What are you reading the week of June 16, 2013?

[DUgosh]

Defending Jacob by William Landay

2013 book # 70

[Curmudgeoness]

1. 1984 by George Orwell

I have been thinking of re-reading it for quite a while, and it seems like the perfect time to reintroduce myself to it.

[MrYikes]

2. I read this year Atlas Shrugged

So last week I read Anthem and Fountainhead, all by Ayn Rand. Know thy enemy, right?
I started the JK Rowlings adult book,,something Vacancy, from the library, I was disgusted at the end of the first chapter and found a note from a previous reader saying that it was a terrible book; I agreed and stopped reading it.
I read the Devil Colony yesterday which was good, but so fast paced that I couldn't take time to absorb what he was writing about. I will read it again this week at my pace, not his.

[Goblinmonger]

3. Today is Bloomsday.

So I start my annual reading of Ulysses. This will be read #7. In a few years, I hope to get to Dublin for Bloomsday.

[PDJane]

4. I am starting to read 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane'

by Neil Gaiman. New author for me, and I'm looking forward to it.

I also have Blood Moon by Teri Harman, another new author. I'm trying to read more fiction; a diet of non-fiction is getting a bit hard to digest from time to time.

[LWolf]

15. I like Gaiman, but haven't read that one.

I'll have to look for it.

[matt819]

5. Finishing up NOS4A2

I've been listening to NOS4A2 by Joe Hill.

I tried reading previous Joe Hill books, but couldn't get into them. I'm going to go back to them now.

This is a horror tour de force. Non-stop tension from start to finish. And, since this is an audio book, I have to mention the narrator, actress Kate Mulgrew. I'm not usually happy with actors who narrate books. It doesn't seem as if it should be this way, but there really is a different skill set between acting and narrating, and I think many actors don't make the transition well. (At the same time, not all narrators are particularly well suited, but they have established names for themselves as narrators nonetheless.) IN any case, Mulgrew is excellent, capturing the essence of Hill's characters.

Well worth the time.

[getting old in mke]

7. I just saw that one

in Half-Price books today. Walked past it. Went about ten steps down the aisle and then *wait, what* pinged in and I went back to look at the title again. Light dawned.

Glad Captain Janeway transported you into the story

I agree with you on actors/narrators. The overlap isn't nearly as large as one might expect. I've always loved, though, Will Patton's renditions of the Dave Robichaux series.

[matt819]

6. Also coming the end of Silken Prey

The latest entry from John Sandford. If you're a Sandford fan, all will be familiar to you. Very predictable. You know whodunit and just wait while Lucas Davenport unravels the threads. Characters from Sandford's other series make cameos, and they are, well, predictably entertaining. I mean, really, you can't beat Virgil Flowers. I would think that if there's a tv series to be made from Sandford's books, Flowers is the one I'd follow.

[Hula Popper]

11. I just finished the same

Prey series book. There has been a tv movie about davenport. It featured the star of NCIS.....

[matt819]

12. Finished it last night - Recommendations for next book

Nice wrap up, but it would have been nice to see the politician taken down.

I remember reading one of the Kidd novel maybe ten years ago. I guess I should take a look at them again to see how they came to be where they are now.

I have four choices for books to start tonight:
The 9th Girl, Tami Hoag
Six Years, Harlan Coben
When the Devil Drives, Christopher Brookmyre
Lost, SJ Bolton

The Tami Hoag book is the latest in one of her series, but I haven't read the earlier ones, so I'm conflicted.
I've read just about all the Harlan Coben books, though I couldn't get into the last one.
I read a bunch of Brookmyre books, it has to be 15 years ago. Maybe he changed, maybe I have, but I haven't really gotten into his last few books
And, finally, I liked the first Lacey Flint book by Bolton, but couldn't get into the second.

Any recommendations?

[Goblinmonger]

8. Also starting the last Hunger Games book.

I'm going to be disappointed with it, I'm sure (too much of a dystopian purist, I guess, and I know it isn't going to be dystopian at the end) and that's why I've been putting it off. But figure I should finish it off before the 2nd movie comes out.

