Books Read
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Hogfather (Discworld #20)
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett Published: 1996 This is the 20th Discworld novel, and in it the Hogfather has gone missing. It’s absolutely imperative that the children get their presents on Hogswatch morning, so Death takes up the mantle (or in this case, the red and white suit stuffed with a pillow). The fate of the Discworld may depend on him. I always forget how much I love Terry Pratchett, and then I finally get around to reading another of his books, and I LOVE TERRY PRATCHETT. I thought I only read the beginning of Hogfather in high school, but about 200 pages in I finally realized I’d already read the…
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A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Published: 1843 Narration: Tim Curry I expected to read a lot during the holidays. I was visiting my hometown, where I only really keep in touch with one friend, and I figured I’d be able to blast through quite a few books during my downtime, considering all of my time would be down. Unfortunately, I become obsessed with achieving Steam holiday objectives and barely read at all. I did get through a couple of books, though, and A Christmas Carol was one of them. I grew up watching the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol nearly every year with my dad. It’s the…
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson Published: 1971 I must have watched this movie half a dozen times in my last year of high school, against my will. I enjoyed it at first, but enough is enough you stoner high-schoolers. We don’t need to watch this at every social gathering. It’s been over a decade now, so I felt it was safe to have a peek at the novel. I actually don’t remember much of the movie anymore (somehow), and I went in thinking this was entirely fiction. After reading the Wikipedia page just now, I see that it’s actually an autobiographical account of two seperate…
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Snow Crash
Snow Crash (audio) by Neal Stephenson Published: 1992 Narrator: Jonathon Davis Hiro Protagonist, a sword-wielding hacker, and Y.T., a 15-year-old skateboarding courier, struggle to stop the spread of Snow Crash, a digitally and visually transmitted…ancient herpes…from space. This book is a staple in geek culture. People just love it, and in a way I can see why. The technology described in Snow Crash was way ahead of its time. It was published before the first graphical web browser was even invented and managed to describe what would eventually become Google Earth. It also features an internationally networked virtual environment accessed through the use of a headset, a trope that is…
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Sum: 40 Tales From The Afterlives
Sum: 40 Tales From The Afterlives by David Eagleman Published: 2009 I first heard about this little book when Stephen Fry mentioned it favourably on Twitter, and since I am powerless to his suggestions, I added it to my next Amazon shipment. It’s taken me a long time to get around to it, but I’m glad I did. The title of the book really says it all. This is a collection of forty vignettes that imagine different afterlife scenarios. They range from comical to heartbreaking, and each one is perfectly sized but could easily inspire longer pieces. The amount of creativity packed into this is astonishing. As someone who used…
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Blink
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell Published: 2005 The basic premise of this book is that we should pay more attention to our initial gut reaction when making decisions, as having more information can often lead to making worse decisions, except if you haven’t spent enough time honing the particular skill and knowledge set you’re basing the decision on, because then it could lead to shooting an innocent dude 41 times. So…be careful with that. I liked this book a lot. It’s not really going to change how you make decisions, but it does provide chapter after chapter of interesting anecdotes showing both the positive and negative aspects of ‘thin slicing’ –…
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A Feast for Crows
A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin Published: 2005 George R.R. Martin juggles a lot of characters in this series, in much the same way Robert Jordon did in his Wheel of Time series. The difference was that Martin knew how to pull it off. Jordon would develop a very cool storyline with one of his viewpoint characters, really suck you in, and then you wouldn’t hear from that character for ages. I specifically remember being enthralled with Perrin’s storyline, and then he wasn’t mentioned for 1200 pages. Every time I finished a chapter I was hoping the next would follow him. so it made for a frustrating and…
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Ready Player One
Ready Player One (audio) by Ernest Cline Published: 2011 Narration: Wil Wheaton The story takes place 30 years from now, in a somewhat generic dystopia. Wade Watts lives in a trailer stack with his hateful aunt. Life sucks, so he spends most of his time logged in to the OASIS – a virtual reality world that started life as a MMO game and is now used for everything from schooling to business transactions. The man who created the OASIS, James Halliday, left in his will 240 billion dollars to anyone who could find his hidden easter egg. He was obsessed with the 80s, so the easter egg hunters study all…
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Starship Troopers
Starship Troopers (audio) by Robert A. Heinlein Published: 1959 Narration: Lloyd James It’s probably been ten years since I watched the Starship Troopers movie, so I don’t remember much beyond the fun bug shootin’ and coed showers, but I recall it being a fairly straightforward action flick. Having not read anything by Robert A. Heinlein, I was expected much of the same in the book, but it’s really not that action-focused at all. The story begins with Juan “Johnny” Rico graduating high school and deciding to enlist in the Federal Service, and we follow him as he advances through the ranks. This takes place on earth in the distant future,…
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The Continual Condition: Poems
The Continual Condition: Poems by Charles Bukowski Published: 2009 I’ve come across some Bukowski over the years, but this is the first time I actually picked up one of his collections. The sleeve description says that it contains never-before-collected poems, which I think means they were previously published but never in one of his own collections. I usually try not to start with someone’s latest book, particularly if it’s published post-mortem, but this contains work that stretches right back to the beginning of his career and is a great introduction if you haven’t read much by him. There’s something about Bukowski’s writing that can occasionally stop you dead in your…