The Book Challenge discussion
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JC's 2008 Reading Extravaganza
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3. Earthbound--D.M. Arnold (2/21/08 - 2/27/08)This took a bit of work to visualize the Floran culture in my head, but once I did I found it was a rewarding experience. Earthbound is published online (easy to find via Google by typing in name and author), a page-turner with the occasional dry spots that could probably have been left out without sacrificing the integrity of the story. The characters are well-realized, though the main character of Nyk annoyed me from time to time by being overly honest and open with people when it seems he would save himself a lot of trouble by keeping his mouth shut and his ears open more often. This does lead to some interesting scenes, however. I love the character of Suki. This is the first of a series (five books so far), and I'll definitely be reading the rest.
Currently reading:
Star Trek: Enterprise--Vonda McIntyre
In queue:
Welcome to My Country--Lauren Slater
We All Fall Down--Robert Cormier
4. Star Trek: Enterprise--Vonda McIntyre (2/25/08 - 2/29/08)Not exactly everything I was hoping this novel to be, but has a certain charm to it. The first hundred-odd pages are fun, particularly in the character interactions as Kirk meets Spock, Spock meets McCoy, and Janice Rand gets a surprising amount of text devoted to her. Then a Klingon refugee shows up, there's a flying horse and a traveling vaudeville troupe in space, and a first contact with a mysterious species to clutter the plot in the second half. This book is a mixed bag.
Currently reading:
Welcome to My Country--Lauren Slater
In queue:
We All Fall Down--Robert Cormier
Emma--Jane Austen
5. Welcome to My Country--Lauren Slater (2/29/08 - 3/1/08)A brilliant mix of psychology, memoir, and highly poetic prose. Slater's compassion radiates off every page to the point that it is difficult to imagine a reader not being touched by her words. Especially poignant are the chapters about Joseph, who steadfastly attempts to defeat his schizophrenia by returning to college, and Linda, whose situation is a direct reflection of the author's own past struggles. Hopeful as well as heartbreaking; an incredible book.
I'm on a roll now! Five books down, 75 to go...
Currently reading:
We All Fall Down--Robert Cormier
In queue:
Emma--Jane Austen
6. We All Fall Down--Robert Cormier (3/1/08 - 3/2/08)I was quite impressed with We All Fall Down. Cormier takes the reader into the worlds of the main characters and makes them sympathetic even while not always condoning their actions. Their hopes, desires, fears are realistically depicted. For me the scenes centered around the Avenger do not always quite work (which takes We All Fall Down out of the league of The Chocolate War), but that is really my only complaint about this book. I especially admire the final scene for its tying together of the themes of this novel. Recommended.
Currently reading:
Emma--Jane Austen
In queue:
Nobody Nowhere--Donna Williams
Currently reading:Emma--Jane Austen
Currently listening to:
Long Way Down--Nick Hornby
(I debated with myself as to whether to count audiobooks or not. I concluded that I would count them if they are unabridged, but not otherwise. Hence I'm not including Gasping for Airtime by Jay Mohr as the audio is abridged, but I am counting this one.)
In queue:
Nobody Nowhere--Donna Williams
Star Trek Memories--William Shatner
7. Long Way Down--Nick Hornby (3/4/08 - 3/6/08)Just finished the audiobook, and I still can't decide if I liked it or not. To be sure, a lot of it I found pretty funny, and the characters were interesting; yet it did not hold together for me in the way that High Fidelity and About a Boy did. I'd put it on the same par with How to Be Good, in that both books just seemed like a bunch of random scenes tied precariously together without much of an ending at all. Thematically that may be the point that Hornby was trying to make, but it still leaves the reader (or this reader, at any rate) hanging. But it must be said that the narrators on the audio are terrific, and I can visualize all four characters pretty clearly even though two of them are performed by the same actress. I'll have to think some more about this one, maybe come back to it again in a year or two and see if it holds up any better or worse.
