Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50-Book Challenge 2010

35. My Own Country by Abraham Verghese. A tale of an Indian physician, brought up in East Africa and India, who moves to the USA. He specializes in infectious diseases and takes a post in East Tennessee. There (it's the mid-1980's) he sees the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

He sees with the eye of the alien, the eye of the outsider. And yet he comes to know his patients and be there for them in a way he never thought he would. Moving and powerful.

#14 Painting the Darkness - Robert Goddard

Goddard has almost never let me down. As it happens, I found this one hard to get into for the first few chapters, but before long I was hooked and on the edge of my seat as I was drawn into the series of connecting mysteries that unfolded. This novel had more twists and turns than...a twisty-turny thing. As Blackadder might say. And the little begger led me straight up the garden path so that it turned out that I had completely the wrong end of the stick and nothing was as he'd led me to believe. Hugely enjoyable.

9) U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton.
10) Wings and Rockets by Jeanette Atkins. For young readers, but lots of interesting information. For example, Orville and Wilbur had a sister named Katharine who took care of their bike shop in Ohio while they were at Kitty Hawk working on the plane. She was also the first female passenger on a powered heavier-than-air flight, and later learned to fly the craft. Cool.
11) Letters To a Young Conservative
12) What's So Great About Christianity?
13) The Enemy At Home
14) Illiberal Education by Dinesh D'Souza. This guy is my latest favorite author.
15) Listen by Rene Gutteridge. Fictional tale about a small town whose private conversations start showing up on a website. I've met this lady personally and she's really personable and willing to help young writers. She encouraged my daughter to start writing, and now she can't stop! I am my daughter's beta (which is something I never thought I'd write), partly due to Rene's influence.

36. Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn. Another in the series about CIA agent Mitch Rapp. Decent thriller.

37. Torch of Freedom by David Weber and Eric Flint. Set in the "Honor Harrington" universe, HH appears only fleetingly as most of the action is taken up with plots to kill the new queen of Torch, evil machinations by Manpower, Inc. (the slavers), a galactic amusement park, and spy missions. This is one where you really have to had read the previous books in the series first to know what's going on. Worth reading in that case.

Interesting. Many of us love the Miles tales. I bet you read "Falling Free" Or "Ethan of Athos" which only take place in the same Universe.
For real Miles take a look at
"The Mountains of Mourning"

Also if you like fantasy take a look a Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion books

Thanks for the recommendations, Patrick. Both look interesting and I'll certainly check them out. Certainly, the MV one looks much more in line with my current reading tastes, so I'm looking forward to trying that out.

Although, for the moment, all other reading is on hold as my copy of The Hallowed Hunt hit the doormat this morning. So I've been squeeing a lot and running around in little excited circles. I'm looking forward to settling down this afternoon by the fire with that and some nice homemade chicken noodle and leek soup.

I know that the MV novels have a large amount of fans out there - many of them here on these mbs - and it definitely wasn't a lack of writing quality that put me off the one I read. I just get bored easily with spaceships and laserguns these days. I suspect that had I read it ten or twenty years ago, I might have really enjoyed it. Back in my phase of reading Harry Harrison and Bob Shaw and Harlan Ellison. Who knows, in the future, I might revive that interest.

I think the one I read might have been Shards of Honor, actually. Although I could be way off base there, it was a long time back. But that's the only title that resonates in my memory when I look at the list.

BTW, which site do those links come from? The left-hand menu is reminiscent of a book resource I have bookmarked and use quite a bit, but I've never seen excerpts there. Although, admittedly, I still have a lot of exploring to do there. Do you have a link to the homepage of your site? Is it Fantastic Fiction ?

LabRat

The tale directly prior to this one
Crown of Slaves by David Weber & Eric Flint is available as part of the Baen free library. As is the first tale in this sequence From the Highlands by Eric Flint

Baen publishing

Baen Home page

Cool. Looks like a useful site to bookmark. (Which I just did. ) Thanks, Patrick.

LabRat

No new books to report but a recommendation:

"The Mountains of Mourning" by Lois Bujold. Damn good story. Or darn good story, to keep the PG rating here on the boards.

22.Key Lime Pie Murder Joanne Fluke

23.Carrot Cake Murder Joanne Fluke

24.H Is For Homicide Sue Grafton

25.I Is For Innocent Sue Grafton

26.Cream Puff Murder Joanne Fluke

27.J Is For Judgment Sue Grafton

28.Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind Ann B. Ross
I started reading this Miss Julia series. A nice clean (funny) Southern lady. These books are OK, but not as good as Fannie Flagg's series.

29.Miss Julia Takes Over Ann B. Ross

2. Dune by Frank Herbert - A friend of mine who runs the weekly RPG I play in recommended this to me, and it sounded very interesting, so I downloaded it, and I've listened to it twice now. I think it's pretty great.

AND . . .

3. The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum - FINALLY! I was only 6 or 7 chapters away from the end a couple days ago, so I cracked down when I got home from work and finished it while I started my laundry. The books are definitely much more awesome than the movies. I just wish I had The Bourne Ultimatum as well.

