Kelly Corn
Alastair Reynolds is one of my favorite authors whom I stumbled upon quite by happy accident. I've read almost all of his novels, with one the best being [b:Pushing Ice 89186 Pushing Ice Alastair Reynolds http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309197028s/89186.jpg 2622804], and I'm also a big fan of his Revelation Space series and world. I had a very high bar set for this novel, the first of a supposed 10 I believe.At the beginning, we meet young Sunday and Geoffrey Akinya, siblings who live in future Africa. These two come across an antiquated tank buried in the earth with machinery that somehow gives Sunday a seizure. This is some foreshadowing of things to come. The rest of the novel focuses on the travels of Sunday and Geoffrey as they travel literally across the solar system searching for clues that their grandmother Eunice left for them when she died.That this novel is the first of a series is made pretty obvious by the author's inclusion of so much future tech. Geoffrey lives in the Surveilled World while Sunday chooses to live a little more incognito in the Descrutinised Zone (only on a certain part of the moon). The Mechanism is implied to some kind of thinking machine that watches all humans and can predict their behavior. For instance, at some point Geoffrey attempts to punch someone but is stopped by The Mechanism's communication with something in his own head. The Mechanism has drastically reduced crime on Earth, but there is an ominous feeling like that of Philip K Dick's Minority Report, which is why Sunday chooses to live on the moon.Like other Reynolds novels, there are plenty of heavily modified humans, especially the mer-people. They live in a city in the ocean. Also, there are intelligent projections that can live in golems, long lives, and an abandoned area of Mars run by robots. I love it.After finishing the book, it actually seems like nothing really substantial happened, but the journey there was awesomely adventurous. This novel lived up to what I hope it would be!
Mockingjay was the fastest read for me out of the books in the Hunger Games trilogy. I love the world that Suzanne Collins has created, her dystopian vision is awesome, and made for some great movies. Despite the wonderful setting, there were a few too many plot issues with this book than with the others for me.
For one thing, the Gale / Katniss / Peeta love triangle thingee was so tiring. I was tired of it long before it finally concluded. For another, the ending held no surprise. I don't know if it was really supposed to, but it felt like there might be some big reveal that just didn't happen. And finally, it's really depressing. This is not a happy feel-good ending, and damnit, I wanted one badly.
And I could've done completely without the ridiculous epilogue. I'm glad I read them all, so now I can listen when my friends and family talk about the books.
The pace of this novel is absolutely unmatched in any other book I've read. The chapters are a perfect length: just enough new information without being overwhelming, and not quite enough to keep me deeply intrigued.
It's a great science fiction mystery story, and I can't wait for the rest.
Excellent. And inspired me to read about and poems by Keats, Shelley and Byron. I always enjoy the style of storytelling by having so many different perspectives. I do wish there was more than one female pilgrim BUT at least Brawne Lamia is an awesome and well-developed character and not just “the girl in the group”. Amazing world building, character development, and I can't wait to read the sequel.
This book was a surprisingly enjoyable read. The mystery is a locked room mystery paying clear homage to [a:Agatha Christie 123715 Agatha Christie http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1321738793p2/123715.jpg]'s [b:And Then There Were None 16299 And Then There Were None Agatha Christie http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316131101s/16299.jpg 3038872]. As a matter of fact, Christie's book is brought up by the characters themselves in this book as they ponder how similar their own situation is. I thought this was a clever touch. I enjoyed the snowed-in setting of the old manor the characters are stuck in, and Rex Graves is a very likable “detective” (although he's not technically a “detective”, he does lead the murder investigation). There's even a little bit of romance, thankfully not overdone. All in all, it's a great holiday mystery with a believable and surprising ending.I do have one major problem with the book, and it has plagued me since I finished it: the author gives away the premise of [a:Agatha Christie 123715 Agatha Christie http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1321738793p2/123715.jpg]'s [b:Murder on the Orient Express 16304 Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #10) Agatha Christie http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309204192s/16304.jpg 2285570]. Although one can assume that most readers have read that book, I had not, and now I know the big twist. I'm reading the Hercule Poirot mysteries in publication order, and it is literally the next one on my list. I tried so hard to forget about it, but that just made it stick even more. Alas, I'm very disappointed, and I wish this author had left it out of her book. But, the 3 star rating doesn't take into account the giveaway; it's a solid 3 star book. Just be careful if you haven't read [b:Murder on the Orient Express 16304 Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #10) Agatha Christie http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309204192s/16304.jpg 2285570] and plan to!
