The Readers Summer Book Club

Have you heard of the podcast called The Readers?  Because if not you should check them out.  Two British men chatting about books, sometimes interviewing authors, and fascinating banter all about books.  And they have a podcast every week.  How they find the time, I do not know, but I’m so glad.

This summer, starting I think next month for two months, they are doing a summer book club with the following books:

Each week, they will focus their podcast on a particular book.  They will interview the author and then have a discussion between them and possibly some other readers.  I’m really looking forward to it, though I can’t possibly squeeze each book in as much as I’d like to (I still have some books to read for Once Upon a Time).  Here is what I am hoping to read:

• Pure by Andrew Miller
• Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton
• Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
• Bleakly Hall by Elaine di Rollo
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

It is still quite a few and I might not make it, but I’m hoping as they all sounded so good.  The whole list does and I’m wishing I had time to do them all.  It will be fun to read them and then listen to the podcast.  Plus, they will be setting up discussions on Goodreads.  I had to order Pure and Bleakly Hall from Amazon.UK because they are not available in the US yet, but Pure will be soon and possibly in time for the club because I think they are changing the order to accommodate the US readers (Still would have to order Bleakly Hall so I don’t care that I had already ordered mine.  Plus, it was kind of fun to order from the UK…).

The Eyes of the Dragon

I recently re-read The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King.  I remember reading this several times when I was much younger.  I remember I loved how Stephen King told the story.  The pacing was wonderful.  And I realize now something I didn’t notice then: that although this is classified as a fantasy, he really tells it in a fairy tale fashion.  And I suspect this is why I loved it so much.  When I was younger, I adored fairy tales and myths (but I’ll leave myths for my next book discussion).  I have a book of Grimm’s fairy tales that is well worn.  I loved the stories as much as the beautiful illustrations.  When I recently pulled it out and flicked through some of the stories, I was struck by how well I remembered them.  Can’t wait to share them with my daughter.

Back to The Eyes of the Dragon, the story is told through an unnamed narrator and while seemingly historical (an imaginary history, much like a fairy tale) there are elements of magic as well through the villain of the story: Flagg.  Flagg has been fiddling around with the kingdom of Delain for centuries trying to bring about its total self-destruction.  It is a hobby of his and he is very attached to this hobby.  He comes and goes from the kingdom, probably when people are starting to become suspicious of him, only to return later when he has been forgotten.  His most recent return began decades before our story and no one has yet begun to question how this man has been there for so long and still has not aged.  He has been patiently waiting for an opportunity for his evil and his wait is finally coming to an end.

Our narrator takes us through the lives of the king, his late wife, and their two sons: Peter and Thomas.  Peter, who will inherit the throne, is the golden boy never doing wrong.  Always trying to do the right and noble thing.  Thomas, on the other hand, stumbles.  With the exception of hunting, at which he excels, he cannot seem to do anything right.  And he’s just a little jealous of Peter.  Thomas is ripe for a Flagg picking and all Flagg has to do is see that he gets him on the throne.  From there, Flagg can do just as he pleases with the kingdom.

King beautifully weaves together the separate character stories, introducing the smallest things only to have them reappear in an incredibly important way later.  And Flagg, he is one of those evil characters you love to hate.  And watching him lose his cool is one of my favorite parts of the book.

I’m so glad I read this again and I think I will be hanging onto my yellowing, old paperback in case it needs to be revisited again in the future.  I understand there are some connections from this book to King’s Dark Tower series and as I have the first book, The Gunslinger, waiting on my shelf, and knowing that I’m very curious to read it now.

The Hunger Games

I finally succumbed and read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Just the first book, I have the rest waiting on my Kindle and will try to read one this summer and the other late fall or so.  I enjoyed it which was not surprising given that it is a very popular dystopian tale and I do like dystopian.  I’m not going to say much about the book here, though, because what can I say that hasn’t already been said?  It was a fun, fast read.  I knew little going into it about the story and that was probably for the best.  It would have been too easy to know the whole story ahead of time and I’m glad I managed to avoid it.  I prefer books that way, as long as I know I’ll probably enjoy the basic premise.

