January Reads -new year, new books

[Davos55]

Just finished Defending Jacob, man I really liked it. I am a sucker for courtroom dramas, so it was right up my alley, but the family relationships and issues looked at in the novel will stick with me. As will the powerful ending.

Gotta let this sink in before I finish up some other novels.

[williamjm]

The Empire Trilogy is awful so far. WTF voted for this crap? I can see if someone read it when they were 14, loved it and always saw it as awesome without re-reading as an adult. I would have loved it when I was 14. But the writing is so bad, and so far the main character is the epitome of a Mary Sue. Oh yeah, and they drink coffee but call it a made up word.

I did like the second and third books a lot when I was a teenager (never read the first one), but I haven't re-read it in many years so you might be right that it might not stand up if I read it again as an adult.

[Knight of Ashes]

The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King, A Dark Tower novel.

As long as King doesn't write himself into the narrative in this book, I won't throw it at random passers-by.

[Garett Hornwood]

Finished The Gathering Storm way sooner than I thought I would mainly because when I started I didn't know I would have some extra time on my hands, not that I minded. I thought Sanderson did a great job on building on Jordan's framework because I didn't see any differences from previous 11 books and TGS, in fact I thought Sanderson built on the momentum that Jordan started with Knife of Dreams and kept it going. The only criticism I had was that Mat and Perrin's actions were mainly hinted at, especially Perrin's, in the vision's Rand had of them when he thought about either or both of them. Personally I didn't see a difference in Mat that I've heard about, but I've only read the books once so far.

Tomorrow I'm starting I am America by Stephen Colbert, a Christmas present from my aunt and uncle a few years back that I figure would be a nice interlude before starting Towers of Midnight. I don't want to make a prediction, but I'm certain I'll be starting ToM before the end of the month.

Goodreads Challenge: 2 out of 20

[Melonica Stormborn]

I dropped Sherlock Holmes after finishing The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and started with the first Wheel of Time book (read about 30% now). I reckon I'd do one Wheel of Time book a month so I'll probably go back to Sherlock Holmes or some other book after Eye of the World.

[Bellis]

Finishing up last year and starting this year, I've been working my way through Ursula K Le Guin's collections The Real and the Unreal or is it the other way around? The first volume are mostly mimetic works, and some of them are a bit pointless and indulgent, but there are some gems. The second volume, which is more speculative, is much stronger. She has a talent for getting into the heart of what it's like to live in a very different society from any earth has seen.

I've also been reading two (more) non-fiction works, Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo and The Black Count by Tom Reiss. Boo's book reads like fiction, but she claims it's based on interviews with real life slum dwellers in Mumbai, telling their real true swear to god stories. The prose is a bit clunky for fiction, and I felt myself wanting more context or more of a overview that I would expect in non-fiction. But overall it worked, and avoided povery porn for the most part. I have a more enthusiastic recommendation for The Black Count. It's the story of Alexandre Dumas, grand-pere, the father of the author of The Three Musketeers and one of my favorites, The Count of Monte Cristo. The author details the story of the life of the elder Dumas, quarter black, born a slave in the Caribbean, and his life and times as a soldier and general during the French Revolution and early Napoleonic Wars. He emphasizes the rising and falling civil rights fortunes of people of colour during revolutionary France. Though there's a bit too much of the details of period warfare, for my tastes, and Dumas is a bit of a historical Gary Stu, the history is well-written and fascinating.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Finally finished A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor. I love general world history and archealogy so this was right up my alley.

I'm about 3/4 done The Lavender Keeper by Fiona MacIntosh.

[deleted01]

Started The Book Thief by Markus Zusak last night, very enjoyable so far. Wildthorn was a great little book, finished it in about 2 days.

[Whitestripe]

Started The Book Thief by Markus Zusak last night, very enjoyable so far.

That one grew on me. I really liked it by the end.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

Finished The Lavender Keeper by Fiona MacInosh. I liked it, but I thought it lacked the emotional punch of Fields of Gold which I adored.

I popped by the library after work and picked up the Aldabreshin Compass series by Juliet McKenna. After the success of finding the Chalion series this year, I'm hoping I can find another well written and entertaining older style fantasy. On the other hand, I may have picked up another dud (see Patricia Bray's Chronicles of Josan series). :dunno:

Southern Fire is the first book of the series

[Durckad]

Finished Old Man's War by John Scalzi which was good, decent maybe. I dunno, I have conflicted feelings about the book. Thankfully, it was short.

