If you happen to know or suspect what any of the unnamed books in this post are or who they're by, I would love to know.
The Hardy Boys. I read far too many of these, along with some Nancy Drew and Tom Swift, before realizing a deadly secret: they're all the same.
Pineapple Place. I remember little about this other than the name. When I checked recently, only the sequel was still in the library system.
Those Morgana books. I don't remember the title or author, but some children stumble upon a house full of mirrors. When a spell involving moonlight is worked, the mirrors became portals to another world, with the nice touch that on the other side you would appear however your reflection did here. Magic, originally contained in gemstones (if I recall), had been divided up into staffs of different ranks. There was a nasty game of questions in a dark basement. Someone is killed by shattering a mirror as he was passing through it. And one of the girls becomes Morgana's apprentice.
These books were really quite dark. I suspect I stopped reading them more or less intentionally, which is probably why I can't find them again now. Do I really want to? (This was probably somewhere between 3rd and 5th grade.)
Goosebumps. I also consider this wasted time now, although I suppose I know I don't like horror. I had a friend in second grade who had practically all of them and lent them to me.
Asimov, Norby and sequels. Who can forget this cute barrel shaped robot, hyperspace, ancient aliens named after Renaissance painters, and alternate universes? Probably my first sci fi.
Another unnamed book about a girl who was turned to stone either at the beginning or end. I think she was accepting of it which made it merely melancholy instead of terrible. There may have been a smog monster involved but I suspect I got it confused with another book.
Another unnamed book about some kids who fight aliens who have no creativity. There's a magic remote and Baba Yaga, too! I think the title was an acronym but I'm not sure exactly what it was. Something about geeks or nerds saving earth? The aliens may have been shaped like trash cans but that doesn't seem quite right.
The Falcon and the Serpent, by Cheryl A. Smith. Someone is stealing the souls of a kingdom's children: they go to sleep and never wake up. I particularly remember the trap set for the protagonist: he must choose to die for what he believes or, avoiding death, spurn his beliefs. From what I recall, this book had enough threads in the background that there could easily have been more set in this world, but Google finds nothing.
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Monday, May 25, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Childhood Reading, part 2
Stephen Lawhead, The Warlords of Nin. This book was a big influence on me: it put me off mass-market paperbacks forever. Here's why:
That's right, the cover came off, probably the second time I read it. (Note that it may have been read before I had it; it may have come from a garage sale.) Other than that? Bad guys with magic (or fate on their side?), good guys without it (except for the magic sword), necromancy, and a hidden monotheism. (Hidden in that most people in the book are unaware of it, although it is a big part of Quentin's story.) Also the smith they ask to make the sword (in the second or third book, I think) doesn't want to touch the ore they use because it has the power to heal. Comfortable with his deformity? At least he has a hunchback instead of a lame leg... I think.
Taylor Caldwell, Dear and Glorious Physician. I must have found this in my grandmother's basement and read it in ninth grade, because I remember giving a book report about it where the teacher had to tell me that no, actually, Taylor Caldwell is a woman. I'm pretty sure I loved it at the time (it gave me the word "pusillanimous", after all) but I'm more skeptical now. It had mysticism and hypnotism (I'm starting to see a pattern here) and the master and his maidservant waiting until their respective spouses had died (of old age or fever or something) to marry? Seriously? Not that I think it was wrong to wait; I agree 100% with that. What I think might be wrong is that they had each other lined up already. It also had martial arts and a smart, skeptical main character: Luke the physician, if you didn't know. As a boy and a young man. Also a romance that doesn't go anywhere (I'm not sure how to describe it without saying what happened) although I don't think I cared much at the age when I read it.