If by some chance you haven’t read this yet and are considering going to the movie, I highly suggest reading it first.  It really will not take you long and you will get much more out of the experience by reading the book first.  I wasn’t sure, before I read it.  I was tempted just to see the movie because there are so many books I want to read right now.  However, when have I ever seen a movie that I liked better than the book?  Um, never.  Though there have been a few, precious few, that I enjoyed as much as the book.  But they are rare.  Plus, I figured being a Young Adult novel and around 400 pages, give or take, AND being so incredibly popular that surely I’d get through it quickly.  And I did.  Once I was hooked, it was hard to put down.  In part because there aren’t that many chapter breaks, making it difficult to decide where to pause, but also because it just keeps moving you through the story.

One of my favorite ideas of the book are the Hunger Games themselves.  Very Ancient Rome, fighting in an arena to the death.  And particularly how the people of the Capitol just loved it.  Couldn’t get enough of it.  Even though they had contestants as young as 12.  I can’t believe they didn’t object to this.  I thought that was fascinating (in a sick sort of way), that aspect of human behavior which we have seen before and likely will see again in some form (though I hope not).

So onto the movie.  Very enjoyable.  It followed the book pretty closely though naturally leaving out quite a bit (characters, side stories, etc.).  Some things were explained very briefly and some not at all.  There were a few scenes that were not in the book at all but I suspect might be alluding to the next books (just a guess).  The cast was well chosen (I particularly liked Stanley Tucci’s Caesar.  His hair was amazing!).  I do wish Woody Harrelson’s character, Haymitch, had been a little more drunkenly flamboyant at the beginning like falling off the stage, would have loved to have seen Woody Harrleson doing that as he is quite awesome (Zombieland, loved him in that).

One complaint, and I know others didn’t care for this either, was the shaky camera affect.  I tend to get motion sickness so this affect is particularly annoying for me.  In some films (like Saving Private Ryan) I can understand the value of this but I did not care for it here.  I suspect it was used in part to camouflage the violent scenes a bit, but I though it unnecessary.  Just like with gratuitous sex scenes, there are ways of filming violence without the viewer having to see every graphic detail to know what is happening.  A shaky camera is not the only way of achieving this, if that was why they used it.

I loved the wardrobe of the Capitol citizens and how they contrasted with the districts.  They were so colorful and made up it was often quite grotesque.  Oh, the Capitol.  Can’t wait to see what happens to them in the next books (and please don’t tell me!).

I did like the book more than the movie, no big surprise, but I still enjoyed the film.  It was fun.  There was something, I couldn’t quite put my finger on, that I felt was lacking.  But I’m not sure what that was.  Perhaps since the film was intended for a younger audience it didn’t quite draw me in?  Though I would argue that Harry Potter was as well and for the most part I loved those films.  Maybe it was just me, or perhaps I read the book a little too close to seeing the movie?  I did the same with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and that feeling didn’t come up for that movie.  It could just be a mood thing, who knows, but it almost felt like parts of the movie were simplified or over-explained and that could have been because of the younger target audience or because they were making sure the audience who did not read the book understood the story.

In any event, I’m really looking forward to the remaining books.  I’ve been amused by all the discussion in the news and over the internet about adults reading young adult books.  Very hot topic at the moment.  To me, Young Adult is a label the publishing industry uses so I don’t have any problem reading them if I think they look interesting.   Bottom line, I like a good story.

Once Upon a Time VI

Once I finish reading The Hunger Games (because with all the movie hype, I just to finally read it and wow!  I’m really enjoying it so far), then I plan on delving into some myth, fairy tales, folk tales, and fantasy with the reading challenge Once Upon a Time VI over at Stainless Steel Droppings.

For the reading, I am going to try for the level Quest of the First (read at least 5 books in any of the categories-myth, fairy tale, folk tale, fantasy).  Here are some of the books I will be choosing from but not limiting myself to:

Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King  A re-re-re-read (and more probably) for me.  I read this book over and over when I was much younger.  Now I can’t remember anything about it and am curious to see if the interest is still there.  Really looking forward to it!

The Gunslinger, Dark Tower Book 1 by Stephen King  I tried reading this many years ago and failed.  Maybe this time it will be different?

The Habitation of the Blessed: A Dirge for Prester John Volume 1 by Catherynne M. Valente  I have been looking forward to this one for awhile.  Actually, looking forward to all of her books, like the next one…

Myths of Origins: Four Short Novels by Catherynne M. Valente

The Silmarrillion by J.R.R. Tolkein  Hoping I love this one as much as The Hobbit.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde  Time travel and literature, need I say more?

