Mystery Book # 55 - Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

I had never heard of Rogue Male before, but now that I've read it I can say I'm glad it was on one of my lists. The story is narrated by an English gentleman that is an excellent hunter. He sets out to see if it is possible to get into his cross-hairs a famous world leader just for the fun of it (implied by the book to be Hitler), or so he tells himself. Unfortunately he is caught and savagely beaten by the leader's guards. Luckily though he manages to escape and most of the books is about his avoidance of everyone that is chasing him.  I was drawn into the story and found myself rooting that the main character would make it out of his predicament alive. Overall it was one of the better mystery books on the list so far. A.

Book # 171 - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The biggest surprise for me while reading A Christmas Carol is that even though I'd seen several film versions and was already quite familiar with the story I was still very entertained and enchanted by Dickens' tale. I guess there's a reason that this is considered a classic. There's no point in recapping this because it is one of the few stories that literally everyone knows.

 So even if you've seen countless movies based on this story it is still worth reading. A.

Mystery Book # 88 - The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett

You know how sometimes there's some movie or musician that based on your tastes that you should really like but for some reason just doesn't connect with you? Not that you think whatever it is is bad... just not the greatest thing in the world and is massively over hyped? For me this list includes Arcade Fire, Wes Anderson films, the Coen brothers, Blade Runner and now Dashiell Hammett. I read The Maltese Falcon probably some ten years ago and was disappointed... and now I give him another shot with The Glass Key and I liked this one even less.

The plot has something to do with the death of a senator's son and a bunch of mobsters and politicians. I couldn't really muster much enthusiasm for it. In the end most everyone dies or ends up in jail except for the "hero". Just thinking about the book again is boring me. At least it was short. C.

Book # 57 - A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

I'm trying to think of the best way to quickly summarize A Prayer for Owen Meany and I'm not sure if that can be done. The narrator, John Wheelwright, tells us about his childhood and young adulthood in New Hampshire of which his friend Owen Meany plays a large part. Owen is extremely short for his age and has a very unique voice which is shown in the text with all capital letters. Everyone thinks that Owen is either weird or special in some way and he himself thinks that he was placed on Earth for some special purpose by God.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit and found the friendship between the two to be very genuine. I also liked that it just accepts some events that could only be explained as miracles. My biggest qualm would be that Owen is just so much more interesting of a character than the narrator. The narrator is kind of a boring guy and at times is too passive. Even when one of the narrator's main story lines is resolved (the revelation of the identity of his father) he admits that it is totally anti-climactic and disappointing. And the bits about the narrator's current life are totally unnecessary. I'll give it an A-.

Also worth mentioning... the book cover of the copy I read is just sooooo bad. Please don't judge this book on a cover that is just a picture of a dressmakers dummy. Such an item is actually an important part of the story but the text specifically mentions that it was always dressed and never left uncovered... yet the picture is of an empty dummy. Seriously, who picked this book cover.

Also there were eleven list book mentions :Animal Farm, 1984, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Wuthering Heights, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Anna Karenina !

Sci-Fi book # 8 - 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my all time favorite films. The book is a bit unusual in that it was written alongside the movie... it wasn't an adaptation of the film and the film isn't based on the book either. Technically it is based on the screenplay of the film even though it has a few differences. So Stanley Kubrick deserves some credit here also. Anyway, since I love the movie so much it is hard not to also love the book. I had read the entire book series some time ago and I enjoyed revisiting the first book. What I find most interesting is that the film is open to a variety of interpretations and has an ending that can be seen in many different ways.... and the book somehow explains what goes on a bit more thoroughly but is still true to the spirit and weirdness of the movie. It reads like an un-filmable book but the movie somehow uses the same story and is just perfect. I'll have to give the book an A. Will I be rereading the sequels too? No... they're nowhere as good as the first book.

Mystery Book # 82- Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

Some of the books on this Mystery list seem a bit lightweight and slight. Crocodile on the Sandbank is an example of this. The book was entertaining enough but in six months from now I'll have completely forgotten about it. Plus I'm probably not in the demographic that this book is aimed at. This is the first book in a series about Amelia Peabody, a rich English lady in the late 1800's that spends most of her time exploring Egyptian tombs. The book spends a lot of time setting up the characters and the mystery wasn't really that interesting (someone dressed up as a mummy keeps terrorizing their camp). I don't feel compelled to continue on with the series even though the main character was fascinating. I'll give it a B-.

Sci-Fi book # 42 The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

One of the first "grown-up" authors I discovered as a kid in middle school was Michael Crichton. Despite reading a bunch of his books I never read The Andromeda Strain. I didn't even know what it was about... for some reason I thought it was about space travel or aliens or something. Instead it is about a mysterious organism/virus that is brought to Earth from the upper atmosphere and seems to instantly cause death in anyone exposed to it. Luckily the U.S. has readied a team of scientists and a special laboratory just in case this were to ever happen.