Finally finished this book, it seemed to take a long time. I'm forcing some nonfiction into my daily reading because it just seems like a good idea. And this book also has a lot of great ideas, but a lot of them are ideas that just work so well when actually tested in reality.
This is not a completely neutral book by no means, but it does not outright bash either major political party. I think it does lean left, but not in an overpowering pundit-y way.
The author clearly did a lot of interviewing and research, and all that really shines. The book follows several projects that were born as soon as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (more commonly known as The Stimulus). Many of these projects also died or failed in less than 2 years.
I was continually stunned by the SIZE of some of these projects, and the big numbers. $100 million here, $250 million there, $40 million over there, and so on. All in all, the stimulus money totaled around $800 billion, which was considerably less than some economists recommended. Some suggested a huge stimulus along the lines of $1 trillion or more. ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. Then to push all of that money into projects, projects, and more projects. And that means ridiculous, unfathomable amounts of red tape and hardly a possibility of transparency.
The type of projects that benefited from or failed regardless of the stimulus is really what this book explores. Everything from green cars to solar panels (ahem) to schools to airports to bridges saw money from the stimulus.
I feel much more informed having this huge book (well, it felt big to me anyway). I have some examples of where the stimulus fell short (Solyndra) but also where it worked well (Savannah River). The answer to the title question continues to be hazy - I really can't decide if it was a good idea or not.
This book encouraged me to think about the economy in ways I have never considered. I learned a lot of history too, mostly about the New Deal.
I've read 2 Tim Powers books. They were both completely different but yet with many similarities. The similarities are quickly convincing me that I need to read more Tim Powers.
I read this novel because Powers was the guest of honor at a con I attended recently. Additionally, I recognized the title from the 4th Pirates of the Caribbean movie, of which the book is not really related.
If I were to describe the hallmark of Tim Powers based on all of 2 books that I've read of his, I would say his vision is taking historical facts and weaving in magic (or supernatural or time travel) into the history to explain it. The magic or supernatural is dark (I won't go so far to say evil, but it certainly isn't angelic power at work).
On Stranger Tides is all about the adventures of Mr. John “Shandy” Chandagnac. He is kidnapped by a man who is hoping to revive the spirit of his dead wife into his daughter.
The book is spooky and scary on a basic level. No thing is really that scary, but instead the embodiment of human desire was terrifying. What drives a man to search for the Fountain of Youth at all costs?
I do wish that there was just one more female character. The only one is this book is the damsel in distress. An opportunity to add a kick-ass female pirate squandered.
The Tiger's Wife has 3 major narratives and a 4th that is more of a side story. The encompassing story is the first person one told by Natalia, and the other stories are woven (very well, I must add) into the main narrative. The reader learns very early in the book that Natalia's grandfather has died from a terminal cancer. When she learns about this, she is on her way to Brejevina to provide vaccinations for children in a monastery turned orphanage. This is the book's primary narrative, but the author writes a few other stories that need to be told.Another story is that of the deathless man. He's a man that doesn't/can't die. Natalia's grandfather meets him before he's married to her grandmother, and he tells Natalia the story. The third major story is that of the Tiger and the Tiger's Wife. The Tiger escapes the zoo when Natalia's grandfather is nine years old, and he travels eventually to the town in which grandfather lived his childhood.This book has a lot of different themes for readers to explore, and fortunately, [a:Tea Obreht 5391851 Tea Obreht http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s narrative style is beautifully mesmerizing. In the tales of the deathless man and the Tiger, the author tells stories of several characters from grandfather's childhood in a wonderful folk-telling way. We learn about the butcher, the past of the deathless man, and the apothecary. Each of these stories is a folk tale that could easily hold its own as a short story. This really pulled me into the novel because I never knew what to expect each time I picked it up for more reading, and I really liked that!Some of the themes to discover include the obvious one of war. The novel takes place in an unnamed Balkan country. Although names are given for the various towns in the book, I couldn't find that any of them are real, so I suppose they are based on real towns the author is familiar with. This part of the world has been ravaged by war. Just war, not a few wars here and there, but constant war. As grandfather puts it in a conversation with the deathless man: “This war never ends...It was there when I was a child and