OllieQ

Very interesting book. Can be used to measure oneself against the many habits and behaviours that are probably less than healthy, and suggests ways to overcome them. There's an underlying thread here across the book, and that's the promotion of the state of mindfulness. I listened to this on audiobook, and there were sections that I would have loved to underline on a physical book.

I have to wonder if this requires someone to be of a certain age to enjoy this work. It did nothing for me, and nothing from the setting to the characters appealed to me. If anything, while I liked Huck, I got extremely irritated with Tom Sawyer. And I think I need to think on this a little bit regarding its depiction of the blacks. That bears a little more thought, and those of you who know me would know that is asking too much of me sometimes.

Fun and pretty fast-paced stuff. Basically your military action thriller (complete with the feeling that the author has access to people who truly knows the business, and looking at the acknowledgements, Maberry does), against Islamic extremists with jihadist tendencies bent on total annihilation of the western civilization, and a very novel biochemical weapon.

Action-packed, but the characters are a little cardboard-ish. If you're in the mood for an exciting, rollicking good time, go for it. Better than most movies today.

Very simple story, and really just appearing for a short time relative to the entirety of the work. Enough to spawn so many incarnations, but I thought the original work was a little low-key. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't all that exciting too.

I've never liked Ivan beyond being comedic fodder for Miles, but I do like Bujold's work. This book is funny, and tightly plotted. This was set before the events of Cryoburn, which surprised me because I had wanted to learn a little more about Miles as Count, but then we'll have to wait, I suppose.

Great stuff here. Not that I'm running for elections, but a great way into the thinking of policians seeking to win one. Almost like The Prince. Not all the tips shared here can be applied in your real life, since you're unlikely trying to get people to like you enough for a one time transaction, and can risk damaging feelings on broken promises.

It was an interesting choice, I thought, at Correia's nomination at this year's Hugos for the third book of his ongoing fantasy series. It's not often that I can recall that a book that's in the middle of an ongoing series, where the emphasis is on fun, not glum, is put up for such marquee awards. I must keep a look out for this chap, I concluded.

I've not yet been able to sample his fare, unfortunately, until I came across this book on Audible. It isn't one of the main books in the Grimnoir series, true, but it's also true that it was cheap and I was trigger happy. Having read this, I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the story and the characters. Extremely interesting and I shall definitely look out more from him for sure.

Fun and funny! Got me chuckling out loud several times so that's a great sign.

Recommended quick read.

It's not horrible, but there were too many technical terms. Didn't completely understand it. Not a great candidate for audiobook listening, unless you're versed in seafaring terms and don't need to stop to look them up often. The ending was pretty unexpected, in that it was completely obvious.

Excellent. Much better than the many incarnations I've read or seen or heard before. The original is best, hands down.

Very difficult for any book to follow Love in the Time of Cholera. From the heights of Marquez, Achebe was very simplistic in contrast. I'm trying not to compare, but it's hard to allow the emotions from a really good book from spilling over and colouring the objectivity in reading the next.

Achebe tells the story of Okwonkwo, a leader in a tribe in Nigeria, and how his carefully planned existence and climb to power eventually unravels in a sequence of events outside of his control. The life of the village and its inhabitants brings me back to the excellent The Poisonwood Bible by Kingsolver. Achebe's prose is simple, straightforward, but in its simplicity lies a strong voice.

The interesting thing about this book, like Poisonwood, was its eventual discussion of the introduction of Christianity into a relatively peaceful albeit primitive existence. I find myself asking whether modernization is worth the price of admission for these simple folk.

I like the questions it asks here, and it is definitely more complex than the start of the book would have you believe. Read it if you want to learn about a drastically different culture (if Africa is not yet something you're familiar with), and if you want a portrayal of how forced injection of modernity and a religion designed to spread affects culture, family and society.

I've known about this book for a very long time now, but truthfully the horribly uninspiring title conjures up an incredibly bad trek down some well-worn tropes and cliches. Since his death not too distant past, Marquez's books have been recommended to me by readers I respect, so when this one turned up in a sale I just grabbed it. And recently I thought I may as well try it out. I braced myself for a snorefest, but this book turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read.

It's not easy to explain why. I risk boring people with any attempt at a synopsis, because I actually tried it and bored myself. But the story is written with a tenderness that I hadn't expected, filled with emotion and grace. The story traces the paths of two (plus one more) people, and intertwines their fates together in a beautifully crafted story that's about love, life's journeys and destinations, what we want and what we settle for, and death. Florentino Ariza is by no means paragon of virtue, but it's a life lived.

It's a book that I would never have touched and appreciated 10 years ago. I couldn't have, since I don't have the maturity/experience needed to like what I find here.