Overall I enjoyed it. My only real problem is that the ending is a bit anti-climactic. Also it was interesting that the theme of mankind causing problems for themselves by over exploiting science is the same as in Jurassic Park and Westworld. I'll give it a B+

Book # 12 - On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Of all the books on the list that I had previously read, On the Road was probably the one that I wanted to reread the least. I read it maybe fifteen years ago and I wasn't that impressed then. On a second reading my opinion hasn't changed that much. Overall it is well written and mildly entertaining and I can see how it tapped into a certain feeling back in the fifties but it isn't something I'd call an all time classic. Some qualms I have with it... first Dean Moriarty isn't the greatest character to be around. Even on the second reading I quickly grew tired of him and his destructive ways. Next, the narrator doesn't exude that much personality... I still don't get why he always felt the urge to get away and travel. He just gives into Dean way too much. Also, for a relatively short book it just feels so long... the whole book is just one thing after another without much thought given to the narrator's feelings. There's one chapter that's maybe 15-20 pages in which the author falls in love while in California that has enough material for an entire book... but afterwards he just moves on and barely thinks about that incident. I guess I just find the book a bit frustrating and overrated. I'll give it a B. Also it mentions Of Mice and Men.

Horror Book # 25 - Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Since Halloween was last week I figured it would be a good time to read Something Wicked This Way Comes. Funny thing (and I didn't know this beforehand)... the book specifies a specific day in October that the story starts and that was actually the day I started reading it. The story follows two boys as they encounter a mysterious and sinister carnival that comes to their small town right before Halloween. They discover some of their secrets and soon the leader of the carnival tries to capture them.

The mix of fantasy and horror was fun and I also enjoyed the theme of aging that runs throughout the book. The boys wish they could be older to experience life and the father of one of the boys wishes he could be younger so that he could interact more with his son. But of course the plot shows what would actually happen if you chose to change your age. Just like his stories in The Martian Chronicles, the fantastic elements of the story are just a cover to tell what is actually a very relate-able story. I'll give it an A.

Also, it quotes Moby Dick.

Horror Book # 23 - At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

I really wanted to love At the Mountains of Madness... but I ended up just really liking it instead. Previously I had read a collection of Lovecraft's short stories and absolutely loved it, so I was eager to read some more of his work. The premise here is great... a team of Antarctic explorers discover a huge mountain range that shows evidence of being inhabited by a weird alien race millions of years ago. The whole book is eerie and has a great dark and foreboding tone. Just a few qualms... for the amount of plot the book is a bit stretched out (and it is already a fairly short book so maybe it should have just been a short story), the story also follows the usual Lovecraft plot structure of someone surviving a horrible ordeal and relating it to us with the hopes that we believe him, and the whole sequence in which the narrator is able to tell the entire history (including names) of this previous civilization from a series of sculptures seems a bit unlikely. I'd still recommend it though but I'd go with one of his short story collections first. A-

Horror Book # 37 - Midnight by Dean Koontz

Wikipedia gives a pretty accurate summary of Midnight by Dean Koontz by saying that it is a combination of The Island of Doctor Moreau and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  Set in a secluded California coastal town, the story is about a tech company that is experimenting with the residents of the town and inadvertently giving them the ability to transform their bodies. This was the first Koontz book I had read and I enjoyed it. It wasn't the most memorable or original book out there but it did have some good scary scenes and it was fun following the main characters as they tried to avoid any of the transformed citizens and escape the town. I'll give it a B+.

Also it mentions Frankenstein.

Star Trek: New Frontier - The Returned

Sometime around ninth grade I really got into Star Trek and started reading a ton of the books that they put out... like maybe one hundred of them. One of my favorite sub-series was the New Frontier series that was mostly written by Peter David, my favorite of the Star Trek authors. In this series he introduced a new main character, Captain Calhoun, and added a bunch of minor characters from The Next Generation to a crew that takes the Starship Excalibur on crazy adventures. While I stopped reading other Star Trek books I've always kept up on the New Frontier series and was pretty excited when I saw that the LAPL had the newest volume which was released only as an e-book. This volume didn't disappoint... Calhoun goes on a quest to get revenge against an alien species that wiped out his planet and ends up encountering an even worse alien race... and then Q shows up. I'll give this one an
A-.

Also, it mentions Alice in Wonderland.

Book # 150 - The Iliad by Homer

I'm pretty sure that The Iliad is the oldest book on any of my lists. Its age makes it a bit hard to really judge. Basically the whole book is just battle scene after battle scene. And it is surprisingly super violent too. There are tons of stabbings and beheadings and dead bodies being mutilated. And after seven hundred pages I feel like I still don't know everything that I should about the Trojan War. Overall it was a bit of a chore reading it but it had some interesting stuff in there like the interactions on both sides with their gods. I guess I'll give it a B+.

Mystery Book # 1 The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (Book 4 of 9)

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is the second collection of short stories that feature Sherlock and Watson solving the usual mysteries. It wasn't quite as good as the first collection but I still enjoyed it overall. The most notable story is The Final Problem which introduces Moriarty and was originally intended to be the final Sherlock story since he seemingly dies in the end. For a story that was supposedly genuinely going to be the end the whole final sequence leaves lots of wiggle room to find a way to bring Sherlock back to life.I'll give this one an A-.

Book # 140 - The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I'm not really sure what I expected from The Kite Runner... for some reason I imagined that it would be a dense tougher read and was surprised when it turned out to be written at a sixth grade level. I guess since it was a massive best seller that I should have known. I chose to read it now because it is Banned Book Week and once again The Kite Runner made the list of the top ten most challenged books in America. I'm guessing that it gets assigned in high schools now and some people object to it because it has a few shocking violent scenes and a handful of four letter words... but it does seem like the type of book that is written specifically for high school study.