The Bible. I'm a little hesitant to include this here, but why not? In tenth grade or so, I went to an Acquire the Fire conference where we were encouraged to complete a year-long Bible reading plan. I did read it (at least, I checked off all the boxes... in pencil in case I wanted to do it again) but I didn't remember much of it afterwards. I don't think it was worthwhile. Forcing yourself to get up at 6:00 to spend 10 minutes reading a couple chapters you won't remember by the end of the day is not a good way to study the Bible. I think now you really need to have a hunger to glean meaning from it, but at the time I'm pretty sure I was just doing it because I was told I should. Reading it now in a much more ad hoc fashion, I find all sorts of things that I don't remember one bit from that read-through.
That's right, the cover came off, probably the second time I read it. (Note that it may have been read before I had it; it may have come from a garage sale.) Other than that? Bad guys with magic (or fate on their side?), good guys without it (except for the magic sword), necromancy, and a hidden monotheism. (Hidden in that most people in the book are unaware of it, although it is a big part of Quentin's story.) Also the smith they ask to make the sword (in the second or third book, I think) doesn't want to touch the ore they use because it has the power to heal. Comfortable with his deformity? At least he has a hunchback instead of a lame leg... I think.
Taylor Caldwell, Dear and Glorious Physician. I must have found this in my grandmother's basement and read it in ninth grade, because I remember giving a book report about it where the teacher had to tell me that no, actually, Taylor Caldwell is a woman. I'm pretty sure I loved it at the time (it gave me the word "pusillanimous", after all) but I'm more skeptical now. It had mysticism and hypnotism (I'm starting to see a pattern here) and the master and his maidservant waiting until their respective spouses had died (of old age or fever or something) to marry? Seriously? Not that I think it was wrong to wait; I agree 100% with that. What I think might be wrong is that they had each other lined up already. It also had martial arts and a smart, skeptical main character: Luke the physician, if you didn't know. As a boy and a young man. Also a romance that doesn't go anywhere (I'm not sure how to describe it without saying what happened) although I don't think I cared much at the age when I read it.
The Bible. I'm a little hesitant to include this here, but why not? In tenth grade or so, I went to an Acquire the Fire conference where we were encouraged to complete a year-long Bible reading plan. I did read it (at least, I checked off all the boxes... in pencil in case I wanted to do it again) but I didn't remember much of it afterwards. I don't think it was worthwhile. Forcing yourself to get up at 6:00 to spend 10 minutes reading a couple chapters you won't remember by the end of the day is not a good way to study the Bible. I think now you really need to have a hunger to glean meaning from it, but at the time I'm pretty sure I was just doing it because I was told I should. Reading it now in a much more ad hoc fashion, I find all sorts of things that I don't remember one bit from that read-through.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Childhood Reading part 1
Most of these are books that I read as a child and haven't read again since. With some of them I am in the odd position of knowing more about them from what other people have said than from what I remember of reading them. (Exceptions to the rereading: I recently reread Laurence Yep's Dragon series and I've reread a few of Dianna Wynne Jones' books more recently.) These will generally be in no particular order, just as I think of them, and until I get bored.
C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. I actually read these several times but don't remember a lot of the things that people talk about. Instead, I remember: the stars, Turkish delight, Tashlan, the lion attack, those who disappear into Aslan's shadow, the blind dwarves, the ruined world the Witch comes from, green and gold rings, Puddleglum and giants; were there monopods, too? A pool that gives death (more about this in the next one). Eustace the dragon.
John White, The Archives of Anthropos. These owe an awful lot to Narnia and the Bible, although I only read the first five. I remember picking them out starting with The Sword Bearer at the Christian bookstore. Is it sad that I only just realized John the Sword Bearer might be intended to parallel John the Baptist? He starts in Canada (with pea soup fog) but escapes through the basement of a bookstore to find himself in another land. I read a review in the last several years that said the writing was bland but I have a lot of great memories: Wisdom's house, flat on the outside and huge on the inside; the wine of free pardon; Gaal trees; a valley of dry bones that come to life (also with a pool that gives death! Why did I only just realize this parallel with Narnia?); an unlikely dragon named Pontificator (Ponty for short); the Lord of snow and ice ("Tell them that I am"); and the bad guys: Lord Lunacy; a nasty sorcerer whose name I can't recall though he's trapped in his own portrait for thousands of years; an evil witch; and Nicholas Slapfoot, who chases John from Canada to Anthropos, and keeps on chasing him. Also fun? One of the books is basically the journey of the three wise men, at least one or two of whom are somewhat skeptical. Has anyone else heard of these?
