Making up for lost time
Sep. 30th, 2005 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
umechanWell, it's been a while since I last updated. I haven't gone and actually checked, but it's at least 6 months ago? I been sporadically keeping up with the stalkee list. .__. But hey, here's the latest attempt to blog more and keep up with the list.
I used to read a lot when I was younger, but then as I got older other hobbies took over. You know, things like hkdrama, hkmovies, jdrama, anime, manga, video games, tv shows, etc. And for the last decade or so my rate of books read/year has been just pitiful. Think 5-6 books a year or at most 10, and they were mostly books bought for plane reading. But in just in these past couple months I've suddenly read more than triple the number of books I usually read per year. It's a really odd feeling.
Anyway, on to the list of books read, with short comments & horrifically over-simplified non-spoilerish "summaries"
1. Sunshine (by Robin uh, Mckinnley?) - Witch meets vampire and together save the world. Set in world where demons/etc are commonplace. best vampire book I've read yet. Light easy & fun read without being completely thoughtless and trashy. Nice balance between vampires = the glamorous lifestyle and vampires = grotesque bloodthirsty monster.
2. His Dark Materials trilogy (Phillip Pullman) - uh, how to put this succinctly and without giving anything away? Boy walks through a window to another world. Girl does the same thing? Adventures ensue and eventually almost everything is tied up neatly and they save the world! Neat idea. The whole god bit still confuses me, but hey.
3. Second Sons trilogy (by Jennifer Falon) uh, small country trying to gain independence from larger country and it's religion/religious sects. Lots of politicking, intrigue, and religion, etc. And of course, lots of second sons too. Really excellent series. Most of the characters are really well fleshed out. and I adore the main character. :P
4. The boy who couldn't die (by William Sleator) - Boy gets procedure done so he can never die; it turns out badly. This is one of his newer book. Fast paced, not much depth. That's too bad, cause I really liked some of his more substantive older books. Which reminds me that I need to pick up Tychos' green. BTW, if you've never read his stuff I highly recommend it. One of my favorite YA authors.
5. Harry Potter books - Boy finds out he's a famous wizard; battles the big bad, Voldemort, over and over again to save the world. Fun magic-y and boarding schoolish things abound. Reread the first 3 and then plowed through the next 3. I never thought I'd come back to this series. It's too bad I read the 6th book way after the rest of the world did - I must have missed out on some great impressions/reviews.
6. the Black Jewels trilogy (Anne Bishop) - Author valiantly tries to squeeze all the most fangirly and titillating s/m and fantasy bits possible into a 3 book series. Ok, the real "summary" - 3 dark warlocks(?) wait for the Witch of their dreams to come rule over them and everyone else since real strong dark jeweled witches are pretty scarce. I wasn't expecting anything brilliantly awe-inducing, just a quick fun read. Reading it right after the Second Sons trilogy wasn't a good idea. It's still a pretty good fluff kind of a series, but there are some aspects which are similar enough that it's hard not to compare.
7. Bellwether (Connie Willis) - Fads research scientist meets chaos physicist and eventually work on a project together. With sheep. If you work in the corporate world, you can't not read this! It's a pretty quick read, and is just hilarious. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
8. To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis) - Guy time-lagged from making jumps into the past to collect info on restoring a chapel, works with girl to fix an anomaly created by her. Smartly written, but somehow didn't pull me in. It was hard for me to get into at the beginning too. Seems like the kind of book that will improve with repeated reading.
9. The Dispossessed (Ursula LeGuin) - Man from communist-type planet leaves to go to capitalist-type planet to further his studies on Simultaneity (or something). Really great utopia/dystopia type book. I'm too non-literary inclined to really comment more on this (ie, I am le dumb and incoherent, but this book shouldn't be penalized by that).
10. Wolf Tower (Tanith Lee) - Slave-girl leaves garden-haven to go out and explore the desert wastelands with stranger who came in a balloon. First time reading her and this is a fun and light fantasy YA book.
11. the Thief - Thief is released from prison to search for legendary jewel. Really much better than it sounds from the short summary. Fun quick YA read.
