I've got this big goal to read a whole bunch of books in 2012 and I think I did a pretty good job getting ahead of the curve in the month of January. Overall I finished seven books, which averages out to just a bit under two per week, which is good by any definition.
Granted, some of the books were of the slightly shorter variety being from authors who are fairly new or from a series where the books aren't that long, but the others were of above-average length, so in the end I think it evened out pretty well.
The final tally is five science fiction or fantasy books, and two popular fiction books. Not too bad I think coming from someone who doesn't read much popular fiction. If I could down one or two popular fiction books each month until the end of the year I would feel pretty good about things.
I was curious, so I spent a few minutes on Amazon looking up page counts for the books I did read since I read them all on my Kindle and don't have that sort of information readily available. It turns out that I read the equivalent of 2,205 pages, or an average of 71 pages per day. That's kind of cool. In more abstract terms I like to think of it as having read two Wheel of Time books, which is pretty impressive in its own right.
So what is on tap for February? Do I think I'll get another seven books finished? Well, I don't think I'll get seven more finished in February, but I should get at least two or three. Right now I'm about a third of the way through the final book of the Millenium series, which I think will only take me another day or two, but then, well... then I get to start Atlas Shrugged, and I have a feeling it's going to take me at least a week or two which means I might sneak in another book (if it's short), maybe two right at the end of the month, but no promises on that front.
Right now I'm trying to stay ahead of my "one per week" idea so I can indulge in a couple of really long books later in the year such as a re-read of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of the Kings and the final Wheel of Time book due out sometime late this fall. So far so good, but we'll see if I can keep up in the coming months.
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Atlas Shrugged is On the Horizon...
It won't be long before I start reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I posted a little while back that I wanted to read it pretty badly after watching the movie, but despite my desire I couldn't bring myself to start a book of that size without finishing the other two series' that I was currently in the middle of.
I'll admit I'm extremely excited but also terrified that I'll be let down after my own rather immense expectations have now taken root. At the moment I'm thinking that I may blog about some thoughts as I go through, perhaps summarizing here and there about what is happening so I don't lose sight of the big picture, which happened a little bit when I was reading The Fountainhead a few years ago.
So, all I have between me and finally discovering who John Galt really is is to finish the final book of the Millenium series which I have started just a few moments ago. I think I'm going to read like a man possessed until I finish it so I can get started solving the mystery of John Galt.
I'll admit I'm extremely excited but also terrified that I'll be let down after my own rather immense expectations have now taken root. At the moment I'm thinking that I may blog about some thoughts as I go through, perhaps summarizing here and there about what is happening so I don't lose sight of the big picture, which happened a little bit when I was reading The Fountainhead a few years ago.
So, all I have between me and finally discovering who John Galt really is is to finish the final book of the Millenium series which I have started just a few moments ago. I think I'm going to read like a man possessed until I finish it so I can get started solving the mystery of John Galt.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Welcome To My Reading List
One thing I've always loved doing since I was a little kid is reading. My parents instilled in all of their children a love of reading. Every birthday and Christmas we could bank on the fact that we would get at least some books, often a fairly decent stack of them, and during the summer months between school years going to the public library was a pretty regular occurrence.
Over the course of my life I've read a lot of books and in previous posts here I've made it pretty clear that I gravitate towards the science fiction and fantasy genre's. For a long time I was reading nothing but the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but then a few friends introduced me to things like BattleTech, Wheel of Time, and the Shannara books. These gave me plenty of things to read and re-read time and time again.
In the past couple of years I've wanted to expand my reading, but never really knew a good way to find new authors I might be interested in, or find other genre's I might enjoy as well. I thought that obtaining my Kindle a couple years ago would help with that, but I'll admit that while I've used the hell of it, its library is still filled with pretty much just science fiction and fantasy novels.
That's where this new page I spent all day yesterday working on comes into play. I've dubbed it my Kindle Reading List because every book on it is available on the Kindle which is pretty much the only way I read books now unless it happens to have been written by Brandon Sanderson. This reading list includes mostly science fiction and fantasy because that's what I love, but you'll notice a few entries for both modern fiction and classic fiction. I figured I would expand my horizons slowly at first, staying within the genre I love the most, but with new authors as well as re-reading some of my old favorites.
You'll also notice there is a page in the sidebar for the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was going to include it in the main list, but there are far too many books for that, so I decided I would split it out to its own page. I am still working on the Expanded Universe list, but should have it finished in the next day or two in case anyone is interested.
My end goal is that these lists will help me to keep track of stuff I've always wanted to read as well as motivate me to read stuff I've never read before. Furthermore, I'm completely open to suggestions of books to read, and if you leave me a comment I'll be sure to give all suggestions a good hard look and add them to the list accordingly. Feel free to recommend as many as you want. I really want to have a massive list to pick from moving forward.
Over the course of my life I've read a lot of books and in previous posts here I've made it pretty clear that I gravitate towards the science fiction and fantasy genre's. For a long time I was reading nothing but the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but then a few friends introduced me to things like BattleTech, Wheel of Time, and the Shannara books. These gave me plenty of things to read and re-read time and time again.
In the past couple of years I've wanted to expand my reading, but never really knew a good way to find new authors I might be interested in, or find other genre's I might enjoy as well. I thought that obtaining my Kindle a couple years ago would help with that, but I'll admit that while I've used the hell of it, its library is still filled with pretty much just science fiction and fantasy novels.
That's where this new page I spent all day yesterday working on comes into play. I've dubbed it my Kindle Reading List because every book on it is available on the Kindle which is pretty much the only way I read books now unless it happens to have been written by Brandon Sanderson. This reading list includes mostly science fiction and fantasy because that's what I love, but you'll notice a few entries for both modern fiction and classic fiction. I figured I would expand my horizons slowly at first, staying within the genre I love the most, but with new authors as well as re-reading some of my old favorites.