[LWolf]

14. Tell me what you think of it when you get to the end,

and if your prediction bears out.

I've read them all some time back, being a middle school teacher. I know what rivets my students, but I like to hear what the rest of the world thinks, too.

[Goblinmonger]

18. Finished. SPOILERS

Yuck. I hated Katniss more with every chapter. She was just so damn clueless.

The ending was so contrived. She passes out and we get the random recap of events that happened while The Mockingjay was knocked out? FFS. It was glaringly obvious that she was going to shoot Coin instead of Snow. And the fact that she voted Yes to having one last Hunger Games was absolute bullshit.

It was as I thought. First book came across as dystopian literature but she didn't have the guts (or ability?) to actually follow through with that.

[LWolf]

19. I'm fascinated.

I understood why this series captured young people the way it did, and why it crossed over for adults, as well. Like many series, I thought the first book was the best.

I understood why my students were appalled by the ending. They want their heroine to live happily ever after. They don't want her to have feet of clay, they don't like ambiguity, they don't want her to survive and quietly settle into the background.

Of course, for middle school, much of the tension, unfortunately, was in the Peeta/Gale choice, and of course many openly or secretly preferred the "bad" boy Gale.

For them, I was able to point out that, unlike most stories for kids, this ending was more realistic. More mature. More shades of gray, although I guess I can't use that expression like that any more, lol.

I see your points, too, although that's not what I was focused on when I read Mockingjay. I think what I was focused on was the near extinction of hope. Not for Katniss, but for humanity. The books seemed to take us through stages, from youthful, energetic idealism to the (inevitable?) tired, hopeless cynicism. It was like my life in dramatic theater.

I was even more surprised to read an interview with the author. I originally compared "Hunger Games" to a meld of "Survivor" and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." In that interview, Collins said she was influenced by Theseus and the Minotaur: the annual "sacrifice" of young people set loose in the labyrinth. I saw the connection after she explained it, but I sure didn't get there on my own. I've spent some time speculating, trying to match specifics from the myth to the series, and am left with the tentative conclusion that the connection is only general. I still see more connections to "Survivor" and "The Lottery," to be honest.

In an era of short attention spans, demand for less and less nuance, fewer layers of complexity, and more and more adrenaline-pumping action, both in movies and books, I thought Collins was at least smart about her construction, because it contains both. It was clearly, to me at least, written with the end goal of a film version.

Most of all, though, I liked this series simply because it's NOT "Twilight," and it shifted attention away from that never-ending glorification of stupidity and mediocrity.

[getting old in mke]

9. _Death Fires_ by Ron Faust

Author I'd never heard of until today browsing in the bookstore. A measured, even roll-out of what appears to be a murder in the middle of a filming that takes an abrupt left turn about 3/4 of the way through. Enjoying it a lot. Off to finish it before sleeping.

Listening: _A Clash of Kings_ by George RR Martin. My daughters have been fans of the books and I'd put them off for several years, but watching the first couple of seasons I decided now was the time. Went through Wheel of Time last year (and January this year when the last one came out) so I guess A Song of Ice Fire is this year's series.

Interesting tidbit--I noticed the Roy Dotrice, the reader, had a (very) small role in the second season of the TV show.

2013: 62 and counting

[Moe Shinola]

10. Cugel's Saga, by Jack Vance

Also, not yet done with The Quiet American, by Graham Greene. Did finish Saintcrow's The Iron Wyrm Affair, though.

[LWolf]

13. Flight Behavior: Kingsolver

I usually love her books. I had a difficult time with the first third or so of this one. Not because it wasn't good, but because of baggage from my past, which made me dislike the protagonist (until I couldn't anymore) and jabbed painfully at some old wounds.

By the middle of the book, though, I was hooked, and she carried me the rest of the way, borne on the development of her characters and her willingness to explore issues from multi-layered perspectives.

[danial3262]

16. 0. What are you reading the week of June 16, 2013?

"THE MONK WHO SOLD HIS FERRARI" by Robin Sharma

[didact]

17. ‘Red Sparrow,’ by Jason Matthews

‘Red Sparrow,’ by Jason Matthews