Currently reading:
Emma--Jane Austen
Nobody Nowhere--Donna Williams
In queue:
Star Trek Memories--William Shatner
Another Country--James Baldwin
I am abandoning Emma. The first couple of chapters were interesting, but now I'm halfway through and I'm just not enjoying this book, all in all. None of the characters really seem all that distinct from one another. It doesn't matter to me if anyone gets together with anyone else. Emma herself is a bit of a snob. And there's a pointlessly long monologue about baked apples that made me want to throw the book across my apartment, but I didn't because I'd probably have hit the cat and it's not his fault I started reading this novel.I like the movie version of Pride & Prejudice, which is why I thought I'd give this a shot. But it's just not worth the time I'm investing in it when there are books on my shelves that will undoubtedly be much better. I don't abandon books very often--the last one I tossed aside was The Hamlet by Faulkner, and I can't even remember the one before that--but I just can't do it anymore.
Currently reading:
Nobody Nowhere--Donna Williams
In queue:
Star Trek Memories--William Shatner
Another Country--James Baldwin
when i tried to read Emma a number of years ago, i ended up renting the Gwyneth Paltrow movie so i could participate in my book group discussion, but i had a hard time with the language so it was a painfully slow read for me.
8. Nobody Nowhere--Donna Williams (3/5/08 - 3/8/08)This is the author's personal experience growing up autistic. She gives many insights into the condition and what it is like to grow up in a world separate from what we think of as "the real world." I feel that I understand autism better by reading this book; Williams does an excellent job of depicting her perspective. She left me wanting to know more, but as she's written a second book called Somebody Somewhere I'm assuming that one picks up where the first book left off. Very interesting read.
9. Star Trek Memories--William Shatner (3/8/08 - 3/9/08)
Yeah, Shatner's a ham, he's a bit egotistical, but that didn't deter me from enjoying Star Trek Memories... too much. When he talks himself up in this book it comes across as humorous rather than serious, especially as it's usually to poke fun at Leonard Nimoy. There were stories in here I'd never known about, such as the encouragement Nichelle Nichols received from Dr. Martin Luther King. I do have to complain a bit in that over two-thirds of Star Trek Memories covers the period of time before and during the first season, and the second and third seasons are scarcely covered at all. For this reason the book feels uneven. I would still recommend it to Star Trek fans and maybe even casual viewers if they keep in mind that there's a great deal in it about the backstage origins of the show.
Currently reading:
Another Country--James Baldwin
Currently listening to:
The Wastelands (Dark Tower III)--Stephen King
In queue:
Eva--Peter Dickinson
Flappers & Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald
Foreigner--C.J. Cherryh
This is going well! I think I'm going to increase the challenge to 100 in 2008. It'll be fun. I might even try the A to Z or the challenge with the eight decades, see how that goes. :)
10. Another Country--James Baldwin (3/9/08 - 3/13/08)Emotionally provocative novel, populated with intense characters. This must have been quite a risk for Baldwin to publish at its time (1960) as much of it deals with homosexuality and interracial relationships. At any rate he did an excellent job with it. It's an easy read filled with poetic turns of phrase and astonishing insights into various forms of love and friendship. He could probably have dropped a scene or two here and there to make the book flow even more effectively, but otherwise there isn't much I would change about Another Country.
Currently reading:
Eva--Peter Dickinson
Currently listening to:
The Wastelands (Dark Tower III)--Stephen King
In queue:
Flappers and Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald
Foreigner--C.J. Cherryh
A Time To Be Born (Star Trek TNG)--John Vornholt
11. Eva--Peter Dickinson (3/13/08 - 3/15/08)A good young adult novel, though not a great one. Intriguing premise: 13-year-old girl's mental consciousness is transferred into a chimp to save the girl's life after a horrific car accident and she decides she kinda likes being a chimp. The author explores his story to its logical extreme, and in ways I hadn't anticipated; however, I predicted how it was going to turn out about halfway through. My complaint is that I wanted to know more about Eva's parents, as we are only given brief glimpses into their personalities to the point that they seem more like caricatures than actual people. That said, the backdrop of the futuristic world is one of the more disturbing that I have read in science fiction. The book is good, don't get me wrong... I just wish there had been a couple of chapters to flesh out Eva's relationships with her family and maybe the friends as well.
