Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2013/What I've Read In 2013

New Spring - Robert Jordan

I enjoyed it. It was too short for me - this is why I rarely read novellas; generally they frustrate me too much - and I felt the ending was a bit rushed. But it was a nice fleshing out of Lan and Moiraine's meeting.

LabRat :-)

#16 Poisoned Love by Caitlin Rother

One of the aspects I like about true crime books is seeing all the pieces of evidence put together and how the trial lawyers present their cases. This book was great in that respect.

Joan

#17 The Kill Order by James Dashner

This was a prequel to the Maze Runner series. I've been reading these books with my son. While this book had lots of action and provided some explanations as to how the world got the way it was in the trilogy, it didn't answer some of the more interesting questions for me.

Joan

#18 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

A boy's grandfather tells stories about children in old photos doing the seemingly impossible. As he grows older, he believes his grandfather is making it all up. Then he learns otherwise. It was an interesting premise but not highly engaging to read.

Joan

#17 - Nine Stories - J.D. Salinger

#18 - A Game of Thrones - George RR MArtin

#19 - Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett

The Rigante Series - David Gemmell:

Sword In The Storm
Midnight Falcon
Ravenheart

I'm slowly becoming a great fan of Gemmell. His worlds may not be as densely populated as other fantasy authors, but his characters have heart and that goes a long way.

So, I enjoyed this series of linked stories set in an alternate world where various, thinly tweaked, historical peoples blend and merge. A world of psuedo-Romans, warring highland clans and forest spirits.

I got these three out on loan online from my local library and am slightly irked that book four is nowhere to be seen. But as each book contained a serious time jump, concentrating on new characters, I guess it won't hurt to wait for it.

So, I'm a little late to the game, but I haven't been able to do much outside reading due to RL and mostly schoolwork. (It never stops. I literally got one week off between the last set of classes and this one. Nine more weeks until my next break!! ) Anyways, read this in class and really enjoyed it.

#1: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

I really enjoyed it (Apparently the movie Blade Runner is based on this book). I love science fiction, and we're supposed to read more PKD this quarter, so I'm already on a better start than last year. :p

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.
I thought this was going to be another boring Victorian novel - but it's not. It's a great book about Becky Sharp, orphan and adventuress, making her way through society in England from about 1810 to 1848. Becky is contrasted with Amelia Sedley, the "good girl" who marries the bad man. Much focusing on money and marriage prospects. I enjoyed this book (a book club assignment) a lot more than I thought I would.

It made me pull this book off my shelf and re-read it:
What Jane Austen Ate And Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox-Hunting To Whist - The Daily Facts of Life In 19th Century England by Daniel Pool.
What was a guinea? Which ranked higher, an earl or a baron? What was the difference between getting married by banns and getting married by a special license? What was a glebe? And all sorts of other information about the stuff in Victorian novels that everyone knew at the time but has now disappeared.
Answers: A guinea is a pound plus a shilling, so 21 shillings. An earl ranks higher than a baron but is less than a duke. Banns were announcements of a marriage from the pulpit in church, for three straight weeks. If no one forbade the banns the man and woman could be married. The banns were free, unlike a special license which had to be gotten from the Archbishop of Canterbury and cost a whacking great sum. And a glebe was the farmland attached to the clergyman's "living" - his position as a rector or vicar to a parish in the Church of England.

I have that book, although I can't tell you where it is currently located. Probably in a box with all my Agatha Christie novels. Ah, reminds me of my days as a hopeful Regency novelist. Sigh. Someday, I'll make it back to England and travel the countryside by coach or train (I'm sure both the English and I would prefer it I *didn't* drive myself). Eat real scones, drink real tea, walk through real gardens. Sigh. I hope all of you living in Britain take advance of that whenever you can, so the rest of us can live vicariously.

#19 The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand

Romantic fluff about a girl working at a bistro on Nantucket.

The Historical Atlas of the Bible by Dr. Ian Barnes.
Fascinating and copiously illustrated atlas of the areas mentioned in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. Israel/Judea/Syria/Lebanon/Philistia was the important land route from Eurasia to Egypt/Africa, hence the constant battles over who ruled the area.

It's told in chronological order, so the map is often of the same territory, the only thing changing are the political boundaries.

The maps range from city-size (comparing the Jerusalems of David and Herod) to continent-wide (the empires of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire). Loads of fun to read if you like maps, like I do.

More David Gemmell:

Lion of Macedon
Dark Prince

Having adored Gemmell's Troy series last year, I was delighted to see him return to the Ancient World with his Greek series. I enjoyed this just as much.

White Wolf

I was sort of missold this one as the first book in a series. It is, but it's also part of the larger world of the Drenai series, begun with Legend. I suspect I should have read that first to ground myself. But that lack of knowledge didn't stymie me too much and I really loved this one. Full of excellent characters. I look forward to seeing more of them when I start Legend and read the second book in this series, which I've already ordered.

Book 4 of the Rigante series hit my doormat this morning, so off to immerse myself in that world again. Fun!

LabRat

#20 Kill For Me by M. Willam Phelps

True crime story. The author does a nice job of putting the pieces together.

Joan

#21 The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch

Average post-apacolytic tale.

Joan

Stormrider (The Rigante #4) - David Gemmell

Unlike the others in the series, this one didn't take a large leap into the future but picked a few years after book 3, tying up loose ends and more.

It's becoming clear that there are certain grand themes that Gemmell likes to cover in all of his books. I can forgive this lack of originality of plot because his characters are so heartfelt that I love spending time with them.

LabRat :-)

#22 Brady, Brady, Brady by Sherwood and Lloyd Schwartz

What can I say? I'm a sucker for this type of stuff.

Joan

The Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher

9. Furies of Calderon
10. Academ's Fury
11. Cursor's Fury
12. Captain's Fury
13. Princeps' Fury
14. First Lord's Fury

(From Wiki) The series chronicles the coming-of-age of a young man named Tavi in the realm of Alera, an empire similar to Rome, on the world of Carna. Every Aleran has some degree of command over elemental forces or spirits called furies, save for Tavi, who is considered unusual for his lack of one. As the aging First Lord struggles to maintain his hold on a realm on the brink of civil war, Tavi must use all of his intelligence to save Alera.

I love Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, so I was curious about this series. Butcher knows how to write interesting characters and plots, that's for sure. The series drew me in, and I couldn't wait to see how it would all end.

I absolutely adored the Codex Alera series. Such great characters and - as you might expect from Butcher - witty dialogue.

I also love the fact that Butcher wrote these as the result of a bet that he couldn't write a good book based on a lame idea and that he responded that he'd do it using TWO lame ideas of the challenger's choosing- which turned out to be "lost Roman legion" and "Pokemon".

LabRat :-)

2. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Another great science fiction read, though drastically different from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" :p

The Forgotten by David Baldacci.

Page-turning thriller where Army man John Puller, on leave, investigates the supposedly-innocuous (but really murder) death of his elderly aunt in a small Florida Gulf Coast town.