Books

Book 417: A Knight of the Word (Word & Void #2) – Terry Brooks

Picking up five years after the action in Running with the Demon, A Knight of the Word takes off at a fast pace and keeps going. If you could skip the first book of the Word & Void trilogy I would recommend it. This one was a huge step forward and I think the 80 fewer pages in this book were all description from the first book, making this one better. I mean you should read both, but know if you make it through the first one, you’ve got this great one to look forward to!

I wasn’t sure how I would like this book with the five years between the two stories and taking the action away from Nest and putting it solely on John Ross. Brooks didn’t let me down though, the story moved quickly to include Nest. It was a bit sad hearing about everything that happened since the end of Running with the Demon, but it was great to be back in the world again so quickly.

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Books

Book 413: The Emperor’s Soul – Brandon Sanderson

DAMN you Mormons and your great Science Fiction/Fantasy! That’s about 25% fact and 75% unadulterated conjecture. Before I go into that (you can skip the next two paragraphs if you’re not interested), funny story: I kept thinking of this as some weird hybrid of the story as it happened and The Emperor’s New Clothes. My mind is weird.

Now, Mormons. Seriously though, why does it seem like there are so many Mormon’s who tell great stories in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genres: Jeff Wheeler, Orson Scott Card, Stephenie Meyer (coughstory teller, still not a great writercough) and now Brandon Sanderson. I’m not the first to ponder religion and writing adn I know I won’t be the last. I know for me it raises a big dilemma of ethics/politics when I chose to read an author who actively believes/participates in a religion which negates/actively works against something I identify with. Do I purchase their novels and have my, what ultimately ends up being fractions of pennies, support their religion through tithing, or do I boycott the author because of their churches stance?

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Books

Book 406: The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) – Jasper Fforde

I wanted to love this a lot more than I did, but that being said I did really enjoy it. I picked this one up back in May of last year at the bi-annual Friends of the Library book sale. I then almost immediately picked up Lost In A Good Book and even more recently (as in this past weekend), picked up the next three in the Thursday Next series: The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten and First Among Sequels! Friends have told me that the series get betters and I’m clearly hoping that happens as I’ve bought through the fifth book in the series.

I think where I struggled with getting into this one was the world building. The world of Thursday Next is a fascinating place full of mystery, technology and a love of literature I would jump into in a heartbeat, war and all.

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Books

Book 404: The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (Paula Spencer #1) – Roddy Doyle

After seeing someone else post about Doyle recently, I decided I needed to bump this one up my list. It’s been on my shelf since December 2012 when I picked it up at the Harvard Bookstore Warehouse Sale. I had no idea it was a two book series until I started this one and Goodreads had the convenient link to the other book, Paula Spencer, which I will read at some point.

Let’s start by saying that if I judged Ireland solely by the books I read it would be full of gays, wars, alcoholics and abuse. For some reason, perhaps it’s that chip on Ireland’s shoulder, but every single book I’ve read set in Ireland deals with the darker side of humanity. And as much as I know this isn’t true, it makes me wonder what else is out there in Ireland because it can’t all be this depressing!

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Books

Book 400: The Dante Club – Matthew Pearl

And another TBR bites the dust! This book has been hanging out on my bookshelves since December of 2012 when I picked it up at one of my favorite used bookstores, Edward McKay, back in NC. More importantly, it is the 26th book from my TBR shelves this year. How awesome is that? That’s more than 1/3 of all the books I’ve read this year and I am incredibly happy and proud of that number.

I don’t know why I put off reading The Dante Club for so long. Maybe it was in some sort of effort to actually read all of Dante’s Divine Comedy before I read it, but that obviously hasn’t happened. The other thing that has left me wondering since I finished it , and honestly since I started it, is I can’t quite put my finger on why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I feel I should have.

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