July 19, 2007
Book List: June/July 2007
Forgot to do this at the end of June. trala. As always, * is new read, ^ is new audiobook.
Since the last book list, I’ve finished:
- White Knight* by Jim Butcher
- Cold Copper Tears* by Glen Cook
- listening to Altered Carbon^* by Richard K Morgan
- New Amsterdam* by Elizabeth Bear
- From Russia with Lust* by David Bishop
- Ethan of Athos, The Warrior’s Apprentice, The Vor Game, Cetaganda, Mirror Dance, Memory, Komarr and A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold: yay Vorkosigan reread!
- Whiskey and Water* by Elizabeth Bear: I will review this one soon.
- Carnival by Elizabeth Bear
- Hellboy: The God Machine* by Thomas E. Sniegoski: another review I owe.
I’ve started/am in the middle of:
- The Sea of Trolls* by Nancy Farmer: Mom lent it to me. Good YA fantasy.
- Lord of the Silent Kingdom* by Glen Cook: Second book of the Instrumentalities of the Night. Can’t quite get into it, so I keep picking it up and reading and putting it down.
- listening to Broken Angels^* by Richard K Morgan
- Crown of Shadows* by CS Friedman: still don’t want to read the end.
- Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories* by Susanna Clarke
- What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff*
2007 books read: 57, 34 new to me.
* = new read
^ = new listen
June 1, 2007
Book List: May 2007
Since the last book list, I’ve finished:
- Proven Guilty*, Dead Beat*, Blood Rites*, Death Masks*, Grave Peril* and Summer Knight* by Jim Butcher
- Bitter Gold Hearts* by Glen Cook
- The Haiku Handbook* by William J Higginson
- A Secret Atlas* by Michael Stackpole
- listening to Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
I’ve started/am in the middle of:
- listening to Altered Carbon^* by Richard K Morgan: almost done, at the big reveal, omg it’s cool.
- Crown of Shadows* by CS Friedman: still don’t want to read the end.
- Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories* by Susanna Clarke
- What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff*
- New Amsterdam* by Elizabeth Bear: just got this, may review some of the stories individually cuz it rocks
- From Russia with Lust* by David Bishop: So terrible its awesome, and as far as I can tell, intentionally so. More later, it’s actually a compilation of three books.
2007 books read: 39, 25 new to me.
* = new read
^ = new listen
April 27, 2007
2007 Booklist 5
Ok, so, yeah, I obviously suck at keeping this up. Plan from now on is to jot when i finish a book, not on some regular schedule. I don’t do regular schedules, apparently. * is new read, ^ is new audiobook.
- Finished:
- Sweet Silver Blues* and Whispering Nickel Idols by Glen Cook: So glad they’re republishing the Garrett, PI books, because I want them all. I <3 Glen Cook as always.
- The Demon and the City* by Liz Williams: I want more Detective Inspector Chen books. Hm, detective/PI heavy reading list lately. Interesting.
- Africa Zero* and Prador Moon* by Neal Asher: Jasper really loves Asher, I like him. I think I generally like his longer stuff better. These two shorter books were almost too condensed. That and I couldn’t get interested in one of the main characters in Prador Moon, which didn’t help.
- Black Sun Rising and When True Night Falls by CS Friedman: I like this world so much I’m running a D&D campaign in it, hopefully.
- Watership Down and Tales from Watership Down* by Richard Adams: “Tales” had some pretty good stories in it. A fun, if quick, read.
- His Majesty’s Dragon*, Throne of Jade* and Black Powder War* by Naomi Novik: I resisted buying and reading the second two for a while because I didn’t want to be out of Temeraire books to read. Very good! Very light, in the, I fly right through it way, but not in the depthless way. People compare it to McCaffrey, but, eh. The dragons in these are more real characters, somehow.
- Sabriel, Lirael^, and Abhorsen^ by Garth Nix, read by Tim Curry: I heart Nix’s world-building. Curry is also the right guy to read these.
- listening to The Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde: I needed some light listening for getting grading done to. I think, actually, I liked them better the second time around.
- Storm Front* and Fool Moon* by Jim Butcher: Just got into the Dresden books. Love them! The blurb by Glen Cook is a hint that I would, of course. Grim ‘n’ gritty fantasy done right, with the sort of mystery that makes me unable to put them down or to think ahead of the character. (If the author gets me in the character’s head enough, the part of my brain that tries to figure it out before them shuts off and goes along for the ride. It’s fun.)
In the middle of:
- Crown of Shadows* by CS Friedman: Finally bought the end of the trilogy, lol. Been almost done this book for a month, because I can see where it’s going and I don’t want to get there yet.