The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood  When I was young, in addition to reading Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Black Stallion series, I also could not get enough of Greek and Roman myths.  I’m hoping this book, and the next, will rekindle some of that interest.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

And as I’ve been reading (slowly) A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin since 2011, I’m hoping to continue working on that as well.

I will also work on the Quest on the Screen.  I plan to watch at least The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and hopefully much more, though I’m shocked to find not many movies in my cupboard that fall into the Once Upon a Time description.  Shocked!  I will have to look elsewhere (and work to remedy that quickly).  If only the first Hobbit movie were going to be out in time for this but alas, I must wait for December.  Sigh.  I will have to content myself with occasional updates from the filming until then.

A Ghost Story

I just finished reading The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James and that is a relief because it means I am officially out of my reading slump.  I can’t remember how I found this book exactly, but it was while I was searching for something new to read, something to capture my attention and not let go for the duration.  This usually involves me poking around on Amazon for awhile, building up my Wish List horrendously with things I want to read but not quite yet.  Normally I would have set this book aside for fall, being a ghost story and all, but as I was desperate to try something to get me reading again I went for it anyway.  (I did load a sample onto my Kindle just to make sure as I didn’t want to start another book only to set it aside.  No problem, I read it in less than 4 days (or was it 3?) and would have been faster had I had more time.)

The book is set in England in post-World War I and ever since Downton Abbey finished its second season I’ve been really in the mood for anything set in that time/place.  I really enjoyed it.  The ghost part was fun, particularly in the beginning, and I liked the main character, Sarah Piper.  Struggling to survive on her own in London, she takes a temporary job as an assistant to a ghost hunter which takes her deep into the country and strikes an unexpected connection with the ghost.  (A side note, I didn’t care much for the inclusion of a couple of sex scenes but that could just be me.  I realize that sometimes scenes like this can advance a story, but I tend to prefer them inferred rather than in detail.  Just my own personal preference and not a big deal as I can just skim over them.)  Otherwise, quite a good story particularly as I believe it is the author’s first published work.  I’m looking forward to her next, coming out in 2013 if I’m not mistaken, and I think it might also be a ghost story.  Yay!

A little behind here

Sorry, it has been ages since I last posted.  I’ve had a bit of a reading slump and inevitably along with that goes a posting slump as well.  My reading subsided shortly after thoroughly enjoying Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book.  It was such a fun book with time travel, the dark ages, disease.  Sigh, all sorts of things I love to read about.  That and it was hard to put down, I couldn’t wait to get back to it.  It deserves a proper post, but as I just need to get something out there I’m going to leave it at that.  As is often the case after a book like that, I had a hard time getting into the next one, which happened to be Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.  A book I was so looking forward to but I’m afraid I’ve had to set it aside (though I swear I will go back to it, hopefully soon).  And since I’ve been trying to read a chapter here and there of Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, book I started before Christmas.  I’m really enjoying it, but I can’t seem to just be swept away by it.

The good news is, the reading is back.  I decided to load up my Kindle with samples of various books determined to work my way through them until something hooked me and it didn’t take long.   The first sample I pulled up was The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St James and I was hooked.  It is, so far, a fun ghost story set in the time just after World War I.  Ever since the last season of Downton Abbey ended, I’ve been really in the mood for something set in England around that time.  I wouldn’t have thought a ghost story was what I needed as spring is just starting to show, but apparently it was so I’m happy to be back to reading.

I thought I should have a little wrap up for the Science Fiction Experience.  Even though I did not finish the last book in my line up, I think it was a success:

Books Read

The Time Machine

Fahrenheit 451

The Dispossessed

The Doomsday Book

Movies and Television Watched

Firefly (TV)

Serenity (Movie)

Star Trek (Movie, 2009)

Children of Men (Movie)

The Handmaid’s Tale (Movie)

Doctor Who (countless TV episodes)

and I suspect many other things watched and short stories read that I can’t remember at this moment (which doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy them, it has just been awhile).

 

 

The Dispossessed

I just finished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, and yay, just in time to get one more in for the Vintage Science Fiction month (January) as well as The 2012 Science Fiction Experience (through February).  And also one more book from the top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy list as well as my own 12 for 2012.  I just love checking off so many boxes, so to speak.  (The Dispossessed was published in 1974, in case you are wondering just how vintage this was.)

