Books, Boardgames, & Music

A Painting of Mozart by  Johann Nepomuk della Croce Ah, Classical Music, the most boring type of music; all instrumental, old, and most importantly... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ... WRONG!!! Classical Music may be old, but it is definitely not boring. Also, some classical songs have vocal parts. Finally, while some pieces (may) make you fall asleep, other pieces are invigorating and exciting! Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (EKN), one of the most famous pieces of classical music ever written, is just one of these. Composed by Wolfgang A. Mozart in 1787, it is comprised of  4 movements, or parts, although the first movement is the one that we all (hopefully) know so well (you can listen to a video of the first movement  here ). Overview Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is German for “A Little Serenade”, but this is also sometimes translated to “A Little Night Music”. Although, the piece also goes by the name Serenade No. 13 in G Major K 525. The original manuscript created by Mozart w...

Photo by  HarperCollins                 Do you like mystery? Do you just have to know whodunit after you start a detective novel?  Do you enjoy matching your wits with the greatest detectives in the (fictional) world? Well then, YOU should read The Mysterious Affair at Styles (you really should). The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written by Agatha Christie, the “Queen of Mystery”, is a detective novel which introduces the famous, the brilliant, the great, Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (or at least in his own opinion); who uses his “little grey cells” better than anyone else. It was Christie’s first detective novel, and it led her to write 65 more, 14 short story collections, and multiple plays and romances. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (TMAS), was first published in October, 1920. Christie started writing it because of a dare from her sister to write a detective story where the reader was given all the facts, yet still c...

Welcome to my second blog post. This post will feature a review of the boardgame 7 Wonders, which has received more than 30 awards. Here are the details: Designer: Antoine Bauza Publishers: Repos Production (Belgium), Κάισσα (Greece) Players: 2-7 Setup Time: Around 6 min. Playing Time: Around 30 min. My Rating: 91/100 Overview In the game, each player represents an ancient civilization (such as Babylon) that built one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World (such as the Hanging Gardens). The game revolves around building various buildings (represented by cards), as well as your civilization’s unique wonder. The different types of buildings can be separated into various categories, represented by colors: Red: Military Blue: Culture Yellow: Commerce Green: Science Brown: Raw Materials Gray: Processed Goods Purple: Guilds The interesting and unique feature of this game is that while each player starts out with their own hand of cards, after everyone plays a card...

Welcome to my Blog. This first post will mainly be about (in detail) what I plan to blog about. From the title of this blog, it is obvious that I will be blogging about Books, Boardgames, and Music!, but I will also blog about other interests of mine, such as Star Trek and Video Games . For Books, I plan to write reviews of the novels in the Hercule Poirot Series, one of the most famous and beloved Mystery/Detective Series of all time, written by Agatha Christie, the “Queen of Mystery”. But, I may occasionally also give reviews of other books as well. I will also be making reviews of Board Games, although the ones that I will review, will mostly be “Eurogames”, a certain type of boardgame (which is explained well at  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Eurogame ). These include the hugely popular Settlers of Catan , the award-winning 7 Wonders , and the nearly impossible to win Pandemic. In music, I will ONLY blog about the Classical Genre, specifically, famous compose...