12. First Chrestomanci book (Diana Wynne Jones) - 2 related shorter stories - Both essentially about young boys and how they become the next Chrestomanci, the most powerful wizard who controls access to the pathways to the 12 related worlds. These are pretty good for YA books, the characters are endearing and plot moves pretty quickly in each story. I hear the continuing books are also shorter stories related to incidents that happen throughout one of the boy's life.
13. Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) - String of anecdotes and smartass quotes strung together haphazardly around the adventures of a group of 2 aliens, 2 earthians, and a depressed robot. I'd been putting off reading this because I didn't think I'd like it as much as everyone else seems to. It's kind of like how I just don't think Monty Python is all that funny. Probably because of what low expectations I had, but even though it was slow to get into, I actually ended up enjoying it.
..And what an ominous number to end on, but oh well, it can't be helped.
List of future books to read
- Some collection(?) including the warrior's apprentice (Lois McMaster Bujold) - this is actually going to be my plane reading for the upcoming trip. If I like it, I may buy more.
- Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman) - also plane reading for the trip. And it'll be my first intro to Gaiman, so I guess I'll see what all the fuss is about. It's like you can't go anywhere online without running into Gaiman fanatics.
- Robin Hobbs multiple trilogies - I'm kind of holding off on these at the moment because I really can't afford to be dying of lack of sleep because I'm staying up until 4 in the morning to finish these.
- Out(?) - something I picked up at the 3 for 2 book sale. Looks like a japanese translated novel about a woman who kills her husband and enlists the help of friends to dispose of the body.
- The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood) - another one from the 3 for 2 sale. I generally like her novels even if she's uppity about A Handmaid's Tale supposedly not being Scifi.
- Ender's game's sequels
- More Jennifer falon, I think there's a newer trilogy out.
- Howl's Moving Castle
- More Chrestomanci books and the rest of that Tanith Lee series, eventually
And hey, if anyone wants to rec books to me, I'd be much obliged. :D I actually do try a lot of stuff based on what people on the flist have mentioned/said. It's almost kinda scary to see how much my interests can be tuned by lj despite how little I actually interact on here. It's helpful though, since I never have time to go out of my way to look up or try out new anime/games/etc anymore, so the flist is like the automatic 1st level filter. For most things anyway.
I used to read a lot when I was younger, but then as I got older other hobbies took over. You know, things like hkdrama, hkmovies, jdrama, anime, manga, video games, tv shows, etc. And for the last decade or so my rate of books read/year has been just pitiful. Think 5-6 books a year or at most 10, and they were mostly books bought for plane reading. But in just in these past couple months I've suddenly read more than triple the number of books I usually read per year. It's a really odd feeling.
Anyway, on to the list of books read, with short comments & horrifically over-simplified non-spoilerish "summaries"
1. Sunshine (by Robin uh, Mckinnley?) - Witch meets vampire and together save the world. Set in world where demons/etc are commonplace. best vampire book I've read yet. Light easy & fun read without being completely thoughtless and trashy. Nice balance between vampires = the glamorous lifestyle and vampires = grotesque bloodthirsty monster.
2. His Dark Materials trilogy (Phillip Pullman) - uh, how to put this succinctly and without giving anything away? Boy walks through a window to another world. Girl does the same thing? Adventures ensue and eventually almost everything is tied up neatly and they save the world! Neat idea. The whole god bit still confuses me, but hey.
3. Second Sons trilogy (by Jennifer Falon) uh, small country trying to gain independence from larger country and it's religion/religious sects. Lots of politicking, intrigue, and religion, etc. And of course, lots of second sons too. Really excellent series. Most of the characters are really well fleshed out. and I adore the main character. :P
4. The boy who couldn't die (by William Sleator) - Boy gets procedure done so he can never die; it turns out badly. This is one of his newer book. Fast paced, not much depth. That's too bad, cause I really liked some of his more substantive older books. Which reminds me that I need to pick up Tychos' green. BTW, if you've never read his stuff I highly recommend it. One of my favorite YA authors.
5. Harry Potter books - Boy finds out he's a famous wizard; battles the big bad, Voldemort, over and over again to save the world. Fun magic-y and boarding schoolish things abound. Reread the first 3 and then plowed through the next 3. I never thought I'd come back to this series. It's too bad I read the 6th book way after the rest of the world did - I must have missed out on some great impressions/reviews.
