Remember when I said I was going to revise my resolution to be one book a week on average? I'm invoking that again. I read Arthur C. Clarke's The Hammer of God at the end of February, and I'm going to write a little about it now because I didn't finish a book this week. ^^;

The Hammer of God is about a giant asteroid named Kali that is on a trajectory that will bring it to impact Earth. It is shaped like a dumbbell, or hammer, hence the title. The story follows a spaceship crew which tries to nudge the asteroid into a path that will miss Earth. I enjoyed the book, and felt it was an archetypical science fiction novel. It's exactly the sort of scifi I like - it's set in the future, space travel is prevalent, and it says a little about society.

On that note, there were several instances where Clarke writes about religion and it really struck me. One in particular was that given a virgin birth, the baby should be female. Random, but it just appealed to me.

The ending was not what I expected, but I won't say anything about it here. ^.~

After I finished the book I felt like it reminded me a bit of Rendezvous with Rama. I liked "Rama" better though, because it had aliens (if somewhat indirectly). That gave it a more exotic flavor that had me more excited. Although The Hammer of God was more suspenseful I think, but not so much as to be a suspense novel.

And...I just realized both were written by Arthur C. Clarke. So maybe it was the style of writing that tickled my memory. Although it's true both are about objects hurtling towards Earth, and humans going over and checking them out.

And now I feel like rereading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Tia was asking me my favorite book the other day. In high school, my answer was always The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but now it's been ages since I read it and I can't even quite recall the plot. And all this talk about societal science fiction is pushing me toward it again. Maybe I'll skim through it tonight...

When I first saw the title "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," I was intrigued. I always judge books by their covers, and titles. I instantly wanted to read this book, even though I had no idea what it was about. Then, for Christmas, Mike's mom gave it to me. At the time I had no idea how she knew I wanted to read it. I still don't know for sure, but now that I'm about halfway through, I think perhaps she knew a little of what it was about and thought I might enjoy it.

The novel is about a Chinese-American boy, Henry, who grows up in Seattle's International District during WWII. His best friend is a Japanese-American girl, whose family ends up being sent to an internment camp. The book jumps between 1942 (his childhood) and 1986, where a stash of Japanese artifacts is found in an old boarded up building. Henry enlists the help of his now-grown son to help him look for items that once belonged to his friend.

I've just reached a chapter called "Uwajimaya," and it tickles me that I recognize many of the places that are mentioned in the book. And the story hasn't fallen short of the title yet either.

My first taste of fiction about women in the Bible was with Orson Scott Card's "Women of Genesis" series. I read and adored all three: Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel and Leah. There's something oddly comfortable about them, even though I'm not all that familiar with the Bible, and obviously the lives that these women lead are far removed from our present day lives. Maybe it's a mark of the author's skill that the women seem so relatable. Or maybe life just has innate qualities that transcend time.

Anyway, then a friend recommended Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. The story is centered around Dinah, the daughter of Leah. Diamant had a different interpretation of Leah's story than Orson Scott Card, but it didn't distract me or keep me from enjoying the bok.

Yesterday, I finished reading Rebecca Kohn's The Gilded Chamber. I picked it up from the "free table" at Mike's apartment complex; presumably somebody was moving out and didn't want all their books.
On the cover is a quotation from a review: "Evokes Anita Diamant's The Red Tent and Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha." Both books that I very much enjoyed. On the back, another review excerpt mentions Orson Scott Card's Sarah, and The Red Tent again. And so I was encouraged.

The Gilded Chamber is a story that expands the Bible story of Esther. I'm not sure if I was disappointed because the reviews had me hyped up and excited, or if it just isn't as well-written. I thought the story was interesting, I recognized the Bible story beneath the fiction. But I just wasn't impressed somehow.

I just found out that Kohn has another Bible-related book called Seven Days to the Sea. I'd be interested in reading it, and am willing to give her a second chance, but I'm not going to get my hopes up.

I stayed up til 3a reading this last night. From the very beginning it captured me. I recommended it to my dad, and when he asked me what it was about, I realized that nothing had really happened yet. But still, something about it made me adore it.

There was a real sense of anxiety towards the end. I knew something was coming from all the pages before, and I knew it had to come soon because I was running out of pages after. I knew some of the details, because the author had skillfully shared them, but I knew there was more, much more.

I think, pondering it now, that it may have been Owen's unshakeable faith that comforted me, and made me feel attached to the book from the outset.

Compelling. Strangely moving. And a plot I hadn't expected.
A strange combination of mystery and suspense, as my dad recently defined for me.

I read The Once and Future King awhile back, and I did enjoy it. I remember being surprised at how contemporary the style sounded, that being T.H. White's interpretation of Merlyn. Then in the interim, I read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon which had a more serious tone, and a completely different point of view. So going back to T.H. White once more was a bit startling.

This book has a couple anecdotes that were apparently published out of context in The Once and Future King, and I did recognize them, but they were fun to reread. Quite an interesting view of society and humankind as a whole, I think. I always did enjoy the parts of "The Sword in the Stone" where Merlin changed Wart into different animals for "educational purposes." At the time it was just funny to see how a person in an animal's body reacts to seeing the world in a different way. But after reading about Arthur's episode as a goose again...
Maybe because I'm older now. The emphasis is no longer on the "person being in an animal's body," but on the "reacts to seeing the world in a different way."

