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pontalba's 2016 reading list


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City by Clifford D. Simak 5/5

 

Man ceasing to be the dominate species on Earth.  That can't be a bad thing. 

 

Simak covers so much ground in what is actually a collection of 8 short stories, each with it's own Notes section.  The rise and fall of civilizations, the reach out to the stars, the travelling from one dimension to the other.  The definition of God.  A robot that lives 12,000 years and sees almost all of it.  We see what can happen when our desires are thought to be known, but are not.  Loyalty, love, the shedding of our humanness.    All shown through the lens of one family.

 

This author puts Life into perspective in the simplest of manners.  This is the long view.  Good stuff.

 

Just catching up on your blog. I'm intrigued by this review and have added it to my wishlist, thanks!

 

I hope all is going well with you.

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Oh dear, I bought this on Kindle not that long ago. I loved Special Topics in Calamity Physics and was hoping this would be more of the same.

 

Mind you, we have differing views on a lot of books, so maybe I will really enjoy it. :D

 

It's funny, sometimes we are polar opposites, and sometimes the same. :)  I hope you do like it, especially since you have it!  :readingtwo: 

 

Ugh, agreed. Do these people not get someone honest to proofread? All fiction is fantasy to some degree of course, but people's actions and motivations should make sense both to their characters and the world they live in. 

 

Otherwise it's pointless investing in it. 

 

Goodness knows people are not always imbued with much common sense and do things that utterly amaze and dismay me.  But this went overboard, bigtime.  Oy.

 

 

Just catching up on your blog. I'm intrigued by this review and have added it to my wishlist, thanks!

 

I hope all is going well with you.

 

Thanks Kylie, appreciated. :) 

All is going fine here, I just don't get to the computer as much as I used to.  God help us, we have Netflix!  :giggle2:

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I've again picked up The Joy of Leaving Your Sh*t All Over the Place (the art of being messy) by Jennifer McCartney.  It's a teeny book, but really funny if you can ignore the language.  Hah. 

It has sections on cats, dogs, purses, shoes and books!  Gotta give an excerpt on books!  As I mentioned, she uses strong language, and in the quote below there are, er a few examples properly asterisked out. :)

pages 85-87:

 

BOOKS:  Buy them, pile them.......

If you're a book person, you already inherently know this:  Books are important, and it's okay to own thousands of them and never get rid of them.  This requires bookshelves, possibly.  But the great thing about books is they're imminently stackable.  Your bedside table is the obvious place to start.  When that's full, try the floor next to it.  Windowsills.  Chairs.  Obviously a few books go in the bathroom for when your phone battery is dead.  Work-related books by your desk.  Cookbooks in the Kitchen.  Coffee table books on the coffee table.  Old, weird books in the attic or garage.  Acquiring more books is important, too.  Any trip to a place that sells books of any kind requires you to purchase one.  You could be eight months behind on your rent, and if you don't buy a book at a used bookstore, you're basically a bad person who doesn't love to read.

 

Acceptable reasons to downsize your collection are:  you're hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and you need to rip and discard the pages you've already read to lighten your backpack.

 

Books are not clutter, no matter what some book about getting organized may tell you.  Literally no one has ever walked into a library and been like, 'What a fu**ing mess'.  Also, it's difficult to judge people properly if they don't own any books.  Oh, your favorite author is David Foster Wallace?  Congrats on reading one book in university.  You recommend The Alchemist?  Can you also share with me some inspirational sayings from your Instagram stream?  You loved The Millionaire Next Door?  Nice work on your business degree and hope the real estate thing works out for you. You prefer The Story of O to Fifty Shades of Grey?  Your friends think you're pretentious.  Subscribe to PeopleYou love Fireball shots and are actually pretty fun at parties.  Your favorite book is Moby Dick?  Go f**k yourself.  See how it works?  Plus, if you go to a new friend's house for the first time and they have no books, you can basically turn the f**k around and never talk to them again.  So keep those books where we can see them.

 

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Also reread The Time Traders by Andre Norton.  I love this book!  Written in 1958, it still holds up, for the most part.  This was a time of the "Cold War" and this novel takes full use of it. 

Suddenly, the "other side" has advances that ordinarily would take decades to develop.....how is it happening?  "Our side" uses what is evidently a common method of time travel to track down the source of the advances.  But the average citizen is too civilized, too laid back, to be successful at infiltration.  So the powers that be sign up men that are proven adventurers, a certain type of criminal, that are up to the job. 

 

I read it on kindle, in an anthology called The Science Fiction Novel Super Pack No 1.  It contains 10 full novels, by authors that have, between them, won 13 Hugo awards and 4 Nebula awards, 6 of them have been named Grand Masters by the Science Fiction Writers of America. 

It includes:

 

Empire by Clifford D. Simak

Falcons of Narabedla by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Green Odyssey by Philip Jose Farmer

The Stars, My Brothers by Edmond Hamilton

The Time Traders by Andre Norton

Deathworld by Harry Harrison

Star Surgeon by Alan E. Nourse

A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay

Preferred Risk by Frederik Pohl & Lester del Rey

Space Tug by Murray Leinster

 

But I also own the 1958 Ace paperback of The Time Traders:D

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Yeah, she's funny, I think the vulgarities are her attempt to be "hip", to draw in a younger audience.

