Books
This list is to help me keep track of books I have read.
Sometimes, when titles jog my memory, I forget whether I've actually read the book or am yet to do so, and perhaps I remember the name because it's on my to-do list.
This list will help me avoid duplication at the bookshop or library.
Search Amazon
Amazon has editor and reader reviews of books. Search for titles at Amazon:
(Results open in new window)Yet To Read
I also keep a list of titles I want to read, usually picked up from recommendations in newspaper reviews or from anywhere really, but often those bloggers whose interests or tastes are intriguing. You can read it here.
Authors
A similar page on my favourite authors is here.
Books I Have Read
Previous Years
Go to Month
Jan – Feb – Mar – April – May – June – July – August – Sept – Oct – Nov – Dec
- January 2012
- Mexico
After Journey I had high hopes for another Michener. Unfortunately, this one failed to grab me in the first dozen pages and so I gave up. I flicked through it looking to see if it was better later, but couldn't see anything that interested. It is probably my personal interests: I am just not that interested in Mexico and definitely not interested in bull fighting which forms a major part of the primary character.
I will look for Alaska or one of the others.
- Bridge of Birds
Delightful. A story of ancient China that never was but should have been. The children of the village are struck with a mysterious illness and Number Ten Ox is charged with finding a cure. With master Li Kao, a scholar with a slight flaw in his character, he sets out to find the Power Root of ginseng that cure the children.
Hughart has drawn on old Chinese myths and fables to create a rich pantheon of gods, demons and magic. The whole book is gently humorous and marvellously imagined. Recommended. Now to look for the follow-ups.
- Hogfather
Last read in 2009, 2½ years ago. I don't remember being particularly impressed, but this time I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Auditors have viewed Life as an annoying disruption in the universe and want to get rid of it. They enact a plan to remove the myths and beliefs of humanity, starting with the Hogfather (the Discworld's equivalent of Father Christmas) by using a particularly nasty Assassin. Death's granddaughter Susan gets involved, much to her annoyance.
This is the one with the particularly charming small children. I love the scene where the children are sitting on Death's knee and he is asking what they want for Hogfather, "A swored. And what do you say? A big swored?"
- The Family Trade (The Merchant Princes)
This is a great book with one huge fault: it is not complete! Don't get this unless you can also get books two and three. The book ends without any resolution of any of the plot arcs. In fact, I wonder why it was published in its present form rather than as a bigger book with parts one and two combined.
Having said that, it is a great read. Miriam discovers she can cross to another parallel world whose technology level is medieval, and that she is one of the rulers. Only she and her cousins have the gene that allows world-crossing and the Clan has used the ability to establish a trade cycle between the two worlds. However, her sudden appearance there after being presumed long dead sets in chain a string of jealousies, ambitions and politics as the other factions jostle to prevent her from assuming her powerful title that is inherited from her mother.
Stross explores what would you do if you had the ability to magically and instantaneously disappear. Commit bank robberies? No gaol can hold you. Take high grade weapons back to medieval times (which is indeed what the Clan has done)? And so on. He does a good job of this.
I liked this a lot and can't wait to get the next books.
[Addendum] Stross mentions in his online diary that book one and two were originally written as one book, but that binding costs go up enormously over about 420 pages. A different process is required, fewer printing houses can do it, and so on. His editor decided to chop the book into two to bring each one under that limit.
- Reamde
1,000 pages, wow. That is a serious commitment in reading time. Was it worth it?
This is not a techno or sci-fi book like much of Stephenson's other books. It is a straight thriller. Richard is the creator of an enormously popular online massive game called T'Rain. His neice, Zufa, inadvertently gets involved in a Russian mobster's fury at a Chinese hacker's attempt to hold him to ransom. Zufa is kidnapped with her boyfriend while they track the hacker to China and inadvertently stumble on an Islamic terrorist cell. Things get very hectic as an MI6 spy gets involved, and the chase moves in stops and starts to the U.S.–Canadian border, a border that Richard knows very well from his marijuana smuggling days when he was much younger. The whole comes to a massive climax in the last 50 pages as the various protagonists come together for a final showdown.
