Finished THE CAPTIVE

Although I don't find this the best or most exciting of L. J. Smith's books, I do find it engrossing and inventive.  Though, I find teenage angst causing good people to make mistakes and do stupid things annoying, I also find that it rings true.  As in the commercial,  "people in horror stories make bad choices."



I have now just barely started Winter of the World by Ken Follett.  This is the sequel to The Fall of Giants and is about World War II.  It is the second book of a trilogy.  I don't know if the third book is even out yet, but, if so, it is not yet in paperback.  I enjoyed the characters in the first book and learned a huge amount about the war.  And I enjoyed the book even more than I did Pillars of the Earth and World Without End because the author did not have to create a never-ending heinous villain for this--the villain existed in reality--it was the war.  I hope to enjoy this as much or even more.

Finished three books, but the one I recommend is THE TRUE AMERICAN

I finished these mostly while cruising in the Caribbean.  I thought Chaos and Order by Stephen Donaldson was exciting and nerve-racking, I should have known that Inferno would not be relaxing.  However, I have faith that Dan Brown's books will end on an up note.  I really have no such faith in Stephen Donaldson.  He will kill off great characters willy-nilly with no regard for the reader's sensibility.  That said, Inferno was a great ride and asked an important question.  And it may have come up with the only tenable solution, though I may already be too late, even for that.

Then I returned to Lost Scriptures by Bart D. Ehrman to read The Acts of Peter.  This is mostly about a struggle for supremacy by a magician named Simon and Peter which brings Peter to Rome to confront the imposter and prove that Peter is the one acting with the power of God, not with deception.  This final confrontation will, of course, be what leads to Peter's death.  Ultimately, I could not understand why this was not included in our new testament.  It does not contradict anything there or the spirit of the Bible.  Peter acts in Jesus' name and does great things while keeping his personal humility.



Next was Foreign Body by Robin Cook.  This was pretty calm, believe it or not, after Chaos and Order, and Inferno.  Once again, I trust Robin not to kill off the main character, so I could lean back and enjoy the story.  After losing her Grandmother during elective surgery in India, a young woman discovers two other deaths in very similar circumstance and calls her friend Laurie Montgomery, now Mrs. Jack Stapleton, to help her.  They both travel to India to find something much amiss.  I always enjoy Robin Cook, though this was not a scary as some.



Now for the book I most highly recommend.



Most of us in Texas remember an attempted murder and two murders of gas station attendants who looked foreign shortly after 9/11.  The perpetrator said he was trying to kill Arabs in revenge for 9/11.  However one of the murders and the attempt was of Pakistanis and the other murder was of a Hindi from India.  This is the story of the murderer and his attempted victim.  The original incident at the beginning of the book happened three blocks from where I was living at the time, indeed where I had lived for 24 years.  I recognize many of the places and names in the book.   It is, surprisingly, a story of redemption and forgiveness and work on the part of the victim to try to break the cycle of hatred and violence caused by ignorance in America.  It embodies much of my philosophy about life and the basic goodness of human beings.



Last night I started a young adult novel by L. J. Smith.  It is the second book in her Secret Circle series,  The Captive.  This is about a group of young witches in a small town called Salem  who are attempting to control the wildest of their group while also attempting to rein a mysterious evil and solve, so far, two murders.  I like the characters and this author very much though the problems are complicated by much teenage angst, which most adults would like to just shake them out of!

Finished CHAOS AND ORDER

Stephen R. Donaldson's Gap series is a five book set which just gets more exciting and more tense with each passing book.  This is the fourth book of the series and the tension mounted until I've been on the edge of my seat for the last week and a half.  Whew!  The master of character, environment, and language, is also very much a master of science and therefore science fiction and tension.

I need a break.  I think I'll read a nice quiet relaxing book by Dan Brown...Inferno.  Oh, my faithful followers are not at all sure it will be relaxing???  Hmmmm.  This will be my sixth Dan Brown book.

