind of whingey young man become hero gets old, the story is engaging.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? The dragons are wise, beautiful and fierce. I want to be one when I grow up.

Outliers: The Story of Success

Last year I wanted to read 25 books and I read 27. This year, I aim to read 25. This is the first.

Outliers is another great Gladwell book that made me go and look up a whole bunch of concepts, studies and ideas to get a deeper understanding behind his ideas. Ideas that bring together psychology, anecdotes and statistics to tell many interesting stories about the favourable variables that come together to give people advantage on top of which hard work and risk taking can lead to success.

Having read Blink and Tipping Point, which changed the way I think, it took me a while to get to this much bigger book. It however has changed the way I think about approaching life more than the first two.

It was interesting that Gladwell is part black Jamaican. I don't usually google the authors I read but I did at the end of this book due to the last story about his grandmother. He is different to what I imagined. Go the fro.

Now, I must go off and work out what factors make up being me.

Should I read this? Yes
What did I learn? Success if all about opportunity, luck and hard work.