The Cruise of the Alerte is one part travel guide, one part high seas adventure, and one part farce. It is the story of E.F. Knight, an English writer and lawyer in 1889, who receives a map that claims the location of buried pirate treasure and his subsequent adventure (if you could call it that) in following it. 

From what I can tell, it is a true story, written by E.F. Knight himself. Truthfully, this is confirmed by the book itself. It lacks the high adventure, harrowing thrills and dervish like plot twists that most fictional tails, especially those involving lost pirate treasure, contain. However, its true story label turns it from a dull tale into a droll and some times hilariously farcical yarn.

 . . .

I will be blunt. Jeeves and Wooster is brilliant. Well, sort of. Jeeves is brilliant. Wooster is a complete idiot. It is off this dichotomy that Life With Jeeves, a three book omnibus by P.G. Wodehouse containing The Inimitable Jeeves, Very Good, Jeeves!, and Right Ho, Jeeves, is based on. The three books were written and take place in 1930's London and concern themselves with Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster and his 'gentleman's personal gentleman' (which is to say valet), Reginald Jeeves (almost uniformly referred to as, simply, 'Jeeves'). 

Bertie Wooster is a young minor aristocrat, a member of the idle rich who spends most of his time either in hi-jinx with various friends and family, traveling (though usually reluctantly) or at his Gentleman's club, The Drones. He is, to be frank, a complete moron, though cheerfully so. Despite this mental handicap he is a intensely likable fellow, if only to the readers. 

. . .

I've always disliked quotes. It seems to me that if you're going to say something, you might as well say it yourself. It doesn't help that I rarely hear a quote that hasn't been beaten to death harder then a punching bag at a military training base. I swear, if I hear one more person say "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake," like they're subversive and original for doing so I will . . . well, probably roll my eyes derisively and make a snide comment. 

The main reason for this is that I am a Curmudgeon. For those who don't know what a curmudgeon is, the following should be illuminating.

Cur ⠂mud ⠂geon\,ker-'mujh-uh-n N [origin unknown]

1 archaic: A crusty, ill-tempered, churlish old man

2 modern: anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner

. . .

Many of you have probably heard of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age for its prevalent use of Neo-Victorianism, and for it being an wonderful novel. However, you may not have heard of his earlier work Snow Crash. Where The Diamond Age was a bildungsroman set in a nano-technologically influenced future, Snow Crash is a cyberpunk novel to its core, up there with William Gibson's Neuromancer. 

The book focuses mainly on Hiroaki "Hiro" Protagonist, a free-lance hacker and, until the start of the book, pizza delivery-man for the mafia. You start with Hiro losing his job, and end with a mind blowing adventure involving ancient Sumerian linguistics and mythology, national super powers, pseudo-neurological techno-plots to take over the world, and skateboarding punks. On the way you also get a look at the future of the internet and virtual reality, the workings of a fully instantiated laissez-fair economy, the inner dialog of a burb muscle-head and a massive dose of Neal Stephenson's side splitting dark humor. Also starring are Y.T (standing for Yours Truly), a 'Kourier' who becomes Hiro's partner in the adventure, Juanita Marquez, a techno-mystic obsessed with the hijacking of Christianity, and Fido, a cyborg 'rat-thing' used as attack dogs by the franchise, 'Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong'.