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When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargo -- unhatched dragon's egg -- Capt. Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britain's Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon proved their mettle in daring combat against Bonaparte's invading forces.

Now China has discovered that its rare gift, intended for Napolean, has fallen into British hands -- and an angry Chinese delegation vows to reclaim the remarkable beast. But Laurence refuses to cooperate. Facing the gallows for his defiance, the captain has no choice but to accompany Temeraire back to the Far East -- a long voyage fraught with peril, intrigue, and the untold terrors of the deep. Yet once the pair reaches the court of the Chinese emperor, even more shocking discoveries and darker dangers await.

I am through two books of the series and I am conflicted. I mentioned after His Majesty's Dragon that I love Naomi Novik's dragons. While that still holds true, I now wonder how much, if at all, I truly love the rest of the story.

Throne of Jade is over 400 pages long and I felt like very little happened for the first (roughly) 300 pages. Once it was time for the few important events to take place, they happened so abruptly I wondered if they were as important to the story as they seemed that they should be.

Ms. Novik brought dragons into our world in the first book and here she broadened our horizons with a look at dragons from the far ends of the Earth. I will continue to read the series, at least for now. But I am beginning to wonder if it is the idea that I love and not its execution. It may become difficult to get through what is now already a five-book series if I cannot get excited about what happens on dragonless pages.

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Gilbert's uncle, a big man, round as an oil drum, black as tar from toiling out at sea, came to speak to us about "broken dreams." He said the best place to find a broken dream is on the wharf. "Look at all those dead fish with their eyes and mouths open. They can't believe they are not in the sea and never will be again."

Apocalypto

From Mel Gibson, director of The Passion of The Christ and the Academy Award-winning Braveheart (Best Director, Best Picture 1995) comes the thrilling historical epic Apocalypto. This intense, nonstop action-adventure transports you to an ancient Central American civilization, for an experience unlike anything you've ever known. In the twilight of the mysterious Mayan culture, young Jaguar Paw is captured and taken to the great Mayan city, where he faces a harrowing end. Driven by the power of his love for his wife and son, he makes an adrenaline-soaked, heart-racing escape to rescue them and ultimately save his way of life. Filled with unrelenting action and stunning cinematography, Apocalypto is an enthralling and unforgettable film experience.

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Tommy: Can I ask you a question? Andera: Go ahead. Tommy: How long have you been going out with you boyfriend? Andera: Eight months. Tommy: And it's good? Andera: It's very good. Tommy: He makes you happy? Andera: Yeah. I look for that in a man you know. The ones that make me miserable don't seem to last. Tommy: Right. Andera: You know there are fours words I need to hear before I go to sleep. Four little words. "Good night sweet girl." That's all it takes. I'm easy, I know, but a guy who can muster up those four words is a guy I want to stay with.

One of our country's most acclaimed and beloved entertainers, Steve Martin is quickly becoming recognized as a "gorgeous writer capable of being at once melancholy and tart, achingly innocent and astonishingly ironic" (Elle). Beautifully written, this novella reveals a different side of Martin, one that is unexpectedly perceptive about relationships and life and profoundly wise when it comes to the inner workings of the human heart.

Mirabelle is the "shopgirl" of the title, a young woman, beautiful in a wallflowerish kind of way, who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus "selling things that nobody buys anymore..."

Slightly lost, slightly off-kilter, very shy, Mirabelle charms because of all that she is not: not glamorous, not aggressive, not self-aggrandizing. Still, there is something about her that is irresistible.

Mirabelle captures the attention of Ray Porter, a wealthy businessman almost twice her age. As they tentatively embark on a relationship, they both struggle to decipher the language of love -- with consequences that are both comic and heart-breaking. Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin critical success, Shopgirl is a work of disarming tenderness.

I think the last sentence of the synopsis provided by the publisher is the perfect place to look when discussing this book: "Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin critical success, Shopgirl is a work of disarming tenderness."

I agree with the first part of the sentence, but disagree with the second. When I shared my thoughts on Steve Martin's Pure Drivel I said that he was my writing role model. It is the intelligence with which he writes that amazes me and sets the bar (very high) to a level at which I wish to write someday. That intelligence comes through to create those witty and discerning observations.

While I liked Shopgirl, the piece that I thought was missing was feeling. Sure there was emotion written into the characters, but it seemed superficial. I could not feel for the characters because I did not believe they had feelings either. I still would like to stroke the intellectual part of your brain like Steve Martin, but I will have to bring my own passion to my characters.

Shopgirl is short, it's a quick read. It is more beach reading than intellectual stimulation. It was good, but not great.

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Sometimes I think that if I had to choose between an ear of corn or making love to a woman, I'd choose the corn. Not that I wouldn't love to have a final roll in the hay -- I am a man yet, and some things never die -- but the thought of those sweet kernels bursting between my teeth sure sets my mouth watering. It's fantasy, I know that. Neither will happen. I just like to weigh the options, as though I were standing in front of Solomon: a final roll in the hay or an ear of corn. What a wonderful dilemma.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

In a novel that is at once intense, beautiful, and fablelike, Lloyd Jones weaves a transcendent story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the power of narrative to transform our lives. On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with almost everyone else, only one white man choose to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined school-house and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens's classic Great Expectations. So begins this rare, original story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. While artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a young orphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. As Mr. Watts says, "A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe." Soon come the rest of the villagers, initially threatened, finally inspired to share tales of their own that bring alive the rich mythology of their past. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing.

