The Book of Common Fallacies by Philip Ward with Julia Edwards, 488 pages

I saw this book and thought it would be fascinating learning about all the "facts" we know that aren't really true. Except that this author has taken anything that is interesting and drowned it in a sea of boring. Any tidbits that are at all fascinating or intriguing are surrounded by 5 boring entries on logical, math or philosophy fallacies that left me bored out of my mind and drooling. Plus, the author has no belief at all in anything at all questionable, such as parapsychology, aliens or even religion, so his fallacies are often times insulting. Not worth picking up at all.

The Ax and the Oath: Ordinary Life in the Middle Ages by Robert Fossier, 384 pages

I really enjoy historical non-fiction books, so this one about everyday people in medieval France caught my eye. I always try to give a book 50-100 pages but this was pretty boring and dry from page 1. I found myself rereading sentences trying to figure out what they meant and losing my place many times. I consider myself a fairly intelligent person but this book made me feel stupid. I reached a point where I refused to stop reading this book just so the book wouldn't win and this book took over six weeks for me to read. The author has a tendency to use foreign quotes and then only translate half of them (because doesn't every speak French and Latin?) and to never use an easy word when there is a fifteen-syllable word that would work instead. Putting your obscure words in italics doesn't not make them easier to translate! I wholeheartedly say, don't pick this book up unless you're working on your thesis in Medieval French peasantry, and even then you might want to choose something else.