Finished People of the Silence

One possible explanation for the abandonment of what we now call Chaco Canyon is presented in a very exciting a beautiful manner.  I completely enjoyed the book.

I have now started The Gap Into Madness: Chaos and Order by Stephen R. Donaldson.  Starting exactly where The Gap Into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises left off, I find myself already into it.  Not because anything earthshattering has happened already or because it started with a huge bang into action, but rather because the characters are so wonderfully quirky and interesting...this is Donaldson's strength.  His vocabulary also is seeming to become more challenging in this book, but, of course, it doesn't compare to the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant for that.

Finished I'LL WALK ALONE

Of course I did.  It is impossible to put down!  It is by Mary Higgins Clark.



I loved it especially because it was an Alvirah and Willy Meehan book.  The main character was often a wimp and Alvirah and Willy weren't as together as I wanted to give them credit for, but if these weren't the case, the book would not have been so DARN riveting!



I have now started on People of the Silence, another Gear "early Americans" book.  This is set in what is now called Chaco Canyon in about 950-1100 AD.  We are exploring the Anasazi and the increasing problems which will eventually cause them to leave.

Finished THE NEON GRAVEYARD and EARTH, a Daily Show with Jon Stewart book

Each of the six books of Vicki Pettersson's Signs of the Zodiac series, starting in the first with a really creative supernatural world, became more far out.  This series ender was really far strange--even more so than the others--and did tax my willingness to suspend belief.  But, I stuck it out and am happy with the way it ended.





I also finished Earth, A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race.  I had started reading this through like a normal book, but had to stop, finding it depressing.  I'd expected it to be funny, but found it cynical.  There were a couple chuckles in the book, but there were also some appalling things that, well, "Who would think of that?"  Like "The Diarrhea of Anne Frank."  No, not only is it too soon for that, it will always be too soon for that!   The book actually has a great premise, but breaks through the fourth wall and plays it for laughs.  If they played it seriously (like it really is a guide to the Human Race for those who come after we have gone), it could, I think actually have been funny.  But it was trying way too hard.  Anyway, about half-way through the book, I relegated it to the bathroom where I read a couple pages on good days (digestively speaking), and found it much less annoying that way.



I am now about to start I'll Walk Alone, by Mary Higgins Clark.

Finished Part 3 of LES MISERABLES

Though I believe Hugo spins a great yarn and creates great characters, he can sometimes be darned boring.  Even the best characters don't require more than say 20-30 pages to explain.  This section had 200 pages in it, 150 of which explained characters.  It wasn't until the last 50 pages did something actually start to happen.  Needless to say, these pages read very quickly in comparison.

I will now put this aside again for awhile and move on to something else.



And that is the last book in Vicki Pettersson's Zodiac series, The Neon Graveyard.  I am only 4 pages in, but, as always, she has me intrigued. 

Finished NARCISSUS IN CHAINS

Laurell K. Hamilton's series keeps becoming more erotic without losing any of its violence...in short, I love it.  It is a lovely break from my usual fare.



I've now gone back to Les Miserables to read another portion.  Am about half-way through part 3 and have only just met Marius (a sympathetic character).  No mention yet of Jean Valjean or Cosette.   

Finished A MAN RIDES THROUGH

This is among my three very favorite swords and horses fantasies--The Lord of the Rings, Tale of Fire and Ice (starts with A Game of Thrones) and now Mordant's Need (consisting of two books--The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through).  Exciting, romantic, scary, and satisfying!  Hurrah for Stephen Donaldson.  I just ordered The Last Dark (came out last Tuesday), the last of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.  If he destroys "the land" in this book, I will never forgive him!  The title sounds ominous, but the saga I have just finished gives me hope.

