Wordsgood Reading Blog - 2008

[wordsgood]

Hello everyone! I'm a newbie that just joined a few days. I've actually been spending most of my time here just cruising around the site checking on the various goodies it offers. So far, I'm impressed!

 

I haven't been keeping a very thorough record of what I've read until this blog/reading list. Until recently, I honestly didn't realize I was not the only one who thought this was a worthwhile endeavour and while I have started to keep a record several times over the years, I felt a bit silly and gave up with a couple weeks... But then I discovered online forums and was shocked to realize I am far from the only one who thinks this is a good idea!!! *Does little happy dance up realizing she is not a freak. *

 

First, a little intro about my reading habits:

 

I read several kinds of books, though I admit to the bulk of them being in the Fantasy genre as a general rule. I also like biographies (usually the heart-wrenching ones), historical fiction, history, 19th Century Victorian era classics and others. I love Science Fiction movies and TV shows, but am really not all that interested in the book format of this genre. For example, I love shows like Star Trek and Andromeda, but books bore me to tears!

 

Book size doesn't usually factor into to my reading choices, except when it comes to buying them new...I have an issue with paying full price for something I can read in less than an hour. (Probably because funds are limited and I like to physically own what I read, not borrow from the library.) Large books in a long series doesn't intimidate me, but neither will a small, quick-to-read one deter me from getting interested. As a rule though, the lion's share of the books in my collection are mostly all part of a large series.

 

I do find that my reading tastes change a bit every few years and I will tend to over-indulge in some types of books until I'm thoroughly sick of them. Then I move onto something else, but in the end, I always seem to revert back to certain core themes.

 

So, here we go...please keep in mind that I am starting this late in the year and can't recall off the top of my head all the books I've read this year.

 

Books I remember having read in thus far in 2008 (but not all):

 

Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsh-Ali - Genre: Autobiography - Rating 10/10

(See my thread about this book this in the Reviews section for more details, and related web links.)

 

Misogyny, The World's Oldest Prejudice by the late Jack Holland - Genre: Commentary on Modern Life (my best guess for genre classification) - Rating 10/10

(Note, this is NOT a feminist rant. See my thread about this book in the Review section for more details and related web links.)

 

1) Emma, 2) Sense and Sensibility, 3) Pride and Prejudice, all by Jane Austen - Genre: Victorian Classics - Rating 8/10 for Emma and 10/10 for the other two.

(Like most Austen fans, I go back and re-read all of her books every few years. These three are definitely my favourites of all her works though.)

 

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte - Genre: Victorian Classics - Rating 10/10

(My favourite of all the stories by any of the Bronte sisters.)

 

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova - Genre: Blend of Historical Fiction and Fantasy - Rating - 9/10

(See my thread about this book in the Reviews section.)

 

The entire Belgariad series, plus related books Begarath and Polgara, by David and Leigh Eddings - Genre: Fantasy - 10/10

(I've read this series and the related two books many, many times. Leigh Eddings was not credited until recently for her participation in the writing as a stipulation of the publishing company at that time.)

 

The entire Wheel of Time series (thus far), plus related companion book (co-authored with Teresa Patterson), by the late Robert Jordon - Genre: Fantasy - 10/10

(Note, Jordon passed away before completing the last book in this series. It has since be commissioned out for completion, using Jordon's extensive notes, to Brandon Sanderson, and is to be called a Memory of Light - due out sometime in late 2009. Sanderson's other works include the Mistborn trilogy and others.)

 

Three books in the Sword of Truth Series: 1) Wizards First Rule, 2) Stone of Tears, 3) Blood of the Fold - by Terry Goodkind - Genre: Fantasy - Rating 10/10 for the series as a whole, though not always for individual books

 

Currently reading 4th in this series of 11 large novels, with one additional small character related book - 4) The Temple of Winds

(Again, this is a series I've read several times and keep returning to as I really find it engrossing! Interesting note, according to his website, ABC have picked up this series as the basis for a new one hour TV show that is slated to be run as a mini-series by producer Sam Raimi. The latest news I could find says it is due out this fall. Here is the link the press release if you are interested:

 

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6355977.html

 

(Personally, I'm not a fan of most books to TV or movie and usually find myself disappointed with the limitations of this medium.)

 

Sept. 6/08 Edit: Note separate post in this thread for the premise of this The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind.

 

That's all for now folks! I will do my best to keep this updated. Cheers.

Edited September 7, 2008 by wordsgood

[wordsgood]

Poodles! I forgot two and I don't think I have permission to edit as of yet, so for now...

