Here’s a simple Meme…answer the following questions:
- What Book Are You Reading Now?
- Why did you choose it?
- What’s the best thing about it?
- What’s the worst thing about it?
Here are my answers…
- Storm Front: Dresden Files #1 by Jim Butcher
- I’d heard good things and he’s also represented by my agent.
- The character, Harry Dresden, tells the book in first person. He’s a cynical, damaged man with a sense of humor and gallantry that makes him charming.
- The magic system feels like it totally makes sense, except for the pseudo-Latin. I don’t understand why it’s that, although Harry Dresden does make a crack about the fact that it’s pseudo-Latin so he’s self-aware of it.
(via SF Signal)
1. A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
2. It was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and I’d been hearing good things about it. Plus, the title was evocative enough to snag me.
3. I just started it, but the voice of the protagonist, Ali Shigri, is strong and distinctive. It’s also quite funny.
4. Can’t really say yet, although I may not be as culturally knowledgeable about the Pakistani politics covered in the novel, so some of the details may zoom over my head.
1. Into the Looking Glass, John Ringo
2. I wanted to see if I could “get” Ringo after a previous experience that was poor.
3 Competent Protagonists that carry the action forward
4. The liberal-bashing politics are getting tiresome
1. Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire.
2. I’d read it last year on a plane, and tried to find it in January for another plane trip but couldn’t. Then you started discussing your job reading it aloud, and I stumbled over it tucked into the wrong bookcase.
3. I like the world of Fairy presented. I like the main character, October Daye. I like the roses, magical, metaphoric, and real, that twine through the book. Seanan’s done a wonderful job here. Toby Daye is wry without being cynical and has a sense of humor about her situation.
4. Some of the transitions don’t match the polish of the rest of the book; it’s a good first novel but it also definitely feels like a first novel.
I’m never reading just *one* book, but…
1. The Company of Liars, by Karen Maitland
2. My GF thought it was fantastic and I try to read some stuff that she likes.
3. It’s sort of a retelling of The Canterbury Tales, now with plague.
4. Straight up historical fiction just isn’t my thing. It’s well told, but the setting / style doesn’t quite work for me.
1. Escher on Escher
2. I’ve always loved Escher’s art and wanted know what he had to say about his own work.
3. Understanding what went through his mind as he created some of his most famous woodcuts is fascinating.
4. There is a lot of overlap in the selections the editors chose to include in the book. As one go es through the book, there is a lot of ‘I’ve read this before’ going through your head.
Um….I just finished a book, and haven’t picked my next book to read yet. Non-trivial choice since I’ve got quite a large selection to pick from.
As to Harry’s pseudo Latin, it will eventually get explained. I don’t recall at which point, whether it’s in Book one or a later volume.
I’m just past page 600 of “The Guermantes Way,” the third of the seven volumes of Proust’s _In Search of Lost Time_. Please don’t hate me; I’ve failed to finish Proust three times in the past, and I’m determined to go the distance this time. Started a couple days before the New Year, so I’m making good time.
Also reading _The Ornament of the World_, Maria Rosa Menocal’s capsule history of the Muslims, Jews, and Christians who lived and worked together mostly in harmony in medieval Spain. This was my book discussion group’s choice for this month past, and has happened for four or five months running, my schedule kept me from the meeting, but I’m trying to do all the reading anyway.
Just picked up a fat novel that’s brand new, _The Lonely Polygamist_ by Brady Udall, which my editor at the Oregonian wants me to review by the end of March.
This year I intend to get into Cormac McCarthy, whom I’ve never read, and deeper into Haruki Murakami, of whose books I’ve read only three of the shorter ones.
1.What Book Are You Reading Now?
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now by Barry Miles
2.Why did you choose it?
I’ve been on a Beatles kick (no surprise there) and just finished Bob Spitz’s quite entertaining biog, so I figured I may as well follow it up with more!
3.What’s the best thing about it?
Unlike Spitz’s book where the pace is deliberately slow, this one’s a quicker read, since it’s primarily transcripts from all sorts of interviews from over the years.
4.What’s the worst thing about it?
There’s a few things I think needed fact checking–I’m nowhere near an expert on the Beatles, but he had a few bits in there that contradict things I’ve read elsewhere. It’s also not nearly as intensive as Spitz’s book–this one, while good, feels a bit hobbled together.
As an aside–I’m going through the Dresden books myself, and I highly suggest you read all of them–they’re SO much fun to read!!! 🙂
1. Diving Into The Wreck by Kris Rusch
2. Great cover, intriguing concept, word of mouth, and it’s in trade!
3. I love the narrative stle of the opening few chapters.
4. That nrrative style is getting a bit distracting.
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1. “Lirael” by Garth Nix, YA Fantasy
2. His Abhorsen necromancer series came highly recommended, and book one was great.
3. Great sense of wonder, neat magic systems, and world, rich characters, fantasy without feeling “been there, read that” before.
4. Nix is truly talented at creating awesome teenage characters. This means, however, that they are also irritating and annoying early on before they grow into themselves. Kind of a good news/bad news thing.
1. “Crystal Rain” by Tobias Buckell, SF / Space Opera
2. Been wanting to read Toby’s stuff ever since I heard about it, and he’s a great, down to earth guy that helps out other writers.
3. Super SF / space opera with Caribbean-based culture for the protagonists I’ve not seen in SF before. Rich characters, nasty enemies, nice conflicts.
4. Some of the violence and conflict hit me just a little too hard recently. It’s not over the top, it just hit home too well, if you take my meaning. If you make your readers really feel for characters….
Also reading “The Fires of Heaven” by Robert Jordan, “Beyond Fear” by Bruce Schneier, and several others….
1. Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett.
2. My grandma gave it to me several Christmases ago. I’m supposedly not starting any more books until I finish one I promised to review, but our movie rental was taking forever to download from iTunes and the review book was upstairs, and there it was on the shelf, horizontal, with that silly, silly name.
3. It’s funny. The form contributes: each chapter starts/contains the beginning of a chapter of the narrator’s twin sister’s potboiled true crime memoir. Then the dry narrator picks it apart and contrasts it with the truth.
4. The narrator’s visceral contempt for her sister and disgust at her sister’s fleshy body is getting a little hard to take. I get it, already.
1. Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
2. Because a new Kay novel is reason to celebrate.
3 & 4. Still too early in the novel to answer either of these, but you’ll know as soon as I post my review to my site. So far he’s on form.
1. The Wizard of Oz. by L. Frank Baum
2. I just finished reading Finding Oz : how L. Frank Baum discovered the great American story and wanted ta’ go back to the source to see the differences from all the other retellings.
3. It’s simple and a quick read.
4. It’s simple and a quick read. I know it’s the first or one of the first American YA books and I shouldn’t expect a lot of deep thought from the characters.
A Better Man
The book’s editor was on C-Span Book TV with
several contributing authors of the book – intriguing
men with 1st person reports of their lives & philosophies.
It is facile reading. Each chapter stands alone.
At the same time i found annoying the introduction for
each chapter by the editor, though it was probably necessary.