Now, I'm starting (continuing?) on a reread of the Wheel of Time. I reread Eye of the World a year or two ago (which was much, much worse than I remembered) and now I'm continuing with The Great Hunt. I'm not sure if I'll make it through the entire series as that's a significant investment of time and I just don't read as fast as I used to, but I want to do that and I eventually want to finish up the series now that the last one is out.

[Happy Ent]

Finished The Separation by Christopher Priest. Cute.

[3CityApache]

Done with Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. I simply love this guy. Every Bryson book I read was unbelievably entertaining and funny, as well as informative and educational. This one's not an exception.

I suddenly felt like visiting UK again, immediately, which I guess is the best recommendation.

Now reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Chabon and The Kolyma Diaries by Jacek Hugo-Bader (and putting Reamde on hold for a little while).

[Serious Callers Only]

Finished The Lavender Keeper by Fiona MacInosh. I liked it, but I thought it lacked the emotional punch of Fields of Gold which I adored.

I popped by the library after work and picked up the Aldabreshin Compass series by Juliet McKenna. After the success of finding the Chalion series this year, I'm hoping I can find another well written and entertaining older style fantasy. On the other hand, I may have picked up another dud (see Patricia Bray's Chronicles of Josan series). :dunno:

Southern Fire is the first book of the series

I think it's pretty cool, but it ends on a anti-climatic note (though this series is part of a larger continuum that started out as unremarkable questing adventure, so it's already much better).

[russjass]

I actually preferred her first series "Tales of Einnarin" to the aldebreshin compass. She has two more out now, the Lescarii revolution, which I have read the first two of, and the Hadrumal crisis which I havent read any of.

Lescarii felt like she was spinning it out a bit too much tbh. Annoyingly no ebooks out. I live in Ireland so have to get Amazon books shipped from the UK, making it much more expensive, and the series didnt seem worth paying the extra for at the moment

[SkynJay]

Finished The Lavender Keeper by Fiona MacInosh. I liked it, but I thought it lacked the emotional punch of Fields of Gold which I adored.

I popped by the library after work and picked up the Aldabreshin Compass series by Juliet McKenna. After the success of finding the Chalion series this year, I'm hoping I can find another well written and entertaining older style fantasy. On the other hand, I may have picked up another dud (see Patricia Bray's Chronicles of Josan series). :dunno:

Southern Fire is the first book of the series

I read her book 'The Theif's Gambit" and enjoyed it quite a bit. Felt she had some standout characters, though it was in a very standard fantasy setting (though the author pointed out that what was once new is now trope, and I respect that). I want to try her later series soon as well, let us know how it goes!

I am reading "Between Two Thorns' right now, and I am torn so far. It is a "land of fairy meets real world" kind of book, and moving at a nice pace with some cool ideas, but I am not sure I am completely buying the rules the author is setting up. Halfway done though, so maybe the second half will wow me.

[JoannaL]

I've read Altered carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies by Richard Morgan last week (and now my eyes hurt). It is Science fiction, which I normally don't like very much, but these books are highly recommendable, fast paced and you just can't put them down. And it gives deeper insight into his fantasy books, which I also like very much.

[Inigima]

Just finished Saunders' Tenth of December. My Goodreads review is a bit more complete, but the short version is that mostly it was not to my taste. I have four books already bought, help me pick one and tell me why:

• Barbara Kingsolver - Prodigal Summer
  
• Michael Chabon - Telegraph Avenue
  
• Courtney Schafer - The Whitefire Crossing
  
• Anthony Ryan - Blood Song

[TrackerNeil]

Believe it or not, I have never read Pat Conroy, so a few weeks back I picked up The Lords of Discipline in a bookstore. I opened it at random and read a paragraph that was so well written that I took it directly to the cashier and bought it. How often does that happen?

[Davos55]

Just finished The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson. I really enjoyed it, especially being a Psychology student currently, this area is still one of the more interesting areas in the field in my opinion. I read it pretty quickly, and I may just read his other novels at some point!