I have now started Narcissus in Chains, Book 10 of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series.  She spends the first chapter catching her audience up with who Anita is and what her present status is in both her personal life and the world of work.  This would be boring for people like me who have read all of the previous ones, except for the fact that it reads like a comedy routine and makes me chuckle the whole way through.  This is good, because knowing her, I won't be laughing much more as the book progresses.  In the second chapter, it becomes scary and, by the fifth, it is not only scary, but steamy.  I love the roller coaster.

Finished THE INITIATION by L. J. Smith

Well, of course, The Secret Circle is a coven of witches who Cassie meets and comes to know.  Combining good and evil, her new friends are both comforting and terrifying.  This is the first of at least three books in the series.  I have no idea how many books there are since the author is still alive and will probably live longer than I will...so, I suspect, there will continue to be a new supply from her, if not in this series, in many more.



I have now started A Man Rides Through, by Stephen R. Donaldson, the second (and I think last) in the Mordant's Need series, the first of which was The Mirror of Her Dreams.  I have only just started (p 20), but already I am into it.  It starts with a first battle in a war, which would usually be off-putting for me, but, again Donaldson's characters and environment are so quirky, I am draw in in spite of myself.

Finished IF YOU ASK ME by Betty White

Pithy and sweet.  It is rather like reading a real life version of #1 Ladies' Detective Agency.  Of course, there are no mysteries to solve, but the outlook on life is similar.  Betty likes everyone and loves all animals.  She shares her outlook on growing old without giving advice.  Though she never really mentions it, I couldn't help being struck by the fact that she is far from lonely even though she has outlived most of her contemporaries, certainly most close friendships from earlier projects in her life.  But, because she always related well to colleagues of all ages, she continues to have close friendships and a full social as well as professional life.



I have now started The Initiation, the first book in The Secret Circle, by L. J. Smith.  I find her books page turners and fun.  It is she who wrote The Vampire Diaries.  This is about a circle of teen witches.  There are forces of good and evil here, and the counterpoint is quite interesting, especially since proponents of both are actually both good and evil within themselves and respect each other even while disagreeing--at least so far.  I am enjoying it.

Finished FEVER by Robin Cook

If not the best of his books that I have read, it comes very close.  High action; high intensity; serious drama.  Could not put it down...literally.  Stayed up way too late a couple of nights.  I highly recommend this book to anyone not prone to nightmares of heart attacks.

I am now reading If You Ask Me, by Betty White.  It is not funny, but recounts very sweetly stories about her most recent work (at age 89) and speaks a bit of her longevity.  It is a welcome break from the high tension of Robin Cook.  This is a relaxing quick reading book.

Finished FINISHED SHADOW OF NIGHT and started two more.

Really loved this one...maybe even more than the first in the series, A Discovery of Witches.  In this they are back in the past of Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare (which may be why I loved it so much).  Now they have come back to the present, and problems are seriously shaping up for them.  And who knows how long I have to wait for the third book in the series to be written!!!  Let alone, in paperback!!



I then switched to this.  I read the first part of this book a long time ago, The Sword in the Stone, thinking I might want to read it with my students.  I got a classroom set and waited to get a class of good enough readers to handle it, but I never did---or at least I never did after I'd read it and prepared.  I had lots of individual students who could have handled it, but never a classroom set...  So, I have just finished the second book--the Queen of Air and Darkness.  I thought it would be Morgan Le Faye, but here, it was her sister, Morgaise,  daughter of Igraine and the mother of Gawaine, Agravaine, Geharis, and Gareth.  This book centers mostly around her family, with Arthur's battle against Lot (Morgaise' husband) running a counterpoint.  Well written and much more entertaining than Morte d' Artur was.  I will come back to it, but now....



I have started Fever.  I am only to page 7, but it seems like it will be about cancer-causing pollution.  It promises to be good.

Finished VULCAN'S GLORY

Lts. Spock and Montgomery Scott's first mission on the Enterprise with Captain Pike and Number One.  Spock falls in love amid murder and mayhem.  Loved it every step of the way.