Favourite character? Sokolov. A cool, icy-calm antagonist with a laconic sense of humour and who turns out to have a good heart.
The book is much, much longer than other writers would have made it. Much of that comes from backtracking exposition. Stephenson's style here is to drive the narrative along using a main character, then backtracking to another main character elsewhere and describing their actions during that same time period. This means that the timeline of the book is actually quite short, although a single period can take dozens of pages as the actions of various players is narrated. I'm in two minds. I did end up skimming a lot of stuff, mainly because it came across as filler. On the other hand, I can see how a different reader might enjoy the actions of that character and would want to read about them.
If it was any other author, I would say that the book could be trimmed by half by a good editor, but Stephenson does manage to keep most of it quite interesting, so I can sort of see the point of keeping the book as long as it is.
Overall, I enjoyed this quite a lot, better than most other thrillers that are, let's face it, airport or beach fodder, but it is not in the same class as, say, Anathem.
- The Hidden Family (The Merchant Princes)
The second book. Spoilers ahead.
After getting hold of the locket from one of her assassins, Miriam discovers there is a third world and that one group of her enemies is from that world and, apparently, don't know about the other world. So now there are three. She travels there and finds it is in a quasi-early 20th century era, with airships, steam cars, and the beginnings of electricity. This is an opportunity to use the ideas she had in the first book about creating wealth by moving ideas between worlds. She establishes a company with patents on brake pads, brake discs and other early ideas.
Easy to read and I galumphed through it in a couple of days. The plot gets deeper and more mysterious with a couple of surprises, especially about her mother, and it seems Angbard is not such a nasty old stick after all. Very surprising ending, and you have to wonder why Stross did it when we have just started to get to know the character. Not sure if it was necessary. Some good interesting ideas about technology transfer. On to book three.
- The Clan Corporate (The Merchant Princes)
Book three. It is obvious now that Stross is writing these like a TV mini series, where each episode (book) ends on a cliff-hanger. This could get tiring quickly. As well, each book is not self-contained. You need to have read the previous one(s) to get the full benefit. Spoilers ahead.
This takes place almost entirely in the first world for Miriam, where Uncle and Baron Henryk has decided to put his foot down. Miriam must bow to the family's wishes and marry The Idiot prince and Henryk is using Miriam's mother Iris as a hostage to force the issue. Angbard forces the issue by allowing Miriam to discover Angbard and Henryk's insurance policy: IVF and genome research labs in the second world funded by the Clan that has discovered, they think, the W* gene responsible for world travelling. Miriam attempts to get info about it and is caught by Henryk who turns out to be not the comfortable uncle type and who forces Miriam into the engagement. The end of the book is the King's reception to announce the engagement where suddenly the hall is blown up and attacked by unknown assailants, and most are killed including the King and the Idiot.
Meanwhile, on world two, the DEA and the FBI, after Mattias' defection, realises what they are up against. The NSA takes over and the operation turns from a police action to a military one. The Clan appears to have nuclear weapons and can deliver them wherever they want. Using captured Clan couriers as transport, the operation delivers DEA agent and Miriam's former boyfriend Mike Fleming to world one just in time to save Miriam from the unknown killers at the reception. End of book three.
- February 2012
- The Kremlin Device
Ryan draws on his experience in the British SAS to write thrillers.
An SAS team goes to Russia to train their special forces on hostage rescues. As a covert side-mission, they are tasked to deliver and hide two Compact Nuclear Devices, so-called suitcase bombs, within Moscow. The SAS team are not too happy at abusing their Russian hosts' hospitality, but plant one CND and begin to scout out the place for the second. Meanwhile, corruption in Russia is everywhere and the Chechyan Mafia rule most of it. After the Russians, with a little unauthorised help from the Brits, decapitate the local Mafia heads, the Chechyans strike back by abducting two of the SAS, along with the remaining CND. The Chechyans move the bomb outside Russia and the SAS now start to hunt them down.
This is a gripping read, so good I finished it in two days. Ryan writes with an evident authoritative and believable voice, not surprising given his SAS background. I liked this a lot. If I was to pick a nit, it would the resolution of a minor plot arc in the last three pages: it is quite unbelievable for a professional SAS sergeant major to give away state secrets like that. But I am only quibbling, the rest of the book is great.
