I'm not ignoring you. Okay, yes, I'm ignoring you.

[rose_griffes]

books read, Jan-July 2010
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne. No, I'd never read it before. It was... interesting. Hm. I may have more to post someday.

Labyrinth, Kate Mosse. A book that Dan Brown might have written, if he were deliberately trying to write more women characters. Medieval France, modern France, Holy Grail mythology and Egyptian mythology all thrown together in a mediocre book that was nonetheless interesting enough to keep me reading to the end.

Ender in Exile, Orson Scott Card. Card finally wrote a novel to fit between Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Young Andrew and Valentine aboard the ship carrying them to their first colony. An enjoyable read if you're hooked on the characters. Not so much intricate plotting as the other Andrew Wiggin books, but they had three novels of plot to carry.

Killer Dreams, Iris Johansen. Forgettable murder mystery, good for the distraction while reading it.
Tears of the Giraffe, Alexander McCall Smith. Mma Ramotswe!
Morality for Beautiful Girls, Alexander McCall Smith. More Mma Ramotswe! I need to read the next one.

Even Money, Dick and Felix Francis. I wasn't fond of the ending (as in the final sentence, really), but the rest was diverting.
Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold. So much love for this book! Well--so much love for Ista, the main character. I must get more of Bujold's novels.

re-read:
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card
Xenocide, OSC
Children of the Mind, OSC (not quite done re-reading, but close enough)
Sparked by reading Ender in Exile, obviously. Children of the Mind is one of my favorite books ever, so it doesn't take much. Anything related to Lusitania is fascinating, really. Plus has anyone else noticed that Novinha is a lot like Kara Thrace... if Kara were Brazilian Lusitanian, a mother of five brilliant children and a genuis xenobiologist. Heh.

Unrelated to the books, I'm belatedly announcing a mini-vacation for my livejournal. I've barely spent any time online in July so far, and looking ahead at my plans for the next few weeks, that's going to continue. I do still have at least two more posts I need to make in July, because of deadlines, but I'm not planning to do much reading of other livejournals. I'll catch up with y'all later!

Comments

[ivanolix.livejournal.com]

Plus has anyone else noticed that Novinha is a lot like Kara Thrace... if Kara were Brazilian Lusitanian, a mother of five brilliant children and a genuis xenobiologist. Heh.

LOL. But yes, I did think that when I was reading the books. ;-) Perhaps like a mixture of Kara Thrace and Samantha Carter.

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Hm. I only know of Samantha Carter because of fandom. But yeah, the Kara similarities were really obvious during this read-through.

[taragel.livejournal.com]

If you liked Labyrinth because of the more female-centric Dan Brown type of story, you absolutely should check out Katherine Neville's The Eight. It's an amazing complex book with an incredible heroine and it was written in the 70s/80s but has much in common with the themes/general adventure of and is often likened to/considered a superior precursor of The DaVinci Code. I've met Katherine a few times in person too and she's pretty fantastic. She was one of the few women working in international banking in the late 70s/early 80s when the book was published and she weaves that into the novel as well. :)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I wasn't deliberately looking for Dan Brown-esque fiction, but a friend loaned me Labyrinth when I was injured. So the timing worked out. (I've never actually read any Dan Brown. Hah!) But plotty stories with interesting female characters are always fun. I may check out Neville's book, thanks.

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

Plus has anyone else noticed that Novinha is a lot like Kara Thrace...

Hee! Well, now I have.

I should really check out Ender in Exile. I like reading about Luisitania best, but I'm definitely hooked on the characters.

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I should really check out Ender in Exile. I like reading about Luisitania best, but I'm definitely hooked on the characters.

I quite enjoyed it. And it does work well to fill in the gaps between Ender's Game and Xenocide. I always thought those two books were a bit too different from each other--the grown Andrew, while always scarred by his battle-driven childhood, is different enough from his younger self that I'm guessing some of the audience just gave up while attempting Xenocide. (For me the mystery of WHAT IS UP WITH THE PIGGIES, WHAT ARE THEY, HOW DO THEY REPRODUCE?!?! was a big motivating factor to keep reading, until I felt more at home with the new large cast of characters.)

[njborba.livejournal.com]

Enjoy your LJ vacation. I haven't been around much this month so far, and probably won't be the rest of the month either. Take care!

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

You too! :)

[helen-c.livejournal.com]

Hee, these Orson Scott Card books have been on my to-be-read pile for at least three years (someone on my Flist recced them), and I've never found time to get started on them.

Too many books, too few hours in a day...

ETA: enjoy your vacation ;)

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

I think Ender's Game through Children of the Mind are some of the best sci-fi books out there. Well-imagined alien races that are truly distinct from humans, questions about what it means to be sentient... and all of this wrapped in a plot that's compelling enough to make readers like me (I don't normally have much interest in alien species, real or imagined) keep reading.

But yes, way more books than time.