I saw this movie on TV awhile back. I remember when it first came out I thought it looked cute, but the art was a bit different and it didn't draw me in. The movie turned out to be as cute as expected, and after reading the book I'd say they stayed pretty true to the original story.

Despereaux is a disappointment to his mother, a worry to his father, and an embarrassment to his siblings. After breaking all the rules of mousedom, he ends up on a quest to rescue the girl he loves.

The story is simple and neat. It has short, complete chapters where the narrator speaks directly to the reader that makes me feel like it would be good for a bedtime story in installments. It was a Newberry Medal winner. What else can I say?

If you think you're too old for the book, grab your favorite girl-friend and watch the movie instead.

I was wandering around the library last week after picking up the books I had on my list. Really I was just scanning the shelves on the way to the checkout machine. A book that was propped up on a stand caught my eye because of its title: Many and Many A Year Ago.

It reminded me of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Annabel Lee."
I picked the book up and flipped it over. I was delighted to read that the book was indeed related to Poe.

It turns out that the author wrote the book in Turkish, and it was later translated into the English version that I found. The story was not at all what I expected. I think I expected a parallel between the plot and the poem. Instead, the main character has a story all his own, completely unrelated to the poem, but with some similarities to the feeling of Poe's works in general. He's then sent on various adventures by an "Edgar Allan Poe-obsessed benefactor."

The ending was a bit odd and surprising. You think that the over-arching mystery of the "mysterious benefactor" has been solved, but then it doesn't go on to explain the details. It simply moves on with the story of the main character. So you end up feeling like the mystery is both solved and unsolved, which I suppose is also appropriate, given the uncomfortable nature of most of Poe's stories. Somehow it doesn't feel unresolved, perhaps because it ends so neatly.

Not quite sure how I feel about the book. And not sure I'll be pondering it either. Perhaps it'll just end up being one of those things that comes and goes and you just don't question it.

So I have a list from NPR of the Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books. My cousins and I marked off the books that we read, and together we've covered a good chunk. I thought that I might as well chip away at this list, and glanced through the list of books that none of us had ever read. There were quite a few books by Neil Gaiman, and although I had made it a point to put Gaiman on my to-read list, I'd never gotten around to it. The Sandman series were my primary concern, as I'd heard vague, good things about it. But I was too lazy last week to figure out what the actual books in the series were called, so I just searched up some of Gaiman's other titles on the library website. After finding that most of them had quite long request waitlists, I stumbled upon one that was immediately available:
Stardust: Being a Romance Within the Realms of Faerie.

I was surprised to find that it was an illustrated volume. Apparently this book, and Stardust are different works. I'm not quite sure how they're related, but I suppose I'll find out when I get around to reading the other one.

As for this book, it's a neat story with lovely illustrations by Charles Vess. The world described reminded me of the Sabriel by Garth Nix: a town in "our world" that borders a magical world behind a wall. When the wind blows from across the wall, various mysterious things occur. The magical world reminded me a little of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. But I think those are common legends of faeries (do not take anything from them, do not consume their food or drink, the powers of your "true name," effect of iron, etc.) that I just happened to encounter in Butcher's novels first.

It definitely piqued my interest, has me wondering about Stardust, and has given me a taste of Gaiman, so that I'm relatively confident that I'll enjoy his other (longer?) works.

I woke up and saw a dark spot on the carpet. I didn't remember leaving my jacket on the ground so I got off the bed to figure out what it was, and it turned out to be Monty laying there. I put out my hand and stroked his head. He sat up and gave a throaty cough and then lay down again. I thought to myself it was a good sign that he was laying down, because when dogs are coughing and they sit up all the time it means they're having trouble clearing their lungs of fluid.

Then I realized that Monty was already dead, and so I must be in a dream. So I scratched his ears again and I got up and walked away toward the window. But I was glad I got to pet him one last time because that day at the hospital when he was in the oxygen cage, I had only waved to him and mouthed his name cheerfully. I gave up my chance to pet him. And then afterward when we went to see his body, I didn't want to touch him. He just looked like he was sleeping and I wanted to imagine that he was still warm and soft. And I was afraid if I touched him he'd be cold.

But in my dream he was warm.

I was having a discussion with some friends a week or so ago about books, and Cream recommended that I read something by Chuck Palahniuk. I can't remember what exactly was said, but I want to say that she just thought I would enjoy something by him based on what she knew/thought of my personality. And I recommended Tom Robbins to her.

I went to the website of my local library and searched for Chuck Palahniuk and it came up with a few books, but most of them were checked out already. I scrolled down until I found one that was available and put a hold on it: Tell-All.
I have to say that I've never heard of Chuck Palahniuk before. He apparently has several books out, including one called Fight Club which I think is actually related to the popular movie starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

In any case, I've just finished reading Tell-All and I have to say that it was very...unexpected. The "Tourette's syndrome" style of boldfacing various proper nouns was very distracting, and it was only about halfway through before I could really get into the story. Once I settled in though, it was quite engaging. And at the end I closed the book and thought that it fit into my idea of Cream, and that the book had turned out to be decently entertaining.

I'd be interested in reading Fight Club, and I'm willing to try out another Palahniuk novel in the near future. I just hope the boldface isn't his signature styles, because it really is a bit irritating.

I wonder if Cream picked up a Tom Robbins novel, and what she thought of it. It turns out that this Palahniuk novel has a few similarities to the Tom Robbins books that I like too...