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maribouElantris, by Brandon Sanderson
All the reviews I've read of this were all 'blah blah blah it's so original blah blah breaks free of all the conventions of the genre blah blah nothing like anything I've read in ages'. And, well, I think it owes a lot to both George R R Martin and the earlier books in Jordan's Wheel of Time series, plus sometimes it really feels like someone constructing an RPG (an extremely good RPG, mind) as much as like someone writing a novel. So I'm a bit at a loss, as to the reviews. However, I really liked it. Plenty of depth and imagination.
(127/200)
Friday Night Lights, by H. G. Bissinger
I started reading this late at night, just to see if I was in the mood to make it my next book or not, and could not put it down until page 57. Absolutely gripping story about Odessa, Texas, high school football, American race relations, and some other things. Told in best journalistic style.
(128/200)
Gotham Central Vol. 1: In the Line of Duty, by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka
It's a Batman comic, but without much Batman in. It made good company at breakfast one day. Not a lot to say about it one way or the other.
(129/200)
God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
I loved the writing so much that I couldn't begin to make reasonable judgements about the book as a whole or such elements as plot, theme, etc. They might, in fact, be equally wonderful, but I just keep thinking, "Sooooooooooooooo pretty." Quite sad, but soooooooooooooooooooooo pretty. Shouldn't have let people tell me it was difficult reading as I put it off for years and then read it in about a day and a half with no discernable toil whatsoever.
(130/200)
This Fine Place So Far from Home, edited by Carolyn Leste Law and C. L. Barney Dews
A collection of essays by self-identified working-class academics, some heavily autobiographical and some extremely technical. Almost all of them were a pleasure to read; there were only a couple that had me going 'meh, too much jargon, not enough substance'. A strong anthology, humorous and insightful.
(131/200)
The Golem's Eye, by Jonathan Stroud (unabridged audiobook)
Simon Jones is a wonderful reader and this book is just as delicious as The Amulet of Samarkand, with the added bonus that it fills in the story with a good deal of history and larger context.
(132/200)
The Best American Essays 2002, edited by Stephen J. Gould (series editor, Robert Atwan)
Gould (whom I continue to miss and fanboy) picked some essays I loved and some I hated to the point of near-skimming due to the whole teeth-grinding thing. I am interested especially that one of the latter was actually one I'd read in 2001 and, at the time, really enjoyed. Strange. Anyway, I have found that these Houghton Mifflin collections always contain gems and this one is no exception. Loved the essay about the Strad cello and was touched by several of the 9/11 essays. There was an essay in there about Robert Carter III, by Andrew Levy, entitled "The Anti-Jefferson," that has made me seriously contemplate a subscription to The American Scholar ($7.50 an issue! eeps!) in hopes that said essay is representative of the quality of the serial from which it was gleaned. What a brilliant (and extremely well-written) essay that one was! I suspect that the essays, taken as a whole collection, would've been more representative of Gould's taste if he had not been much more focused on finishing The Structure of Evolutionary Theory before he died than on picking his favorite essays for this collection, but I'm grateful that he did, in fact, have his priorities straight.
(133/200)
All the reviews I've read of this were all 'blah blah blah it's so original blah blah breaks free of all the conventions of the genre blah blah nothing like anything I've read in ages'. And, well, I think it owes a lot to both George R R Martin and the earlier books in Jordan's Wheel of Time series, plus sometimes it really feels like someone constructing an RPG (an extremely good RPG, mind) as much as like someone writing a novel. So I'm a bit at a loss, as to the reviews. However, I really liked it. Plenty of depth and imagination.
(127/200)
Friday Night Lights, by H. G. Bissinger
I started reading this late at night, just to see if I was in the mood to make it my next book or not, and could not put it down until page 57. Absolutely gripping story about Odessa, Texas, high school football, American race relations, and some other things. Told in best journalistic style.
(128/200)
Gotham Central Vol. 1: In the Line of Duty, by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka
It's a Batman comic, but without much Batman in. It made good company at breakfast one day. Not a lot to say about it one way or the other.
(129/200)
God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
I loved the writing so much that I couldn't begin to make reasonable judgements about the book as a whole or such elements as plot, theme, etc. They might, in fact, be equally wonderful, but I just keep thinking, "Sooooooooooooooo pretty." Quite sad, but soooooooooooooooooooooo pretty. Shouldn't have let people tell me it was difficult reading as I put it off for years and then read it in about a day and a half with no discernable toil whatsoever.
(130/200)
This Fine Place So Far from Home, edited by Carolyn Leste Law and C. L. Barney Dews
A collection of essays by self-identified working-class academics, some heavily autobiographical and some extremely technical. Almost all of them were a pleasure to read; there were only a couple that had me going 'meh, too much jargon, not enough substance'. A strong anthology, humorous and insightful.
(131/200)
The Golem's Eye, by Jonathan Stroud (unabridged audiobook)
Simon Jones is a wonderful reader and this book is just as delicious as The Amulet of Samarkand, with the added bonus that it fills in the story with a good deal of history and larger context.
(132/200)
The Best American Essays 2002, edited by Stephen J. Gould (series editor, Robert Atwan)
Gould (whom I continue to miss and fanboy) picked some essays I loved and some I hated to the point of near-skimming due to the whole teeth-grinding thing. I am interested especially that one of the latter was actually one I'd read in 2001 and, at the time, really enjoyed. Strange. Anyway, I have found that these Houghton Mifflin collections always contain gems and this one is no exception. Loved the essay about the Strad cello and was touched by several of the 9/11 essays. There was an essay in there about Robert Carter III, by Andrew Levy, entitled "The Anti-Jefferson," that has made me seriously contemplate a subscription to The American Scholar ($7.50 an issue! eeps!) in hopes that said essay is representative of the quality of the serial from which it was gleaned. What a brilliant (and extremely well-written) essay that one was! I suspect that the essays, taken as a whole collection, would've been more representative of Gould's taste if he had not been much more focused on finishing The Structure of Evolutionary Theory before he died than on picking his favorite essays for this collection, but I'm grateful that he did, in fact, have his priorities straight.
(133/200)
