Book # 51 - The Trial by Franz Kafka

Interesting thing about The Trial... Franz Kafka never wanted you to read it. He never even finished it. Before he died, Kafka asked a friend to burn all of his unpublished materials. But instead his friend read it and decided to publish it anyway. So I need to thank his friend for not letting The Trial be destroyed.

The story is about a man Joseph K that is arrested and placed on trial. What he's on trial for he can never find out though. Most of the book is Joseph going to different people to get advice on his trial and to find out what he is actually accused of. The book has a very dreamlike quality to it, or more accurately nightmarish. Characters show up out of nowhere and not everything makes logical sense. I guess it actually is the definition of Kafkaesque. The whole book has a very paranoid and anxious tone to it and Joseph gets nowhere in finding out anything the whole time despite people talking to him about the case.

Very weird and memorable. I'll have to see the film now. A+ - Highly recommended

Sci-fi Book # 15- The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Do you ever think that you've read a book or seen a movie before and then when you decide to revisit it none of it seems familiar and you come to the conclusion that you probably hadn't read that book or seen that movie before? Memory is a funny thing... So that was my experience with The Martian Chronicles. I know for sure I had the book as a teenager but maybe I never actually read it, but who knows... that was twenty years ago.

The Martian Chronicles is a series of science fiction short stories that chronicles a couple of decades in which mankind visits and then leaves Mars. At first I didn't really know what to think of the first couple stories. They obviously don't coincide with the reality of Mars and are either a bit cheesy or have a pulpy sci-fi feel to them. But then I began to see that while the stories tell a larger story, each one should be taken as their own entity and aren't really concerned with the other stories.

Basically Mars is populated by Martians that aren't that different from us (except for maybe some psychic powers). Mankind arrives and most the Martians are killed off by chicken pox. Mars is quickly populated by humans (the environment of Mars poses almost no problems), but when war breaks out on Earth everyone returns home. Mars is then left deserted and ruined.

Most of the stories seem to be parables of some sort. One is about censorship and is an homage to Poe, another is about racism and yet another seems to be about America's history of killing a native people. As a whole the book is strange and seems to be a bunch of different things. I loved that it isn't straightforward and is so unpredictable. Oh yeah, there's also a story about a man and a Martian ghost... I don't know what it was really about but I thought it was beautifully told. It gets an A.

Book # 50 Harry Potter (Book 6 of 7) - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is my least favorite Harry Potter book... That being said, I still really enjoyed it. The reason that it is my least favorite is that for the first 3/4 of the book there isn't much going on. This is the only book in which no one is really after Harry Potter and for the most part he has a pretty normal school year. The biggest plot points are that Harry finds a really useful used textbook and he is suspects that Malfoy is up to no good. There is also a bunch of time spent on Quidditch, Ron's new girlfriend and socialization with the new Potions professor. Fortunately the ending of the book is one of the best in the series and perfectly sets up the final book. This one gets an A-.

The Martian by Andy Weir

Despite having a ton of books to read already, I'm always on the lookout for new books. One of those new books is The Martian by Andy Weir. The story is simple -  an astronaut accidentally gets left behind on Mars and has to survive until NASA can figure out a way to rescue him. From the very beginning it looks like everything is stacked against the astronaut... and pretty much everything is. But he's a resourceful guy and is able to solve almost everything Mars throws at him. A few parts of the book are a bit technical, but overall the story really moved along and there are some exciting parts. It is kind of like Castaway on Mars. Hopefully the movie version will be just as fun. I'll give it an A-.

Mystery Book # 1 The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Book 3 of 9)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the first collection of short stories that feature Sherlock Holmes. Most of the stories are pretty similar in that they involve someone coming to Sherlock with some weird story or problem and Sherlock does some investigating and quickly solves it. The mysteries involve missing people, stolen items, murders, etc. I like Doyle's style and each of the stories was pretty interesting though none really stuck out as being better than any of the others. I also liked that the it was easy to read a complete story in a really short amount of time. I'll give this collection an A.

Should you read the book or see the movie? Part 5

The Lord of the Rings (1955) by J.R.R. Tolkien vs The Lord of the Rings films (2001-2003) - The book is one of my favorite of all time... and the movies are pretty darn good. While watching the movies you can really tell that Peter Jackson also loves the books. Verdict: Read the book and watch the films

Atlas Shrugged  (1957) by Ayn Rand vs Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 (2001 film)- To say I disliked the book is an understatement. I was ready to hate the movie but I really couldn't. I have to say Taylor Shilling gives a pretty good performance and the problem with the book really isn't the first third. Still I wouldn't recommend the movie either. Verdict: Avoid both.

David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens vs David Copperfield (1999 BBC mini-series) - The book has a ton of stuff in it and it would be pretty difficult to make a completely faithful adaptation. The BBC mini-series is pretty good and since Daniel Radcliffe plays young David it made me see the possible influence this book had on the Harry Potter series. Verdict : If you have the time read the book, but the mini series is good too.

Inherent Vice (2009) by Thomas Pynchon vs. Inherent Vice (2014 film) - For such a weird book, the film version does a great job of being very faithful to the novel. I enjoyed both so... Verdict: Read the book and see the movie.

The Exorcist (1971) by William Peter Blatty vs. The Exorcist (1973 film) - I enjoyed both versions of this. The movie is a classic and the book adds some depth to the secondary characters. Verdict : Both are great.

Perfume (1985) by Patrick Süskind vs. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006 film) -  The movie was pretty good and faithful to the book but the novel is just so creepy and gives more depth to the characters. Verdict : Read the book.

Jurassic Park (1990) by Michael Crichton vs Jurassic Park (1993 film) - The book has some problems: shallow characters, unnecessary subplots, too much emphasis on computer interfaces, etc. The film fixes most of these. Verdict : See the movie.

The Hellbound Heart (1986) by Clive Barker vs. Hellraiser (1987 film) - I enjoyed both and they are pretty similar but... Verdict: See the movie (if you like really weird scary movies).

Mystery Book # 22 The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

Lucinda and I are slowly watching every Alfred Hitchcock film in chronological order. One of his earlier films is based on The Thirty-Nine Steps, so I figured I'd read it before watching the movie. And I have to say that I don't see how this book ranked so high on this list... The plot is fairly simple. They guy, Richard Hannay, finds out about an international conspiracy and is then chased all over the English countryside by unknown people while he figures out what to do. Buchan's style is very plain and basically one thing after another happens to this guy and he just narrowly escapes everything. The main character isn't well developed and he just goes from situation to situation. The book is short but a lot of stuff happens so I felt like none of the scenes really had a chance to build up the suspense that could have been there. I'll give this one a B.