Thomas Locke, the Spectrum Chronicles. I only read the first four and I can barely remember the first one, which I lost shortly after reading it, although I do recall that it was about a different character and set (mostly) in a different world than the others. Books 2 through 4 are about Consuela, the scared girl under the table in the first book (which is almost the entirety of what I remember from that book) and Wander. Thinking back, these are a combination of true love and adventure in space. Consuela is somehow translated from Earth to a foreign world, where she meets Wander and turns out to have a great Talent like his: a psychic ability needed to safely guide starships between the stars. It is so rare, however, that the nameless diplomat (they give up their names when they take office) who takes him away for the Hegemony's use dismisses her as worthless. Unlikely? Sure. But nostalgia is a powerful thing.
Sigmund Brouwer, Magnus. For some reason I read the first part of this as a separate book which had some sections that were in the complete book cut out. I was very surprised to find different details when I read the whole thing. This is the story of (whistles, goes to look up the name) Thomas, a young man who inherits a magnificent treasure: a chest of books (in the twelfth century?). He goes on to take over an impregnable fortress, and that's only the beginning. I will say that he gets yanked around a lot and there is a subplot reminiscent of Poison Study. There's also hypnotism (which I hate) and some guy who's killed by dumping honey in his ear, followed by maggot eggs. Was this detail included just for the yuck effect? (It is part of a story related to the main character by someone else.) I do have some nostalgia but I freely admit that parts of this book are disturbing. And I looked carefully at my bed for a while after reading about assassination by snake under the covers.
Kathy Tyers, Firebird and the rest of the trilogy. Pre-Messianic space opera? Firebird is a talented musician and composer, but as a spare child grows up knowing she is destined to die young, preferably in service to her planet. She really, truly tries very hard to do so: first by ramming her fighter into a planet, then by taking poison, then by provoking her captors to kill her... fortunately for the reader, she is prevented by a top-notch intelligence officer serving the other side. Also fortunately, he is extremely moral. Unfortunately, he is also extremely psychic. I also have a soft spot in my heart for these books, despite the number of gruesome ways there are to die: poison, of course; disintegration rifles (they handcuff the hands behind a steel pole to retain proof of decease); sonic weapons that implode the brain cavity; poison gas; being psychicly commanded to kill yourself (of course the good guys never do this); being smashed into a crater by telekinesis; photo weapons (possibly nuclear or hydrogen bombs, I was never quite sure); at the end of that list, rifle slugs with timed explosives sound almost tame. Would I read it again? I want to...
C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia. I actually read these several times but don't remember a lot of the things that people talk about. Instead, I remember: the stars, Turkish delight, Tashlan, the lion attack, those who disappear into Aslan's shadow, the blind dwarves, the ruined world the Witch comes from, green and gold rings, Puddleglum and giants; were there monopods, too? A pool that gives death (more about this in the next one). Eustace the dragon.
John White, The Archives of Anthropos. These owe an awful lot to Narnia and the Bible, although I only read the first five. I remember picking them out starting with The Sword Bearer at the Christian bookstore. Is it sad that I only just realized John the Sword Bearer might be intended to parallel John the Baptist? He starts in Canada (with pea soup fog) but escapes through the basement of a bookstore to find himself in another land. I read a review in the last several years that said the writing was bland but I have a lot of great memories: Wisdom's house, flat on the outside and huge on the inside; the wine of free pardon; Gaal trees; a valley of dry bones that come to life (also with a pool that gives death! Why did I only just realize this parallel with Narnia?); an unlikely dragon named Pontificator (Ponty for short); the Lord of snow and ice ("Tell them that I am"); and the bad guys: Lord Lunacy; a nasty sorcerer whose name I can't recall though he's trapped in his own portrait for thousands of years; an evil witch; and Nicholas Slapfoot, who chases John from Canada to Anthropos, and keeps on chasing him. Also fun? One of the books is basically the journey of the three wise men, at least one or two of whom are somewhat skeptical. Has anyone else heard of these?
