Back in Bangkok. While away, I finished Bleachers, by John Grisham. A former high-school football hero returns to his small hometown for the funeral of the much-loved coach and must decide whether he loved or hated the man. A pleasant read and the first non-lawyer Grisham story I’ve read.
Am now somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through The Stand, by Stephen King. Enjoying it immensely.
Thanks, delphica. If I remember right from Life After Life,
Teddy was killed in one timeline by Ursula’s abusive husband while trying to save her; died in several others while serving in the RAF; and in the last one (which ends the book) survived the war and at least into the late 1960s. Will it turn out that he has the same multi-life/dimension-hopping talent/curse as she does? I guess the author could write about some other member of the family next, and make it a trilogy. Hmm. Perhaps it’s genetic…?
I spotted Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett on the New Books shelf at the local library and couldn’t resist.
It’s an intriguing travelogue of various places around the world that no longer exist, have yet to exist or are otherwise hidden from the general populace either by chance or by decree. Bonnet delves into the historical as well as the geographical elements of each of these “unruly places” and provides some intriguing insights. Among the areas discussed are the Sentinel Islands, home to one of the few (and probably most belligerent) uncontacted tribes; Pripyat, Ukraine (nearest town to Chernobyl) and Baarle, a town on the Netherlands/Belgium border made up of a multitude of enclaves, where your front and back doors may be in different countries.
Well-researched, but not at all dry; in fact there are some nice touches of humor – from the chapter on trash vortices/islands: “Since Belgium appears to have become an international standard for judging the size of large floating objects…”
This book reminded me a little of Braving Home: Dispatches from the Underwater Town, the Lava-Side Inn, and Other Extreme Locales by Jake Halpern. While there’s not much geographical overlap between the 2 books; both authors celebrate “topophilia” – “a special love of peculiar places”.
Holy shit! :eek: So looking forward to that.
My wife was a big fan of the show - but I suspect that may have had more to do with a young Sean Bean in period outfits, than a love of Napoleonic warfare. 
I liked the show okay - it was filled with awesome actors being awesome (particularly memorable was Pete Postwaithe as a horrible seargent Hakeswill), but it is really hard to convincingly stage the Battle of Waterloo with a handfull of extras. 
I made a mistake about the title I’m currently reading – it’s The Empty Throne, not The Last Kingdom.
I’m very excited about the TV series! Thanks.
The Last of the Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War, Richard Rubin. The author interviewed a number of the remaining centenarians (in about 2003; they’re all dead now) about their memories of WWI. The book purports to tell their stories, and the author does relate some of them, but there is a huge amount of padding to make this thing book length. There is an entire chapter dedicated to Tin Pan Alley and the war-themed music of the era, and another chapter about the war books written during that same time. He quotes long passages from both, which is mind-numbing in some cases. It’s unfortunate that he, or someone like him, didn’t think to do this work when there were a lot more veterans alive and that were still mentally able to remember the war in detail.
Just added it to my To Read list. Thanks for the recommendation!
Finished my first book of the year. Yeah, go ME! 
The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler: The book was fast paced with very few lulls in the action. And even though the ending was something of a foregone conclusion, it still kept my attention and my breath held waiting to see if things would work out.
There is a lot of killing, not all of it hand to hand, and a lot of blood spilled, but story ties up most of the threads left hanging in the first two books.
And Dammit! Eisler is one of those authors who likes to kill off my favorite characters! 
Finished a re-read of one of my favorite novels - Time and Again by Jack Finney.
Si Morley, an advertising illustrator who is living in the Big Apple & feeling somewhat unfulfilled in life, is approached by a mysterious man who asks him to commit to a secret project. Not having much else to look forward to (even his relationship is somewhat desultory), he agrees. The project, under the aegis of the US government, is time travel by means of self-hypnotism & surrounding one’s self with the artifacts of that time. A mystery in the life of his girlfriend’s adoptive parents gives him the impetus to travel to the New York of 1882.
The puzzle pieces that Finney puts together in this novel are amazing, with actual historical events fitting in almost seamlessly to the narrative, including sketches and photographs from the time. The unraveling of the mystery and the thrilling climax were as compelling on a re-read as the first time. As before, I found myself wondering just how much of the story was true. Finney does admit to changing some of the facts - the Dakota hotel (where Si does his “traveling”) wasn’t complete until 1885, for example. But other elements appear to be faithfully researched.
I’d recommend this novel to fans of time travel who also have an interest in the world of the turn of the 19th century.
Thoughts after my Jan 2015 reread:
The more I think about it, this is really historical fiction with a thin SF wrapper. The 1882 portion of the story is still as gripping as the first time I read it, and holds up very well - not only the world building, but the plot and characters; however, the modern day elements feel a bit dated. That said, the idea that (at least an element of) the military wants to weaponize time travel is probably just as valid now as it was in 1970.
Speaking of which, while I am fascinated by the time travel mechanism; it really doesn’t hold up, even in-universe.