The book is broken into three main parts. The first is about Amir and his best friend Hassan. They live in Afghanistan where Amir's family is wealthy and Hassan's family lives with them as their servants. They're having a pretty good life even though Amir always feels like he can never please his father until one day Hassan is violently attacked and Amir is too afraid to help and runs away. He feels so guilty he can't stand having Hassan around anymore and sets it up so that Hassan's family has to leave. Soon afterwards the Russians invade and Amir and his father flee the country. The middle section is about Amir and his father's life in San Francisco and how they adjust to American life and how Amir still feels guilt and tries to earn the approval of his father. In the final section Amir is in his late thirties and is called back to Afghanistan where he finds out some family secrets and must help Hassan's son and atone for his past cowardice.

I enjoyed it and thought the story was moving and full of emotion. Maybe part of my enjoyment of it was due to it being completely different from Bleak House... it had a tight focus on a few characters that it deeply examined, the story moved along, and I actually wanted to know how it ended.  Along the way it mentions Wuthering Heights and Les Miserables.  I'm starting to notice that when specific books are mentioned (even in a casual way) they give hints at the theme of the book or foreshadow something. I'll give it an A-.

Book # 100- Watership Down by Richard Adams

Somehow I was under the false impression that Watership Down was about rabbits trying not to drown while on a ship. I guess I was wrong. Instead it is about of rabbits that break away from their warren when one of the rabbits have a psychic vision about an impending disaster. So a group leaves and they have some adventures while trying to find a new place to live. They find a nice place and then realize that they forgot to bring any female rabbits with them. So then they get into a conflict with another warren that basically is run by a dictator rabbit when they ask them if any of their females wish to leave.

Overall it is kind of a weird book. You'd imagine that it is a kids book but it really isn't. And then sometimes the rabbits act dumb like rabbits but then they're able to make a plan to escape using a boat and floating down the river. And then there's the issue that one of the rabbits is psychic and can see the future. And the rabbits are also sorta sexist. Which is funny when you consider that apparently rabbits do not live in a male dominated society. Plus somehow they're able to team up with a bird and communicate with him in a different language that apparently all animals know.

Still, it was entertaining even if it went on a bit too long and had way too many different rabbit characters. It also included quotes from The Wind in the Willows and The Brothers Karamazov. I'll give it an A-.

Book # 72- Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Was this a chore to get through or what... I was looking forward to Bleak House since I've enjoyed other books by Charles Dickens but I'll have to say that I was a bit disappointed. There are just so many characters and so many little things going on that it is difficult to care too much about any of it.

The main character is Esther, an orphan, that is taken in by John Jarndyce at the same time as he is taking in two cousins, Richard and Ada. Jarndyce and the cousins are possible heirs to a large fortune that has been held up for many years in court due to various disputes. So seemingly the main plot questions are who are Esther's parents and will the court case ever be decided. Both are answered in the end but there isn't much suspense about either.

First off it becomes obvious right away who her parents are... and in the end it doesn't really matter. Esther really only has mild interest in it herself and the results don't have any impact on her life. And there are just so many characters... it gets hard to keep them straight and to care about any of their stories. And for a protagonist, Esther is really passive and doesn't do anything to move the story along. She literally does nothing to try and end up with the man she loves. I'd also complain that for such a major character, Ada has pretty much no personality at all. Plus we don't get any back story on Richard and Ada... where did they come from? What were they doing before Jarndyce took them in? So many unanswered questions for such a long long book with so many unrelated stories. Like why did Lady Dedlock's sister act the way that she did? And what happened between Esther's parents to break them apart? And why was John Jarndyce always so darn nice? He seemed like he was trying to atone for something that is never revealed. I feel like a B is being generous...

I also forgot to mention Mr. Skimpole... I just wanted to strangle him. He is such an infuriating character.

Also giving it the clear lead in mentions in other books, Don Quixote is once again mentioned! It has now been name checked in five of the main list books and twice in others.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

 I had heard about Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell some time ago but avoided it because of its length. After watching the first episode of the BBC miniseries I decided to give it a try anyway. And it was well worth the time put into it. Now first off I'll just say that I think it is an either love or hate it type book. I loved it but I could see why it some people might not enjoy it. The plot kind of just meanders and takes a lot of detours and there isn't a genuine conflict until the last couple hundred pages. Oh yeah... did I mention that it is over 1000 pages?

The book takes place in the early 1800's in an alternate history England in which magic used to be widely practiced until a few hundred years ago. The current "magicians" don't actually practice magic and just study its history... that is until they find a practicing magician with a vast library of magic books, Mr Norrell. He wants to help England in the war against Napoleon and make magic respectable. After a few years another magician, Jonathan Strange, comes along and becomes Norrell's student but quickly surpasses him in both magical performance and standing in society. A rivalry grows between the two as they have different goals for bringing magic back to England and they have contrasting personalities.

I found the book charming and I liked all the little details about magical history Clarke puts in the many footnotes throughout. It isn't the type of book that you want to read quickly... I enjoyed just reading a chapter or two each day and slowly learning about this world. The ending was satisfying but it still left me with a ton of questions... I need there to be a sequel to this now! I'll give it an A.

