The Geekiest Geek to Ever Geek Down the Pike, and Other Tales

Why didn't I finish Unexplained Mysteries of World War II ?  Well, for starters, "mysteries" was a bit of a stretch.  A brief portion of the book was devoted to actual mysteries.  And then the "coincidence" portion started, in which William Breuer found events that were actually pretty likely, and then acted as though these were miracles.  My favorite/most loathed example?  The "Look Out Below!" portion, which tells the story of how both German and British paratroopers decided to land on the same beachhead AT THE SAME TIME.  The odds against this are described as "astronomical".  Or, maybe, the Allies were both battling for Sicily, and the weather was good at this time.  You know, either or. Another example is of a paratrooper who discovered that his parachute was inspected by his own mother.  The odds that his specific parachute was inspected by his own mother were certainly slim, but it's pretty likely that someone would get a parachu...

For years I prided myself on never not finishing a book.  I forced myself through every book I read, no matter how awful.  I figured that there's no way to get the full picture of a book until it's been finished.  I struggled with the first 75 pages of The Lord of the Flies , and had to restart Captains Courageous at least twice (to be honest, I don't remember anything about it, other than that I restarted it several times and it's got a maritime-y theme).  I won't say that I was rewarded for finishing Captains Courageous , but the last 25 pages of The Lord of the Flies made the previous month worth it (yes, it took me a month to get through 75 pages.  I really hate shipwrecked stories). Then I stumbled on 1Q84 .  I made it a quarter of the way through, and decided that I couldn't take it anymore.  Life is too short to read bad books.  Yes, it was reviewed highly by... The Economist?  NPR?  Probably both.  Maybe it was just over...