Monday, November 02, 2009

Do you read what I read?

The rest of the trilogy

Terminator gene, and The life lottery, by Ian Irvine.

I liked both of these much more than the first one. I think I liked the characters more. Jemma's daughter Irith was more likable than the young Jemma in the first book (older Jemma is pretty cool though). Maybe I also got more accustomed to the author's style. All the people are pretty direct and straight-talking. It is unusal for such action-y books to really grab me like that but they sure did - I really enjoyed all the action, danger, and wondering where it was going next. I also found the near-future of severe climate change to be a very compelling scenario to explore. I am so glad I took a risk on continuing the series - I proabably wouldn't have on the basis of the first one, except I had already bought the third one, so I thought I might as well keep going.

Theme reading

Among other things, I seem to be doing a 'school shooting books' theme this year. I've read We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver, The hour I first believed by Wally Lamb, and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. Still to come - Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre, and the one that (maybe) started it all - Rage by Stephen King. I think I may well have read that long ago but I'm not sure. And I could also watch the movie Elephant by Gus Van Sant. Any other suggestions?

Shared reading

I still keep a list of each book I read, down in the sidebar on the right hand side of my blog. (I need to make that linkable, don't I?) I don't automatically review everything - since there's so much crafting to be done - but if you're interested in a particular book, especially if you've read it too, please drop me a line.

4 comments:

Philosophical Karen said...

I've read the Wally Lamb book, that's about it. It seems I have no time for reading any more now that I've taken up knitting.

Bertie Mabootoo said...

Obviously I have no tips on such a cheery theme, given my avoidance of all things serious :)

On the tech front though, you could use a LibraryThing widget to display the books, and it'll take care of linking for you.

Bells said...

i second the use of a widget of some kind for the books. I've seen those around and thought of trying something like that.

What do you think of Jodi P? I've only read one (Change of Heart) and probably should read more before I decide entirely that I find her irritating in the extreme!

DrK said...

i totally gave up on the wally lamb. it was just a little bit too blokey for me! im thinking of trying those stieg larsson books, when i finish wolf hall, which i highly recommend. a nice change from trashy vampire books!!