It also mentions Emma.

Mystery Book # 65 The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer

Before reading The Seven-Per-Cent Solution I thought... hey the author has the same name as the guy that directed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. And after a quick look at Wikipedia I found out it's the same guy!

The book is presented as a lost manuscript by Dr. Watson about a Sherlock Holmes mystery that he couldn't publish until certain people involved in the story had passed away. The first half deals with Watson getting Sigmund Freud to help Sherlock get over his cocaine addiction. The second half involves Freud and Holmes teaming up to solve a mystery about a young woman that was found wandering the streets.

I thought the book was entertaining but nowhere near as good as one of the original Holmes novels. The first half was interesting in that it provided some insight into Sherlock's character and why he is the way he is, but the mystery of the second half wasn't that compelling and solved way too easily. I'll give it a B.

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

Finders Keepers is the sequel to Mr. Mercedes and like its predecessor it isn't a horror novel at all. It isn't even like Mr. Mercedes at all either. Whereas the previous book was the usual "catch a serial killer before he kills again" story, this book is about a bunch of stolen journals and the way that people become obsessed with their favorite series (of course there are some murders along the way but it is never about anyone trying to solve them). The first two thirds of the book aren't even particularly suspenseful but it is entertaining and I wanted to know who would end up with the journals... the obsessed criminal that stole them originally? or the boy that finds them years later? The epilogue hints at a supernatural twist for the next book in the series, so the next book might be a more typical King type novel. I'll give this one a B+

Also, a bunch of novel mentions: Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Grapes of Wrath, Catch-22, Frankenstein, and To Kill A Mockingbird.

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

I continue my sampling of Discworld novels with the first in the series The Color of Magic. It follows Rincewind, a wizard that knows only one spell, and Twoflower, the first person to ever visit Discworld as a tourist, as they have comic misadventures that involve the usual fantasy tropes... dragons, trolls, barbarians, etc... Maybe I was just anxious to get on to reading another book but I just didn't seem to get into this one as much and it seemed a bit tedious. I'll have to give this one a C+.

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Mr. Mercedes is one of those rare Stephen King books that wouldn't actually be classified as "horror", but somehow I still found it to be one of his scariest books. The plot revolves around a retired detective's search for guy that ran over a bunch of people for no reason and trying to prevent this killer from blowing up a bomb at a public event. I found it a bit unnerving because one- I've actually been hit by a car and two - there are crazy people out there that set off bombs and kill lots of people for no reason. So unlike most King novels... this one deals with bad things that can actually happen.

The middle part of the book was a bit slow and the detective seemed a bit generic but overall I enjoyed it and it built up to a suspenseful ending. The killer was only kinda interesting... I'm a bit conflicted by King's need to make the character realistic versus interesting. He's portrayed as the kind of mundane young man that would actually do these horrible things due to his own inadequacies and problems growing up instead of as an over the top character like the Tooth Fairy from Red Dragon. But then I guess not every cop versus serial killer book can be as good as Red Dragon.  So I'll give this one a B.

Mort by Terry Prachett

I'm giving Discworld another shot with Mort. I liked Guards, Guards, but didn't quite love it. In this Discworld story, Death (skeleton, hooded black robe, scythe) takes an awkward teenager, Mort, as an apprentice and comic misadventures ensue. The main problem being that when Death asks Mort to take over for a day he mistakenly kills an assassin instead of a young princess that was his intended target. This of course creates a paradox for reality and Mort has to fix it. Funny all the way though. I'll give this one an A-.

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

I don't really have too much to say about Children of Dune. It is the third book in the series and it picks up a few years after the previous book. The Atreides twins are starting to grow up but even though they are children they have the full knowledge of their ancestors. Leto II has a vision on how best to lead the empire created by his father and he has to navigate the usual things that occur in Dune novels (assassination attempts, political maneuvering by different houses and the Bene Gesserit, acceptance by the Fremen). It isn't a classic like the first book but it is more exciting than Dune Messiah. I guess I'll got with a B+.

Book # 85 - The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The copy of The Scarlet Letter that I read was the same one that I read way back in 10th grade... which was 23 years ago. Maybe because the text was so marked up and I had underlined everything that 16 year old me thought was important the whole book seemed kind of heavy handed. It didn't seem like a book anyone would read for amusement but rather something that would get assigned to a teenager to try and get them to critically examine a text. Still I enjoyed the book on some level but it wasn't as great as I remembered it.

My main problem with it is that the "plot" doesn't really have any forward movement and the main protagonist doesn't really do anything the entire book. As most people know, the book is about Hester Prynne, a woman found guilty of adultery in a Puritanical society, and forced to live with a large scarlet "A" on her clothes. The father of her child is the local minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and instead of confessing that he is the father he decides to keep it hidden and to psychologically torture himself. It isn't until about eighty percent of the way through the book that the characters actually decide to do something about this situation... so for most of the book not much really happens. It also doesn't help that Dimmesdale is such a wuss that he is not the most likable character.  I'll have to give it a B+.


So for anyone keeping track... this blog is now exactly three years old and The Scarlet Letter was the 50th book from the list I've read.