Am now about to start Shadow of Night, by Deborah Harkness.  This is the second book of the ALL SOUL'S TRILOGY, the first of which was A Discovery of Witches.

Finished PEOPLE OF THE MIST

True to W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear's earlier books, this also is set in prehistoric America, this in what we now call the Chesapeake Bay area.  The people we learn about here will eventually produce Powhattan and Pocahontas, but now it is 1300 AD, and we have a murder mystery to be solved by a most unlikely old man.  I have enjoyed it as much as any I've read, especially because I also enjoy murder mysteries...  Hurrah!



I am now about to start Vulcan's Glory, a Star Trek novel by D. C. Fontana.

Finished Mary Jane Clarks, NOWHERE TO RUN

Again a fast-paced thriller/mystery with clues and red herrings.  Now add Anthrax and hostage taking and a little psychosis thrown in, and it was a quick read, at least partially because I couldn't stop reading.  In other words, I loved it.




I have now started People of the Mist by W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear.  Set in the Chesapeake Bay area in about 1300 A. D., we have a murder mystery (well, the reader has a good idea of who did it, but the people have no idea) that could well start a war which would spell the end of three matriarchal villages.  I am well into it (nearly 200 pages in) and am enjoying it.

Finished A PERFECT BLOOD

I have now finished A Perfect Blood, by Kim Harrison.  The books stay exciting and inventive, and Rachel Morgan remains charming and likable as do the other major characters.  Even enemies hated in the first books, have gradually become more likable and some friends, loved in the first books, have either left, died, or become hated and left.  So, the stories stay fresh, and the overall topic of race hatred (addressed in most urban fantasies I have read) stays relevant.




I am now about to start Nowhere to Run by Mary Jane Clark, a mystery who writes very much in the same style as Mary Higgins Clark...again, impossible to put down books.

Finished BLOOD AND CIRCUSES

My experience with a small Shrine circus in the southern Midwestern US was somewhat different from the circus described in1920's Australia.  I saw no such hierarchy among/ between performers as was going on in this book.  As a costumer (not hired by the circus, but rather by individual performers), I hung with my friend, who was a clown, and two of his friends who were high trapeze artists.  Other performers and workers (roustabouts) were friendly.  Nonetheless, I loved this book.  I'm drawn to circuses, carnivals, festivals, craft and art shows...well all kinds of outdoor entertainment that don't qualify as "sports" and this was a good story.  I enjoyed the new characters we met in this one and the solving of a crime on two different fronts.




I have just started A Perfect Blood, by Kim Harrison, book 10 of the Rachel Morgan series.  I find this series clever, inventive, fun, and satisfying.  I love both the characters (Rachel, Jinx, and Ivy) as well as the setting (post "change" Cincinnati--ie. a future world.)  I have only just started, but already I am into it as Rachel is having radical identity--not theft--loss issues and to relieve a couple of those issues, she takes on a very challenging case assigned by a very scary vampire....  I'm looking forward to it.

Finished SON OF A WITCH

Totally enjoyed this one.  It was much more upbeat than Wicked (first in the series), though that couldn't be helped.  How can you write an upbeat book about the witch in The Wizard of Oz?  Characters were every bit as great in this one as the last, setting equally as multivaried, types of people and animals equally intriguing, and villains equally as evil.  Can't wait to get the next one in the series.



Have now started Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood.  This is one of many Phryne Fisher mysteries.  We first encountered Phryne on PBS and loved the series, so TR started to read the books.  He has now convinced me to start them.  The stories are set in 1920's Australia and are wonderfully quirky.  Phryne is a free spirit--wealthy lady of leisure who loves to dabble in solving crime.  She pushes the limits of what might be consider moral, but is irreproachably ethical.  This is the oldest of the books I could find around the house, though TR says we have more.  This is #6 in the series, I understand.  My experience spending a summer with a circus in my adventurous youth has me really looking forward to this one.