- The Haiku Handbook* by William J Higginson: Lent by Andrew. Read most of it, skimmed some of the bits that I don’t really care about. If nothing else, some inspiring haiku.
- A Secret Atlas* by Stackpole: It’s slow going so far. I hope it picks up, because although I love a good political intrigue, so far the exposition is overmassing the bits of intrigue into boring. Oh, and I want less of the cartographers and more of the awesome warrior dude.
- Grave Peril* by Jim Butcher: almost done, and I started it last night at dinner.
- listening to Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman: Another relisten for grading to.
- listening to Fragile Things*^ by and read by Neil Gaiman: taking it a story at a time
- listening to Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson: I’ve seriously read/listened to this so many times (one of the first audio books I ever got) that my brain has started scary-analyzing Stephenson’s writing in the background while I listen to it.
- Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories* by Susanna Clarke
- What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff*
So, books read in 2007 so far:
29, 16 of them new to me.
February 16, 2007
2007 Booklist 4
* is new read, ^ is new audiobook.
- Finished:
- Listening to Harsh Cry of the Heron (The Last Tale of the Otori) by Lian Hearn*^: Loved it! Made the whole series an “awesome” rather than a “pretty good”. Review later, watch this space.
- The Tyranny of the Night* by Glen Cook: I can report to all Glen Cook fans that you will enjoy it if you can just get to the point where the main character starts traveling. After that, it picks up and I really couldn’t put it down until I was finished. Interesting world Cook has set up, I’ll be curious as to where he’s taking this.
- Hellboy: The Bones of Giants by Christopher Golden*: A Hellboy book, not much else to say really.
- In the middle of:
- Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories* by Susanna Clarke: This is one of those collections I’m sure I’ll read a story at a time.
- What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff*: It’s actually really interesting to me, but not in the way I think the author intended. As a story that shows historical difference, it’s amazing. How did the 50s and 60s view computers and technology, and how did our view grow out of that, and how incredibly different the world is in the age of the microchip. It’s slow going though, because of all the names. (If it were a fiction book I’d complain that there were too many main characters.)
- Watership Down by Richard Adams: A while back at a used bookstore I got “Tales from Watership Down” which appears to be a follow-up set of short stories, so I decided to reread it.
- His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik*: Everyone and their brother whose blogs I read has been recommending these books lately, so I gave in while at Borders. It’s good. How good? Let me put it this way: I read the first 300 pages in 3 hours. I’m resisting it right now because I don’t want to finish it.
- Sabriel by Garth Nix, read by Tim Curry: Relistening to the set since I just got Lirael and Abhorsen as audiobooks. Still love this take on necromancy.
So, books read in 2007 so far:
10, 6 of them new to me.
February 4, 2007
2007 Booklist 3
* is new read, ^ is new audiobook.
- Finished:
- Carnival by Elizabeth Bear*: Good stuff! I actually rather wanted to go back and reread it again right away, from the perspective of “how much can I pick out now that I know what all that intrigue was” but didn’t.
- Listening to Grass for His Pillow (Tales of the Otori Book 2) by Lian Hearn.
- Listening to Brilliance of the Moon (Tales of the Otori Book 3) by Lian Hearn*^: A very satisfying conclusion to the trilogy–will give them a longer review at some point.
- Liar’s Oath by Elizabeth Moon*: I wasn’t as pleased with this as the one that focused on Gird. It was interesting, but I really wanted to see more of what Paks and Kieri were doing that was the framing story!
- In the middle of:
- Listening to Harsh Cry of the Heron (The Last Tale of the Otori) by Lian Hearn*^: Narrative tension like whoah. Cannot stop listening, and yet sometimes I have to because everything is going wrong for Takeo, but it’s a slow build-up so you can see each plot thread waiting to unravel… I can’t imagine how this will end but it’s going to be good. The one downside is I liked the narrators for the first set of books better.
- Ladies of Grace Adieu & Other Stories* by Susanna Clarke: This is one of those collections I’m sure I’ll read a story at a time.
- The Tyranny of the Night* by Glen Cook: Finally got to read it a bit last night. Jasper says it’s slow picking up, and he’s right, but things have started to get interesting. My main issue is that the writing just doesn’t seem as good as Cook’s usual, but I’m still going to read it.
- Hellboy: The Bones of Giants by Christopher Golden*: It’s been my bedtime reading, so it’s been fairly slow-going. About 2/3 of the way done though.
- What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff*: Appears to be in the form of a set of stories illustrating his idea. Makes it easy bedtime reading, so it’s on the pile after I finish the Hellboy book.
So, books read in 2007 so far:
7, 3 of them new to me.
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