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auntiemeeshI was a voracious reader when I was younger. In college, I would buy a handful of books every weekend and read them that week (not that I could afford this, but in my world, having something to read that wasn't assigned in class was more important by far than having enough money to buy lunch). Things slowed down a little after I got out of school, but only because reality set in and I had bills that insisted upon being paid. Having electricity was more important (marginally) than having to reread a book I already owned).
Most of what I read during this (fairly long) period was the literary equivalent of junk food. Cheap paperback fantasy books with the occasional sci/fi thrown in to mix things up. Every now and then, though, I would buy some veggies or a good hunk of protein, in the form of biographies, anthropology and paleo-anthropology studies, social/cultural studies, etc.
Then, somewhere around 2002 or 2003, I bought a computer, introduced myself to the internet and dove headfirst into the world of fanfic. I continued to read voraciously, but now most of it was online, and based on the fandom of the day.
Lately, I've been trying to return to paper books and original works. Much less fantasy and a lot more of everything else. Mysteries, from Martha Grimes to Carl Hiaasen, fiction ranging from Italo Calvino to Christopher Moore, with stops in between for Neil Gaimon, Jasper Fforde, David Sedaris, etc.
Some of what I've read this year (not including rereads of old favorites):
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension, by Michio Kaku. (Okay, yes, I mostly read this last fall, but it took me forever to get through it, and I'm including it.) This was mostly over my head, truth be told. My grounding in physics is pretty non-existent, so although I'd heard of most of the terms and theories discussed herein, I have only the vaguest framework from which to hang them. Despite that, I found this to be a fairly approachable discussion of one possible way to explain the workings of the universe, with stops along a historical highway to bring the reader to current understandings of a multi-dimensional universe. It certainly sparked a desire to bone up on my physics basics. Which led me to buying Physics for Dummies,, by Steven Holzner, which I have every intention of working my way through, someday, when I'm less intimidated by it.
Coyote Blue, by Christopher Moore. Sampson Hunts Alone fled the reservation when he was fifteen, leaving behind his family and name. Now he's an extremely successful insurance salesman named Sam Hunter. Then one day, Coyote the Trickster arrives to change everything, on the same day that Sam meets a beautiful, quirky girl named Calliope. Now Sam is going to have to confront his own past and demons, while trying to stay ahead of the game and help Calliope deal with her own past and problems. I love everything I've read by Christopher Moore and this one was no exception.
The Way to Glory, by David Drake. This is, I believe, book four of the RCN series, and truth be told, I didn't like it as much as the first few. With the Lightnings is the first in the series, introducing Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy, two people with almost nothing in common and every reason to hate each other, except that they form an unusual friendship instead. By the time you get to the fourth book, however, a lot of what Drake is writing is redundant. It seems that he is writing for people who have no short term memory, so he gives the same information about the characters over and over again. I've read a lot of Drake's books and this is the first time I've noticed this tendency, and I'm wondering if it will stand out the next time I go back and re-read the others. Disregarding that complaint, the plot itself was fun. Fast paced and action packed, which is what I want out of these books (they're some of that literary junk-food I was referring to earlier - nothing wrong with that, as long as it's not the only thing I'm reading, is the justification I'm sticking with), full of derring-do, quick thinking on the part of the heroes and stupidity on the part of beaurocracy everywhere. Daniel is due a promotion, but an unbalanced Commander who has already put some of his crew out an airlock for mutiny (without proper trial) needs someone on his crew who can find out what's going on. Leary gets the job.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. This was a Christmas gift from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyda_pearl and it took me a little while to get started on it. I had tried Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister some years ago and hadn't been much impressed with it. But I really, really loved Wicked. Elphaba (the wicked witch) makes a marvelous flawed heroine, trying her hardest to understand a world that cannot understand her before finally embracing the reputation she has been given.
Lonely Werewolf Girl, by Martin Millar. I have a thing for books like this, books that deal with werewolves, vampires and other such supernatural things not as horror stories, but just as things that happen. Christopher Moore is an example of an author who does this really well. This particular book was mixed. I'd picked it up partly because of the cover art, partly because of the title and premise, and partly because it came with strong positive review by Neil Gaimon. The story premise is interesting - a young girl from a royal Scottish werewolf line runs away from her family after some serious trouble and struggles to get on in London. Her past follows her, however, and chaos ensues. The problem I had with the book was the writing, not the story itself. It's a nice long book, which I like, but part of the reason it's so long is that Millar repeats himself over and over again. He re-introduces each of the characters and plot points each time he mentions them for probably the first half of the book, which got annoying in about five minutes. As I said, though, I did really like how the story itself played out, once I learned to blank out the repetition. That being said, I haven't exactly rushed out to buy any more of Millar's books. I'll almost certainly read more of them at some point, but probably not until I forget how annoying his writing can be.
