Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic 50 Book Challenge 2015/What I've Read in 2015

Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn.
"Alone and in shock after the death of her father, Zoe Ardelay is invited to the capital to become the king's fifth wife and create a much needed numerological balance both politically and at court, where the four queens vie to promote their children for the role of heir to the throne. Then Zoe learns she is the new prime of the Lalindar clan, which saves her from the marriage, but thrusts her into a world of dangerous political scheming, secret agendas, and an increasingly risky attraction to royal adviser Darien Serlast."

Royal Airs by Sharon Shinn
"Josetta is a princess of one of the Five Families. But she is far from the throne, so she is free to spend her days working in the poorest sections of the city. Rafe Adova lives the life of a career gambler in those slums. He has no real ambition—until the night he helps a girl named Corene, who looks like she’s stumbled into the wrong bar. Josetta is fascinated by the man who has helped her sister. Rafe is unlike anyone she’s encountered—someone seemingly devoid of elemental blessings. Rafe is also drawn to Josetta, but when he is assaulted by foreign mercenaries and they discover the reason behind the attack, Rafe and Josetta realize that the truth could endanger not only their newfound love, but also their very lives…"

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan.
"Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal.

Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God.

Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry—a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy.

Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious “King of the Jews” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity."

Well worth reading; very thought-provoking.

American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism To Main Street by Paula Rabinowitz
"Published in vast numbers of titles, available everywhere, and sometimes selling in the millions, pulps were throwaway objects accessible to anyone with a quarter. Conventionally associated with romance, crime, and science fiction, the pulps in fact came in every genre and subject. American Pulp tells how these books ingeniously repackaged highbrow fiction and nonfiction for a mass audience, drawing in readers of every kind with promises of entertainment, enlightenment, and titillation. Focusing on important episodes in pulp history, Rabinowitz looks at the wide-ranging effects of free paperbacks distributed to World War II servicemen and women; how pulps prompted important censorship and First Amendment cases; how some gay women read pulp lesbian novels as how-to-dress manuals; the unlikely appearance in pulp science fiction of early representations of the Holocaust; how writers and artists appropriated pulp as a literary and visual style; and much more. Examining their often-lurid packaging as well as their content, American Pulp is richly illustrated with reproductions of dozens of pulp paperback covers, many in color."
My opinion: This was a little esoteric for me, but still a good read.

Work Done For Hire by Joe Haldeman
"Wounded in combat and honorably discharged nine years ago, Jack Daley still suffers nightmares from when he served his country as a sniper, racking up sixteen confirmed kills. Now a struggling author, Jack accepts an offer to write a near-future novel about a serial killer, based on a Hollywood script outline. It’s an opportunity to build his writing career and a future with his girlfriend, Kit Majors.

But Jack’s other talent is also in demand. A package arrives on his doorstep containing a sniper rifle, complete with silencer and ammunition—and the first installment of a $100,000 payment to kill a “bad man.” The twisted offer is genuine. The people behind it are dangerous. They also prove that they have Jack under surveillance. He can’t run. He can’t hide. And if he doesn’t take the job, Kit will be in the crosshairs instead."

My opinion: Disappointing in that plot threads didn't really seem to be tied up. Good thriller most of the way through, then it seemed like the author lost interest.

Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" by Corey Olsen
"Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is a fun, thoughtful, and insightful companion volume designed to bring a thorough and original new reading of this great work to a general audience. Professor Corey Olsen takes readers on an in-depth journey through The Hobbit chapter by chapter, revealing the stories within the story: the dark desires of dwarves and the sublime laughter of elves, the nature of evil and its hopelessness, the mystery of divine providence and human choice, and, most of all, the transformation within the life of Bilbo Baggins. Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” is a book that will make The Hobbit come alive for readers as never before."

My opinion: Definitely worth reading. This book gave me some new insights into one of my favorite books ("The Hobbit") and helped me see old things anew.

1) Dewey. The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched The World. By Vicki Myron.
2) Lying in Wait by Ann Rule. True Crime Files # 17.
3) The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum
4) Beginnings by David Weber.