Currently reading:
Flappers and Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald (one story per day)
A Time to Be Born (Star Trek TNG)--John Vornholt
I've decided to stop listing books in queue for now. By the time I've finished reading a book I often realize I'm not in the mood to read what I had lined up to read next. I've set C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner aside to read at a later date.
12. A Time to Be Born (Star Trek TNG)--John Vornholt (3/16/08 - 3/19/08)Excellent opener to the nine-book series that apparently connects two TNG movies (Insurrection and Nemesis). Early on there's a lot of chasing around through space, but just as I was beginning to get tired of it the storyline took a very interesting turn. The characters are captured very well on the page, especially Picard and Data. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by revealing that there is a cliffhanger at the end of the novel, which makes me heartily sorry that the second book (A Time to Die by the same author) has been checked out from my local public library so I'll have to wait a while to find out what happens next.
Currently reading:
Flappers and Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald
Currently reading:Flappers and Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald
Texasville--Larry McMurtry
I'm going to add some incidental goals/challenges for myself, on a month-by-month basis...
Each month, starting this month, I will try to read at least one of each of these listed:
A book written before 1950
A book by an author I've never read before
A book I own that I haven't read yet
And I can't use the same book for two separate categories.
Let's see, have I already accomplished this for March? Hmm...
A book written before 1950:
I abandoned Emma so I can't count that one, but I will be finished with Flappers and Philosophers (1920) soon so that definitely counts.
A book by an author I've never read before:
There are four, actually: Donna Williams, William Shatner, Peter Dickinson, and John Vornholt.
A book I own that I haven't read yet:
I still need to achieve this one, thanks to a splurge borrowing library books. There are books all over the apartment I haven't read yet though, so this should not be difficult.
Also I do want to read all of the Wheel of Time novels before #12 comes out in the fall of 2009. I've only read #1 so that's a lot of Robert Jordan in the next year and a half...
13. Flappers and Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald (3/15 - 3/21)The Great Gatsby is definitely better. Perhaps I say that because the length of it allowed Fitzgerald to draw out his characters more, to develop scenes. Some of these stories felt unfinished to me. This could be partially a difference in the literary styles of early 20th-century America compared to today, but it still grates on me a bit. "Benediction" in particular could have done with a rewrite or two to flesh out the story (such as it was). However, "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" and "The Ice-Palace" and "The Four Fists" are all admirably good short stories; it's easy to see why "Bernice" has been widely anthologized, as it stands out like a diamond among the rest of the stories. That said, I am eager to read more Fitzgerald to see how well some of his non-Gatsby novels hold up for me.
Currently reading:
Texasville--Larry McMurtry
14. Texasville--Larry McMurtry (3/19 - 3/24)This novel is at least 50 pages longer than it needs to be. That said, it's also a very funny, entertaining read. I remember very little about its prequel, The Last Picture Show, but there really isn't a need to as McMurtry provides just the right amount of background on his characters. There's a genuine laugh at least every other page, a chapter break about every third page, and a sweet moment maybe once every hundred pages. This is definitely not the kind of novel that changes you, nor is it the kind that is supposed to. It's just fun.
Currently reading:
The Source of Magic--Piers Anthony
Thinking about doing a sci-fi reading fest for the month of April. The great authors, such as Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke (RIP), Octavia Butler, and Philip K. Dick. Haven't decided on this yet; depends on what I feel like reading next month.
Regarding the sci-fi reading fest I mentioned in my previous post: I thought about it, and I think I'd rather just read whatever the hell I feel like reading and not plan a big huge list of books I'm going to make myself read at a specific time. I don't want to be locked into it and then wake up one morning to decide I want to read something completely different, like I don't know, an Agatha Christie novel or something. Probably I'll still wind up reading a lot of sci-fi anyway, but you see what I mean.