Last One In, by Nicholas Kulish. This is another one that took me a while to start. I bought it over Christmas break and only started reading it sometime in February or March. It was another really good book, once I got into it. Sometimes funny as all hell, sometimes completely heartbreaking. Jimmy Stephens, a gossip columnist for a small-time newspaper, is sent to cover the Iraq War because the paper's regular correspondent, James Stephens, has been injured and because the paper can't or won't get new visa papers, only someone with the same name can go. Jimmy, however, is about as far from a war correspondent as you can get and still be able to write, so his learning curve on the job is hilarious and awful at the same time.
Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett. I enjoy Pratchett's writing, but have to admit I've been very slow to dip my toes into his worlds. I was introduced to Discworld through The Hogfather, some years ago, bylyda_pearl and liked it but didn't pursue it any further. Then I picked up Witches Abroad last year and loved that (with a vague sense that I've also read Wyrd Sisters, although the summary of that novel doesn't actually sound very familiar). So when a friend passed this and another Pratchett novel on to me, I welcomed it, but didn't immediately throw myself into it. I cracked it open last weekend and once I started, I couldn't put it down. The first character we're introduced to is Death, at which point I pretty much knew I was going to love this book. We are eventually also introduced to Jeremy Clockson, a clock-maker who has been commissioned to make and absolutely accurate clock, and Lobsang Ludd, a young member of the thieves guild who has been taken in as an apprentice by an especially secret society of monks. We also meet Death's granddaughter Susan, and Lu-Tze, a little, bald man who works as a sweeper for the secret monks. Along the way, we learn the importance of the First Rule, the dangers of absolutely accurate clocks, and the utterly compelling nature of chocolate. Mmm, chocolate...
Going Postal, also by Terry Pratchett. I made a bit of a mistake in diving straight into this one the same day I finished Thief of Time. It's an entertaining book, telling the story of Moist von Lipwig, a career con artist whose life changes drastically after he's hanged for his crimes. Put in charge of a dead Post Office and forced to compete against a new system of communication (clacks towers - messages sent through semaphore) while scheming to find some way out of his undesirable new position, Moist also finds himself dealing with golems, insane secret society hazing, and girls. The problem I had with it, I think, was a bit of Pratchett overdose. It would have been better to let a little time lapse between the reading of these two books.
I was back at Barnes & Noble today and I picked up two new books. Rocket Boys: A Memoir, by Homer Hickam, and The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi. I picked up Rocket Boys after browsing through the non-fiction until something jumped out at me. The author is a one-time NASA engineer and this memoir looks back at his teenage years, growing up in a coal-mining company town, he and his friends creating the Big Creek Missile Agency after Sputnik launched in 1957. I've just started this one, but so far I am enjoying it greatly.
I picked up The Android's Dream because it was featured in Joe Mallozzi's book of the month club and the descriptions of it (I didn't read any of the discussion, just Mallozzi's blurb) sounded intriguing, and I've been looking for new scifi authors. The blurb on the back of the book starts out, "Saving the planet, one sheep at a time," and that pretty much sealed the deal, right there. I'm looking forward to digging in once I'm done with Rocket Boys.
There have been other books, but mostly they were all re-reads and I'm not listing those here. It doesn't seem like a lot for nearly six months worth of reading, but it's been squeezed in between the fanfic that I still can't turn away from, plus devouring many seasons' worth of several tv shows on dvd.
Most of what I read during this (fairly long) period was the literary equivalent of junk food. Cheap paperback fantasy books with the occasional sci/fi thrown in to mix things up. Every now and then, though, I would buy some veggies or a good hunk of protein, in the form of biographies, anthropology and paleo-anthropology studies, social/cultural studies, etc.
Then, somewhere around 2002 or 2003, I bought a computer, introduced myself to the internet and dove headfirst into the world of fanfic. I continued to read voraciously, but now most of it was online, and based on the fandom of the day.
Lately, I've been trying to return to paper books and original works. Much less fantasy and a lot more of everything else. Mysteries, from Martha Grimes to Carl Hiaasen, fiction ranging from Italo Calvino to Christopher Moore, with stops in between for Neil Gaimon, Jasper Fforde, David Sedaris, etc.
