BALANCING ACT BOOKS

(Artwork by Dave McKean) Please enjoy the YouTube video version of this review: Before we dive into this review, I need to tell you about my list. I have been reading to my daughter, Pepper, every night since she was an infant. Once me moved on to chapter books and novels, I started ranking them. I did not include the Harry Potter series in this ranking, even though we read through the whole series. The experience of reading those books was wholly unique for the two of us, and I feel that puts those books in a separate category from the rest of the books on my list. Whenever I finish a book with Pepper, who is nine years old, at this point, I decide where it will fit within the ranking. The current ranking going from my favorite to my least favorite is as follows:  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever School for Good and Evil The Dollhouse Murders School for Good and Evil: A World Without Princes Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing Bu...

About four days ago, I posted a video on Youtube, this video: Entitled "Warriors (Of Our Roleplaying games)" The video is filled with footage of over a dozen video games, movies and TV shows. It also features the song "Warriors" by Imagine Dragons, in its entirety. I am still learning about the copyright restrictions on YouTube, as far as I know, if your video gets flagged, it cannot be monetized. I don't care if my video makes one penny, which I am sure it will not. It is up to 44 views, as of the time of this post. I just want people to see it, because I think it is cool, and it represents the years' worth of Roleplaying adventures that I have had with my friends. Strangely enough, when I shared the video with them, I didn't get as much feedback as I would when I would post a typical "No Beard Plaguecast" episode. I am just proud of this video, and I want other people to see it. None of the images, or music are my own creati...

Here is the entire review in Video Form, that I created for my YouTube Show "Anchor Points" please feel free to like and Subscribe: In the early days of the Shelter in Place, I had a significant shift in the type of content I was consuming. I had run out of the comic book trades, rented from the library, to read before I would fall asleep. Also, I no longer needed to drive far to get to work, five days a week, so I stopped listening to podcasts.     I re-activated my Audible account, and my first audiobook choice was Inspection, Josh Malerman’s book from 2019 that was nominated for best novel at the recent Bram Stoker awards.  I had watched a Zoom book reading with my favorite author, Joe Hill, and Malerman, who I had never heard of previously, and found Malerman to be quite charming. Some of his points he made about writing stuck with me, and I thought I would give one of his books a chance.  I didn’t want to read Bird Box be...