 

Revision to my 2008 Reading Log:

 

The Untold Story of M.A.O. (Zedong), by Jung Chang and John Halliday - Genre: Biographical - Rating 10/10+++

(One of the worst dictators to ever walk the earth in my opinion, this book is based on exhaustive work and hundreds of interviews. It really is an eye-opener for the Western world about just how evil this man really was, and how little he valued any life but his own. The things he did to his OWN people.... He was responsible for the death of well over 70 million in PEACETIME by the time he finally died. Yet still, his body is put on display and his memory forcibly honoured by the communist party still in power over there. See my thread in the Reviews section for more about this book.)

 

The Faber Book of Madness, edited by Roy Porter - Genre: unsure how to class this one - rating 10/10

(This is an anthology put together, edited and commented on by Porter about the various so-called treatments for mentally ill patients, as well as a collection of their writings. The book spans the middle ages to the late 20th Century and is shocking at best, horrifying at worst. See my thread about this in the Reviews section for more details.)

 

Please Note** I have yet put up all the reviews I promised here in my reading log, though they are already written. (Currently 10:04 am on Sept. 1st in my part of the world!) But they will be on site very soon!

[Janet]

Welcome. You're definitely not alone in recording your reads!

 

I have just read Pride and Prejudice for the first time (I'm 42!)! I absolutely loved it too! I'm going to read Sense and Sensibility some time soon.

[wordsgood]

If you like Pride and Prejudice, then you definitely going to enjoy Sense and Sensibiity. Enjoy!

[madcow]

Hello and welcome wordsgood, I have to admit I never kept a record of what I had read until I joined here, nowadays I need a list for Mt TBR, my 'wish' list and also what I've read thanks to all the recommendations on here! If I didn't I'd be completely lost.

[wordsgood]

Hello and welcome wordsgood, I have to admit I never kept a record of what I had read until I joined here, nowadays I need a list for Mt TBR, my 'wish' list and also what I've read thanks to all the recommendations on here! If I didn't I'd be completely lost.

 

That seems to my biggest issue to. Far too many books in both my wish list and my to be read pile for me to remember!

[wordsgood]

Another revision to my Reading Log.

 

Title: The Righteous, The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust, by Martin Gilbert

Genre: Historical Anthology

Copyright 2003

ISBN: 1-55263-512-0

Rating: 10/10 ++

 

Martin Gilbert has written several other books that relate the many horrors of the Holocaust. While this one definitely contains many of them, his goal in this is to give well-deserved praise to the many non-Jewish heroes who risked their lives and families to save the hunted Jewish in Nazi controlled territory during WWII. And with this book, he succeeded admirably!

 

Gilbert was first inspired to take on the monolithic task of researching and writing this amazing anthology while walking along Mount Zion in Jerusalem in 1974. Curious when watching a large procession of what appeared to be non-Jewish pilgrims enroute to one the Christian cemeteries there, he started asking people where they were going and why. As it turns out, most of 400 people were Jewish survivors rescue by Oskar Schindler, and all were on the way to pay their respects to his grave site. Though Schindler is perhaps the most famous of the non-Jews who did so much to save Jewish lives, he is by no means the only one. This book chronicles many, many individual stories and experiences all across Europe, yet is still wonderfully crafted into readable prose. It isn't a story, it is many stories that at last give recognition to all the unsung heroes from this dark, terrible time in human history.

 

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and archive, as laid down in the law of the State of Israel - is to this day tracking down and recording for history, as many of these unsung heroes as they can. Martin Gilbert is proudly associated with them.

 

This book will shock you, hurt your heart and at times even break it, but it is one of many that should be read by everyone interested in stopping these kinds of horrors that still go in different parts of the world. Granted, not on the same scale, but what value a human life? Is one worth less than many? Lest we forget indeed.

[wordsgood]

Okay, I haven't read these yet, but have started on one. As they are all short reads, it should take too much time. However, I have a lot going on right now, not the least of which my father who is suffering from a severe head injury so I'm not sure if I'll have much time for reading right now. Anyway, as I get them knocked off, I'll come back and give each book a rating out of ten, and do a review for any I think are great.

 

Last night I picked up three from the bargain tables at Chapters. (I think that's the Canadian equivalent of the one you folks in the UK are always referring to. Can't remember the name at the moment. Anyway, it's our largest chain and I think it originally started in the US, then expanded up north to us.)