Thomas Locke, the Spectrum Chronicles. I only read the first four and I can barely remember the first one, which I lost shortly after reading it, although I do recall that it was about a different character and set (mostly) in a different world than the others. Books 2 through 4 are about Consuela, the scared girl under the table in the first book (which is almost the entirety of what I remember from that book) and Wander. Thinking back, these are a combination of true love and adventure in space. Consuela is somehow translated from Earth to a foreign world, where she meets Wander and turns out to have a great Talent like his: a psychic ability needed to safely guide starships between the stars. It is so rare, however, that the nameless diplomat (they give up their names when they take office) who takes him away for the Hegemony's use dismisses her as worthless. Unlikely? Sure. But nostalgia is a powerful thing.
Sigmund Brouwer, Magnus. For some reason I read the first part of this as a separate book which had some sections that were in the complete book cut out. I was very surprised to find different details when I read the whole thing. This is the story of (whistles, goes to look up the name) Thomas, a young man who inherits a magnificent treasure: a chest of books (in the twelfth century?). He goes on to take over an impregnable fortress, and that's only the beginning. I will say that he gets yanked around a lot and there is a subplot reminiscent of Poison Study. There's also hypnotism (which I hate) and some guy who's killed by dumping honey in his ear, followed by maggot eggs. Was this detail included just for the yuck effect? (It is part of a story related to the main character by someone else.) I do have some nostalgia but I freely admit that parts of this book are disturbing. And I looked carefully at my bed for a while after reading about assassination by snake under the covers.
Kathy Tyers, Firebird and the rest of the trilogy. Pre-Messianic space opera? Firebird is a talented musician and composer, but as a spare child grows up knowing she is destined to die young, preferably in service to her planet. She really, truly tries very hard to do so: first by ramming her fighter into a planet, then by taking poison, then by provoking her captors to kill her... fortunately for the reader, she is prevented by a top-notch intelligence officer serving the other side. Also fortunately, he is extremely moral. Unfortunately, he is also extremely psychic. I also have a soft spot in my heart for these books, despite the number of gruesome ways there are to die: poison, of course; disintegration rifles (they handcuff the hands behind a steel pole to retain proof of decease); sonic weapons that implode the brain cavity; poison gas; being psychicly commanded to kill yourself (of course the good guys never do this); being smashed into a crater by telekinesis; photo weapons (possibly nuclear or hydrogen bombs, I was never quite sure); at the end of that list, rifle slugs with timed explosives sound almost tame. Would I read it again? I want to...
Saturday, June 21, 2008
List: Upcoming books
Here are some works-in-progress or upcoming books I'm looking forward to, some of them of a more speculative (i.e., unfinished or possibly even only rumored) nature than others. They are mostly in order by expected release date. Some of them I am looking forward to because I have read previous books by the author, and some because I have read the author's blog or heard mentions of them here and there (interviews, perhaps?)
Notice the absence of non-speculative fiction. (I was going to say complete absence, but I guess Octavian Nothing and Elizabeth Wein's work don't quite count as fantasy if you look at them the right way. I guess it must be vivid books that tend to attract me.)
Notice the absence of non-speculative fiction. (I was going to say complete absence, but I guess Octavian Nothing and Elizabeth Wein's work don't quite count as fantasy if you look at them the right way. I guess it must be vivid books that tend to attract me.)