We have the perennial question of what else besides the time traveler him/herself. Si’s clothing and pocket contents obviously travel with him; as do Kate’s clothing & belongings when she joins Si in an excursion to the past.
However… the 1882 version of the apartment in the Dakota was said to have been empty. Even if it were furnished, there’s no way the Project could have gotten all the replica/vintage furnishings right… so did everything in the apartment travel with Si as well? Otherwise, he would have known instantly upon coming out of the trance whether or not he had succeeded…
The return trip from 1882 makes a little more sense to me, as the interior of the Statue of Liberty has probably changed very little since 1882 (even if its location did) , but again, should Julia have actually been able to make the trip back, even tho Si makes a point of “holding her very close, making her as much a part of me as I was able”. ? I’m on the fence, myself… 
Last year I was in the mood for realism, gritty realism so I read mostly Michael Connelly, Jonathon Kellerman(yes I know) and Daniel Silva, this year I started with Barry Eisler. But I think I need to mix some “coziness” into the pot this year.
So with that in mind, I started Brother Cadfael’s Penance by Ellis Peters. I read the first 19 books about 2 years ago and burned out…
THe flowery language and medieval roundabout way of speaking is requiring a mighty adjustment in the ole brain
I’m just finishing up Ender’s Game. A most excellent book, and I find myself desperately wishing that I had read it before seeing the movie. It kind of spoiled things when I knew the “twist” before it was revealed. Tolerable when you’re watching the movie version of a book you’ve already read, because the whole thing is compressed into a couple hours. But when your reading is spread out over a number of days, and the whole time you already know the twist … meh.
At least I’ll be able to read Speaker for the Dead before that movie comes out (if, indeed, they’re making a movie of it).
I finished the horrible romance novel (it was a quick read, and counts towards my goal of reading 25 books this year) and last night I finally started reading 11/22/63. I nearly put it off again, because I’d forgotten about the hefty page count, but I decided to go for it. I’m still just at the very beginning – Al has something to show Jake, but he hasn’t done it yet – but I think it’s gonna be a good one. 
It’s a wonderful book. And it inspired me to go on and tackle The Stand, which is even heftier.
You got that far? I found Again, Dangerous Visions a better read, but I like this review:
I’d forgotten about that! Movie blew, but I loves me a good time travel read. About the only fiction I still read.
At work it’s Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won. A well-researched look into the real failures and successes of both sides with none of the gung ho shit you usually get, starting with an explanation that final victory was not assured until quite late in the war.
I took an impromptu trip to the library last week, so I picked up a few books while I was there and I put The Virginians on hold.
First up was Brideshead Revisited. After the first few chapters, I was worried that it might be too full of Manic Pixie Dream Boy shenanigans for my taste, but luckily that didn’t turn out to be the case. I thought it was thought-provoking and well-written.
Next up is Death Comes for the Archbishop, then A Passage to India.
Read that sometime ago in my teens after the BBC production of it. (I was an Anthony Andrews fangirl ) At the time, I was horribly disappointed with the ending, but as I’ve grown, and am less inclined to want a Disney end, I find that it works and does indeed make one think.
Luckily I’ve already read that one! Revival is next up in my queue, which I imagine will feel like a short story in comparison.
Just finished the last of the recent graphic novels based, with King’s blessing, on The Stand. For all of them, I’d say the writing made for a respectful and interesting adaptation, but the artwork was disappointing - amateurish, even. A nice in-joke near the end:
A guy named Richard Bachman makes a cameo appearance in Las Vegas, and he looks a lot like a certain author from Maine…
I picked up In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker from the local library after having read a short story based in the same universe in The Time Traveler’s Almanac anthology (which I need to get back out of the library, as I only got about 1/3 in before it was due back.) Eleanor of Aquitaine also recommended the novel over on GoodReads.
The novel is the first in the Company series - said Company having not only time travel, but technology to bestow near-immortality as well. They recruit and train children from the past who were destined to die to help preserve artifacts, plants and animals so they can be “re-discovered” (for a handsome profit, of course) in the modern-day of the 24th century.
The story follows one of these children, a orphan girl from Inquisition-era Spain called Mendoza, through her training as a botanist and first assignment as a teenager. She is sent to England with 3 other Company employees during the tumultuous reign of Mary Tudor and Philip II of Spain - with the assignment to conserve rare plant specimens from the garden of Sir Walter Iden, who is a bit of a crackpot. She discovers what it means to live among the mortals all the while knowing what comes next.
Mendoza is a bit of a brat here, but an entertaining character, as are her compatriots Joseph and Nefer, and the world building is intriguing, and very well-researched, from what I can tell. The plot is a bit rough around the edges, but I think this was Baker’s first novel, and can therefore be forgiven. I’m curious to see how Mendoza’s character develops in future novels, which I will be checking out in the near-future, I think.
Hmmm. Sounds like a great premise.