 

A Brief History of the End of the World: From Revelation to Eco-Disaster, by Simon Pearson

Paperback

Genre: I guess you would call this one an Anthology of social commentary on the various Apocalypse myths and beliefs over the centuries, that have been around in every society in every age.

Length: 290 pages

ISBN: 13: 978-1-84529-160-0

Note: This is part a series, all called "A Brief History of..." on various topics, by various authors. They all seem to be in paperback so are more readily affordable. Also, all the ones I've found seem to come on sale frequently too.

Rating:

 

 

Poltergeists and the Paranormal

Note: I can't find an author listed, but the inside cover states that it was "Originally incorporated in The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained and Mysteries of the Mind, published by Bookmart Limited." This particular book is published by Abbeydale Press.

Genre: Paranormal (obviously)

Length: 192 pages

ISBN: 978-1-86147-258-8

Rating:

 

 

Opus Dei, by John L. Allen, Jr.

Hardcover (Though I do think it is also out in paperback now. This version was just cheaper being on sale.)

Genre: Not sure - It's the author's investigational take on this association and the Catholic church.

Length: 197 pages

ISBN: 0-385-51449-2

Rating:

Edited October 6, 2008 by wordsgood

[supergran71]

I hope your dad is ok Wordsgood, what a terrible thing for you to deal with.

[lopeanha]

oh that's what you mean...

I do have a list at home, what I wanna read and what I've read. Don't have access to that for the next 10 months or so.

But I started a list on books I've read while I'm in Australia.

Maybe I make something like this here, I'm just not good in writing reviews and stuff...

[wordsgood]

That's okay Lopeanha! I just like the idea of these lists even without reviews because they give others a chance to check out potential new reads. And ask for an opinion from those who have read the ones that pique their interest.

[wordsgood]

More books I picked up and still don't have time to read! As with other new ones, I will come back with reviews and ratings as I get time.

 

1) Lady Chatterly's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence (I was never interested this particular classic until I read the blurb on this printing and it said it wasn't published in Great Britain until 1960, "...after having scandalized society with it's sexually explicit descriptions..." Now I have to find out what was considered in such bad taste back then! )

 

Length: 254 pages

Paperback

Genre: Classic - Romance

ISBN: 0-486-45234-4

 

2) A Brief History the Birth of the Nazis: How the Freikorps Blazed a Trail for Hitler, by Nigel Jones with the Foreward by Michael Burleigh

(Note* This is part of a series of books on a variety of topics being published in paperback and all begin with "A Brief of the...")

 

Length: 260 pages, plus a large epilogue, two appendixes and a selective bibliography

Paperback

Genre: Historical

ISBN: 978-1-84119-925-2

 

3) A to Z of Dream Interpretation: What Dreams Reveal About Our Lives, Loves and Deepest Fears, by Pamela J. Ball (This one's for hubby, but I might read it too.)

 

Length: 576 pages

Paperback

Genre: New Age?

ISBN: 978-1-84193-681-9

 

4) Dracula, by Bram Stoker (unabridged version)

 

Length: 325 pages

Paperback

Genre: Classic - Horror

ISBN: 0-486-41109-5

 

5) A Pound of Flesh, by Susan Wright

 

Length: 291 pages

Paperback

Genre: Fantasy

ISBN-13: 978-0-451-46127-8

ISBN-12: 0-451-46127-4

 

6) Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life, by Niles Eldredge

 

Length: 239 pages

Hardcover

Genre: Biography

ISBN: 0-393-05966-9

 

And now for a used book I picked up a few weeks ago and forgot to post about.

 

The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown (Finally going to read the book everyone was in such an uproar about. )

 

Length: 489 pages

Paperback

Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN-10: 1-4000-7917-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-4000-7917-9

Edited September 27, 2008 by wordsgood

[wordsgood]

Forgot one I picked up on Sept. 23/08

 

Philosophy for Dummies: A Reference for the Rest of Us!, by Tom Morris, Ph.D.

 

Length: 346 pages

Paperback

Genre: Educational

ISBN: 0-7645-5153-1

[wordsgood]

I foolishly went to Chapters and looked at the ones on sale again. Really have to stop that as I haven't even had time to read pretty much at all in weeks!

