Most recently read stuff is listed first. Books that I'm rereading are in this color. You can generally tell from the blurb whether I liked the book or not, but if you don't want to read the blurb, there's also a star rating on the right. Five stars is excellence personified; three stars means that I thought the book enjoyable but not outstanding; one star ratings are rarely earned, in that I rarely finish such books. Sometimes people ask if I have a favorite book. I point them here. For my own convenience, links go to Amazon, unless the author has a page about it or Project Gutenberg has scanned it in. Honestly, I get most of these from the library... |
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| May, 2010: | |||
| Jhereg | Steven Brust | Fantasy: first in the Vlad Taltos series (though chronology doesn't matter as much with these). A seemingly simple contract goes awry as mobster/assassin Vlad finds himself having to negotiate the differences between his friends' prickly senses of honor and the necessities of his contract. |
**** (Buy) |
| Yendi | Steven Brust | Fantasy: second in the Vlad Taltos series. Vlad gets involved in a turf war on his home territory, and falls in love. Weaker than the first novel but still a good read. |
*** (Buy) |
| The Name of the Wind | Patrick Rothfuss | Fantasy: a young wizard comes of age. It sounds corny but the tale is wonderfully told, and the magic system is nifty and inventive. |
**** (Site) |
| Oryx and Crake | Margaret Atwood | Apocalyptic SF, written as if it were fantasy. A bitter young geneticist brings about the end of the world as we know it. I'm not sure I buy the methodology, but the love triangle between the narrator and the two title characters is pretty interesting. |
*** (Buy) |
| Drown | Junot Diaz | A series of short stories revolving around a boy's life in the Dominican Republic, and then in New Jersey. Nice worms'-eye-view of life in both places, hemmed about by family (or in some cases the crushing absence thereof). |
*** (Buy) |
| Glasshouse | Charles Stross | SF. A figure with a mysterious past (a mystery even to himself) signs up for an experiment that is much more than it seems. Cyberpunk feel, plus sharp social commentary and some pretty good space battle action. |
*** (Buy) |
| April, 2010: | |||
| Fool Moon | Jim Butcher | Hapless wizard Harry Dresden runs afoul of a proliferation of werewolves in Chicago. Despite a total lack of trust on the part of his police counterpart, and occasional interference from the mob and the FBI, he must manage to sort the good werewolves from the bad, without getting shot too often. |
*** (Site) |
| The Family Trade | Charles Stross | Book 1 of the Merchant Princes series. Starts out like fantasy (woman discovers a device that will take her to another world) but quickly becomes something urban and much darker -- family expectations, dimension-traveling drug smugglers, blood and violence. Interesting premise. |
*** (Buy) |
| Miles in Love (Komarr, A Civil Campaign, Winterfair Gifts) | Lois McMaster Bujold | Reread of Komarr and A Civil Campaign, which are still wonderful, just to get to Winterfair Gifts: a pretty little gem of a short gift-giving story. |
***** (Buy) |
| March, 2010: | |||
| Peter Pan | J.M. Barrie | Reread because book club kindly agreed to read it with me. Still love it. |
***** (Read) |
| The Unicorn Hunt | Dorothy Dunnett | Historical fiction, book 4 of the Niccolo series. Nicholas and Gelis stage a battle of wits over a child that may not even exist. Lots going on in the way of politicking, international intrigue, and deep, bitter betrayal. |
*** (Amazon) |
| February, 2010: | |||
| Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and other irritating states: a dinner party approach to international relations | Chris Fair | Nonfiction, recipes and rants. I think I'd enjoy this book more if there were more facts about the countries, rather than opinions; instead, the book reads like a particularly informative op-ed, studded with recipes. |
*** (Site) |
| January, 2010: | |||
| The Born Queen | Greg Keyes | Fantasy, fourth and last in the Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone. Bit of a grim ending but all anyone could wish for in terms of blood, gore, and apocalyptic magic. |
*** (Amazon) |
| Titus Groan | Mervyn Peake | Gothic fantasy, first of the Gormenghast trilogy. Lots of incredibly flowery language and describing of people as if they were fantastic objects. A child is born, heir to Gormenghast, the seventy-seventh Earl to take the title; the denizens of the castle react, including an ambitious kitchen boy who aspires to higher things. |
*** (Site) |
| Booklist archives: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and earlier. | |||
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