Some of what I've read this year (not including rereads of old favorites):
Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension, by Michio Kaku. (Okay, yes, I mostly read this last fall, but it took me forever to get through it, and I'm including it.) This was mostly over my head, truth be told. My grounding in physics is pretty non-existent, so although I'd heard of most of the terms and theories discussed herein, I have only the vaguest framework from which to hang them. Despite that, I found this to be a fairly approachable discussion of one possible way to explain the workings of the universe, with stops along a historical highway to bring the reader to current understandings of a multi-dimensional universe. It certainly sparked a desire to bone up on my physics basics. Which led me to buying Physics for Dummies,, by Steven Holzner, which I have every intention of working my way through, someday, when I'm less intimidated by it.
Coyote Blue, by Christopher Moore. Sampson Hunts Alone fled the reservation when he was fifteen, leaving behind his family and name. Now he's an extremely successful insurance salesman named Sam Hunter. Then one day, Coyote the Trickster arrives to change everything, on the same day that Sam meets a beautiful, quirky girl named Calliope. Now Sam is going to have to confront his own past and demons, while trying to stay ahead of the game and help Calliope deal with her own past and problems. I love everything I've read by Christopher Moore and this one was no exception.
The Way to Glory, by David Drake. This is, I believe, book four of the RCN series, and truth be told, I didn't like it as much as the first few. With the Lightnings is the first in the series, introducing Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy, two people with almost nothing in common and every reason to hate each other, except that they form an unusual friendship instead. By the time you get to the fourth book, however, a lot of what Drake is writing is redundant. It seems that he is writing for people who have no short term memory, so he gives the same information about the characters over and over again. I've read a lot of Drake's books and this is the first time I've noticed this tendency, and I'm wondering if it will stand out the next time I go back and re-read the others. Disregarding that complaint, the plot itself was fun. Fast paced and action packed, which is what I want out of these books (they're some of that literary junk-food I was referring to earlier - nothing wrong with that, as long as it's not the only thing I'm reading, is the justification I'm sticking with), full of derring-do, quick thinking on the part of the heroes and stupidity on the part of beaurocracy everywhere. Daniel is due a promotion, but an unbalanced Commander who has already put some of his crew out an airlock for mutiny (without proper trial) needs someone on his crew who can find out what's going on. Leary gets the job.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. This was a Christmas gift from
lyda_pearl and it took me a little while to get started on it. I had tried Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister some years ago and hadn't been much impressed with it. But I really, really loved Wicked. Elphaba (the wicked witch) makes a marvelous flawed heroine, trying her hardest to understand a world that cannot understand her before finally embracing the reputation she has been given. Lonely Werewolf Girl, by Martin Millar. I have a thing for books like this, books that deal with werewolves, vampires and other such supernatural things not as horror stories, but just as things that happen. Christopher Moore is an example of an author who does this really well. This particular book was mixed. I'd picked it up partly because of the cover art, partly because of the title and premise, and partly because it came with strong positive review by Neil Gaimon. The story premise is interesting - a young girl from a royal Scottish werewolf line runs away from her family after some serious trouble and struggles to get on in London. Her past follows her, however, and chaos ensues. The problem I had with the book was the writing, not the story itself. It's a nice long book, which I like, but part of the reason it's so long is that Millar repeats himself over and over again. He re-introduces each of the characters and plot points each time he mentions them for probably the first half of the book, which got annoying in about five minutes. As I said, though, I did really like how the story itself played out, once I learned to blank out the repetition. That being said, I haven't exactly rushed out to buy any more of Millar's books. I'll almost certainly read more of them at some point, but probably not until I forget how annoying his writing can be.
Last One In, by Nicholas Kulish. This is another one that took me a while to start. I bought it over Christmas break and only started reading it sometime in February or March. It was another really good book, once I got into it. Sometimes funny as all hell, sometimes completely heartbreaking. Jimmy Stephens, a gossip columnist for a small-time newspaper, is sent to cover the Iraq War because the paper's regular correspondent, James Stephens, has been injured and because the paper can't or won't get new visa papers, only someone with the same name can go. Jimmy, however, is about as far from a war correspondent as you can get and still be able to write, so his learning curve on the job is hilarious and awful at the same time.
Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett. I enjoy Pratchett's writing, but have to admit I've been very slow to dip my toes into his worlds. I was introduced to Discworld through The Hogfather, some years ago, by
lyda_pearl and liked it but didn't pursue it any further. Then I picked up Witches Abroad last year and loved that (with a vague sense that I've also read Wyrd Sisters, although the summary of that novel doesn't actually sound very familiar). So when a friend passed this and another Pratchett novel on to me, I welcomed it, but didn't immediately throw myself into it. I cracked it open last weekend and once I started, I couldn't put it down. The first character we're introduced to is Death, at which point I pretty much knew I was going to love this book. We are eventually also introduced to Jeremy Clockson, a clock-maker who has been commissioned to make and absolutely accurate clock, and Lobsang Ludd, a young member of the thieves guild who has been taken in as an apprentice by an especially secret society of monks. We also meet Death's granddaughter Susan, and Lu-Tze, a little, bald man who works as a sweeper for the secret monks. Along the way, we learn the importance of the First Rule, the dangers of absolutely accurate clocks, and the utterly compelling nature of chocolate. Mmm, chocolate...Going Postal, also by Terry Pratchett. I made a bit of a mistake in diving straight into this one the same day I finished Thief of Time. It's an entertaining book, telling the story of Moist von Lipwig, a career con artist whose life changes drastically after he's hanged for his crimes. Put in charge of a dead Post Office and forced to compete against a new system of communication (clacks towers - messages sent through semaphore) while scheming to find some way out of his undesirable new position, Moist also finds himself dealing with golems, insane secret society hazing, and girls. The problem I had with it, I think, was a bit of Pratchett overdose. It would have been better to let a little time lapse between the reading of these two books.
I was back at Barnes & Noble today and I picked up two new books. Rocket Boys: A Memoir, by Homer Hickam, and The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi. I picked up Rocket Boys after browsing through the non-fiction until something jumped out at me. The author is a one-time NASA engineer and this memoir looks back at his teenage years, growing up in a coal-mining company town, he and his friends creating the Big Creek Missile Agency after Sputnik launched in 1957. I've just started this one, but so far I am enjoying it greatly.
I picked up The Android's Dream because it was featured in Joe Mallozzi's book of the month club and the descriptions of it (I didn't read any of the discussion, just Mallozzi's blurb) sounded intriguing, and I've been looking for new scifi authors. The blurb on the back of the book starts out, "Saving the planet, one sheep at a time," and that pretty much sealed the deal, right there. I'm looking forward to digging in once I'm done with Rocket Boys.
There have been other books, but mostly they were all re-reads and I'm not listing those here. It doesn't seem like a lot for nearly six months worth of reading, but it's been squeezed in between the fanfic that I still can't turn away from, plus devouring many seasons' worth of several tv shows on dvd.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 09:31 pm (UTC)And randomly adding that right now I'm reading "The Skin Gods" by Richard Montanari. It's the second in a series of thrillers. I love that the partners are male and female. (I'm so easy.)
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Date: 2008-06-14 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 11:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 02:54 am (UTC)And I've been trying and trying to get my hands on a copy of Wicked. I guess I'm going to have to break down and order it online, 'cause the library's copy has gone missing, and I can't find it in any fo the bookstores...
I too, have been trying to get back in the habit of reading actual books--fiction, that is. I've constantly read non-fiction--a lot of it as fic research, and some for just the fun of it.
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Date: 2008-06-15 05:32 am (UTC)Bloodsucking Fiends. Everything he writes is a hoot.
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Date: 2008-06-15 02:11 pm (UTC)I suppose one of the big stopping points for me in writing is that I've never been very good at doing the research necessary to have all the proper background information. I tend to want to just get an idea and sit down and write. I'm such a very lazy writer.
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Date: 2008-06-15 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-15 02:53 pm (UTC)Well, for me, the research is part of the fun, I guess. In fact, one of the things that often holds me up when writing is getting sidetracked by the fascinating tidbits that come up when I'm researching.
I remember wasting half an afternoon one time--all I needed was to know what sorts of trees grow near the water in Great Britain, so I could mention that in a fic, and I ended up researching European beavers as well. (Not a total waste, as I gave the beavers a mention too--but all that for one sentence that it would have been just as easy to cut, LOL!)
Still, I know now that alders often grow near streams and rivers...I won't have to look them up again!
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Date: 2008-06-16 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:18 am (UTC)Oxford is a wild kind of place y'know!
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Date: 2008-06-16 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-16 12:34 am (UTC)Oxonian Zombies
Date: 2008-06-16 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-17 12:59 pm (UTC)