23. Green Lantern: Sleepers, Volume 3, by Christopher J. Priest

The final volume in an epic trilogy, Sleepers, Book 3 features Hal Jordan, the most famous of Earth's modern-day Green Lanterns. Hal has been stripped of his powers, but it is up to him to fight the clones of the villain Sinestro, set loose by actions in the trilogy's first volume. In order to save the Earth, he may have to sacrifice himself by taking the Sinestro power rings on a one-way trip to the anti-matter universe.

I found this book hard to get into (maybe I would have liked it better if I'd read the first two books, but this was what the library had, so this was what I checked out). There were a lot of pop culture references that dated the book. I managed to finish it, but it just didn't click for me.

Personal - Lee Child

This has to be the first Reacher book that I found hard to get through. Mostly because it was full of elements that usually bore me. I've never been a fan of the political spy thriller or London gangster genres. There was a lot of sitting around in rooms talking military strategy instead of Reacher tackling the bad guys head and hands on.

I only slogged my way through to the end so as not to miss any important biographical info. But it was painful.

Thankfully, the synopsis for book 20 seems to get us back on track and Reacher back to familiar territory. I'll look forward to it.

LabRat

Twisted Souls - Nancy Lee Parish

Adam finds himself inexplicably lost in the bizarre town of Appleton. A town no one ever leaves.

This was an intriguing little ghost story/thriller. It was all very surreal and convoluted and I'm still not sure I understand half of what was going on but I still enjoyed it.

LabRat

#7 City of Glass by Cassandre Clare
Third book in the Mortal Instruments series. Clary returns to the City of Glass to save her mother's life. Valentine organizes a demon army to take down the Clave.

There were a lot of exciting developments in this story along with the resolution of several conflicts from the first two books. This volume was pretty engaging. It will be interesting to see how the author continues this series.

24. Tangled, by Ben Smiley
This is the Golden Book adaptation of the movie Tangled, which is itself an adaptation of Rapunzel (though it's far less disturbing than the original fairytale). My 3-year-old niece had me read it to her twice. It was a good story the first time, repetitive the second time, and when she asked me to read it a third time, I said twice was enough and she found other books for me to read to her.

25. The Hungry Frog, by Peter Tovey
A hungry frog looks and looks for something good to eat, rejecting a bee, a moth, and a fish before gobbling up a firefly. This book has a pair of puppet eyes you can stick your fingers in so the frog can look at his potential prey.

26. Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?, by Dr. Seuss
Mr. Brown demonstrates all the outlandish sounds he can make, including mooing, hooing, and cock-a-doodle-doing. My niece was embarrassed when I showed her that I could make most of those sounds, too.

It's not properly a book, but I really enjoyed Haruki Murakami's last short novel (plus, it's free, which is always nice):

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/kino

Black Wood - S J I Holliday

I found the setting and main character in this depressing and the rest of the cast strangely unconvincing but I stuck around because I wanted to know the solution to the mystery of what happened in the woods. Sadly, the denouement was as unexciting as the rest of it.

LabRat

27. Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King

This is the sequel to 'The Shining', telling what happened to Danny Torrance. It's a good book, and reveals more of the Torrance family tree, but there is a plot hole in the novel that pulls the reader out of the story.

Wow - you are absolutely right! I read this book last summer. I'm usually really good at catching these things. I can't believe I missed that.

Joan

28. Dave Barry in Cyberspace, by Dave Barry

A hilarious book about computers and the Internet, written in 1996. In spite of the passage of nineteen years, some of the jokes are still relevant (the Internet is still full of bizarre stuff, new computers are still almost instantaneously outmoded, and technical support is still the pits). Other jokes are funny in retrospect, like jokes about AOL and the slowness of the Internet (I was in college when this book was written, so I remember most of this stuff).

Atomic Awakening: A New Look At The History and Future of Nuclear Power by James Mahaffey.
"The American public's introduction to nuclear technology was manifested in destruction and death. With Hiroshima and the Cold War still ringing in our ears, our perception of all things nuclear is seen through the lens of weapons development. Nuclear power is full of mind-bending theories, deep secrets, and the misdirection of public consciousness, some deliberate, some accidental. The result of this fixation on bombs and fallout is that the development of a non-polluting, renewable energy source stands frozen in time.

