alice in wonderland review

 I picked up an ebook of Alice In Wonderland. It included Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Through The Looking Glass, and The Hunting of The Snark. I'll review them individually. It's been a fun ride. I don't regret spending money on this. 

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Below I have reviewed my ebook copy of Alice In Wonderland, which includes Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Through The Looking Glass, and The Hunting of The Snark. I'll review them one at a time for you. These were all read in the span of half a day. Maybe five hours and these were reviewed. It won't take long to pick these up. 

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

You start with a bored little girl, drop into a silly, absurd storyline, and come back to a little girl who's fallen asleep on the grass. My description of witty puns, funny conversations, odd images, and genuinely weird situations won't do it justice. Read it yourself. It isn't something you can easily describe, nor does it make sense. Given that it ends up being a child's dream, that makes sense. If you read it, you know how absurd it gets. It doesn't become disturbing, though, so your child can easily read it, with some help for younger children. 

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I give this four stars. From the puns to the silly characters, to the absurdity of the entire story, I love it. It made me laugh. The book was a joyous experience paired with "Have I eaten drugged food lately?". We have hedgehogs and flamingoes as croquet balls and mallets (understandably trying to flee) , Alice conversing with a bunch of birds, a tea party with people who angered Time and paid the price, and a court with no order whatsoever.  You step into a world of odd creatures and the imagination of a child. Read it sometime. You'll all love it. 

Through The Looking Glass

This story was slightly less whimsical but just as ridiculous. You have some overlapping character profiles in it, too. It is clearly a different story, though. Alice is 7 and 6 months. She's seeing nursery ryhmes come to life in the dream she's having. Once again, she has drifted off to sleep, and this time she's woken by her cats, whom she started the story talking to. She walks into the mirror, goes into a world where everything is done and read backwards, and follows a chess board pattern of squares to become queen. It is disjointed because it is a dream. She blends from location to location as the story goes. It's slightly more coherent than when she was younger, but not by much. 

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I give this one five stars. I can see where Tim Burton got some of his ideas about the Hatter from this. I can also see where he got Alice going through a mirror. It is the first whimsical thing in the story. I love that she's talking to kittens. It brings me joy to see her interact with them. You can see what she's remembering as you see events unfold. The hilarious thing about this one is when everyone she meets insists on reciting poetry or singing her the song of their people - none of which make any sense at all. This one was slightly easier to follow, but not really. Reading the first story primed me for this one. Still, Alice is older, so she's not as imaginative as younger Alice. You get the sense she's growing up. 

The Hunting of The Snark

This is poetry, not a short story, but it tells the story of a bunch of silly sailors hunting a snark. It's ridiculous and adorable at the same time. If you liked the silly poetry in the Alice stories, you'll like this. I imagine a snark is just an imaginary creature. Or not. The poetry is clear as mud on that. The snark is not really the point - the people are the point. They find it. It kills one of them because it was a Boojum. Makes no sense. It wasn't really supposed to, I think. It was just a fun ride. 

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Five stars to the poetry that made me giggle over one line: "They charmed it with smiles and soap". I would read more of his poetry any day of the week. It was clever. It referenced the Bandersnatch and Jubjub bird. It made me smile. There was also a beaver making lace. Who doesn't like a beaver making lace? 

Ending Thoughts

When reading this stuff, don't expect much to make sense. Poetry galore fills the pages and Alice just rolls with the weird, obtuse, absurd world she's fallen asleep into. You can tell she grew up in the second one. The bonus poetry is worth checking out. My ebook included it with the Alice stories. My version came from Kobo and I'd suggest getting the version with this poetry included. I even got personal letters from Lewis Caroll in between. It was one dollar and six cents on Kobo. 

A note, there is one lost chapter that has been found for Through The Looking Glass and you can find the original shorter manuscript Alice's Adventures Underground (the pre-published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). You'll find the whole package of that in Kobo, too, as well as some that have the children's condensed version for younger kids (Alice Nursery). Whatever you want to read of all that, you can find on Kobo and probably anywhere else. I didn't need all of it. You can feel free to indulge yourself because it is less than five dollars on Kobo to get all of it. 

Also, it's short. I read it in half a day and I wasn't even home all day. You can easily swing this if you're an avid reader or you have time to kill before the kids get home. You could read this to your kids. It's nonsense poetry and silly characters. I call it safe to read at an age. The only caution is big words. That's why Alice Nursery exists. 

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I wrote a book! I am delighted to say that I have 5 five-star reviews up on Amazon now, which is amazing. I hope you like it, too. If you're interested in buying a paperback, hardcover, or ebook version go to my website link in this blog or click here to go straight to my Amazon page. 

Jack Thomas is running from a past case. He's hiding in Wrenville. Is his past case catching up with him? 