My progress on each of the lists:
Best Novels 1-100: 50 read
Best Novels 101-200: 4 read
Best Mysteries 1-101: 18 read
Best Science Fiction 1-50: 16 read
Best Horror 1-50: 14 read


As for how I got copies of all the books:
52 were purchased as used books at either libraries or used book stores
39 were books either me or Lucinda previously owned
14 were purchased new
14 were given to me as gifts
11 were library books

7 were checked out from the LAPL as ebooks (my new favorite way to get books!)

2 were borrowed from someone
2 were free ebooks in the public domain
1 was a purchased book for the Kindle

And my updated rankings:

1. The Lord of the Rings 2. Dune 3. Les Misérables

4. Invisible Man

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

6. Don Quixote

7. The Hobbit

8. A Farewell to Arms

9. The Trial

10. David Copperfield

11. Great Expectations

12. Harry Potter

13. The Stand

14. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

15. Pale Fire

16. The Handmaid's Tale

17. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

18. The Chronicles of Narnia

19. The Name of the Rose

20. The Great Gatsby

21. The Sound and the Fury

22. Frankenstein

23. Lord of the Flies

24. The Color Purple

25. Things Fall Apart

26. Wind in the Willows

27. Anne of Green Gables

28. Rebecca

29. Atonement

30. One Hundred Years of Solitude

31. Native Son

32. Anna Karenina

33. Sons and Lovers

34. War and Peace

35. A Passage to India

36. The Count of Monte Cristo

37. The Scarlet Letter

38. Winnie-the-Pooh

39. Emma

40. Charlotte's Web

41. Wuthering Heights

42. Remembrance of Things Past

43. Possession

44. His Dark Materials

45. Absalom, Absalom

46. The Ambassadors

47. To the Lighthouse

48. Mrs. Dalloway

49. Gone with the Wind

50. Atlas Shrugged

Book # 99 Atonement by Ian McEwan

I gotta say, Atonement was an interesting book and I liked it more than I thought I would. The ending twist was still powerful even though I knew it was coming since I had already seen the movie. The main character is Briony - a young teenage girl a few years before WWII. One day she unwittingly witnesses a couple of events between her older sister and a young man named Robbie, and her active imagination misinterprets what actually happened. This later leads her to mistakenly and somewhat knowingly accuse Robbie falsely of a crime. The story then picks up during WWII and we see that after serving his time in prison Robbie is fighting in the war and Briony has become a nurse helping the wounded. The book then ends with Briony as an old woman writing a book about her experience.

Overall I enjoyed the book and thought McEwan's style was reminiscent of Virginia Woolf's but with actual narrative drive that made me want to find out what would happen next. The only sequence that took me out of the story was when Briony receives a letter from a publisher that critiques a story of hers that was apparently "the first draft" of the first part of the book that ends before Briony commits her crime. It seemed kind of weird to suddenly have bit of a 'meta' moment in the middle of this story. Anyway, I'll give this one an A.

Also it mentions Emma.

Book # 48 Remembrance of Things Past (Part 7 of 7)- The Past Recaptured by Marcel Proust

I'm finally finished with Remembrance of Things Past! Hooray - no more Proust for me! I'm so glad to be done with this book I feel like celebrating!

So in this final book not much happens at all. In the first half the Narrator talks about different peoples' opinions on World War One and just briefly mentions that he was in a sanatorium for some time. The second half of the book just kind of meanders about and he touches on several topics and talks about getting reacquainted with the people from the book later on in his life. There is quite a bit of musing about getting older. There is also a very interesting sequence about how chance plays such a large part in life and how the offhand remark of a friend or acquaintance can alter the direction your life goes. This is something I often think about so I could relate to what he was saying. At one point he also mentions Madame Bovary.

I'm so glad to finish that I'll give this one a B-.

Should you read the book or see the movie? Part 6

Part six of whether or not I preferred the movie or the book of things I've recently read...

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan vs. The 39 Steps (1935 film)-  I've gotta say that I was disappointed with the book and while it isn't his best movie, Hitchcock's film version is still pretty good. Verdict: See the movie.

Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald vs. Fletch (1985 film) - The book was really fun so I was disappointed when I finally saw the film version and realized how unfunny Chevy Chase can be at times. The book was both funny and serious and the film was neither. Verdict: Read the book.

Dune by Frank Herbert vs. Dune (1984 film) vs. Dune (2000 mini-series) - Dune is a pretty dense book with a lot of stuff going on. Trying to condense it into a single film is probably impossible. At least the movie has some good performances and David Lynch makes it memorably weird at times. The mini-series is a bit more faithful to the book but the production just looks too cheesy at times to take seriously. Verdict: Read the book.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling vs. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009 film) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 (2010 films) - Verdict: Read the book and see the movies.

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler vs. The Big Sleep (1946 film) - Both the book and film are rightly considered classics but I have to give an edge to the book. Verdict: Read the book and see the movie.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre vs Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011 film) - A few years after seeing the movie I realized I couldn't really remember too much of it even though I remember thinking that it was okay. The book is okay if a bit dull. Verdict: Umm... either or neither

Book # 15 Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Going into Lord of the Flies I remembered that I had to read it in high school and that I really enjoyed it. Then I got to thinking about the different book covers I had seen for it.... and then it hit me... I had actually read this book a second time sometime after college. I had totally forgotten that I still owned a copy of this book from before we started this project. The only thing that reminded me was the memory of the cover of a really old paperback copy I found at a used book store. That got me thinking about how boring most of the book covers are that I see at book stores now. Anyway about Lord of the Flies...

