Recently Read (June 2006 - July 2006)

Here's a list of the books I've read in the last two months, (that haven't already been reviewed by me), with an Amazon-style star rating and a few comments.

• Inversions - Scott Kim
  A truly wonderful book showing the early work of Scott Kim

  I even spent some time trying (and failing miserably) to invert "duncan" for my son. You think it should have been relatively easy. Maybe I'll meet Scott sometime and he'll take pity on me.

• Wilderness - Robert B. Parker
  A non-Spenser novel. Not so good but still readable. It felt almost like Parker was still honing his craft when he wrote this.

• Voodoo River - Robert Crais
  An earlier Elvis Cole novel. It filled in a few of the gaps for me too.

• The Art of Game Worlds - Dave Morris and Leo Hartas
  Stunning visuals from virtual worlds found in some of the top computer games. Good coffee table book for the techno geek.

• When the Sacred Ginmill Closes - Lawrence Block
  I couldn't relate to the main protagonist, so I was all ready to give this 3 stars as yet another well written but run-of-the-mill PI novel. Then I came to the ending. The last 5-6 pages, and the unexpected (at least for me) plot change just blew me away and I upped my rating accordingly. Maybe that's what Matthew Scuder is like and I just need to read a few more in the series.

• No More Dying Then - Ruth Rendell
• Sins of the Fathers - Ruth Rendell
• Unkindness of Ravens - Ruth Rendell
  My mini Inspector Wexford binge. All very enjoyable. Also interesting to see how Rendell's style has had to adapt to the demands of longer novels from her publishers. She does seem to have lost the tight pacing of her earlier (shorter) Wexford novels.

• The White House Mess - Christopher Buckley
  I'm bias. I love this man's work. The tongue in cheek humour. I recommend anything written by him, including the book of the recent film.

• Hubble - A New Window to the Universe - Fischer and Duerbeck
  Something I picked up at a library book sale for $3.00. Nice images. A bit dated now. I wonder how many "facts" have been changed/adjusted.

• The Da Vinci Cod - Don Brine
  A parody, "in the style of Bored of the Rings". Pythonesque humour indeed. Hah! Save your money. Read something else.

• The Family Trade (The Merchant Princes - Book 1) - Charles Stross
  Recommended by a friend at work. Different enough to make it interesting, so that I want to read the other two books in the series. Lots of plot potential here.

• The System of the World - Neal Stephenson
  And last but not least, the book that it feels like I've been reading on-and-off for the last six months (oh wait, I have).

  It took me ages to get into this third volume of the Baroque Cycle. It wasn't until about half way through the seventh book when things started happening at "The Same Time", that it got interesting.

  The pace also varies so much. Twenty pages to pontificate on something that another author would have over and done with in a couple paragraphs. But that's part of what makes a Stephenson novel so enjoyable (if you've got the patience).

  He also makes history come alive. Now if only I could separate the fact from the fiction.

  I wonder what he's working on now. I see they are re-releasing his earlier work with his Uncle under the name of Stephen Bury. Makes me think he's been working on something else that's going to be huge.

Similar posts:
[May 2005 - Jun 2005]
[Jul 2005 - Sep 2005]
[Oct 2005 - Nov 2005]
[Dec 2005 - Jan 2006]
[Feb 2006 - Mar 2006]
[April 2006 - May 2006]

[Technorati Tag: Books]

( Jul 26 2006, 10:54:32 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [2]