Later by Stephen King

The other week I realized that I've read at least one Stephen King book every year that I've done this blog. Well the streak continues in 2021. Later isn't his best work but for a shorter casual read you could do a lot worse. Will I remember the details in a few years? No... but I did enjoy reading it. Let's say it gets a B.

Book # 23 - The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 Somehow The Brothers Karamazov wasn't quite what I was expecting. For such a long book I expected a huge epic story and that really isn't what it is. Anyway, I still enjoyed it, maybe because I had no idea what it was about before I started. I'll say it gets an A but I'm not sure if I've really processed the book enough in my mind after finishing it yet. It was nice to finally take the book off the shelf and read it too - way back when we first started this blog my mom got me a really nice copy of the book for Christmas and it had just been sitting on the shelf for eight years. She was probably the only person that ever read this blog so I'm sure she's probably up in heaven somewhere glad that I finally got around to reading the book she gave me.

Book # 53 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

 
Yep, I still have my copy of Heart of Darkness that I had to read multiple times in both high school and college. This particular copy has all of my notes from studying it - so I guess it was worth keeping all these years. A

Star Wars: The High Republic- Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule

 
Not really much to say about Light of the Jedi. I liked it well enough that I'll probably read the next book in the series, but not so much that I'd go out and recommend it to anyone that isn't a Star Wars die-hard fan. Let's say a B.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

 

First off I enjoyed this book... let's say an A-. But it makes me think about what an author does between book releases. This is only Clarke's second novel and it comes 15 years after her previous (and quite excellent and very long) one. So I'm sure that the previous book was successful enough so that she could be a full time author... but if this book is the result of all that time what does she do most days? I'm genuinely curious. Hopefully her third book comes soon.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

Every once in a while it is nice to just get a book/author recommendation and go ahead and read it right away instead of filing it into my internal "to read someday" list (which is always growing). So my uncle recommended the books of Lois McMaster Bujold and I picked up Falling Free to give her a shot. Overall I enjoyed it - maybe partially because I hadn't read a sci-fi book in awhile. And like most good sci-fi it tells a story about relevant topics (in this case the rights of a subjugated group and standing up to make a difference within an impersonal corporation). Maybe if I get a chance I'll read the next book in the series. B+

Book # 68 - The Portrait of a Lady - by Henry James

 

Well I guess The Portrait of a Lady was okay... Let's say B+. It is probably one of those novels that is better if you really read it carefully and try to eek out as much as you can from the text. My main complaint is that it totally does not resolve the main issue from the second half of the novel. It just ends before the main character makes her choice of what to do next. ARGH!