- Shannon Hale's graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge (August) and novel Bayern 4 (in progress, possibly for 2009).
- Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy (September).
- Patricia McKillip's The Bell at Sealey Head (September; I haven't heard anything concrete but the form of the title suggests a sequel to The Tower at Stony Wood; there is a reading available at this fine link which I also haven't listened to).
- Cornelia Funke's Inkdeath (October).
- M. T. Anderson's Octavian Nothing: Volume 2 (October).
- Brandon Sanderson's The Hero of Ages (Mistborn book 3; October) and Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones (November).
- Juliet Marillier's Heir to Sevenwaters (November).
- Jane Lindskold's Thirteen Orphans, first in a series. (November)
- Bujold's Sharing Knife book 4 (January 2009) and any possible additions to the Chalion series (there should be 2 according to the series structure, but I have heard nothing concrete).
- R. J. Anderson's book Knife, the Hunter (2009) and book Touching Indigo (nowhere near finished).
- Laini Taylor's Silksinger (in revision; hopefully for 2009).
- Pamela Dean's Going North (in revisions; 2009? to be split into two books).
- Marie Brennan's And Ashes Lie (in progress; 2009?)
- D. M. Cornish's Factotum (in progress; 2009?).
- Jane Yolen's graphic novel Foiled (possibly not final title; no idea about a release date).
- L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Children (haven't heard anything about a release date).
- The rest of Rosemary Kirstein's continuing Steerswomans series. (Book 5 is currently in progress, book 6 mostly finished from what I've heard which isn't much.)
- John Wright's next "book", Count to a Trillion (scare quoted because of his habit of having his books broken into "trilogies").
- Vernor Vinge's sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep (in progress?).
- Tom Simon's epic work.
- Any additional books in Elizabeth Wein's Arthurian cycle.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
List: Books for children
Because I am lazy, here is a list of books that may be suitable for younger readers. In general, this means they are (1) clean (with regards to sex and profanity) and (2) comprehensible. I may update this list sporadically.
A few minutes later: Added Blackbringer and The Secret Country. I also bolded the author's names to make the list easier to scan through.
M. T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party. Contains slavery and serious themes, of course, but mixed with dry humour. Volume 2 is scheduled for October.
D. M. Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo. Book titles are Foundling and Lamplighter, with a third forthcoming. Excellent world-building and linguistics. The world isn't as grim as the series title makes it sound, either. Be warned that the whole trilogy will need to be read to get all of Rossamünd's story
Pamela Dean's The Secret Country trilogy. Second and third books are The Hidden Land and The Whim of the Dragon, and all three are intended to be read together. Children playing a game about an imaginary country with their cousins find their way into it in reality. However, I've tried giving this to most of my siblings and they all rejected it because of the "thees" and "thous", so be warned. The Dubious Hills is set in the same world but about different characters, and is probably my favorite Dean book. It might be better for slightly older readers, however—I wouldn't feel bad about giving it to a teen.
Jessica Day George's Dragon Slippers. Comic fantasy, but she does in an excellent job of adding real tension during the latter half.
Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl. Retold fairy tale. Sequels so far (though they are labeled companion novels and focus on different characters, they occur sequentially in time) are Enna Burning and River Secrets. Hale has also written Princess Academy and The Book of a Thousand Days, both independent books.
Patrice Kindl's Owl in Love and The Woman in the Wall. Two humorous books, not directly connected. The second also has some serious themes.
Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter and Dreamquake. One book split into two. Contains some sex (not very explicit but there's no missing it) and also torturous dreams. Solid, strong characters and a great historical feel of the early 1900s, even though it's set on a continent that doesn't exist in our world. A sequel would be nice (there is one big loose end) but I haven't heard anything yet.
Laura Ruby's The Wall and the Wing. Wacky humour in a slightly off version of New York City where people fly (but not very well) and monkeys talk. Sequel: The Chaos King.
Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Comedy with an (annoying) narrator who makes a point of cliffhangers, cryptic foreshadowing and digressions in the middle of fight scenes. Sequels are forthcoming, starting with Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones, which has a great sound as a title. Like Monster Blood Tattoo, the whole trilogy is needed to tell the complete story, although the end of the first book is not much of a cliffhanger. To be honest I should point out that my younger brother found the foreshadowing less cryptic than I did and guessed some of the surprises. Sanderson's adult books are also quite clean, if quite a bit longer.
Delia Sherman's Changeling. Has an idiot moment* but otherwise well done fantasy in an even more off version of New York City.
* That's when you yell at the character "You know you shouldn't be doing this!" and throw the book across the room before skipping several pages to get past the painfully stupid part.
Laini Taylor's Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer. Great adventure with some clever world-building behind it. I'm looking forward to forthcoming books.
Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief and sequels The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia. If you haven't heard of these you should have.
Elizabeth Wein's Arthurian cycle, beginning with The Winter Prince. Historical fiction about Arthur's children and grandchildren. Contains several instances of torture and mutilation. In fact, The Empty Kingdom is one of the tensest books I've ever read. Successive books are A Coalition of Lions, The Sunbird, The Lion Hunter and The Empty Kingdom. Note: The last two are really one book and should be read together.
A few minutes later: Added Blackbringer and The Secret Country. I also bolded the author's names to make the list easier to scan through.
M. T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party. Contains slavery and serious themes, of course, but mixed with dry humour. Volume 2 is scheduled for October.
D. M. Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo. Book titles are Foundling and Lamplighter, with a third forthcoming. Excellent world-building and linguistics. The world isn't as grim as the series title makes it sound, either. Be warned that the whole trilogy will need to be read to get all of Rossamünd's story
Pamela Dean's The Secret Country trilogy. Second and third books are The Hidden Land and The Whim of the Dragon, and all three are intended to be read together. Children playing a game about an imaginary country with their cousins find their way into it in reality. However, I've tried giving this to most of my siblings and they all rejected it because of the "thees" and "thous", so be warned. The Dubious Hills is set in the same world but about different characters, and is probably my favorite Dean book. It might be better for slightly older readers, however—I wouldn't feel bad about giving it to a teen.
Jessica Day George's Dragon Slippers. Comic fantasy, but she does in an excellent job of adding real tension during the latter half.
Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl. Retold fairy tale. Sequels so far (though they are labeled companion novels and focus on different characters, they occur sequentially in time) are Enna Burning and River Secrets. Hale has also written Princess Academy and The Book of a Thousand Days, both independent books.
Patrice Kindl's Owl in Love and The Woman in the Wall. Two humorous books, not directly connected. The second also has some serious themes.
Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter and Dreamquake. One book split into two. Contains some sex (not very explicit but there's no missing it) and also torturous dreams. Solid, strong characters and a great historical feel of the early 1900s, even though it's set on a continent that doesn't exist in our world. A sequel would be nice (there is one big loose end) but I haven't heard anything yet.
Laura Ruby's The Wall and the Wing. Wacky humour in a slightly off version of New York City where people fly (but not very well) and monkeys talk. Sequel: The Chaos King.
Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. Comedy with an (annoying) narrator who makes a point of cliffhangers, cryptic foreshadowing and digressions in the middle of fight scenes. Sequels are forthcoming, starting with Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones, which has a great sound as a title. Like Monster Blood Tattoo, the whole trilogy is needed to tell the complete story, although the end of the first book is not much of a cliffhanger. To be honest I should point out that my younger brother found the foreshadowing less cryptic than I did and guessed some of the surprises. Sanderson's adult books are also quite clean, if quite a bit longer.
Delia Sherman's Changeling. Has an idiot moment* but otherwise well done fantasy in an even more off version of New York City.
* That's when you yell at the character "You know you shouldn't be doing this!" and throw the book across the room before skipping several pages to get past the painfully stupid part.