 

40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvannia, by Matthew Chapman (Great-great-grandfather of Charles Darwin)

 

Length: 272 pages

Hardcover

Genre: Unsure how to class this one

ISBN: 978-0-06-117945-7

ISBN-10: 0-6-117945-0

 

Book's Blurb:

 

My great-great-grandfather was Charles Darwin, but if you think because of this, I am incapable of changing my mind about the teaching of evolution and creationism, you are wrong. At the start of the trial I strongly believed intelligent design and other forms of creationism should be banned from high-school science classes and that only evolution should be taught. Listening to the arguments of the intelligent design advocates, I eventually became convinced that creationism in all its forms should be a mandatory part of every child's science education.

 

My reasons for believing this are slightly different from those of the intelligent design proponents, but that's another story, the story of this book...

 

In Kitzmiller vs. Dover, experts of all kinds would be welcome. Biologists got top billing, of course, but there would also be paleontologists, philosophers, even theologians. And that wasn't all: the locals would take the stand too, those for evolution and those against.

 

A bomb had exploded in a small town and blown it apart. The autopsy was about to begin. Here was a case that would not just put evolution and intelligent design on trial but also reveal America's soul. If you believed in souls...

Edited October 6, 2008 by wordsgood

[Kylie]

Cool! I find the intelligent design/evolution debate very interesting. Let me know how you get on with this book! (Please )

[wordsgood]

Will do!

[wordsgood]

I have got to stop going to the book store!

 

More for the To Be Read pile:

 

Dubliners, by James Joyce

Woodsworth Editions Limited - 1993 printing

Introduction and Notes by Laurence Davies

Length: 260 pages

Genre: Classics

Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-85326-048-3

 

Homer: The Iliad (unabridged republication of the Samuel Butler translation)

Dover Classics Editions

Length: 303 pages

Genre: Classics

Paperback

ISBN: 0-486-40883-3

 

Stork Naked (Xanth novel), by Piers Anthony

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 299 pages

Hardcover

ISBN-13: 978-0-765-30409-4

ISBN-10: 0-765-30409-0

This is one in a long running series of Anthony's. It is popularly believed to be a children's series, but it is not and was never geared to be. Each novel is a story in and of itself, but the characters do tend to appear in several different storylines. Each is based on puns - everything in the land of Xanth is a pun. Light but funny reading, I have read this one but did not have a copy of my own.

 

Jesus Land: A Memoir, by Julia Scheeres

Genre: Autobiography

Length: 355 pages

Hardcover

ISBN-13: 978-1-58243-338-7

ISBN-10: 1-58243-338-0

 

Blurb from cover of Jesus Land:

 

Sinners go to HELL.

Righteous go to HEAVEN.

The end is near: REPENT.

This is here: JESUS LAND.

 

So say the signs on the edge of a cornfield in rural Indiana, circa 1985. But for Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David, "Jesus Land" stretched from their parents' fundamentalist home, past the hostilities of high school, and deep in the Dominican Republic. For these two teenagers - brother and sister, black and white - the 1980s were a trial by fire.

 

In this riveting memoir, Scheeres takes us from the familiar Midwest, a land of cottonwood trees and trailer parks, to a place beyond to her imagining. At home, the Scheeres kids must endure the usual trials of adolescence - high school hormones, incessant bullying, and the deep-seated restlessness of social misfits everywhere - under the shadow of virulent racism neither knows how to contend with. When they start to crack (or fight back), they are packed off to Escuela Caribe.

 

This brutal, prison-like "Christian boot camp" demands that its inhabitants repent for their sins - sins that few of them are aware of having committed. Julia and David's determination to make it through with heart and soul intact is told here with immediacy. candor, sparkling humour, and not an ounce of malice. Jesus Land is, on every page, a keenly moving ode to the sustaining power of love, and rebellion, and the dream of a perfect family.

 

Edited October 10, 2008 by wordsgood

[Jo-Bridge]

That sounds so interesting! Its hard to read a book where a child is suffering though. Cant wait to hear how you found it

[wordsgood]

Have lost my reading mojo for a couple months now and it's taking me forever to get through even quick reads, so I'm not sure when I'll get to it. However, when I do get to it I will post a review.

[wordsgood]

Hi everyone. I've been away for some time dealing with several life crisis. I have, of course, acquired a number of new books since last I posted, but haven't got time to list them all right now. Just wanted to pop in to let folks know I've not abandoned the forum and will be back as soon as I can. Cheers!

[Kylie]

Welcome back! I look forward to hearing how your reading has been going. I hope you're doing well now.

[bethany725]

Welcome, first off (I wasn't a member yet when you joined), and welcome back!

 

The Faber Book of Madness, edited by Roy Porter - This sounds really interesting; I'm off to find your review of this book now since you've already completed it.

Edited May 4, 2009 by bethany725