I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up The Dispossessed, but it did surprise me.  I knew a little, I had read the blurb on the back.  But I was really unprepared for the intensity of the main character’s (Shevek) experiences both growing up on his own planet, or moon I should say, and traveling to Urras (the mother planet to that moon he comes from).  Shevek was born and raised on a  moon colony called Anarres, whose ancestors settled there over 100 years prior to live by a new philosophy and to escape the oppression they found on Urras.  There is no money on Anarres.  Everyone is housed (in community housing), fed, and clothed and is simply expected to do their part in the society.  They work at their chosen profession, as best fits in their small communities, and also they help work elsewhere when needed.  Shevek is a physicist so he teaches and studies but he also volunteers at farms or other labor when called.  Life is much different on Urras.  A capitalist society, everything is dominated by money and wanting more money.  There are class divisions and the government (which is nonexistent on Anarres) has a strong hand in everything.  Really interesting parallels come up between the two societies and Shevek, the first to travel away from Anarres to Urras since Anarres was settled, struggles while trying to navigate them.  His intention for traveling to Urras is for cooperation between the two societies (and to shake things up on his own world), but he has no idea what Urras is really about and he is in many ways too naive to succeed.

It was fascinating to read about these two very different worlds (one of which resembles our own in someways and the other a basic philosophy we are mostly familiar with).  Hugely detailed, following both Shevek’s life on Anarres and then his experiences on Urras, I found myself wrapped up in Le Guin’s descriptions.  A lot of the book covered setting up the worlds and at times I was just ready to get to the plot but I eventually I realized that the world descriptions were a part of the plot.  They were essential to understanding Shevek’s motivation and his struggles.

I’m looking forward to reading more by Le Guin and see what some of her later works are like.  To my recollection, this was my first of hers and  it was very enjoyable.

I Love Firefly

A little post in which I geek out about my love of the short-lived television series: Firefly.  I didn’t watch Firefly when it originally aired as I’m continuously woefully behind on most television programs (Except Downton Abbey, loving it!  But that is another post.).  Years ago, my husband put the complete series on his wish list and I bought it for him, clueless as to what it was.  And it sat on our shelf amongst many other unwatched DVD’s until only a couple of years ago or so.  And then, wow.  Was I hooked.  A little science fiction, space opera, western, and throw a little Chinese in there and add some great stories, wit, humor and you’ve made a perfect show.

Sadly, one season.  One season?!  Seriously, I can’t believe they couldn’t at least run it for one more season.  Sometimes, TV networks, you need to give the good shows a chance to find their audience.  I can think of any number of totally dud shows that ran for several seasons.  It just isn’t fair.  The fans for the show are pretty amazing (even if there were apparently not enough to do another season of the show) because thanks to their efforts the series was put on DVD and eventually a feature film was made called Serenity.  I loved Serenity though not as much as the series because it was not quite as gritty as the show.  It was much more polished.  But it did offer closure on a few story lines (though sadly left a big one open, but more on that in a moment).

I re-watched the series for The 2012 Science Fiction Experience and plan to watch Serenity as well sometime in February.  But my new Firefly experience came in the form of graphic novels:

                                                                                                    

Serenity Volume 1: Those Left Behind, Serenity Volume 2: Better Days, and Serenity: The Shepherd’s Tale.  The first two I really enjoyed as they greatly resembled the series.  It was much like watching two new episodes.  The last one, Shepherd’s Tale, while not my favorite did at least answer a lot of questions about Shepherd.  There was quite a mystery about him and his possible Alliance (for the Serenity crew they were the bad guys) connections that neither the series nor the movie ever cleared up.  I hope that if there are no more television shows or movies made, that we can at least get some more graphic novels.

 

Fahrenheit 451

For my 2012 Science Fiction Experience I seem to have picked quite a few dystopian/futuristic sort of books.  After reading The Time Machine, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was next on my list.  Such an interesting future Bradbury came up with and amazing that he did so in a story published in 1953.  With the exception of the tone of the book, which struck me as mid-century but exactly how I’m not totally sure I could explain, this could have easily been a contemporary book.  Nothing in it felt dated to me and the concerns I think Bradbury raised still ring true today.