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The Man Booker Prize for Fiction represents the very best in contemporary fiction (from the UK, Ireland, and the Commonwealth). One of the world’s most prestigious awards, and one of incomparable influence, it continues to be the pinnacle of ambition for every fiction writer. It has the power to transform the fortunes of authors, and even publishers. In 2004, not only did Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty reach the bestseller lists, but previous winners The Life of Pi (2002) and Vernon God Little (2003) were also amongst the bestselling books of the year. Congratulations to last year's winner Kiran Desai for her novel The Inheritance of Loss.

The Gathering by Anne Enright

"May I borrow your ink pen?"

I wish I knew the best place to go and over hear these polite requests. I would probably prefer to call it "peoplelistening" since it is just observation like peoplewatching, but more innocent than eavesdropping.

It seems to be people from the south, and it isn't even all people from the south, though I wish it were every one of them -- I would pack up my things and leave the Mason-Dixon Line in my wake as I migrated south forever.

I am not sure you actually need to specify that it is their ink pen you wish to borrow, but boy am I glad you do.

1. Bohemian Rhapsody in Wayne's World

2. Tiny Dancer in Almost Famous

3. Walk Like A Man in Sleepers

4. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' in Top Gun

5. Sweet Caroline in Beautiful Girls

(Honorable Mention: I Say A Little Prayer for You in My Best Friend's Wedding)

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I will try not to rehash any of the events that took place before the last post about my "Am I going to get a cat?" saga.

To make a long story short, 2 weeks ago I adopted two kittens from the Michigan Humane Society. They are 6 months old and could be brothers. (All I have to base that on is that they are the same age and were dropped off together.)

You may wonder, as many already have, why, when I was unable to decide if I wanted A cat, I came home with MULTIPLE cats. But I had put a lot of thought into it and with the time I sometimes have to spend away from home I decided to bring home a cat and his playmate. And when I saw these particular cats, who were together, I did not want to split them up.

I took some preliminary "I just got home with my new cats" pictures and they are available here. I am sure I will take more over time, but those are just to whet your appetite.

They came to me as Ricky and Roger, and have not yet been rebranded. (It turns out I am pretty particular about some things. Who knew?) The one with the white legs is Ricky. By the process of elimination, Roger is the other.

I am entertaining suggestions on their names. I never figured naming pets would be so difficult. I'm leaning towards changing Roger to Oscar. But I am stumped on what to do with Ricky.

"Roger" is a sweet - though very curious - cat. He loves to play but is certainly more subdued than his brother when it is not play time.

"Ricky" is an attention hog and bullies his way into your lap when you try to share the love. He is generally less mischevious than his brother and seems to know his boundaries better.

They are both "fixed," though neither has been or will be declawed. I had hoped to adopt declawed cats, but I cannot bring myself to put them through that. And they are borderline too old for it anyway, from what I have read.

Neither likes to talk too much, but Roger does get a little squeaky when he wants something.

It has been a great experience for me so far and I am glad everyday that I made this decision.

THE CHALLENGE
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered in the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about a company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?

THE STUDY
For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?

THE STANDARDS
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck.

THE COMPARISONS
The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good?

Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't.

THE FINDINGS
The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:
- Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.
- The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.
- The Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results.
- Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.
- They Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

"Some of the key concepts discerned in the study," comments Jim Collins, "fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people."

Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings?

This was a very interesting book for me to read. I have to imagine that I am in a pretty narrow target market for this book, though the concepts may be broadly applied. I work for a small business and can see many opportunities to put this book's findings to work.

The book tells the various stories of companies that made a transition from a market participant to market leader and saw sustained success for at least 15 years. The author was able to identify a few common factors between these companies, and he and his research team present them as a model for us to follow.

I had but one small issue, which is probably not information that contributes to the rest of the research. They detail radical decisions made by upper management, sometimes completely changing the face of an established business. I figure there must be a largely disproportionate number of business that fail when they made the same or a similar move. I would have liked to see some detail behind how those successful companies came to make that decision. The decision itself was largely overlooked.

Like many "business" books, I feel that much of what was written here was largely common sense. They weren't necessarily ideas that I have had or would have come up with on my own, but as I read them they seemed mundane in analysis. It made the reading slow going, but there was a silver lining -- for instant gratification, each chapter ends with a few pages of main concepts extracted from the text.

There was some very insightful research in Good to Great. The common elements identified were relevant and practical. It would not be an easy model to follow, but if it were it would defeat its own purpose to isolate those corporate characteristics that set successful companies apart. If you have ever wondered what steps you should follow to take your company from Good to Great, this is a book you should read (even if it is just the chapter summaries).

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"At one time I worried that the people who made gin would stop making it, and that I would be left with nothing to drink. To guard against that I hid gin all over the house. Just knowing it was there made me feel a little better."