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Below: dashed off notes on the last dozen books I've either read or attempted.
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Juliet, Naked • Nick Hornby
hc 416 pages ISBN-10: 1594488878 ISBN-13: 978-1594488870
This was a boring story about boring people doing boring things. I'm amazed that I bothered to finish it.
[finished 17 june 2013]
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Dune Messiah • Frank Herbert
mmpb 279 pages ISBN-10: 0425043797 ISBN-13: 978-0425043790
[Note: contains spoilers.]
I decided to re-read this one mostly to refresh my memory for possible re-reads of later books in this series. Also, it's way short. The first time I read it was 33 years ago so I was a little hazy on events but I remember the key bits: The introduction of Tleilaxu face-dancers; Duncan Idaho brought back from the grave as a Tleilaxu ghola; Paul gets blinded by a "stone-burner" bomb but his prescient sight is so acute it hardly seems to matter; Alia is starting to get horny; and Paul and Chani have twins: Leto II and Ghanima. It's all basically a set-up for Children of Dune. Not that much really happens and its chock-full of that quasi-mystical mumbo jumbo. You Dune fans know what I'm talking about.
[finished 7 june 2013] [amazon]
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Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos • Robert Lawson
Paperback: 114 pages ISBN-10: 0316517305 ISBN-13: 978-0316517300
I read this short tale out loud to the kids. The fact that it was first published in 1939 might account for the plethora of vocabulary words it contains. But the kids followed along just fine and learned a little about Ben Franklin to boot. The story is narrated by Ben's pet mouse Amos who enjoys taking most of the credit for Ben's inventions.
[finished 4 june 2013] [amazon]
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Insane City • Dave Barry
HC 352 pages ISBN-10: 0399158685 ISBN-13: 978-0399158681
This is another comic crime caper by Dave Barry. It's about a nice guy who's otherwise not much of a catch, traveling down to Florida to marry a hot blonde who's also the daughter of a multi-millionaire. In a span of mere hours things go fantastically wrong and the wedding is in two days. Will he make it? In a bazillion very short chapters the many things than can go wrong do and they pile up fast -- it was a bit of a struggle to care since so many of the (two-dimensional) characters aren't all that likable. And the ones who are more likeable aren't all that smart. But it reads so fast, I went all the way through this extremely unlikely tale that also includes an occasionaly violent, love-sick orangutan named Trevor. So that happened.
[started 29 may 2013, finished 2 june 2013] [amazon]
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Reamde • Neal Stephenson
tpb 1056 pages ISBN-10: 0062191497 ISBN-13: 978-0062191496
Even though I tossed aside Anathem at about 260 pages in, I was in the mood for some more from this author and with Reamde he tries his hand at the thriller genre. But of course his thriller is over 1000 pages long which is a little daunting. This story brings together a MMORPG, a virus, Russian gangsters, Chinese hackers, spies, jihadist terrorists, and an Iowan clan of survivalists. After a little under 100 pages of setup, things start rolling and when they do, they don't stop until the end of the book. This book was so much fun to read. The characters are varied and fun, there's occasional bits of humor, and the action is all over the place. Don't let the size intimidate you. This is the fastest moving 1000-page thriller you'll find. I loved it.
[started 30 apr 2013, finished 28 may 2013] [amazon]
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Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies • Andrea Beaty
pb 192 pages ISBN-10: 1419705199 ISBN-13: 978-1419705199
This looked like a suitably silly and bizarre story to read aloud to my kids. There's several illustrations. It's about a brother and a sister, Kevin and Joules, who get sent to a summer camp and then giant telepathic bunnies hellbent on turning people into food arrive on the scene and people start a) acting weird, and b) disappearing. The kids enjoyed it well enough but I thought it was a little light on both cleverness and bringing the funny. Wasn't terrible, though.
[started 10 may 2013, finished 20 may 2013] [amazon]
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The Goose Girl • Shannon Hale
pb 400pp copyright 2003 ISBN-10: 1582349908 ISBN-13: 978-1582349909
I read this book the first time five years ago and thought it would make a great read-aloud book. So I re-read it and this time, aloud, to my two kids. They were enrapt! I had to do some marathon reading sessions because they'd cry and moan that I couldn't stop THERE! The story concerns a young princess traveling to a foreign country because she's been promised to be a bride to a prince. But before she gets there, her identity is taken over by an impostor and she narrowly escapes death. It's a very well told and gripping story with a few small magic elements within. I plan on reading more of these "Bayern" books.