Laini Taylor's Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer. Great adventure with some clever world-building behind it. I'm looking forward to forthcoming books.
Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief and sequels The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia. If you haven't heard of these you should have.
Elizabeth Wein's Arthurian cycle, beginning with The Winter Prince. Historical fiction about Arthur's children and grandchildren. Contains several instances of torture and mutilation. In fact, The Empty Kingdom is one of the tensest books I've ever read. Successive books are A Coalition of Lions, The Sunbird, The Lion Hunter and The Empty Kingdom. Note: The last two are really one book and should be read together.
Monday, January 01, 2007
2006 in review
I want to mention some of the books that I especially enjoyed or found memorable this year. I intended to do something like this, but Elliot's similar post really spurred me along. (The only reason we're on a first-name basis is because he provides no last name on his site.)
Mine, I'm afraid, will not be so well organized.
This was the year I started this blog, a place to post only about books (I have another blog where I barely post at all). I meant to post about all the books I read so that I'd be able to look back and say "What a waste!" and cut down a bit, but that didn't really happen. A couple comments made me consider making it more useful by only posting books I recommended instead, and someone said my concise (ha) reviews were just what he was looking for.
Personally speaking, I don't think my reviews are very good. I'm not disciplined enough to write all of them ahead of time and then think about them, and I usually think of many more things I'd like to say after writing posts. A weakness in my writing is that I can hardly bear to read it later. Comments asking for clarification, or comments in general, will probably be appreciated.
So... the books.
Note: The linked book titles probably go to my original posts about those books.
I started trying to read some non-fiction due to a comment by ladybug. Most of it was memorable, if not necessarily recommended, maybe because I was so intentional in reading it.
I started browsing the young adult shelves again this year. (For a while I had the attitude that "Young adult is for teens", but somehow I got cured of that. Young adult is a dubious label anyway.) I also discovered author blogs after reading John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos, and found many more books by following links from there.
Most consistently interesting blog: The Superversive. This guy writes essay after essay lucidly and his unpublished magnum opus (tentatively titled "The Magnificent Octopus") also sounds quite interesting.
Note: Some of these I might have read late 2005 instead of 2006, since I don't have posts that far back to refer to. These are in no particular order.
Wow, long post, huh?
Mine, I'm afraid, will not be so well organized.
This was the year I started this blog, a place to post only about books (I have another blog where I barely post at all). I meant to post about all the books I read so that I'd be able to look back and say "What a waste!" and cut down a bit, but that didn't really happen. A couple comments made me consider making it more useful by only posting books I recommended instead, and someone said my concise (ha) reviews were just what he was looking for.
Personally speaking, I don't think my reviews are very good. I'm not disciplined enough to write all of them ahead of time and then think about them, and I usually think of many more things I'd like to say after writing posts. A weakness in my writing is that I can hardly bear to read it later. Comments asking for clarification, or comments in general, will probably be appreciated.
So... the books.
Note: The linked book titles probably go to my original posts about those books.
Non-fiction
I started trying to read some non-fiction due to a comment by ladybug. Most of it was memorable, if not necessarily recommended, maybe because I was so intentional in reading it.
- Hunger: An Unnatural History. Exceptionally interesting book about the biology and culture of hunger. I found it from the Fanatic Cook.
- American Caesar. Biography of Douglas MacArthur. Interesting at parts, but too verbose and has dubious accuracy.
- Hiroshima. Really a long essay or newspaper article about the experiences of several survivors in Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped. Should be required reading for American history classes.
- The Heavenly Man. Remarkable story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun. It affected me emotionally when I read it but hasn't inspired quite so drastic a change in my life, if any at all. Still, well worth reading.
Fiction
I started browsing the young adult shelves again this year. (For a while I had the attitude that "Young adult is for teens", but somehow I got cured of that. Young adult is a dubious label anyway.) I also discovered author blogs after reading John C. Wright's Orphans of Chaos, and found many more books by following links from there.