it will be here for my children's children. I came to Sarabor because I want to see it again before it dies...” I think the author's choice to leave out the exact location of the stories is a good one, and as a reader, I came to realize that the stories could take place in several Balkan countries.Some other themes include the question of our desire to find out when we're going to die: would you want to know? This question is explored throughout the book. A lot of animal symbolism and folkloric practices are presented, too.I really enjoyed this book. I must admit, however, that I was the only one in my book club who finished it. Everyone else did not, and the reasoning was simply that they weren't intrigued by the stories, didn't have anything invested in the characters. To me, this is not a book about the individual characters of Natalia, her friend Zora, or her grandfather. It's more a story about events that shaped their lives, and the author really leaves it up to the reader to figure out the effect those events really had.The only thing that disappointed me about this book was that I can say I didn't really get it until I read the interview at the end between [a:Jennifer Egan 49625 Jennifer Egan http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1231143470p2/49625.jpg] and [a:Tea Obreht 5391851 Tea Obreht http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. Those 10 pages were very Ah-Ha moments for me. I'm more disappointed in myself than the author for my inability to really understand the book without the author's nudging, and I'm so glad it's a part of my Kindle edition.
First Miss Marple story I've read, so I don't know how it compares to others. It was a very quick read, and not really Christmas-y.
Story was predictable (which is a surprise really), but otherwise well written like most of Connelly's works.
This cookbook was quite a disappointment. The author has a nice story in the beginning about how she is basically able to beat terminal cancer by changing her diet. It's a good story, but not medically sound in my opinion. Also, the author mentions how easy her recipes are and also seems shocked that people actually buy salad-in-bag (or box) instead of the whole head of lettuce and accompanying veggies. I, for one, cook for one, so I don't want to buy a whole head of lettuce and throw half away. Also, I don't want to buy a bag of carrots just for one carrot (salad bars in grocery stores don't exist in my town yet). Anyway, I guess that's not really surprising since she is cooking “whole” foods. But ultimately, none of the recipes looked appealing, and I didn't make a single one. See, the ingredients are not easy-to-find, at least here in my 35,000 person town. I mean, I can buy miso at the health foods store, but she's got like 5 different kinds of miso, and it's almost every recipe. Other ingredients like brown rice syrup (?) and brown rice vinegar just don't seem everyday to me. Most of the recipes are Asian and have Asian produce, which is also a problem for me. Maybe this would be a good book if you live down the street from an amazing Farmer's Market.
I tried this book because it's 100% vegan, which justifies it's only star in my rating.
I read both this book and [b:Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312497352s/830.jpg 493634] when I was a freshman in college, and those are pretty much the only 2 books I had time for. Both of these books were amazing, and both completely changed my literary life.For me, [b:Ender's Game 375802 Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, #1) Orson Scott Card http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316636769s/375802.jpg 2422333] isn't at all about figuring out what is really going on. I think it's about innocence, and the using of that innocence by people who have their own very immoral agenda. I liked the ending-ending, if you will, the epilogue. This book is truly about something so very devastating, so very immoral, so unconscionable, so unbelievable that it needs that spark of hope at the end. I mean, [b:Old Yeller 130580 Old Yeller Fred Gipson http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171994329s/130580.jpg 2686896] is damn sad, but there are other dogs out there, maybe not exactly like Old Yeller, but definitely similar. But there wouldn't have been any more Buggers to replace these, none at all. And so the ending, that spark of hope, helped me not cry myself to sleep and be so appalled about what humanity can be capable of.And that's something else that this book is about: what is humanity capable of? This is like [b:Lord of the Flies 7624 Lord of the Flies William Golding http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165637417s/7624.jpg 2766512] but in space, and we humans are on our tiny island of Earth in this huge galaxy with no one to watch over us and tell us how to behave, and look what we might actually do. And I believe that we're capable of it, and that's terrifying. So again, I needed that ending, I needed to know that maybe we aren't as bad as the book made us out to be.This book made me think about a lot, and I still think about it. Even though the themes in this book are very strong and may be able to stand without a great plot, Card managed an awesome plot as well. I think you could even read this book solely for the plot; it was a lot of fun to read with great characters and a very believable future.