The books ends with a sentence that left me breathless. The entire novel seems geared towards that one final word, and what an incredible impact it made.

I loved the book. This was not expected. This bloody thing sneaked up on me and caught me unawares. Recommended.

My first Simmons, which is pretty strange, considering that I've owned his books for years. I didn't know what to expect, to be honest. I had intentionally kept myself in the dark (pun!) on what the book was about, save the fact that there were a band of kids and supernatural horror. And I wanted to continue my recent binge of horror books.

My first impression of the book was the quality of the prose. I'm not saying Simmons is Chabon or anything, but he is surely not Suzanne Collins or (gasp!) Cassandra Clare. His prose has a nice heft to it, weighty. Nothing of the lightweight quality I half expected, like from a Koontz. Which was a pleasant surprise. He goes deep into the character of each of the major characters, builds a nice history around them and gives them distinct personalities. Of course, he goes on and [!!!SPOILER!!!] kills one of them (and the one I was rooting for too), but you can't have everything. [/!!!SPOILER!!!]

The plot was interesting, and resolved itself in the end in a satisfactory manner.

Overall I loved the book, was pleasantly surprised. And am now looking forward to getting the sequel.

Fun in a very retro kind of way. The action and the plotting is very straightforward, and I guess those of us who grew up reading comics sort of grew into this jaded mindset where everything is expected to be complex and amped up if you're still reading comics today.

I'd argue that if you did not grow up reading comics, dipping back into older stories like these tend to be a little underwhelming. I have very fond memories of West Coast Avengers vs East Coast Avengers stories (there was one particular arc, too lazy to search for it now), and I suspect that if I read it now, I would be more forgiving of the campiness. Secret Wars wasn't bad at all, and the art style is reminiscent of the era, but lack the punch and pizzazz of today's stories. This isn't bad, and I think it reflects how our cultural tastes have changed over the decades, and exactly how seminal works that change the status quo had been, works like Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns and others I'm forgetting.

One thing stood out for me in this story, and strangely it has less to do with the story itself than an encapsulation of why I'm a little disappointed with the direction Cyclops and the X-Men has gone in recent times. Cyclops used his optic blast to divert what would have been a killing blow to Molecule Man. Then a panel follows where Cyclops says to Wolverine, “If you want to be on our side, you don't kill! Take a life, anyone's life, under any circumstances... and from that moment on, you are the enemy! Clear?” When I read this, there's a moment of surrealness, because of course, Cyclops in recent Marvel events not only reneged on that rule, but essentially became almost 180 degrees from who he was before.

It's different from Superior Spider-Man, for example, where the gimmicky plotline of changing a beloved superhero's mythology eventually resolved itself and more or less became status quo once again (and it was a very interesting digression). Cyclops, however, committed an act that couldn't be reversed, and even if it was, the act itself was done, and the fallout is irrevocable.

Back to Secret Wars. I liked it, but would probably not go through it again.

Firstly, this book is, uhm, not very good. Like the first book, it's filled with serendipitous encounters (chancing upon the ruler of a city being sold as a slave despite travelling far and wide away from the city, chancing upon guards in the middle of nowhere who also happen to be imperial guards, chancing upon fellow ex-slaves in a huge city revolt, chancing upon fellow gladiators in an underground mining operation, etc etc). Like the first book, every single girl the protagonist meets is an extreme beauty, each more beautiful than the last. It almost reads like an 80s cartoon.

Then there's the reputation. Despite the fact that I didn't like the first book very much either, I think I was more disappointed than outright enraged at the first book. Gor and Norman is well known for its tendency to objectify women, and I wanted to find out exactly how terrible it was. The first was a straightforward, albeit simplistic, action adventure, and had nothing that jumped out at me as being horrible. Gorean society is lopsided with it's women slaves and the concept of free companionship, sure, but the story was more concentrated on the action rather than its ideology. So I guess that was the reason I read this book, book 2 of the series, to get to the ‘dirt'.

Norman explored the slave girl aspect in Gorean society a little more here, by way of contrast. The city that is the focus of this story, Tharna, is different from the other cities in Gor by virtue that the ruler of Tharna is a woman, and women are the elites in the Tharnaian society. However, the text suggests that the ladies are still happier in their natural roles of being subservient to men. The hero, Tarl Cabot, makes these very great leaps of deductions related to role of women in Gorean society, but playing the part of the gallant gentleman from Earth by not choosing to enslave these girls, to each of the girl(s) great puzzlement.

Like ‘why aren't you enslaving me and making me please you, after all the bloodshed and violence to free me?' kinda thing.

‘Oh no,' Tarl would say, ‘I have no idea why I risked by life to free you from these slavers, despite it being their right to brand you according to customs, beyond the fact that I don't want to see you in pain.'