Find out in my first book, Wrenville, a stand-alone suspense novel.

seeing faces everywhere

 Face Pareidolia is not a phrase most people utter, but yet it happens daily to most of us. What is it? It is the ability of the brain to see faces in everyday objects. Let's dig into the concept. 

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Have you ever stared at your bathroom floor and seen what you think looks like a face or an outline of a dog, or an outline of an object? I have. I continue to see various shapes in my bathroom floor linoleum pattern, as well as several faces of different types in the wood grains of doors. This is a real thing. 

 I do know that it's just my brain making sense of the world and that it's not really a face. I understand such things. You have no reason to question my sanity in this scenario if you were concerned by the previous paragraph. The human brain is finding patterns where there are not patterns. That's the real reason you see a face pattern in a light switch or bathroom linoleum. 

Why our brain does this

Many reasons for this exist, including looking for predators and the social instincts of humans. Imagine you are trying to hide from a tiger. If you see its face first you'll live longer. That's the idea behind seeing faces in other things. When anxiety levels are higher you see even more faces. We need to know friend from foe, so it is much safer to mistake something that isn't a face for a face than the other way around. You'd get killed by that tiger, otherwise. 

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Your eyes send a signal to the brain, which then translates what you see. Seeing what looks like two eyes, a nose, and a mouth will come back as a face. Another consideration is what you expect to see. If you were told a face was in the image, you'll see a face most of the time - even in static. An experiment was done that proved this. You'll see it in the first source link. "Jesus in toast" is the name of the study. 

What we know as a friend is shaped by early face shapes in life. We see familiar face shapes and features as safe. This is what we take into account without even realizing we do it. It's a survival instinct. Combatting racism, for instance, can be done in early development by showing an infant all races of people in the first nine months of life. 

The brain assigning meaning to the world around us happens every minute of our lives. We do it automatically. It makes sense that we'd see shapes and faces in wood grains, flooring, outlet covers, rock formations, and other surfaces. Confirmation bias influences what we see. Not everyone sees the same shape in the clouds or the shape of a mustache in the flooring. 

Other types 

Motion pareidolia is a real thing, too. Did you see motion? Was it really there? Maybe you didn't really see it. Your brain can be wrong. If you are already keyed up and freaked out, you'll think something moved. This is why you don't watch horror films or creepy videos alone. 

Sometimes this can feed right into superstitions. Superstitious people who see what they expect to see can take it as a "sign" and be wrong. There are times that something is a sign, but there are also pareidolia moments full of confirmation bias. Double-check your "signs" with people you trust. You might be off a little. Or not. It's never a bad idea to ask those you trust for wisdom. 

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You also give emotion and personality to faces. Think of emojis. This is how emojis actually work and provide meaning. You can see a sinister face in wood grain or a friendly laughing face in a pot hole, or a shocked face in an outlet. 

Another thing to take into account is how much you see faces in stuff. High anxiety causes this to happen more. Schizophrenia causes this to a very high degree. No, you are not crazy if you see faces in wood grain and other pictures. All of us see it, but many who have disorders related to Schizophrenia see it so much more than others. 

Sources:

Pareidolia: Why We See Faces in Almost Everything | HowStuffWorks

Pareidolia | Psychology Today

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I wrote a book! I am delighted to say that I have 5 five-star reviews up on Amazon now, which is amazing. I hope you like it, too. If you're interested in buying a paperback, hardcover, or ebook version go to my website link in this blog or click here to go straight to my Amazon page. 

Jack Thomas is running from a past case. He's hiding in Wrenville. Is his past case catching up with him? 

Find out in my first book, Wrenville, a stand-alone suspense novel.

Reviewing my TBR

 I had a fabulous time reading four books. Let me tell you all about them. On this week's TBR we have With A Mind To Kill, Role of Honor, Only To Sleep, and The Rising Sea. All of which come from a series of books. I'll get into what series in my four sections of reviews. Let's dive in. 

I read four books in a week. Upon finishing them, I can recommend all of them. Below I'll outline exactly why I loved the book and who would most love it. Let's get to the reviews. 

With A Mind To Kill by Anthony Horowitz

The premise of this book requires you to have some knowledge of previous books (Ian Fleming books), but he does explain in the first two page what you need to know. It is set two weeks after Scaramanga was killed in Jamaica. Before the events of Scaramanga in Jamaica, James Bond had attempted to kill M because KGB brainwashed him while he wandered with Amnesia. This plot sends Bond back to the people who brainwashed him in order to get more information (after he's been recovered and fully himself again). He's replacing an informant who was found out and was hammered to death. I'll stop there and let you read it yourself. 

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It picks up the style of Ian Fleming, with less sexism. The ending is not to be spoiled. This is the third Bond novel Horowitz has written. I give it five stars. I want this one to be made into a movie. I would watch it in film form in a heartbeat. Please, make this one into a film! It'd be worth the money. 