I don't think I'm going to be delving into my (much-diminished, since I sold at least 400 to Wonder-Book & Video earlier this week) collection of actual books this year. I just don't have the patience to sit and read a book after work (or on breaks while at work), when there are so many other things I want to do in my spare time.

However, I hope to download a lot more audio books to listen to while I work--it's easy now to pay attention to the book and still do the work right.

On that note, based on what is not on any of my previous 50-book challenge reading lists, are there any books you all might recommend that I download and "read?" I've got the entire Discworld series already, as well as Dune. I mostly like fantasy/sci-fi, but suspense (not horror) is good as well. I've also been known to read some non-fiction, though that rarely.

So, based on those parameters, if any of you can recommend a book (or even a series) to me, I'd be grateful. Just send me a PM with the title and author, and I'll look it up. Thanks!

38. Evidence by Jonathan Kellerman. Policeman Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware solve another mystery, this one of a couple murdered in a half-constructed mansion in Holmby Hills, California. Well-written as usual for Kellerman, and worth reading.

39. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Charles Ryder, college friend of Sebastian Flyte (son of Lord Marchmain) goes to the family seat when he is young and again ten years later. A lot more to the book than I'm making it sound. Much talk about religion, and an underlying theme of God's grace. Big ideas, with a lot of pondering involved.

Unfortunately, deep down I'm shallow, so I'll have to think about this one for about ten years.

40. The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Better known for her "Twilight" series, this book tells of the alien invasion of Earth and of the few remnant humans who fight on. How can you fight the aliens who take you over, body and soul? Creepy but with an upbeat ending. Not spectacular but competent. Probably a good beach read.

#15 The Hallowed Hunt - Lois McMaster Bujold

I definitely wasn't as enthralled with this one as with her previous two. Too much talk, not enough action, I think. The characters were engaging enough and much of the plot had a lot of promise, but I didn't feel the potential of either was really fulfilled. Still an enjoyable read, but not exactly one of her best, imo.

LabRat

Question: Would you say that The Divine Comedy counts as one book, or as three (Inferno, Pergatory, and Paradise)? I haven't read it/them yet, but I'm planning on it, and I'm not sure how to count it/them.

Oh, definitely three books! They are set in different places; Dante has a different guide (isn't it Vergil and Beatrice), and gosh darn it, they are three books!

#16 A Drink Before The War - Dennis Lehane
#17 Darkness, Take My Hand - Dennis Lehane

I was pretty much introduced to Lehane through movie adaptations of his novels, but it's only now that I've really started taking note of him, since reading Gone Baby, Gone last year.

I really enjoyed these two. If you like some depth to your thriller, with excellent characters, a lot of wit and humour and some interesting social commentary / moral dilemmas to ponder, I'd highly recommend this author. He always leaves me thinking long after the book is done.

LabRat

#18 New York Dead - Stuart Woods

After a few recommendations, I took the plunge and bought this and Dead In The Water, which I've just begun and shall come to later.

Well, I'm not in love, yet, but this was a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to more of the same from book 3. It took me a couple of chapters to really warm to Stone Barrington as both he and the tone of the novel are very different from the usual detective heroes I've been reading about in the past few years. But I quickly warmed to both and soon got into the swing of things.

I was a little surprised, as this was one of those two books in one deals, that I didn't get book 1 and 2, but 1 and 3. Which is somewhat irksome. But I enjoyed the first enough that I've bought 2 and to be honest I'm fairly confident that I'll be buying more soon.

The one thing better than finding a new author to read is finding a new author to read who's also prolific. I've got a deal of catching up to do and from what I've read already, I anticipate that I'm going to have a lot of fun doing so.

LabRat

41. Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen. Interesting tale of a girl (a young child) who escaped from South Vietnam in 1975 with some of her family, and came to Grand Rapids, Michigan. She tells the tale of her alienation from USA society and gradual assimilation, using food as a metaphor. She wants the Pop Tarts and breaded chicken nuggets; her grandmother cooks pho soup and spring rolls. Her grandmother also puts the best of the food on the altar of Buddha for a few days before the family is allowed to eat it (the title fits in here). Interesting take on an alien in a new society, with obvious implications for LnC fans.

42. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. I have to admit, when I was reading this, I kept on seeing Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in my head. What's different is they don't get together at the end (unlike the movie) and the big climax is that Henry Higgins grows to admire Eliza Doolittle because she has become the person who can stand up to him and defy him. The edition I read had a follow-up author's note by Shaw, telling what he thinks happened to the characters (Eliza marries Freddy Eynsford-Hill, they start a flower shop business, initially bankrolled by Colonel Pickering), and Henry Higgins remains a confirmed bachelor, although Eliza still remains sort of friends with him.)

Labby, Robert B Parker and Stuart Woods write a lot alike. Stuart Woods 'Stone' character is in everyone's bed, Robert B Parkers 'Spenser' character is dedicated to one women (after the first couple books). But they really are alike. If you like one author, you will more than likely like the other.