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Knots and Crosses (Inspector Rebus, #1)
Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin Published: 1987 Ian Rankin is one of those authors that I’ve always known about but never had any desire to read. It’s too overwhelming to start on something that’s already nineteen novels in, and it’s hard not to see the writing as a case of quantity over quality when confronted with a back catalogue of that size. I should know, being a fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (forty books in and still going strong), that this line of thinking is complete nonsense, but that’s what comes to mind. I don’t think it helps that these books fall into the crime genre, which can…
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Arthur Conan Doyle Interview
Arthur Conan Doyle was a very interesting man. He’s best known for writing what may be the most logic-driven character to ever exist, Sherlock Holmes, in stories which time after time proved the seemingly mystical to have rational causes. While doing so, he also spent most of his life investigating and publicly supporting spiritualism, often famously promoting acts that were later debunked. This is an interview that was posted on Reddit earlier in the week in which he explains how he decided to approach writing the Sherlock Holmes stories. He’s clearly fed up with the character and is much more interested in his spiritual investigations. I don’t know if there…
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Book Banning Attempt
This year my old high school distict has had a bit of publicized controversy. A man named Dean Audet petitioned to have The Perks of Being A Wallflower banned. “Last time I checked it is illegal to distribute pornography to minors,” said Audet, who objects to sections that he says include young people having sex, graphic instructions on how to masturbate and child molestation. He has sass, I’ll give him that. Get a class full of teenagers, tell them that somewhere in the story there are graphic instructions on how to masturbate, and watch the percentage of students completing the book skyrocket. Anything that gets kids reading is a good…
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The Martian
The Martian by Andy Weir Published: 2011 Narrated by: R. C. Bray On a manned mission to Mars, a NASA crew left their mechanical engineer for dead on the planet’s surface as they lifted off to return home. Now Mark Watney must find a way to survive with limited supplies, and broken equipment, until he can find a way back to Earth, where no one realizes he’s alive. Commander Lewis was in charge. I was just one of her crew. Actually, I was the very lowest ranked member of the crew. I would only be “in command” of the mission if I were the only remaining person. What do you…
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Annual Book Sale Haul
A local newspaper here organizes a huge annual book sale, which happened this past weekend, and it’s always one of my favourite events of the year. Which is a little sad, but let’s not dwell on that. All of the books are donated, and the proceeds go to local literary programs, so it’s a good excuse to buy way too many books without any guilt. It’s $1 for a trade paperback, $2 for a larger paperback, and $3 for a hardcover. Over 500,000 books were donated this year, and they made $158,150 ($2,000,000 since first starting the sale seventeen years ago). It’s a two-day long event, and until mid-afternoon there’s…
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The Shipping News
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx Published: 1993 The first 30 pages of this book are bloody depressing. The protagonist, Quoyle, has a miserable childhood, his parents kill themselves, he marries a horrible woman who openly cheats on him, and then his wife eventually leaves him and sells their two young daughters to sex traffickers (Happy Mother’s Day, by the way). This is the introduction to the book. The story then follows him as he leaves New York and returns to his father’s hometown in Newfoundland to begin a new life with his daughters and aunt. While the beginning is incredible important, since this is about a man trying to…
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April in Review
Books Acquired: The Serpent of Venice: A Novel by Christopher Moore X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont Captain America: Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection by Ed Brubaker The Windup Girl (audiobook) by Paolo Bacigalupi Books Read: The Martian (audiobook) by Andy Weir Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin I thought I’d have a go at writing some monthly wrap-ups here. I enjoy them on other weblogs I read, and it gives me a chance to post some lists, and I do love lists, even if they are quite small. I feel like I’m just starting to come out of this half year reading drought, but that’s a pretty sad…