The main reason I loved it was the high stakes. It had high stakes all through it, due to the mission only being known about by M and M's Chief of Staff. Bond has to pretend to be brainwashed this whole time and make it look good. He nearly slips up at one point. His own service (minus M and Bill Tanner) don't know he isn't brainwashed anymore. This means he's almost on his own. The High Stakes of the mission leave you on the edge of your seat. He's practically solo and could have been found out at any time. 

If you love James Bond films and books, you'll love this one. If you like high stakes, top secret missions, cold war espionage, and spy thrillers you'll want to the pick this one up. I'd also get acquainted with the Ian Fleming Bond if I were you. You'll see lots of references to those (though you don't need to know all of them to understand the plot). 

Role of Honor by John Gardner

Another bond book, this one by Gardner, who picked up the series after Ian Fleming died. Several authors have done the same. Bond could live in fiction as long as Scooby Doo, which is to say as long was people will read him. And they do. Author aside, this one has a similar concept to the first but a different plot. Bond is on a mission for M and Bill Tanner that eventually involves Spectre. It takes place in the 1980s. We hear all about computers and war gaming (which sounds like risk and some of the war games I see ads for). The basic gist of it is that Bond has to pretend to leave the service and be for hire. He came into money after an uncle died and M saw that as an opportunity to break into a group, a group that uses it's tech simulations to train criminals (so, think some plotlines of Grand Theft Auto, only its really a tutorial for a real heist). 

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I give this one five stars, too. The stakes are also high. Again, only M and Bill Tanner know he's not leaving the service. Again, he has to look bad and play the role of a man for hire. He has the challenge of getting word out to M of what is going on, but still not being found out. He has to use other agents he encounters to help him. His telephone in his car is eventually disabled by Spectre and the main villain, giving him no or limited ways to contact M. He was forced to get creative in order to get to his car phone before it got disabled. It ended badly for the lookout, but he did get there. 

I'd recommend this to any Bond fan. Gardner has several books, all of them excellent. I'd go in order, maybe start with Fleming's work and go into Gardner's collection. This one doesn't require you to have any previous knowledge of Bond history, with the exception of knowing what Spectre is. Even that can be figured out by context. You won't be confused by anything if you don't know what Spectre is. Gardner makes it clear it's a rival organization, which is really all you need to know. 

Only To Sleep by Lawrence Osborne

Any fans of the Philip Marlowe series (by Raymond Chandler) will be thrilled to find out that many have continued the Marlowe series in standalone. I loved this one. I collect both this series and the James Bond series. The main plot of this one starts off with a retired Marlowe, who comes out of retirement to look into a sketchy life insurance case. A man died in Mexican waters and the life insurance company is in doubt about the whole thing. They think they were scammed. Marlowe bribes some locals in the area to find out that the man found dead wasn't the man named by the police. His ID didn't match his face and the man who "died" and gave his widow money was very much alive. He spends the rest of the book chasing the man and the "widow". 

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I give this one five stars. I loved it for many reasons, one of which being Marlowe's wit. It had the same feel as the Chandler books. The more Marlowe did on the case, the more the old wit came back. The sarcasm of Marlowe is one reason I love the series. 

If you like sarcastic private investigators whose cases start simple and get complicated, you'll love anything Philip Marlowe. If you love the trope of the investigator being told to go home and walk away, and they don't, you'll love Marlowe. I'd suggest reading the original Raymond Chandler Marlowe before reading this, just to get the feel for what your main character is like. Retired Marlowe had lost some of his spark at the beginning of the book and had regained that spark as he finished the case. 

The Rising Sea by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown

The NUMA files are a series I also collect, all of them great and exciting adventures. The plot centers on NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency, investigating the reason the seas are rising rapidly. The plot also ties in the history of two swords and the legend that went with them. The Chinese are mining with robots and making them more and more human this whole book. Like every NUMA files book I've ever read, the prologue ties into the plot perfectly, intersecting with the economic disaster NUMA is trying to prevent. Our main characters Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are amazing, as usual. It's easier to read the book to understand how all this comes together. I won't spoil it for you. 

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This is another five star read. The reason I loved it so much has a lot to do with loving the characters. You care about them and their adventure. Their banter is funny, the excitement doesn't end, and the end is satisfying. Everything ties neatly into a bow, creating a satisfying ending. 

If you like tidy endings, economic disasters, fantastical plots, political intrigue, fight sequences, and general adventure and antics you'll love this. It has some spy plot aspects to it. It's not a spy novel, but behaves like one at times. Lovable heroes make the whole thing fun to read. 

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I wrote a book! I am delighted to say that I have 5 five-star reviews up on Amazon now, which is amazing. I hope you like it, too. If you're interested in buying a paperback, hardcover, or ebook version go to my website link in this blog or click here to go straight to my Amazon page. 

Jack Thomas is running from a past case. He's hiding in Wrenville. Is his past case catching up with him? 

Find out in my first book, Wrenville, a stand-alone suspense novel.