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2017 Reading Jubilee


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Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons on Cana and Calvary - Fulton Sheen

 

They Do It With Mirrors - Agatha Christie

 

Nemesis - Agatha Christie

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I'm going to try to participate regularly here. Of course, I try to do that every year....

 

So far, I decided I'd finally tackle the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan this year. I have all the books, I just haven't bothered to read them. I read the first two books of WoT over Christmas.

 

Completed:

 

In progress:

3. The Dragon Reborn (WoT #3)

4. China: A New History by John King Fairbank

 

On deck:

The Shadow Rises (WoT #4)

A bunch of Christmas gifts to enjoy soon, too!

  • The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
  • The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber
  • Number: The Language of Science by Tobias Dantzig
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My goal this year is to try to get through a book a week. I'm failing miserably already. But we just started school again this Monday. Maybe that'll pick up the pace.

 

So I guess I can track things here. I'm going to use 2 categories - books I've read for me and books I've read/listened to with Noah for school and such. BOLD names are completed. Non-bold are being read/listened to currently.

 

 

Finished reading for me:

 

1. Fervent by Priscilla Shirer

2. Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs

3. Uninvited by Lisa TerKeurst

4. Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie

 

 

Read alouds/Audiobooks for Noah:

 

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

3. Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff

4. Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

6. Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

8. The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

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1. The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

2. Dr Strange volume 2: The Last Days of Magic, by Jason Aaron

3. Rebels: A Well Regulated Militia, by Brian Wood

4. Batsman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?, by Neil Gaiman

5. The Vision volume 1: Little Worse Than a Man, by Tom King

 

Interesting how Aaron's Strange is starting off exactly like his Thor (God Butcher/Godbomb). Basically the exact same storyline and villain.

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Interested in your thoughts on WOT, pav. I haven't read it yet either, but it's on my list. I've heard both glowing and damning reviews from fantasy fans. With it being 14 books long, that's a hell of a commitment.

I've finished the third book, and recently started the fourth book. The first two books are clear world-building exercises, with little in the way of plot. The characters spend most of the time traveling. Two of the main characters seem to walk halfway across the main continent! Except the world is so big (because I gather it's just our world in the far future, from the hints RJ drops) traveling anywhere takes weeks or months. By the third book, RJ has settled for sending characters along rivers, and thankfully not describing each minute of travel on the riverboats. He also has laid the groundwork for fast traveling, what with the mysterious Portal Stones and the Waygates, so that traveling won't take so much time in future books. Still, the third installment seems to be mostly set-up for more plot; nothing is resolved even in book 3, and more characters are introduced rather than developing any of the existing characters.

 

The characters are mostly likable, so far, but the gender interactions are so annoying that I don't know if I can stand it; certainly I won't be re-reading this series any time soon! Women "sniff", and "smile mysteriously", and generally act condescendingly towards the men, and the men are clueless in general. Communication between male and female characters is nearly non-existent. I can see it getting worse before it gets better (if it ever does). Supposedly RJ based the male-female interactions on his own interactions with his wife, or other women in his life. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, he probably had a weird life.

 

I'm pushing on, hoping to finish book 4 by the end of February.

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  • 2 weeks later...

1. Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn (have been re-reading the trilogy for a podcast)

2. The Price of the Stars by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald (re-read for a book club podcast)

3. Starpilot's Grave by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald

 

Currently reading:

The Last Command by Timothy Zahn

Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold (have been reading (for my first time) along with the Vorkosigan saga re-read on Tor.com)

 

Upcoming (for my book club):

By Honor Betray'd by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald

Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

Radiance by Catherynne Valente

The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley

Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Ash by Malindo Lo

Barbary Station by R.E. Stearns

 

Star Wars:

Empire's End by Chuck Wendig

Thrawn by Timothy Zahn

Rebel Rising by Beth Revis

Guardians of the Whills by Greg Rucka

Inferno Squad by Christie Golden

 

Other:

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnely

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

 

And whatever Vorkosigan saga books come up this year in the read-through!