The story is of a fireman, but in this future the firemen are not putting out fires but starting them.  On books.  In a time where people want to drive their cars very fast and sit in rooms where the television screens now cover all four walls, books are destroyed.  Society has decided they make people think too much, cause discomfort, confusion, and depression.  People are so much happier not thinking too deeply and do much better living with shallow entertainments.  Sounds familiar?  I’d guess there are a few people around today who would prefer things easier.  So over time it was decided to eliminate that which caused mental anguish.  Eventually, even without the books, people were thought odd or disturbed if they questioned the norm.  Which was the case with our fireman, Guy Montag.  He’s begun to question things and has been hiding books away from the fire for a little while.  He even made friends with an odd neighbor girl (odd in the sense that she questions things).  He struggles with his questions and seeks help.  But he is destined to have some difficulties.  You just can’t have books, the fireman will come to burn your house and you will be arrested.  And he is a fireman.  But I’ll leave it there.

Guy’s wife Mildred I found fascinating.  For me, she was a prime example of what happened to most everyone in their society.  She seems to float in her own self-obsessed TV world.  Everything revolves around her show as if that has replaced real life for her and that seems to be perfectly normal.  Everyone lives through the show.  She is so out of touch with reality that she either doesn’t know or refuses to admit her near suicide.  When Guy starts to question things about him, Mildred retreats and is unwilling to join him.

Spoiler here:  Throughout the book and particularly at the end, there is “the war”.  I wish there had been a little more about this war, who was it?  Why were they fighting?  I know it was insinuated that because the people did not know their history that it was being revisited on them but other than that I didn’t learn anything and yet most of the society was blown up so it must have been pretty major.  End Spoiler.

It took me a long time to write this post, for whatever reason, and I’m already halfway through my next book: The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.  It has been really interesting so far to read a selection from progressive time periods (Victorian, mid-century, 1970′s so far).  Each book has truly felt like it is from that time frame, if that makes any sense, though The Dispossessed feels very close to a current novel.  I might do a post later, at the end of the Science Fiction Experience, talking about that if I can figure out just how to express myself (thanks to a suggestion by Carl, the host of The 2012 Science Fiction Experience).  And that makes me question my final book selection because I had originally planned on reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, just for a fun finish (and because I like those dystopian books…) but I wonder if I should go with Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, which was my other possibility.  Only because The Hunger Games is a young adult novel and it would be my only one and how would that affect my experience of reading from each of the time frames?  Do you have any thoughts on that?

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo…The Movie

 

If you recall, I recently finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and less than a week later, we went to see the movie.  Wow.  It was pretty intense, which was really no surprise having read the book.  However, to see it right before you like that, the graphic, violent scenes, it still takes your breath away.

I don’t want to say too much, in case you don’t want anything spoiled.  But I’ll just mention a couple things I really liked.  I loved, loved the settings.  I have a big weakness for Scandinavian things (think I mentioned that before) and I so enjoyed seeing the locations, the houses, the landscapes, etc.  I could have used some more interior shots, though, because I like to see how people live.  But, that’s just me.

Rooney Mara, who played Lisbeth Salander, did an amazing job.  She was all that I imagined the character to be.

All that hostility, it was so hard to believe this was the actress who played her:

Tattoos, piercings, that big black thing in her ear, the black, choppy hair and not to mention the whole Lisbeth attitude.  There were several other great portrayals of the characters from the book, but she really took on Lisbeth for me.  And those really bad, scary scenes she had to do…I am still nauseous thinking about them.

It was a long movie, despite having condensed some areas of the book.  They did have a lot to cover I suppose, but after one of the crucial plots wrapped up and it felt like we had already been sitting there a long time I thought about how there was a whole other section they had to cover.

One more thing, I would have liked a little more of (though how this would have been possible without making the film even longer, I couldn’t say) was more focus on the main character’s (Mikael) near isolation on the island, which, in the book, was even more so with the freezing temperatures and all that snow.  For me, that isolation and climate were a major part of the story, of Mikael’s story.  And while there were bits of that, I didn’t get nearly enough of it to satisfy me.

I’ll have to watch it again, there was so much to take in.  Though I think I’ll wait until I can watch it at home and skip over a couple of those violent scenes.