Nachos Book Club: Episode 1

As a professor, I spend most of autumn, winter, and spring engrossed in mathematical textbooks and my students' work. However, during the summer I love to pull out some "less technical" books for some leisure reading.

Note: My goal is to highlight a few books that I've read (and I plan to continue this feature periodically) and briefly give my opinion on them. After I read a book, I keep an Excel spreadsheet with a brief summary (about 1 sentence) and three "scores" (fun, pace, and scholar). Fun is self-explanatory, how much fun was it to read the book? After all, if you are reading for pleasure that's usually one of the most important factors! Pace, on the other hand, is my attempt to quantify the "speed" of the book. A real page turner will have a great Pace score while a denser novel will not. Want a book for the beach, look for a high pace score. Want a book for a rainy day while sitting on your porch, perhaps a lower pace will be the ideal speed. Finally, Scholar is an attempt to numerical catergorize any possibility of learning within the book. If a book is full of factual information, despite being fiction, it will earn a high score here. Finally, I give an Final score which is basically my assessment of the book as a whole. The Final score is not meant to be an average of the three previous categories (as there are many different aspects of a book that add up to a good, or not-so-good, novel!).

Enjoy some summer reading!


The Da Vinci Code
By Dan Brown

With the recent theatrical release of Angels & Demons, I figured I ought to start off with the better of the two books. The Da Vinci Code has a little bit of everything I love in light reading - a gripping, pageturning story coupled with plenty of "thinking" moments throughout the book.

Fun: 10
Pace: 10
Scholar: 10
Final grade: 99 / 100



The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
By Mark Haddon

Another quick read, this particular book focuses on a young mathematically gifted autistic child as he "investigates" the murder of a dog. The book is both touching and funny and never swings too much in either direction to be off-putting.

Fun: 6
Pace: 9
Scholar: 3
Final Grade: 88/100



Child 44
By Tom Rob Smith

I just finished reading this novel - and I'm still undecided how I feel about it! The novel starts off with a rather unique hook, but by the time the action gets back to the beginning scene you've already forgotten about it. Overall, this particular book actually disturbed me a bit, though I don't know why. As such, I give credit to the author because usually a fictional book (although this is based on Stalin's Cold War Russia) doesn't move me at all.

Fun: 5
Pace: 9
Scholar: 3
Final grade: 72/100



All the President's Men
By Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

A fascinating look into the Watergate scandal. I didn't know much about Watergate before reading this book, so I instantly mesmorized by the "characters" and what happened. It's a classic battle of good vs. evil, information vs. coverup, and public good vs. individual ego - but it's all real life!

Fun: 7
Pace: 10
Scholar: 10
Final grade: 96/100

I hope you enjoyed those - and if you have some books to add, please do so in the comments section below. After all, it's not always about baseball cards here at Nachos Grande!