Books you've read in 2010 - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt

 

 

Always glad to see parents, especially dads, taking an interest in reading with their kids. I wouldn't be a voracious reader today if my dad hadn't read with me when I was in grade school.

Thanks Adam but I play so many video games with both of my kids I feel like I have to do something to help them out. Honestly both of them really enjoy reading and I just do my best to help promote this in whatever way I can.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveF 

My wife and I loved the Shadow Children series, by Margaret Haddix. My comments on that were what prompted Adam's recommendation of Hunger Games.

 

I also suggest The City of Ember, People of Sparks, and The Diamond of Darkhold (not City of Yonwood, which was mostly lame).

Thanks Dave for the recommendations and I will put it on our list.

Just finished Mockingjay. Not at all what I expected; while it doesn't repeat the second book's mistake of repeating the Hunger Games all over again, it doesn't pay off the cliffhanger ending of the second book like I thought it would. This is a character driven book, concerned primarily with how Katniss Everdeen now compares to the girl she was at the beginning of the first book, and how the difference between the two affects her understanding of the world. It presents a perspective in which war is terrible but sometimes necessary, the inevitable consequence of powerful people in better times (sometimes very long ago) who were too small or selfish or passionate or greedy to take the steps necessary to avert it. Perhaps more cynically, Collins implies that peace is a natural consequence of war and war is a natural consequence of peace, because generally speaking those who have experienced war would never do anything to start one and those have experienced only peace wouldn't know better than to avoid one. This book does a better job presenting adulthood to a young adult audience than any other book I've ever read. It might be the only one that's really tried. Collins avoids both the necessary comfort of a comedy and the necessary catharsis of a tragedy with a more complex ending that provides bitter, hard won solace: Life is not easy, and metes out losses and failures that seem to be unbearable until we survive them. It is a chisel, and each thing it cruelly chips away helps define the person who remains. Most importantly no matter how horrible the things in our pasts, if we endure we can find something worth living for in our futures. Times are a lot worse now than they were when I was in the target age group. I'm sure there will be a lot of kids in families facing foreclosure and with parents who can't find a job -- along with the children who (even if times were good) face all of the terrible calamities no child should have to face -- that will take more comfort for this book than they would have from a happily ever ending. When I was younger, I read Madeleine L'Engle's An Acceptable Time and came across a quote that's stayed with me ever since: "Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters." This book embraces a very similar philosophy.

I just finished The Aquariums of Pyongyang, a real life account of a boy who at the age of nine is locked up in one of North Korea's infamous prison/concentration camps with his entire family. I enjoyed it and found it to be an interesting read on a subject that many people here in the west tend to ignore.

I just started Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Lazy, and Dumb by Denis Leary and so far I love it. I've always been a fan of his comedic style and love "Rescue Me", so I'm finding the book hilarious.

After this I'm thinking of picking something up on the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge or maybe a travel/cultural book on someplace to inspire my next big trip (Japan?!)

I just finished "The Unincorporated Man" - it's an okay read. Simple in style and heavy on exposition - lots of monologues just like in Inception! :P

Now I'm starting Peter F. Hamilton's Evolutionary Void - 3rd book in the trilogy that just came out. A huge sprawling space opera that is really cool and awesome in scope - and also a complex plot with hundreds of characters - or so it seems to me hehe. A huge change from the simple Unincorporated Man! I'm really looking forward to the conclusion of the series.

I finished Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Lazy, and Dumb by Denis Leary yesterday. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I am looking for my next read.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henry Gale 

Halfway though Justin Cronin's "The Passage".

 

I won't try to describe it, several folks have done a swell job of that at Amazon.

My prediction is that in a couple of years there will be some very excited posts at HTF about the movie version of this book.

 

Of course, well before then this thread will have been archived.

Just finished this myself this morning.  Really enjoyed it, tho at times, I felt like I was reading tv series like The Fugitive or Incredible Hulk.  You know, where the lead character wanders the country and in each episode they meet up with some people, deal with an issue, then move on.  The Haven section reminded me of this the most.  It felt like a self contained story.
 

Just finished "Pathfinder"

Stunning.  I could not put this book down from the time I started, the 650 pages rip by so fast it'll make your head spin.  I lost a lot of sleep waiting to see what happened next.   OSC's best work in years. Fantastic work.
 

Good to hear, Matt. OSC is still an excellent writer, even if his political opinions (and assumptions) made the Empire books frustrating to read. I'll definitely be checking that out.

There is nothing political about "Pathfinder"... a lot of very interesting moral choices, though... and tons of mind-bending time travel.    But the core concept is one that hits on something I had not thought of at all, but once it was said in the book, I realized it had such a ring of truth to it it's hard to dismiss..

Really, it's his best work in years.   I loved The Ender set, Empire is not a fav, but "eh" too political; Ender's Shadow were fun but lesser works.   This is really interesting ground here, it's a very different concept.   You may find yourself re-reading the same chapter a couple of times to get the idea of what is being said. 

I know OSC has a teenage daughter himself, which bodes well for his first foray into the young adult market. I find that most of the best writers for a YA audience have a young adult in the house, so they're writing to what these older kids actually want instead of their vague remembrance of what they wanted at that age.

He has samples up at IGMS.

Some good stuff.  

http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=issue&vol=i19&article=_001

BTW, a strong plug for IGMS as a Christmas gift.. Card contributes too, but I've found a lot of short stories through IGMS that you don't find elsewhere, and Short Stories in the means of Fiction are a rare and sometimes great wealth.  IGMS is incredibly cheap, and a great value (IMHO)

OSC makes sure all of his audiobooks are read by a cast.  If you like those, you're hearing what you get on all of them.  He largely uses the same reading pool.  It's generally 4-8 actors who read parts or perform the story.  I often find myself buying the book, ripping through it, and since I have an audible membership, grabbing the audiobook if I like it.   I've found sometimes his audiobook gives me a completely different take on the novel, because of how things are emphasized or not.. they are really great stuff, and I wish more audiobooks were done in that fashion.