It's funny, years ago an actor couldn't even say "damn", on air, now it's "fashionable" to use the worst language only to show how modern one is. Yuck.

 

 

Thanks, Gaia. :). Luckily, as sometimes revisiting an old friend like that can backfire!

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I flew right through Ann Cleeves, The Glass Room.  4/5 at least.  It's part of her DI Vera Stanhope series, and we've watched several seasons of Vera through Acorn.

 

A murder takes place at a writers workshop in a fairly deserted area of North England.  How are all these people connected?  Then another murder takes place, and the scene is obviously staged.  Vera is her usual superficially ditsy self, but underneath her detectives brain is working overtime. 

 

A well done whodunit that is somewhat complicated, but not impossible to figure out near the end.  I think Cleeves hits the right note allowing the reader some room to figure out who the killer is, if they've paid attention to all the clues dropped.  Very enjoyable fast read. 

 

The personal relationships make this series special, much is alluded to and I'm sure breadcrumbs are dropped throughout the series. 

 

Recommended.

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I'm glad the Ann Cleeves book was nice :). I don't know much about her, but as you saw in my thread, I recently bought a novella from her (a QuickReads book). Good to know you liked this book by her (I know it's not the same series, but still).

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I love that book excerpt !  :giggle2:  I do think I`m too much of a Grandma to enjoy the uncensored version. ;)

 

LOL  Well, I finished it last night.  It's really lots of tongue-in-cheek(yness)  really.  But there is a kernel of truth in what she writes.  I love the LitHub article you posted on your thread!

 

 

I'm glad the Ann Cleeves book was nice :). I don't know much about her, but as you saw in my thread, I recently bought a novella from her (a QuickReads book). Good to know you liked this book by her (I know it's not the same series, but still).

 

Thanks, it may not be the same series, but it's bound to have more or less the same style of writing.  Very clear and direct. :)

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All is going fine here, I just don't get to the computer as much as I used to.  God help us, we have Netflix!  :giggle2:

 

TV is the main reason why I don't read enough. :( There's always another series I want to watch (or rewatch).

 

I've again picked up The Joy of Leaving Your Sh*t All Over the Place (the art of being messy) by Jennifer McCartney.  It's a teeny book, but really funny if you can ignore the language.  Hah.

 

:rolol: I love the excerpt! 

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LOL  Well, I finished it last night.  It's really lots of tongue-in-cheek(yness)  really.  But there is a kernel of truth in what she writes.  I love the LitHub article you posted on your thread!

 

 

I`ve looked up some more of her articles to read ; I really liked her take on Kondo-ing. :)

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Willnot by James Sallis  5+/5

 

It's been awhile since I've read any of Sallis's books.  /sigh/  Silly me.  There is a wonderful, mellow flow to his writing that, in a way, reminds me of Nabokov.  Yes, but no.  Sallis has a dead-center way of looking at life, and describing it in an off hand manner whose profundity just suddenly pops you in the back of the head.  The reader is forced to go back and reread the last page or two just for the immediate pleasure of reliving those thoughts. 

 

The plot is deceptively simple.  Small town, hometown doctor, several bodies found in the woods, mysterious comings and goings all assemble and then.....disassemble.  Readers that need definite resolutions to their stories will be somewhat disappointed, I believe.  But, for the pleasure of the journey, it's totally worth it.

 

Highly recommended.

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TV is the main reason why I don't read enough. :( There's always another series I want to watch (or rewatch).

 

 

:rolol: I love the excerpt! 

 

Yeah, I have a couple I'd like to rewatch.  The Wire, for one.  And Lost.

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Oooh I've added Willnot to my wishlist. I usually like resolutions, but I'm okay with open-endedness if its done well!

 

Great!  :)  This one was a little more open ended than his usual even, but I look on it as more a slice of life/lives (like life, itself) than something with the usual 5 acts.  Introduction, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement. 

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After Willnot, I had to read another James Sallis.  :)  I chose The Killer is Dying.  Another 5/5

 

The story, such as it is, is told by three......no really four narrators.  The killer himself, a young boy that is living by his wits, and two policeman with their own problems.  How Sallis intertwines those lives is fascinating.  With hardly any actual meeting between them, physically, they combine to tell a story of identity, love, and letting go.  As always, Sallis's prose is magnificently descriptive, and evocative of time and place. 

 

Highly recommended.

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The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North  4/5

How would you live if within 15 or 20 minutes of leaving a person they had absolutely no memory of you? Not your face, not the conversation you had, not the love you made. When Hope Arden reached her teen years, slowly but inexorably her family began to forget her. She learned to live by her wits, using the forgetfulness of others to cover her criminal activities. North weaves a complex story of memory, identity, and the search for perfection to an exciting finale.

I'd have given 5 stars if not for what I considered over-preparation of the characters motivations. I bogged down in the middle for a while. However the last third really made up for that slowness, and sped to an exciting and fulfilling conclusion.

Recommended.
 

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Ooh, I just kimpled that Claire north book this very afternoon ! It's like having my own reviewer.;)

LOL! Great minds, and all that. :D

 

  

I'm eager to try some Claire North, this would probably be my first choice.

I think I actually liked The Touch a bit more. Although I have to say that at some point, all of her books drag a bit. But they always pick up and deliver the goods.

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