- The Merchants' War (The Merchant Princes)
The fourth book. As always, spoilers ahead.
This one sees Egon, the pretender King, take up battle with Clan castles and holdings and preparing a trap for the Clan at their main castle, which is currently deserted. Meanwhile, Miriam's mother Patricia bargains with Mike Fleming the DEA agent to send him back to our world and provides him with a method to keep in touch. Miriam escapes to the third world and seeks Erasmus Burgeson's help, which involves disguising herself and dodging pursuers who try to stop them from boarding a trans-continental train. The US team discovers Matthias' bomb. Finally, Angbard sends a small team to seek out new worlds and they discover a deserted fourth world that is much more technologically advanced than ours and which appears to have taken world walking to a whole new level, but which has suffered catastrophic war damage. At the end of the book, Brilla rescues Miriam from a Polis trap and reveals her pregnancy and its political ramifications.
This series is great and each book is a page-turner, so much so that I get through one in a couple of days. Stross keeps revealing new plot points that drive the narrative forward and keep you wanting more. However, I am getting a little tired of Stross' way of ending these books. This one ends in the middle of a battle with none, repeat none, of the plots resolved. It is as though he hit the number of words agreed with his publisher, finished the sentence he was working on, and closed the book. It won't stop me from book five, though.
- The Revolution Business (The Merchant Princes)
The fifth book, also the last one I can get through the library system; I will have to buy the next one.
I am officially over Stross' method of ending on a cliff-hanger. It might be fine for a TV series where your next episode is only a week away, but it is not for a book. Knowing that you won't get the next fix for a year or so diminishes your investment in the emotional content. As I read this book, I frequently found myself thinking, "I don't care much about this particular event, in a year's time it won't mean anything to me."
Huge spoilers ahead.
This is about revolution, as the title implies. The Feds have found Mattias' nuke and decide to send a message to the first world by transporting it there to detonate. The blast kills Egon the pretender King and his army, while the Clan have decamped a few miles away and miss most of it. Miriam is pregnant and the Clan force the issue by declaring her as the Queen-widow, which most of the first world accept. The third world undergoes revolution when the King abdicates and Erasmus and other levellers set up a people's party. Angbard suffers a stroke and is hospitalised in the US, only to be killed at the end of the book by nasty impregnator Dr ven Hjalmar. An unauthorised faction of Clan security decides to take out Washington with some of the Clan's remaining nukes, at which point the book ends. Meanwhile Mike Fleming discovers that the Vice President dealt with the Clan a decade or so before becoming a politician and is now out to get them, hence the authorisation to nuke the first world. Right at the end of the book, Fleming warns Miriam about this and is then killed by a car bomb, presumably authorised by spook James.
- Memoirs of a Geisha
I picked this up at the local library's old book sale for 50c. Started it, but not sure it is my cup of tea, so I will read this over the next few weeks while continuing the rest of my reading.
- Look to Windward
Reading a well-remembered book is like putting on an old much-loved coat, or meeting up with a familiar friend you haven't seen for a while: you slip in easily and comfortably and it is as though you caught up only yesterday. I haven't read this for several years and currently all my Iain M. Banks are packed up after the interstate move a few years ago so I grabbed this when I saw it at the local library.
This is the one where Ziller the Chel composer has settled on a Culture orbital and has turned his back completely on his home planet and species. A Chel envoy, Quilan, is sent to the orbital, with the message presumed to be a request to return to his homeland. Ziller refuses absolutely to have anything to do with the envoy.
As we the reader slowly start to suspect, Quilan's mission is much darker.
Although I very much like all Banks' sci-fi, this hasn't been one of my favourites, mainly because I thought there was too little Culture and too much Quilan. This time, though, I realised the book is all about loss and what a man will do when he is numb to life after the loss of his much-loved wife, and I enjoyed it more because of that. A great book.
- March 2012
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- April 2012
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- May 2012
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- June 2012
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- July 2012
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- August 2012
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- September 2012
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- October 2012
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- November 2012
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- December 2012
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