6. the Black Jewels trilogy (Anne Bishop) - Author valiantly tries to squeeze all the most fangirly and titillating s/m and fantasy bits possible into a 3 book series. Ok, the real "summary" - 3 dark warlocks(?) wait for the Witch of their dreams to come rule over them and everyone else since real strong dark jeweled witches are pretty scarce. I wasn't expecting anything brilliantly awe-inducing, just a quick fun read. Reading it right after the Second Sons trilogy wasn't a good idea. It's still a pretty good fluff kind of a series, but there are some aspects which are similar enough that it's hard not to compare.
7. Bellwether (Connie Willis) - Fads research scientist meets chaos physicist and eventually work on a project together. With sheep. If you work in the corporate world, you can't not read this! It's a pretty quick read, and is just hilarious. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.
8. To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis) - Guy time-lagged from making jumps into the past to collect info on restoring a chapel, works with girl to fix an anomaly created by her. Smartly written, but somehow didn't pull me in. It was hard for me to get into at the beginning too. Seems like the kind of book that will improve with repeated reading.
9. The Dispossessed (Ursula LeGuin) - Man from communist-type planet leaves to go to capitalist-type planet to further his studies on Simultaneity (or something). Really great utopia/dystopia type book. I'm too non-literary inclined to really comment more on this (ie, I am le dumb and incoherent, but this book shouldn't be penalized by that).
10. Wolf Tower (Tanith Lee) - Slave-girl leaves garden-haven to go out and explore the desert wastelands with stranger who came in a balloon. First time reading her and this is a fun and light fantasy YA book.
11. the Thief - Thief is released from prison to search for legendary jewel. Really much better than it sounds from the short summary. Fun quick YA read.
12. First Chrestomanci book (Diana Wynne Jones) - 2 related shorter stories - Both essentially about young boys and how they become the next Chrestomanci, the most powerful wizard who controls access to the pathways to the 12 related worlds. These are pretty good for YA books, the characters are endearing and plot moves pretty quickly in each story. I hear the continuing books are also shorter stories related to incidents that happen throughout one of the boy's life.
13. Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) - String of anecdotes and smartass quotes strung together haphazardly around the adventures of a group of 2 aliens, 2 earthians, and a depressed robot. I'd been putting off reading this because I didn't think I'd like it as much as everyone else seems to. It's kind of like how I just don't think Monty Python is all that funny. Probably because of what low expectations I had, but even though it was slow to get into, I actually ended up enjoying it.
..And what an ominous number to end on, but oh well, it can't be helped.
List of future books to read
- Some collection(?) including the warrior's apprentice (Lois McMaster Bujold) - this is actually going to be my plane reading for the upcoming trip. If I like it, I may buy more.
- Neverwhere (by Neil Gaiman) - also plane reading for the trip. And it'll be my first intro to Gaiman, so I guess I'll see what all the fuss is about. It's like you can't go anywhere online without running into Gaiman fanatics.
- Robin Hobbs multiple trilogies - I'm kind of holding off on these at the moment because I really can't afford to be dying of lack of sleep because I'm staying up until 4 in the morning to finish these.
- Out(?) - something I picked up at the 3 for 2 book sale. Looks like a japanese translated novel about a woman who kills her husband and enlists the help of friends to dispose of the body.
- The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood) - another one from the 3 for 2 sale. I generally like her novels even if she's uppity about A Handmaid's Tale supposedly not being Scifi.
- Ender's game's sequels
- More Jennifer falon, I think there's a newer trilogy out.
- Howl's Moving Castle
- More Chrestomanci books and the rest of that Tanith Lee series, eventually
And hey, if anyone wants to rec books to me, I'd be much obliged. :D I actually do try a lot of stuff based on what people on the flist have mentioned/said. It's almost kinda scary to see how much my interests can be tuned by lj despite how little I actually interact on here. It's helpful though, since I never have time to go out of my way to look up or try out new anime/games/etc anymore, so the flist is like the automatic 1st level filter. For most things anyway.