Outlining nuclear energy's discovery and applications throughout history, Mahaffey's brilliant and accessible book is essential to understanding the astounding phenomenon of nuclear power in an age where renewable energy and climate change have become the defining concerns of the twenty-first century."

The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built The World's Most Important Company by Michael S. Malone.
"Based on unprecedented access to the corporation’s archives, The Intel Trinity is the first full history of Intel Corporation—the essential company of the digital age— told through the lives of the three most important figures in the company’s history: Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove.

Often hailed the “most important company in the world,” Intel remains, more than four decades after its inception, a defining company of the global digital economy. The legendary inventors of the microprocessor-the single most important product in the modern world-Intel today builds the tiny “engines” that power almost every intelligent electronic device on the planet.

But the true story of Intel is the human story of the trio of geniuses behind it. Michael S. Malone reveals how each brought different things to Intel, and at different times. Noyce, the most respected high tech figure of his generation, brought credibility (and money) to the company’s founding; Moore made Intel the world’s technological leader; and Grove, has relentlessly driven the company to ever-higher levels of success and competitiveness. Without any one of these figures, Intel would never have achieved its historic success; with them, Intel made possible the personal computer, Internet, telecommunications, and the personal electronics revolutions."

Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde.
"The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde’s magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction—the police force inside the BookWorld. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poe’s “The Raven.” What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications. Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth. It’s another genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment for fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse."
If you're a reader at all, don't miss this book. It's hilarious.

7) Island of the Blue Dolphin by Scott O’Dell. A novel for children about an Indian girl, left behind for 18 years, on San Nicholas Island when the others all left. In 2012 a Naval archeologist thought that he had found the cave that she lived in. Recently Naval commanders halted his investigation. There was a movie adaptation in 1964.

8) Finding Me by Michelle Knight Story of one of the Cleveland kidnapping victims.

#8 Leaving Time by Jodie Picoult

For over a decade, Jenna Metcalf obsesses on her vanished mom Alice. Jenna searches online, rereads journals of the scientist who studied grief among elephants. Two unlikely allies are Serenity Jones, psychic for missing people who doubts her gift, and Virgil Stanhope, jaded PI who originally investigated cases of Alice and her colleague.

I've enjoyed many books by this writer. This wasn't one of them. There were lots of credibility issues including the surprise ending twist.


#9 Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics...nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart - the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning - and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

My son was very excited about this book and he encouraged me to read it. It was an engaging, fast-paced read. Now I've got to read the sequel.

Joan

Midnight Harvest (Seasons of Blood #1) - Elias Anderson

This was a fantastically bone-chilling horror novel. I couldn't put it down and rushed over to buy book two in the trilogy, soon as I was done. Be aware that he does love to linger on the gruesome details though. I pretty much skipped over those bits. .

LabRat

29. Rain Makes Applesauce, by Julian Scheer

This is a favorite of my nieces, and was one of the books read to me when I was very young. The art is beautiful, and the "silly talk" is very imaginative.

30. A Wicked Way to Burn, by Margaret Miles

A mystery set in 18th century Massachusetts. A man walks up the road, bursts into flames, and then vanishes. Is it witchcraft? Murder? Optical illusion? Who murdered the man (or was it natural causes? Did anyone die at all?) This is a very satisfying mystery that keeps the reader guessing to the end, and also has a lot of information on 18th century science.

31. The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw, by Patrick F. McManus

This is a very funny collection of Patrick McManus's columns from Field and Stream. The title refers to a column about a camping trip he made a child, in which his sleeping "bag", an old fur coat, caused him to cast a shadow that got him mistaken for a bear and inspired mass panic.

32. Dave Barry is From Mars and Venus, by Dave Barry

I love reading Dave Barry's work. It's almost always funny, and yet right on point (he won a Pulitzer for social commentary in 1988). This book is no exception.

Seasons of Blood - Elias Anderson

#2 She Devours
#3 Darkling Spawn

The rest of this trilogy didn't disappoint. Some of the best horror I've read recently. Again, very gruesome at times, but great characters and evocative prose more than make up for it. Couldn't put these down.

LabRat