I’m going to try to participate more this year, so here goes:
On Kindle: The Mystery of the Bones by C.S. Poe, the fifth in her Snow & Winter series about a NYC cop and his antique selling boyfriend, who has a knack for stumbling into murder investigations.
A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg, barely started it. The above book released and well had to catch up with my friends!
In print (remember printed pages ): Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) by L.C. Rosen. A YA book about kids in an exclusive school, their sex lives and how to live the way you want in a world pushing you into molds… also there’s a stalker involved. I found the book mentioned in an article about books that parents wanted pulled from libraries. The main character, Jack, is 17 and has an active sex life. Cue the consevative pearl clutching brigade So I knew I HAD to read it. So far it’s fun, not terribly deep yet, but I’m enjoying the narrative voice.
On audio: Smash and Grab by Maz Maddox. Cuz nothing makes the 40 minute drive back from the airport (particularly when multiple trips occur in the night) better than gay dino shifters with neon pink mowhawks.
Finished How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry , by Dale Carnegie. Much of it hasn’t aged well, but it does have some interesting anecdotes. My favorite was about a relative of Andrew Carnegie’s who was enraged because he had only left them a “measly million” when he died. That was in 1919. True, he left hundreds of millions to charity, but still…
Now I’m reading Now, Then, and Every When, by Rysa Walker.
I finished Gwendy’s Magic Feather this morning. It was just okay, really rather dull. There were times when I realized I was skimming just to get to a point where something interesting might happen. However, it’s done, and I’m ready for the final book to come out next month.
I finished Jack of Hearts(And Other Parts) by L. C. Rosen. The book was surprisingly deeper and darker than I expected a young adults book to be. It genuinely went very dark in the last 50 pages. The characters were very well done, particularly Jack, but the side characters were nicely fleshed out as well. The story is well paced and never drags; each event quickly and well timed after the previous one.
My only critque is the advice columns, they are just to well written and eloquent for a 17 year old play boy, consequently they did jar me a bit out of the story, but not enough to ruin the experience. The advice was sound and I think something kid need to hear, because let’s face it, teens are going to have sex, so give them solid advice and teach them about boundaries and safety.
I do think that the solution is pretty easy to work out if you’re a true crime fan or have studied/worked with abusive situations. But the red herrings were well done.
I had sorted out early on that the stalker wasn’t a guy, men don’t cut clothes up when they are mad. That’s a female thing.
I finished Mystery of the Sprits by C. S. Poe. It’s, allegedyly, the final book in her Winter & Snow mystery series (she said the same thing about book four so we’ll see) A very good little mystery, nothing earthshattering or overly twisty, but engaging and a pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
Just finished re-reading Scalzi’s Red Shirts which in its own way is really a tour-de-force. Simple, yet really different. Not a standard Hugo winner by any stretch. As a big Scalzi fan I find it interesting that he NEVER describes anyone. The most he does for Duvall is “attractive.” The character is left to stand on dialogue and action.
Finished Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy. Loosely based on historical events that took place along the Texas-Mexican border circa 1850. The real-life Glanton gang starts out murdering and scalping Indians for bounty, then just slaughters in general for the hell and fun of it. They are joined by “the Kid,” a 16-year-old Tennessee runaway. Considered McCarthy’s magnum opus and by some to be the Great American Novel, it carries a very biblical theme. I think some of his others are better, particularly “No Country for Old Men.” It turns out I had read this years and years ago, then forgot about it. One minor character garnered my notice both times I read it, a Mexican-American War veteran who returns to Mexico looking for the senorita he left behind. He’s in only one or two chapters but reminded me of quite a few Vietnam War vets I met around Southeast Asia. I wonder if this is a purely American phenomenon, soldiers returning to the theater of war in search of a lost love.
Next up is In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, by Erik Larson. I enjoyed The Devil in the White City and decided to try another one of his.
Finished Joe Posnanki’s massive, informative, and fascinating The Baseball 100–bios of the players he feels were the hundred best in baseball history.
It is exhaustively researched, with quotes up the wazoo about most of the players listed. The whole thing runs about 300,000 words I think he said, so there is a lot of information I didn’t know, even about some of the guys whose careers I followed all the way through.
It’s much more than just a recitation of stats and exclamation marks, though there’s certainly some of that; there are themes about fathers and sons, what motivates people to succeed, what motivates people when the world is against them, how it is that some of baseball’s greatest players were among baseball’s greatest jerks while others were among baseball’s nicest human beings, that kind of thing.
I do want to know why the photo of Bob Gibson seems to show him wearing a glove on his right hand.
Posnanski says not to take the ratings too seriously–if he ranked them again tomorrow, he writes, some players would move up, others down, a few might disappear from the list entirely–so he had some fun with the rankings. Joe DiMaggio is #56 (the number of games of his famous hitting streak), the aforementioned Gibson #45 (his uniform number)–that kind of thing. I found it highly amusing and fitting that he ranked Curt Schilling #88.
Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War Jeff Shesol
A nicely written history of the Mercury space program, which sent the first Americans into space. As the subtitle indicates, it focuses mostly on John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth (following two suborbital flights by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom). The author is a historian, and the bulk of the book concerns the politics and policy of the Space Race, rather than the technical challenges of launching someone into outer space.
Finished The Queen’s Own Grove , by Patricia Beatty, which is a children’s historical novel. Worth reading, although it covered factual material that I think I would’ve preferred reading about in a nonfiction book.
Now I’m reading Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library, by Don Borchert.
Black Elk Speaks, John G. Neihardt: I had to put this down for a bit because I’m almost at the Wounded Knee Massacre and that will depress me for days.
Anathem, Neal Stephenson: I read a Stephenson novel once, but it was a long time ago and I don’t remember much. So far (I’ve finished the first section) I’m enjoying this. It’s going to take me a while to get through this because this book is a brick of a doorstop.
The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur: a book of poetry that’s very different from the more formal type I usually prefer. I like it so far.
Shadows in Bronze, Lindsay Davis: The local library sorted out their issues with their shipper and ILL is working again! I’m glad I didn’t skip ahead because this one follows very closely after the first book and I would have forgotten the details of the conspiracy if I had skipped around.
How to Betray Your Country, James Wolff: Folks, I’ve found the new John Le Carré and it’s this guy!
Transmetropolitan 4: The New Scum, Warren Ellis & Darik Robertson: I haven’t started this one yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I love Transmetropolitan and I’m (slowly) getting the whole set.
): Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) by L.C. Rosen. A YA book about kids in an exclusive school, their sex lives and how to live the way you want in a world pushing you into molds… also there’s a stalker involved. I found the book mentioned in an article about books that parents wanted pulled from libraries. The main character, Jack, is 17 and has an active sex life. Cue the consevative pearl clutching brigade So I knew I HAD to read it. So far it’s fun, not terribly deep yet, but I’m enjoying the narrative voice.