A bunch of English children get stuck on an island and they slowly turn into savages.  The end.

Reading it again it reminded me a bit of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I'll have to keep this in mind when I eventually reread that book for this project. The whole books seems filled with possible essay topics... that's probably why everyone has to read it in high school. Still I enjoyed it for what it is and if somehow you haven't read it already I'd recommend it. I'll give it an A.

This is the cover I remember from high school... memorable and hints at the overall story.

The cover of the version I read... ok I guess.

The cover of the old used copy I had... it hints at the themes and emotions without any trace of the plot of the book... probably my favorite cover for this book.

Book # 48 Remembrance of Things Past (Part 6 of 7)- The Sweet Cheat Gone by Marcel Proust

I can't wait to be done with Remembrance of Things Past.. This volume picks up right after the last one with Albertine having broken up with the narrator. He spends the first 100 pages or so obsessing over Albertine's possible affairs and trying to figure out how to get her back. She writes him about reconciling but his response is to say no in the hopes that she begs him to come back. Yeah I'm tired of this guy. So then *spoiler* he receives word that Albertine has died in an accident and still he mostly obsesses about her past affairs and sends a friend out to investigate whether or not they happened. He then spends the last half of the book talking about whatever happened to Gilberte... and her story isn't particularly interesting. Well only one more to go... C+.

Book # 92 - The Ambassadors by Henry James

The most positive thing that I can say about Henry James' The Ambassadors is that I liked it more than the last couple list books I've read (The Captive and To the Lighthouse). Still.... it isn't a book that I'd really recommend.

The book follows a man, Strether, as he goes to Europe in the hopes of talking his fiance's son, Chad, into returning to America. However he sees that the young man has been improved by living in Europe and the good influence of a woman that he has met there. Strether also begins to feel that he's wasted his life so far and that he would be better off in Europe also. So then he must decide if he should really try and convince Chad into returning or not and what effect this would have on his own engagement.

The book started out kind of interesting and established the main plot quickly, but then it just started to drag and go over the same stuff over and over. By the end I was pretty bored with it. Basically imagine the plot of The Talented Mr. Ripley but replace the sociopath with a well mannered widower. Yeah... that isn't quite as interesting now. I'll give it a B-.

Book # 48 Remembrance of Things Past (Part 5 of 7)- The Captive by Marcel Proust

I've had enough of this book series.... Volume one I enjoyed. Even volume two was interesting. But it just goes on and on and on and nothing happens in volumes three four and five. It has not been a fun read. Sure some passages are really thought provoking and beautiful but it is surrounded by so much inconsequential stuff that I don't care. In this volume the first 250 pages are so is just the narrator thinking about how jealous and suspicious he is of his girlfriend... even though he is pretty sure that he doesn't even love her. The next 150 pages is just the narrator talking about his friends lives which is boring because they are all pretty unlikable and are mean to each other. The last 150 pages or so is just him and his girlfriend arguing and finally breaking up. I'm dreading the last two volumes... C+. On a side note the book mentions both War and Peace and Crime and Punishment.

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

I've always been a bit curious about Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. There are just so many of them though that it makes it look kind of intimidating to dive into. So after reading a couple of interesting articles on the Onion's AV Club (one of which served as a handy guide on where to start and the other comparing the author to Kurt Vonnegut) I figured I'd give one a shot.... And you know I liked it. The series is set in this fantasy world called Discworld but the books follow several different characters. This particular book, Guards! Guards!, is about the City Watch of Discworld. Basically they are the bumbling police of the city that nobody pays any attention. In an attempt at a political coup someone magically summons a dragon so that it can be slayed by someone pretending to be a descendant of an old lineage of kings who would then act as a puppet king for the person that summoned the dragon. However things go wrong and the City Watch has to figure out a way to save the city. I laughed several times which must mean that I liked it. Sometime soon I'll have to try reading another book from the series... this one gets a B+.

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

This is the second time I've read Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert and my opinion pretty much remains the  same. It is a bit of a weird book in that the first Dune book is full of action as it follows Paul Atreides from a teenage boy to leader of the Fremen people to inter-galactic emperor, while in the second book Paul does very little even though he is the ruler of pretty much everything and has led a jihad across the galaxy that has killed billions of people. The book starts out twelve years after the previous book and follows a plot that attempts to get rid of Paul by various factions that have it in for him. It actually seems like a bit of a bummer since it mostly shows how the ending of the first book wasn't really all that happy after all and now Paul has to deal with remaining emperor and his life really doesn't turn out all that great. Still I enjoyed it even though it is nowhere close to being as awesome as the first book. At least this time while reading it I knew that much of the book is really just setup for what follows in the series. B+

Book # 22 - To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Much like Mrs. Dalloway, I don't really know what to make of To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. The book is written in a stream of consciousness that flows between the emotions and actions of various characters as they go about their day. There is some lovely writing here but I couldn't really get that into it... mostly because I can't really figure out what it is about. Plot-wise very little goes on, a kid bugs his parents about wanting to visit a lighthouse, his dad is kind of mean about it and they have some guests over and have dinner, then years later they actually make a trip out to the lighthouse and nothing else really happens except someone paints a picture. Maybe I need to do some in-depth studying of it to figure it out but it just doesn't appeal to me enough to make that effort. I'll say it is a B-.