15. The Source of Magic--Piers Anthony (3/24 - 3/27)Like its predecessor, A Spell for Chameleon, this book is a very pleasant diversion from the mediocrity of daily life. Anthony has a special gift for creating characters who in some way go against fantasy stereotypes in the way they act, look, and think. The Xanth books are short enough that you can dive in and get a good sense of the unfolding story within the first chapter. I do wish more attention had been given to the characters of Chameleon and Millie the Ghost, both of whom are largely sidelined, but as Chameleon is a big part of the preceding book and Millie is a big part of the following book, this is a small gripe.
16. The Cheese Monkeys--Chip Kidd (3/27 - 3/28)
I could not put this novel down. At first it was that I was having so much fun reading it; then it was that I wanted to see just how far Winter Sorbeck would go with his awful insults and crazy assignments; finally it was that I was so emotionally entangled in the insanity that I just had to see how it was going to end. I was up until 2 AM to finish The Cheese Monkeys, which is extremely rare for me. It's hard to put into words just how I feel about this book. I wasn't an art major, but I was an English major and some of the academic snobbiness depicted in The Cheese Monkeys resonated for me on a very similar level. The ending is not what I was expecting, and I can't say I was in love with it... but I do respect it, if that makes any sense. Oh, and Himillsy Dodd is a hilariously odd, somehow tragic character that will probably stand out in my mind for a very long time.
Currently reading:
Wild Seed--Octavia E. Butler
17. Galaxy Four (Doctor Who)--William Emms (3/31)Not much to say about this one. A quick read, like all the Target Doctor Who novelizations, this one based on a story that no longer exists in the BBC archives. Emms novelizes his own script, does a pretty good job of presenting a little bit of introspection on the part of the characters that could not have been conveyed in the TV episodes. Average.
18. Wild Seed--Octavia Butler (3/29 - 3/31)
Exceptional novel exploring the theme of immortality over the course of two or three centuries for the two main characters. It took me about the first fifty pages to really get into the flow of this book, as Butler does not give her readers the complete picture right away but gradually lets us in on who Anjanwu and Doro are and what they are about. Reading Wild Seed was a richly rewarding experience. I don't even want to say anything more for fear of giving too much away for those who have not yet read it.
Currently reading:
Coyote Blue--Christopher Moore
19. Coyote Blue--Christopher Moore (4/1 - 4/3)The problem I had with Coyote Blue really only came up during the second half. It has some very funny lines throughout and I enjoyed the characters of Coyote and Sam and M.F. But in the second half it really felt like Moore was trying to do too much with too many different plotlines, the result being that the last few chapters are crowded and the story comes to an abrupt conclusion. But I very much enjoyed Lamb and I will read more Moore (so to speak); it's just that this particular book didn't quite do it for me.
Currently reading:
The Great Hunt--Robert Jordan
My March challenge (wrap-up):A book written before 1950: Flappers and Philosophers--F. Scott Fitzgerald
A book by an author I've never read before: Nobody Nowhere--Donna Williams (also books by William Shatner, John Vornholt, and Peter Dickinson)
A book I own that I haven't read yet: The Source of Magic--Piers Anthony
All challenges met
And now working on April...
These are the books I've read so far this year:
1. Colonization: Second Contact—-Harry Turtledove (2/?/08 – 2/23/08)
Maintains the consistency of the overall Worldwar/Colonization series of books. In fact I liked it a bit better than the four Worldwar novels, though this may be because it's an alternative take on the 1960s, one of my favorite eras in history. Held my interest very well.
2. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat—-Oliver Sacks (2/23/08 – 2/25/08)
At first I borrowed this from the library only because Awakenings was checked out. But I found that this book was very interesting in its own right. Lots of case studies here... I probably would have liked it better if there had been fewer of them but they had been dealt with in more detail, as some were barely enough to begin to get a picture of the people they were about. Quite a good short read, but I would recommend An Anthropologist on Mars over this.
Currently reading:
Earthbound--D.M. Arnold
Star Trek: Enterprise--Vonda McIntyre
In queue:
Welcome to My Country--Lauren Slater
We All Fall Down--Robert Cormier
I'm reading Earthbound online, two or three chapters at a time, whenever I can tear myself away from random Internet surfing. Normally I only read one book at a time, but I guess I was just feeling rebellious. :)