I enjoyed this book's pace, and the story is somewhat clever. There are a LOT of 80s references; actually, that's pretty much the whole book. So if you don't know anything about the 80s, I don't know what you'd think of the plot. Without all of the references, the plot is rather simplistic with no real surprises. Still, an enjoyable and worthwhile read, just nothing amazing in terms of ‘science fiction.'
Cute cute cozy mystery. I love the library setting – and having served on a small town library Board myself, found it at times very relatable. Also since living in the harsh Arizona desert, I enjoy escaping the summer by reading about other places with more pleasant summers!! The author currently lives in Scottsdale, and I have a soft spot for local authors. A few sections of dialogue were a little cringeworthy (Lindsay uses the term “baby-momma” where it didn't really fit), and definitely some holes to the mystery, but the setting and characters make up for it. Hey, it's a fun cozy, I'm not going over it with a fine-toothed comb.
I read the 7th book in the series first for a local book club, and decided to give the whole series a try.
I wanted to read something more cheerful for my book club, so I suggested this book just based on the description. I also thought that this part of American history isn't explored often enough, at least not in the books my club reads. And I am so glad I read this book!
The main character of the book is Bethia Mayfield. She, unfortunately, likes to learn about more than just cooking and raising children. This is unfortunate because it is not only uncommon, but actually discouraged (denied even) for women in the 17th century. After I finished this book, I thanked my lucky stars that I am living now instead of then, even if true equality to men is still not quite what we see in America today for women. Bethia Mayfield has the audacity to continue her education past her father's ending of it when she is 9 years old. She does this by listening in to her brother's education by her father. She learns Latin, some Greek, and she learns the language of the Wampanoag, the Native American's that inhabited Bethia's island before her family's arrival.
She meets a Wampanoag boy given the Christian name of Caleb. Through him, she learns a lot about the Native Americans beliefs, culture, and way of life. She also learns a different kind of spirituality, different from her family's Christian beliefs.
Bethia's journey is a fascinating one, filled with all kinds of Puritan intrigue and gossip. While I'm reading historical fiction, I keep references close by so that I can learn some of the known history of the area the author is writing about. In this way, I now think of Martha's Vineyard as more than just a playground for the wealthy and instead as a location of early American history. I loved reading about the daily lives of the characters – Bethia's waking everyday at sunrise, the farm work, the daily prayers, and the constant sadness of death too young.
I really liked reading about Harvard! It's such a grand symbol of American education today; it's so interesting to read about the entire enrollment being 33 when Caleb attends. Also, many of the names of the leaders are real people, and in fact, Caleb was quite real and was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.
The book definitely has some sad passages, but it also has several uplifting and hopeful stories.
I continue to feel relief that I live in such a modern time that I am allowed to learn how to read and write. Perhaps the Puritan times were more simple, certainly, but I would give that up in a heartbeat for freedom to learn.
The sun. It's not really a place I think about when I think of other places in space that might have life. This novel is all about the possibility of life on the sun. I think it's pretty clear that the author David Brin knows a lot of science, and I think he's better at writing the science than characters. The only aspect of this book that fellflat was in the characterization. But I love science and I love aliens, so those aspects kept the book great for me.
If one included the ions and electrons that forever stream out into space in the solar wind – to cause auroras on Earth and to shape the plasma tails of comets – one might say that there was no real boundary to the sun. It truly reaches out to touch the other stars.
This book has an easy-to-follow format. Each section is really a question that gets answered; it's easy to read a little here and there. I learned a lot. Unfortunately, it's a bit dated at this point, but since I know that, I took some sections as not quite the truth anymore.
Well. I liked the setting. Doc Ford's adventure was pretty cool, and I liked the Mayan history. But my goodness the women in this book were just atrociously characterized. It was hard for me to see past that.