Finished THE HOBBIT

Finished preparing The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien to read with Gabriel.  Two days this week a friend of his, Jacob, joined us as we read Tuck Everlasting.  We are more than half way through after one week, so we may just finish all three books (or come close) this summer.  I'd love to be able to finish The Hobbit with them.

Now I am reading Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire.  It is the sequel to Wicked which I very much enjoyed.  I am almost half-way through and am enjoying it, though maybe not as much yet as I enjoyed Wicked.  It is a totally different book with a new character and a new set of problems.

Finished THE WHITE MOUNTAINS by John Christopher

Pretty good "after the apocalypse" sci fi for children.  The apocalypse in this case was the invasion about a hundred or more years ago by alien machines called Tripods, hence the name of the series.  Three children head out for the "white mountains" (Alps or Pyranees), two from England and one from France in search of freedom from the Tripods and, perhaps, resistance to them.  This book recounts their adventurous journey.  A little mundane for an adult sci fi reader's taste, but hopefully it will interest Gabriel.  Teaching is always easier with a book the child(ren) is (are) interested in.



I have now started The Hobbit.  I know, I know.  I taught it to at least one class all 34 years I taught and I practically know it by heart.  But this is a different edition that I am used to.  I had been afraid, since it calls itself "revised" that lots of good part might be left out, but so far, that is not true.  I think the cockney accent of the trolls has been toned down a bit.  My students had a really hard time figuring out what they were saying, and I think this edition is a bit easier, though still somewhat cockney.  That is the only difference I have found so far.  So, I am marking up my copy of this edition as I go (as I did the other books I will read with him) which takes a bit longer.  I'm not even sure we will get to this book this summer--it always took me from spring break until summer to teach it and sometimes we didn't finish (depending how much we were interrupted for testing and assemblies, etc.)  But, my students were terrible about doing homework, so all I ever assigned was outside reading with the supervision of parents (kids with more involved parents did a lot more reading which was, of course, good for them and kids without could still do well in my class by paying close attention during class time.)  Gabriel, on the other had, will do his homework--his mom will see to it!  No worries there.



This is a picture of the 1965 edition.  I can't even find a publication date on the book I have and can't find it in any of the editions included on Goodreads...  This is about as close as I can come, but...NOT.

Finished FALL OF GIANTS and TUCK EVERLASTING

   I loved Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett.  I learned a lot about the war and enjoyed the interactions between the fictional characters and the war, itself.  TR and I are now watching The World Wars on the History channel (recorded over the last three days) and are finding it fascinating.



   Though I still find Tuck Everlasting silly and depressing, I have found some saving graces that will help make it teachable.  The language is beautiful, intricate, and descriptive.  And, I think it could help children come to grips with the circle of life, especially when a beloved aged and ailing pet is lost or even an elderly grandparent.  I don't think it would do any good at all with helping deal with the death of another child or a parent.







The second book that Gabriel is to read this summer is The White Mountains, the first of the Tripods series of books by John Christopher.  So, we go from fantasy to science fiction and finish with another fantasy (The Hobbit--in abridged form) for a 5th grader!  Odd, I think, because there is little variety of genre, because The Hobbit in it's unabridged form is an eighth grade book, and because this is a prestigious Catholic school and one would think the concentration on, not only fiction, but fantasy, would be a bit irregular.  But, even worse, her eighth grader, also in a prestigious Catholic school, has In Cold Blood on his summer reading list!  Now this is a book that a Catholic school (or any responsible school, one would think) would want to help guide students through, not leave them to flail alone with during the summer!  I told Skippy to read the book with her son and help guide him...he will need it.

As for The White Mountains, I have just started.  I am enjoying the Preface in which Christopher is explaining why he took on this project and what he learned from doing it.  He pretty much repeats what another author of both children's and adults' sci-fi said to me at a reading teacher's convention many years back, "Children's books are much better edited than adult books."  John Christopher notes that children's book editors are much better and more thorough than editors of adult books.