Most consistently interesting blog: The Superversive. This guy writes essay after essay lucidly and his unpublished magnum opus (tentatively titled "The Magnificent Octopus") also sounds quite interesting.
Note: Some of these I might have read late 2005 instead of 2006, since I don't have posts that far back to refer to. These are in no particular order.
- The Goose Girl. Great fairy tale spin-off; also check out the "companion novels" (sequels about the non-POV characters) Enna Burning and River Secrets if you like the first one.
- The Orphans of Chaos, and sequel Fugitives of Chaos. This was the book this blog started on. Fun story about 5 children held in a boarding school run by Greek myths. (How d'ya like that euphemism?)
- The Golden Age trilogy, also by Wright. Fun, clever far future sci-fi with lots of references to mythology. (Seeing a pattern?) Having read Poul Anderson's Harvest of Stars in the last few days, I can see where a lot of Wright's inspiration came from, but I think Wright's execution in handling the characters and story was a bit better than Anderson. However, it was nice that Anderson's book was only one volume, instead of three.
- Spindle's End, Beauty, and Rose Daughter. Not connected narratives in the usual sense of "series", they are a set of good fairy tale retellings by Robin McKinley.
- Sunshine. Some very "adult" scenes could be excised from this without making it any less good.
- Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls. I discovered Jane Lindskold's Firekeeper series some time ago (see Wolf Hunting), and really enjoyed it. This book was her first published (not about Firekeeper) and for some reason has stuck in my memory.
- Cobwebs. Girl growing up in New York City explores her heritage... which seems to include climbing walls and spinning silk.
- The Dubious Hills. Great fantasy set in the same world as the Secret Country trilogy.
- The Prize in the Game. Reading this made me want to Jo Walton's The King's Peace and The King's Name. All three do a remarkable job of making a fantasy world that feels incredibly solid.
- Joan Slonczewski's A Door Into Ocean, The Children Star, and Brain Plague. Kind of hard sci-fi oriented around a single planet with a focus on biology in the science aspect. I especially liked 'jum (in The Children Star).
- War for the Oaks. I wasn't sure whether to mention this or not. It is worth reading at least once if you like fantasy.
- The Blue Girl. I had avoided this book because it was in the YA section, but it's quite good if you like Charles de Lint. Fantasy. Also,
- Inkheart and Inkspell (two separate books). Somehow I had never heard of
these before this year. - The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Wolfskin, and Foxmask. Fantasies based on Celtic(?) and Norse mythology. Martin LaBar has done a series of posts on them over on his blog.
- The Swans' War. A different take on epic fantasy, by Sean Russell. The statement on his website that he was trying to avoid Tolkenian clichés adds some insight to these. They may start a bit slow but they're quite good.
- The Secrets of Jin Shei. A less overt fantasy set in a country similar to historical China. The story is much more about relationships than about the fantasy elements.
- A Fire Upon the Deep. Classic sci-fi must-read. This was a reread and I was reluctant to pick it up because of that, but pretty much as soon as I started it I could hardly stop. Vernor Vinge wrote another book about Phon's previous life, and rumor says there is a sequel to this one coming soon.
- Many of Patricia McKillip's books (some were rereads): Alphabet of Thorn, Od Magic, Ombria in Shadow, The Riddle-Master of Hed (note: part of a trilogy), The Book of Atrix Wolfe. Most are relatively short (300 pages) self-contained fantasies. Her imagery is dream-like.
- Bear Daughter. Based on Indian (sorry for the generality) folklore, this book is very readable. Some details seemed a bit simplistic to me; it might be on a level similar to Cobwebs.
- The Book of the New Sun. For people with access to Google only. I found it quite readable (especially remarkable considering how long it is) but would have missed a lot if I hadn't read what other people said about it.
Wow, long post, huh?
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