Oh yeah, the book also mentions Middlemarch and Anna Karenina.

Horror Book # 5 - 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I hadn't been planning on reading 'Salem's Lot anytime soon, but the other day I was playing around with the LAPL website and discovered how easy it was to check out books for the Kindle... so I figured I should try one out to see how well it worked.

'Salem's Lot is Stephen King's second book and has all of the usual tropes that show up in his later works... the protagonist is a writer, it is set in a small Maine town, characters have psychic flashes, a child plays an important role, etc... This time the story centers on vampires and how they are able to take over a remote town in just a few days. And these aren't the romanticized type of vampires, these are the violent bloodthirsty kind. There are quite a few scary scenes and I was surprised at how willing King was at killing off characters throughout. He also builds tension up very well in the first half of the book when the town suffers a rash of disappearances and accidents and no one yet suspects that it may be the work of something evil.  I enjoyed the book overall but I could have used a bit more characterization of the main vampire. I feel like King didn't really explore his motivations very much or try to give his actions any justification.

While reading it I couldn't quit thinking of the book as a small town version of They Thirst by Robert McCammon which came out a few years later. Maybe because that book was set in Los Angeles I liked it a bit more... I'll give 'Salem's Lot a B+.

William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher

William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher is pretty much exactly what you'd think it would be.. The story of Star Wars as if it were written in iambic pentameter by William Shakespeare. It was interesting but for a short read I started to get tired of the gimmick about half way through. It doesn't really add much new insight into Star Wars either and doesn't stray much from the scenes from the film. Not surprisingly the best parts are the few times that the author adds scenes or commentary not found in the movie such as the discussion between the two guys guarding the Millennium Falcon on the Death Star and the frequent asides to the audience that R2-D2 uses to voice what he is really saying. I'll give this a B-.

Book # 65 & Sci-Fi Book # 1- Dune by Frank Herbert

Dune is one of may favorite books, so even though this was the third time I've read it I still greatly enjoyed it. I'd have to agree that it is easily one of the greatest science fiction books of all time.

Explaining the plot succinctly is a bit problematic. The book centers on the desert planet Arrakis which is the only source for the spice melange, a drug like substance that can improve someones health and for some give extrasensory perception (which is necessary for someone to pilot a spacecraft). The political system is a sort of intergalactic feudalism and the Emperor has awarded the working of Arrakis to the House Atreides after removing the House Harkonnen from the planet. But really the whole thing is a set up to get rid of Atreides because the Emperor fears that they are becoming too powerful. When the Harkonnens make their play to invade Arrakis and remove the Duke Leto Atreides from power, his son Paul Atreides is able to escape into the desert and take refuge with the native population of the planet, the Fremen. Paul is seen as someone who fulfills a prophecy to lead the Fremen and he sets out to regain control of the planet from the Harkonnens. And I should mention that there are giant worms that roam the deserts of Arrakis.

The whole world that Herbert describes is very well thought out and everything has a back-story that is only hinted at. The book even has a fairly lengthy glossary of terms that are unique to the book. Given the massive amount of world building that goes on in the first half of the book, the book almost feels short even though it is over 500 pages long since the story continues zipping along and never really lets up. I could easily imagine the same story taking up twice the number of pages. Thankfully there is a whole series of books that follow. I had read most of the original Dune books by Herbert before, but now I feel like I need to reread them all and actually get to the end of the series this time. This is one of those books that you can't recommend highly enough to someone that loves science fiction - A+.

Horror Book # 22 Books of Blood Clive Barker Volume 3 of 6

Volume 3 of Clive Barker's Books of Blood is pretty much more of the same... but in a good way. I definitely liked it more than volume 2. Each of the five stories was unique and most of them had unexpected twists and turns and all of them had some extremely gory parts. Rawhead Rex was a straightforward monster roaming the countryside story that still had some nice twists. Human Remains had an unexpected twist about a statue slowly coming to life and taking over someones identity. And Son of Celluloid was a great story about a haunted movie theater. There were also good stories about a possessed white sheet (which is kinda funny since it looks like a cheap "ghost") and another one about a mysterious island of dead bodies. I'll give this collection an A-.

Sci-Fi Book # 36 - Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

It feels a bit weird that Cat's Cradle is included on the Sci-Fi list. It doesn't really feel like science fiction but I guess technically it is because it deals with a new invention that pretty much ends up destroying the planet. Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors and this is one his best book, so of course I loved it. Like most Vonnegut books the story is a bit absurd... it is narrated by a man that is writing a book about one of the (fictional) inventors of the atom bomb. However he gets sidetracked and after learning about the peculiarities of the man's family he ends up visiting a small island nation where the inventor's children are all at. Through a series of unfortunate events this ends up leading to the destruction of most life on Earth. I feel like that description barely scratches the surface of what the book is about... I'd just recommend that you read it. I didn't even mention Bokononism which is a major part of the book... It gets an A.

