Almost done with Terms of Enlistment, which is a fun read. Next up is Under a March Sun, which is about Baseball Spring Training.
I have been engrossed in "Nextissue.ca". It's the Netflix for magazines. Since subscribing, my wife and I have cancelled all our our hardcopy subscriptions, which has allowed us to pay for Next Issue for the next year and a half. That, and it has expanded our titles to over a hundred - with back issues included. Sweet. Also, I am rereading "Ex Machina", by Christopher L. Bennett.
^^ Nextissue sounds interesting. I'm going to have to switch my SF magazine subscriptions to esubscriptions simply because I have no more room in my house. Meanwhile, I'm still reading Anathem. It's my life's work.
no matter how many times I read the Hunger Games, it's like I'm reading it for the first time...and in the third book...Mockingjay, when Katniss tells the cat her sister is dead, I cry. Now, I'm reading Samaki, by J. A. Davis, a story of an otter in Africa, from the otter's point of view. What a lovely book. It reminds me of the very first book I ever took out of the library, back when I was about 9 years old...called An Otter's Story.
I am reading Spiders by Richard Lewis. It is a typical 'killer animal' novel that were popular in the 1970/1980s. Edited to add - I am on to chapter 5 of Spiders and so far four women have had their physically description given and each description mentions the state of their boobs and thighs.
March 2013 issue of Analog magazine. I started reading "Instinctive Response" by Bond Elam... prompting me to "borrow" it from the waiting room at the Veterans' Administration today.
'The Long Ships' by Frans G. Bengtsson, an historical novel about a Viking hero by the name of Red Orm.
Just finished Pete Townshend's autobiography, "Who I Am', very informative, pretty interesting. I never thought of myself as a Who fan, but when I realised how much of their music I'd heard and liked, I may have t change that. Good stuff, you should read if you are of a certain age.
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. i've never watched the tv series or read any of these books. want to see what all the fuss is about.
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. I gave myself about five days to read it before the book club meeting, and lo and behold two of those work days have contorted into snow days, and the book's quite readable, and I'm going to finish today. I really didn't want to start another book before the meeting. Oh well!
I've heard that some of the books are slow as molasses, but I've never read one myself, so I can't tell for sure. Let us know how you like it. On Monday I bought the closing volume of a comic called "Zombies" by french scenarist Olivier Peru. I've never read "The Walking Dead" comics and when I asked about them the shop assistant advised me to read the Zombies-series instead. Probably because it is shorter. Anyway, it is great.
When I was out spending my Christmas gift certificates on Sunday, I came across another Burroughs tribute anthology called Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs; this one has stories about Tarzan, Pellucidar, Carson, et al. I'll probably dip into this when I finish Anathema, somewhere around 2026.
My reads at the moment Audiobook - The Potato Factory by Bryce Countney, It is long book and it will take me about two weeks to get through. Paper book - The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufmann. A novella I have just started, I picked it up for $1.95. Its blurb - e-Book - Killer Tunes (a Bailey MacIntyre Celtic Fiddle Mystery) by Karen Cunningham. A cozy mystery in which a fiddle player investigates a murder with the help of a ghost. I should finish it tonight.
2014 reading list thus far: I started out thinking positive for the year. I had all these internet meme images that had fantastic quotes and I ended up requesting several books from the library: Conversations With Myself and The Essential Marcus Aurelius. Conversations had too much South African history for me to pull anything new out of it. It's re-published letters that Nelson Mandela wrote while in prison. The references, which seemed to be on every page, left me feeling lost and I never got into the book. Aurelius isn't written in paragraph form and I never connected with it, either. Both went back to the library unfinished. The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft exceeded my expectations. I got it on a whim, a book that I searched for while my company at the library was still using the computer. I didn't pick it up until I was looking for an easy read to lull me to asleep after a bad case of insomnia. It had the opposite effect. I stayed up for 2 hours reading it. The characters are beautifully drawn, the inner monologue of the main character just spoke to me in ways few fiction books do. I read the rest of the novel within 10 days. What a wonderful gift to start out the year. My next book to pick up was Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Very well-written, but I had an itch to re-read Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. I got into it instead of Mansfield Park and I decided to part with it until I had more time to read it. Since I seem to be going through a philosophy-with-a-scientific-bent phase, I have recently started Nature Via Nurture by Matt Ridley. I find it a very interesting read about the competing projects to map the human genome and the startling discoveries that came from the last, great scientific achievement. So that's my story so far this year. I haven't been as focused on reading as I usually am, but I have enjoyed myself.
Just got done reading Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. Really liked it, it was one of his better books as of late, imo. Drew me in from the first page and didn't let me go. Working on reading the rest of the prequel, The Shining now.
This is my reading list for the year: I hope to get it all done and I will keep you updated. Bolians are my rating for the book (out of 5 Bolians) 1. The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft (Read as of February 1, 2014) --The book tells the story of Penelope Sparrow, a modern dancer that falls 14 stories off her apartment balcony and who's fall is broken by a parked car. She survives, but spends most of the rest of the book unable to dance. Movement expresses her emotions. The dance world has been her dream and her nightmare. Born with wide hips (for a dancer), she never felt quite good enough and was often taken out of programs because her 'Exotic' body was distracting to an audience. The book touches on fulfillment, body image, mental health, love and loss, and does so in a lyrical prose that connected me to the main character and the relationships she forms. It has a happy ending, but that is all I will say about it. The Art of Falling has become one of my favorite books and it is slated to be purchased when I get my next check (I prefer paper books). 2. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham (Currently on 198 of 712 in my re-read) 3. Nature via Nurture by Matt Ridley (currently on 32 of 280). 4. Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood by Leah Vincent 5. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 6. The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World by Greg Grandin 7. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen 8. The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and A Fifty-Year Search by Martin Sixsmith 9. Atonement by Ian McEwan 10. The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew by Alan Lightman 11. The Help by Kathryn Stockett 12. The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy by Bill Simmons Alternates: 1. Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser 2. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch 3. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai. 4. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida Anyone who wants to do this, feel free to post a list. It can be 2 books, it could be 50.