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14. Animal Madness: How Anxious Dogs, Compulsive Parrots, and Elephants in Recovery Help Us Understand Ourselves - Laurel Braitman

15, 16, 17 The Last Herald Mage trilogy - Mercedes Lackey

18. Don't Look, Don't Touch, Don't Eat: The Science behind Revulsion - Valerie Curtis

19. Mongrels - Stephen Graham Jones

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Completed in 2017:


1. The Dragon Reborn (WoT #3)


2. The Shadow Rises (WoT #4)



In progress:


3. China: A New History by John King Fairbank


4. The Fires of Heaven (WoT #5)



On deck yet:


  • The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
  • The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy by Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber
  • Number: The Language of Science by Tobias Dantzig
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1. Charles M. Schulz, The Complete Peanuts: Comics and Stories. The grand finale to the 13-year, 26-volume series is all outtakes and DVD extras that Schulz drew apart from the 50-year daily strip -- comic books, early Saturday Evening Post one-panel gags, tiny Hallmark keepsake books, and corporate shilling gigs for car companies. I learned Schulz himself sold out the Peanuts gang to Ford decades before his family would sell them out for new licensing bucks. Still funny to varying degrees. But at long last...it. Is. Finished.

 

2. Richard Price, The Whites -- The celebrated author of Clockers and TV writer (The Wire, The Night Of) employs the pseudonym Harry Brandt to tell a tale of third-shift Manhattan police, focusing on one middle-age cop whose old specialized crime unit disbanded years ago, but who find that their old unsolved cases -- suspects who beat the system and got away with their crimes -- are beginning to turn up dead. Price excels at seedy urban settings, moral ambiguity, and messy choices in lieu of gunfight climaxes. Although there's one of those, too. He's one of those writers who makes me want to cut back on other hobbies just to make more time for novels like his.

 

3. Luther M. Siler, The Sanctum of the Sphere -- Self-published sci-fi that's basically Firefly but the characters are Dungeons & Dragons nonhuman races like gnomes, trolls, and half-ogres. It makes sense for a D&D universe to last for centuries and not have the humans as the sole survivors into the future, but I'm not sure I've seen it done. Light, fluffy adventure yarn with extra F-words.

 

4/5. Lee Cherolis and Ed Cho, Little Guardians, v. 2: The Anger Demon; v. 3: Tane and the Spirit Dragon. Collections of the ongoing webcomic by a pair of local creators we keep running into at conventions. Cartoony fantasy about monsters terrorizing villages, the teenagers meant to rise up against them, and the adults who keep failing at taking care of things themselves. Harmless fun, though in black-and-white some characters look too much alike and flashbacks can be tricky to discern from present-day scenes if you're not intensely invested in distinguishing the characters from each other.

 

6. Fred van Lente and Ryan Dunleavy, Action Philosophers! Part straightforward education, part gratuitous explosions, totally about the world of philosophy. Mini-biographies of thinkers, ponderers, preachers, and heretics across the millennia from ancient Greece to wizened Asia to Reformation holiness to gloomy existentialism to that horrid Ayn Rand and beyond. You could waste a semester in a college class arguing The Meaning of Life with spooky loners and drunk frat boys, or you could settle for this far more entertaining and comprehensive primer in the comfort of your home.

 

7. Charles Soule and Alberto Jimenez Alburquerque, Letter 44, v. 1: Escape Velocity. A new President of the United States of America assumes control of the Oval Office only to find a note from his controversial predecessor outlining how he bulked up the country's vast military budget for the sake of a special secret operation: a space mission to make contact with a mysterious construct floating millions of miles away. While the Prez negotiates with his aides and tries to figure who knows what and who's on his side, the team of astronauts sent on a one-way quest try to make sense of the weirdness they find out in the great beyond. Interesting start, not sure exactly where its mysteries will lead yet.

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23 Earth Valor - Daniel Arenson

24 Earth Shadows - Daniel Arenson

25 Flesh and Blood - Patricia Cornwell

26 The Power of the Dog - Don Winslow

27 Dust - Charles Pellegrino

28 Ghosts of the Titanic - Charles Pellegrino

29 Reading the Rocks: An Autobiography of Earth - Marcia Bjornerud

30 California Fire and Life - Don Winslow

31 The Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow

32 The Killing Star - Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski

33 Hard Case - Dan Simmons

34 Hard Freeze - Dan Simmons

35 The Winter of Frankie Machine - Don Winslow

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