Book # 50 Harry Potter (Book 7 of 7) - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

I can't believe it took me almost two years to reread all of the Harry Potter books... For such a long series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wraps up everything pretty nicely and is a satisfying conclusion. Some thoughts after rereading it  - I had completely forgotten that Lupin and Tonks die in the final battle; it is still sad when Dobby gets killed; and the epilogue remains a bit cheesy. I enjoyed the book, it was definitely better than the previous book but not quite as good as books 4 and 5. At times it seems as if Rowling was rushed to finish the book since it lacks the charm and whimsical descriptions that are in the previous books. This time the plot is the main reason to keep reading it. I'll give this one an A-. 

Horror Book # 22 Books of Blood Clive Barker Volume 2 of 6

Maybe reading the first volume of Books of Blood desensitized me a bit, but it seemed like the second volume was a bit less shocking. Overall I still enjoyed the collection and each of the stories was interesting but not quite as memorable as the ones from the first volume... except for the last story - New Murders in the Rue Morgue... which was every bit as crazy and unexpected as one could hope for. It basically adds on to Poe's classic story as a sorta sequel and adds a new layer to it. I'll give volume 2 of  Clive Barker's Books of Blood a B.

Mystery Book # 7 - The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, is one of the first real "mystery" novels of its time. It has a bunch of the things that show up in the mystery genre -  someone playing detective, a bunch of suspects, and an explanation at the end of how the crime was committed. The mystery here is the disappearance of a giant diamond that a young English woman receives as an inheritance on her 18th birthday. Is it one of her two possible suitors? A maid? A visiting doctor? Or even a group of Indians that worship the stone?

The story is told from different points of view, so having different narrators as the story went along kept it interesting. Overall I really enjoyed it and was surprised how modern of a book it felt for something over 160 years old. My only minor quibble is that it is a bit longer than it really needs to be. I highly recommend it for anyone that likes nineteenth century English literature or a good mystery. A.

Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt

So I think I'm going to try something slightly different with the entries for this blog.... I'm going to keep myself to a five minute time limit for the first draft and then maybe three minutes to clean it up and add a picture. When I first started the blog I could spend almost an hour on an entry and eventually I took less and less time... And it isn't like anyone is really even reading this, I'm just finding it a useful tool to keep track of the books I've read and what I briefly thought of them at the time. So, that now leaves me with two minutes on the clock to say something about Silver Screen Fiend.... I thought it was okay. I wanted to read it because the author talks about how he became addicted to seeing movies at the New Beverly Cinema... which is a pretty cool place to see movies. His stories were funny but the book also had a lot about his early career as a comedian which really wasn't all that interesting and I'd have liked more thoughts about the movies themselves. Anyway, time's up, I'll give it a B-.

Horror Book # 22 Books of Blood Clive Barker Volume 1 of 6

When I was a kid I vaguely remember someone having a volume of Books of Blood and saying that it was super scary and they couldn't even sleep with the book in the same room. I'm thinking it was this book but maybe not... anyway that was what I went into thinking before reading the first volume. And for the most part it is a scary book... even more so than the Stephen King I've read. I really enjoyed the stories... they were all pretty varied and had different types of scares. Three of the stories stick out as being the best... one was about a serial killer on the subway, another about a demon that tries to destroy a normal guy (it is actually played for laughs and is comedic) and one that ended up being about a possessed pig that does horrible stuff. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the volumes, this one gets an A-.

Book # 148 & Mystery Book # 8 - The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Ahhh.... The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler  - one of my favorite books. Rereading it was so much fun. This is the first book in the Phillip Marlowe series and it is the defining classic of the hard boiled detective genre. Chandler describes things like no one else... here's a link to some of the best lines from the book https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1222673-the-big-sleep.  There are some classic lines in there...

The plot involves Marlowe investigating a blackmail case which quickly escalates to multiple murder cases involving a whole bunch of criminals all around Los Angeles. What I hadn't noticed the first time I had read it is that one of the murders is actually never solved and Marlowe seems to forget all about it by the end. Apparently Chandler was asked about this when they were preparing the script for the movie and Chandler hadn't realized his mistake! So who killed the chauffeur? We'll never know.  It is the kind of book where the details of the plot aren't the most important thing to keep track of...

This book stays in my top 50 of all time... I highly recommend it even if you really aren't all that into mystery books. A+.

Mystery Book # 30 -Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

For a spy novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a bit boring but overall okay. Maybe having seen the movie ruined it a bit for me since I knew how it ended. It is basically about a former spy having to return to duty to investigate his former division to see which of the head members is actually a Russian mole. There really isn't that much action... most of the book is the main guy Smiley reading through old papers and interviewing people. He's described as an old short fat guy too... so this isn't a James Bond type of adventure. I'll give it a B.

Mystery Book # 98 - The Steam Pig by James McClure

The Steam Pig starts out promisingly. The book is set in South Africa and was written during the 1970's so it has a pretty unique setting for a mystery book. The main characters are a white cop, Kramer, and his African assistant, Zondi. Together they solve crimes and have to deal with apartheid in every aspect of their lives. But besides the initial premise of the series, the book doesn't have much else going for it. The crime they have to solve is pretty routine (the murder of a young woman) and most of the secondary characters are fairly uninteresting. Even the eventually revealed motive for the murder isn't that unique. It wasn't a bad book though... just average. C+