From what I gather there are way more outrageous stuff is in the latter books, but I think I'll stop at two Gor books.

Waaa... it was a brilliant buildup, very creepy and I was all keyed up for the big finale, and then... a little anti-climactic. The ending was almost Good Omens-like (Adrian? Andrew?). The best part of the story was when Hutch, the sharpest character in the book, did a Sherlock at the Woodhouse's, noticing this and that, and the dread was almost palpable. I almost wanted to say the most horrific book I've read has nothing at all to do with ghosts or haunted houses at all, but the ending sorta landed with a bit of a thump for me. The most horrifying book for me is still Alas, Babylon.

It's not a bad book by any means. I hear they have a new movie coming out, this time without Mia Farrow (who, btw, narrated the audiobook I listened to).

Finished this before Rosemary's Baby. A tribute of sorts to The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I preferred this one to Jackson's because Matheson attempted a scientific explanation for the hauntings, and almost got away with it, plus for this one there's a definite endings. I can tolerate bad/sad endings, but I generally prefer something that has a loose end tied up (as in this book) over oh-well-that's-that-nothing-we-can-do-anymore (as in Jackson's).

You don't read Strunk/White. You refer to it. The Strunk parts are like gospel for correct English writing. It is essentially a best practice manual. The White part, however, deals primarily with suggestions on style. It's an opinion. If nothing else I see how others willfully break the rules in this chapter into smithereens just for the heck of it.

Edit: I'm seeing some reviews that seem to imply it's hopelessly out of date. I disagree. I don't recall anything in particular that set my alarm bells ringing, but hey, use your discretion. Don't follow the suggestions if you wish, plenty of authors don't. And so what if a couple of rules seem outdated? Does it mean everything else is without value? Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Wonderful stuff. After Dracula, I have high hopes for another classic monsterfest, and boy did this one deliver. A more complex story than I had anticipated, and of all the emotions I felt I certainly didn't think I'd be sympathetic towards the monster. It really begs the question, who really is the monster here? It really is a monster and egg situation.

Enjoyed myself immensely.

I'm beginning to realize that the source material must have been strong to begin with to be able to spawn awful imitations over centuries. It certainly is the case in my opinion for Frankenstein and Dracula.

My goodness did this start slow. In fact, this was the fourth attempt, as the first three was on a poorer quality audiobook, and the start was just too plodding. I purchased another version of book, but this one with a much better recording quality and more intelligible. Didn't help the start too much though. But once Charles Darnay was introduced the pace picked up and what a story it was in the end. Better than Great Expectations.

Really well done. I was a little disappointed that the assHAL computer did not play as big a part in the story than I had expected (well, did not play as long a part, for certainly it did cause a bang). As the story progressed I was reminded of Clarke's other classic, Rendezvous with Rama, which was also imbued with a sense of wonder and mystery.

Now really looking forward to the movie.

Rationalizing my ratings. With two stars this is by no means a horrible book. This was an entertaining 19th century action thriller. Nothing really stood out for me here, and I suppose the morality explored in this book was thoroughly milked for what it's worth (for better or worse) in the movie Hollow Man.

A very entertaining quick read.

It was short and it was not what I expected. The story started with how the titular character's death may benefit his immediate colleagues, looking to occupy the position that the deceased recently held. Excellent, I thought, an examination on office politics, on the back of a dead higher-ranked official. I would love it! However, the very next chapter, and indeed through the remainder of the book, was an examination of the life of Ivan Ilyich, and his eventual degeneration in health and culminating in his death. Was disappointed at first, but as the book went on my feelings began to change.

What made this book special for me was how perfectly Tolstoy portrayed the rat race over 120 years ago. The ever-present need to climb the social and professional ladder, somewhat at the expense of personal fulfillment and familial attachments, and at the end wondering if everything that was done was worth it, and if not, why, as ‘I've done everything that I ought.' This is almost a cautionary tale for those of us approaching middle age. Tolstoy telling of Ilyich's life and the emotions that swirl in his mind at different stages of his life I thought was handled wonderfully.

I did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. It's too early to tell if I prefer Tolstoy to Dostoevsky (mainly because I've read over 1300 pages of Dostoevsky and 86 of Tolstoy), but I somehow preferred Tolstoy's writing. It's crazy to compare really - the difference in what I experienced is just too wide. I've once said with certainty that I will never read Anna Karenina or War and Peace because I don't see myself ever getting around to them, but now I might just so I can find out for sure.

Never say never.

Short but good. I've seen the movie quite some time ago, and don't remember much, so when I read this book it was almost from a clean slate. Holly reminds me a little of Jay Gatsby, and I have to say I enjoyed this a little more than The Great Gatsby too. Wonderful, and it looks like a rewatch of the movie is now in order.