[finished 9 may 2013, again] [amazon]
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Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
• Mary Roach
tpb 336 pages ISBN-13: 978-0393339918
This is the fourth book I've read by this author. I've been a fan since reading Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers back in 2004. This book is full of fascinating details about the nitty gritty life of astronauts in zero gravity. It doesn't take long to realize that the life of an astronaut is far from glamorous. In fact, the problem of waste management (i.e. going pee and poo) in zero gravity is a real... mess. Astronauts have a term for floating bits of fecal matter: "escapees." And you can't open a window to help with the smell either. Astronauts on a short trip generally hope to be a little constipated just so they don't have to deal with it. Dealing with it actually takes about a good 45 minutes too. Anyway, there's more to this book than astronauts having to take a crap. And the author brings her sense of humor to bear on numerous occasions.
[started 23 april 2013, finished 2 may 2013]
[amazon]
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Rage of the Fallen (The Last Apprentice, Book 8) • Joseph Delaney
tpb 416 pages ISBN-10: 0062027581 ISBN-13: 978-0062027580
It's pretty amazing how consistently this series delivers a great story. I read the first seven books in the series in 2011 and now am just waiting for the subsequent ones to be published in paperback. So far there are twelve books in the series! The story zips along at a great pace, full of danger, narrow escapes, and all manner of ghouls. In this outing, the apprentice Tom Ward, his master John Gregory, and Tom's friend Alice (daughter of a witch) find themselves in Ireland. The witch assassin Grimalkin is also featured. Part of the appeal of these books are the great characters. It's a great, scary, edge-of-your-seat series. (It also features some great wood-cut illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith.)
[started on 16 april 2013, finished on 23 april 2013]
[amazon]
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Theft of Swords (The Riyria Revelations, volume 1) • Michael J. Sullivan
tpb 704 pages ISBN-10: 0316187747 ISBN-13: 978-0316187749
This series of books went from self-published success to big publisher success and I'd also listened to the author discuss the series on a podcast. It's straight-up faux-medieval light-hearted adventure that is just pure fun to read, especially while on vacation. Volumes 1 through 3 each contain two stories (previously self-published books) about the adventures of Royce Melborn, a skilled thief, and his mercenary partner, Hadrian Blackwater. Things get a bit dicey for them when they get framed for killing a king. Good stuff.
[started 17 mar 2013, finished 16 april 2013]
[amazon]
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The Gunslinger • Stephen King [abandoned]
This is the first in the Dark Tower series. I thought I'd give it a try. Didn't get much further than the first 30 pages. A bit obtuse.
[ditched on 16 april 2013]
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The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists • Gideon Defoe
pb 120 pages ISBN: 1400077508
I first read this very silly story seven years ago. Tempus fugit! Basically a ham-loving Pirate Captain gets the mistaken impression that Charles Darwin's ship the Beagle is filled with gleaming booty. Later, at a pirate convention, the Pirate Captain runs into an old friend...
"Scurvy Jake!" said the Pirate Captain, evidently glad to see his former comrade. "I haven't seen you since that incident on Madagascar!"
"Aaarrr! I was sure they were girls!" said Scurvy Jake with an apologetic shrug.
[finished re-reading on 15 april 2013]
[amazon]
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The Last Girlfriend on Earth • Simon Rich
HC 224 pages ISBN-10: 0316219398 ISBN-13: 978-0316219396
The last Simon Rich collection of stories I read was Ant Farm and it had me uncontrollable giggling in a coffee shop as I read it. One of the patrons asked me what I was reading. When I started reading this one I started snickering again and my wife asked me to please read something else because she was trying to concentrate. Granted, the funniest of these stories are all in the very beginning, but it's an amusing and clever little book of stories that'll barely take more than an hour to read. There's one 3-page entry about Dogs Missed Connections that had me burst out laughing.
[started 11 april 2013, finished 12 april 2013]
[amazon]
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