Just in case: Richards' Bicycle Repair Manual

Apparently the stars were aligned for me yesterday because my husband and I happened to stumble onto the Lancaster Public Library's annual booksale despite having seen no prior advertisements for the sale. We considered ourselves smiled upon by the gods. And even though fate put us in the path of the sale, I managed to behave myself and only by a handful of items. I found a few rock cds and the humble, yet pictu-rific "Richards' Bicycle Repair Manual". The book is co-written by Richard Ballantine and Richard Grant.

My husband and I love our mountain bikes dearly and my husband has no qualms about jumping right in to work on his bike. He sees it as a learning process. I'm a bit more conservative, I'll wrench on a few obvious pieces and parts, but aside from that, I defer to the professionals... Because of this, I immediately bought the RBRM in hopes to repair future damage to my bike that I'm sure I'll incur with increased biking and with my increased eco-habits.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well organized the manual is. It walks the reader through repairs by starting with simplistic repairs and it moves to advanced repairs as the book moves forward. Toward the end of the book are a couple of very useful tools. 1st are some checklists for riding and maintenance and 2nd is the comical, yet useful "emergency repairs" diagram. Lastly, I particularly appreciated the glossary and the index. These are well organized and super easy to use.

Overall, the book does a fabulous job teaching for visual and kinesthetic learners (like me!) by including multiple pictures on almost every page. As well, all of the pics are in color, which makes the guide very accessible and a great book to simply pick to skim for desired info. I'm very excited about trying out the maintenance and repairs suggested as soon as possible.

Rocking My Socks Off: Fat Kid Rules the World

I started "Fat Kid Rules The World" last night just before bed as a pathetic attempt to put a larger dent into my box of YA lit I borrowed from my school's library. I was feeling a bit too guilty about only wanting to read non-fiction-- particularly about organic gardening. While I thought I'd just calm my brain with some reading before bed, instead I found my brain strangely roused from its plant-track mind. I've read one other book by the same author (K.L. Going) which was Saint Iggy. It was unconventional and gritty enough so I figured "Fat Kid" would be worth a try. And it was refreshing.

I found myself awaken this morning after dreaming about the first day of school and I decided that immediately after my obligatory run, I'd be snuggling into the couch to finish "Fat Kid". It was rainy and gray out, even if it was going to be 90 degrees again, and "Fat Kid" sucked me further into its depths.

Like "Saint Iggy", there is a homeless teen as a main character. There's also a bit of school skipping going on- which is beginning to make me wonder if K.L. Going was ever homeless and if she skipped school a lot. The protagonist is "Big T" who is a dorky, 300 lb softie. He's contemplating throwing himself into an oncoming subway train when the homeless rock prodigy Curt MacCrae interrupts him and forces him to buy lunch for the two of them.

Curt and "Big T" become an odd coupling in that Curt twists "T" into playing drums for a band that has just recently dreamed up. For some reason Curt sees potential in "T" that no one else sees or is willing to invest in. Curt and "T" begin the hang out at the expense of "T's" attendance at school, but "T's" dad puts a quick end to this truancy all while showing that he not only cares about his son, but also that he's concerned for the welfare of Curt.

"Big T" is a big baby and he trie to come up with reasons for why he isn't good enough to be the drummer that Curt is hoping to cultivate. Curt also exposes "T" to some of the seedier sides of life and he even gets T out of the house to go to a "real show".

I couldn't help but think that the author would magically fix T's problems by having him lose weight and get lots of attention from girls, but this didn't happen. I was pleasantly surprised. Instead, T had to earn his own respect and the respect of those around him- which was refreshing rather than seeing a simplistic ending to the story. The author forces the protagonist to deal with the real problems and she also forces him to look at his family members in a new light in order to better understand himself- which is something we could all use to do once in a while.