You'll also notice there is a page in the sidebar for the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was going to include it in the main list, but there are far too many books for that, so I decided I would split it out to its own page. I am still working on the Expanded Universe list, but should have it finished in the next day or two in case anyone is interested.
My end goal is that these lists will help me to keep track of stuff I've always wanted to read as well as motivate me to read stuff I've never read before. Furthermore, I'm completely open to suggestions of books to read, and if you leave me a comment I'll be sure to give all suggestions a good hard look and add them to the list accordingly. Feel free to recommend as many as you want. I really want to have a massive list to pick from moving forward.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Atlas Shrugged May Have to be the Next Book I Read
Except one. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
When I first met my wife, we went on five dates in six nights the week before winter break at BYU. On one of the last dates that week we went to the local Barnes & Noble bookstore because she wanted to show me some book known as the The Color Code and I needed to pick up something to read during the break while I was at home.
Long story short, I thought I would be pretty smooth and told her as we walked in to go get me a copy of a favorite book of hers. She did, and I bought it along with the book I was there for, promising to read it over the break so we could talk about it when I got back. In my mind it was a pretty slick way of setting myself up for another date when we both got back to campus.
The Fountainhead was pretty good. It's long as hell, but the story was pretty good, and I liked a couple of the characters a lot. Blah, blah, blah, we wound up married. Cool, eh?
Anyways, a few days ago, my wife and I went to the Redbox down the road and grabbed the Atlas Shrugged movie to watch. It's her favorite book of all time, hands down, and she was intrigued to see how the low-budget film that was released in 2011 stacked up as far as character depiction and so forth. I, having absolutely no clue what the book was about except that it involved trains in some fashion, had no sort of preconceived notions as to what was going to happen.
Yeah... shouldn't have watched that movie.
No, the movie wasn't horrible. As a matter of fact, as someone who had never read the book or had any idea what the story was about I was quite intrigued and enjoyed it far more than I was expecting to. The problem lies entirely in the fact that now I'm obsessing over two things:
Who the hell is John Galt?
What the hell does he have to do with Atlantis?
I'm not kidding. I've thought about it every single day since we watched that movie, and if I hadn't just started reading Fate of the Jedi: Conviction the day before I probably would have downloaded Atlas Shrugged to my Kindle immediately that evening. For all I know, the movie is completely off-track from the actual book. I won't allow my wife to tell me either way as I have a burning desire to discover for myself.
As a result, I did have plans to read the other Fate of the Jedi books and then finish the rest of the Millenium series books, but now those plans may have to change. My only hesitation is that Atlas Shrugged is long, and I worry I may lose myself in it if it really does have anything to do with Atlantis for some reason.
My wife should know better than to expose me to these things.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
57% Finished With "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," and Loving Every Bit
There has been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere and entertainment news outlets about the recently released movie entitled The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Since seeing the first previews a few months back I have been trying to decide if I wanted to see the movie in theaters, or wait a little longer and grab it from the local Redbox at some point.
Normally, if a movie looks like it is probably going to be pretty good I will just go see it in the theater, but this one has had some interesting news surrounding it. According to internet rumor, the movie originally received an NC-17 rating, which while I'm definitely not opposed to seeing R rated movies, NC-17 is pushing it even for me, and I likely would never have seen it if that were the case. The reasoning behind the first rating was apparently due to a specific rape scene found in the book, which has a pretty dramatic impact on the story as a whole.
So, instead of going to see the movie when it first came out, I figured I would read the book it is based upon first, and then make my decision. I grabbed the Kindle version of the text with some money from a gift card I received for Christmas and have been working my way through it ever since. I've been reading for about four days now, and while the story started a little bit slow and took a little getting used to it has begun to pick up quite a bit.
Stieg Larsson, the author, has a very interesting way of telling his story. The prose isn't quite like anything I've read before given my background in science fiction and fantasy novels, but despite that I've found that I'm riveted. The easiest way to explain the prose is to imagine someone is trying to tell you a very, very good story, but is doing so while trying to read you an essay at the same time. It's quite fascinating really. The dialogue between characters is minimal at best, and the type of prose I'm used to where the author depicts the various actions of the characters from moment to moment seems almost nonexistent, but I have yet to feel like anything is being left out.
It's definitely a writing style that is different from most, and the only way to appreciate it would be to read it for yourself, which I highly recommend, and I haven't even finished the book yet.
At some point I knew I was going to reach the rape scene that has caused so much conversation about the movie, and when I did it was pretty tame to be honest. Not that rape is a "tame" thing in any fashion, but as far as the depiction of what was happening is concerned it was done in a very non-graphic manner that said just enough to make it clear what was happening, but never crossed the line into making the reader uncomfortable. In fact, I happen to know some fairly innocent minded folks who tend to shy away from books and movies that depict anything remotely taboo and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to any of them.
As a result, I think I will see the movie whenever I have the chance, but I probably won't rush it. Right now the book has me hooked well enough that when I get it finished (probably in the next day or so) I will likely jump directly into the second book of the series before I do anything else.
It isn't often that I stray from my science fiction/fantasy background for pleasure reading, but I'm glad I did this time because the result has been extremely good.
Normally, if a movie looks like it is probably going to be pretty good I will just go see it in the theater, but this one has had some interesting news surrounding it. According to internet rumor, the movie originally received an NC-17 rating, which while I'm definitely not opposed to seeing R rated movies, NC-17 is pushing it even for me, and I likely would never have seen it if that were the case. The reasoning behind the first rating was apparently due to a specific rape scene found in the book, which has a pretty dramatic impact on the story as a whole.
So, instead of going to see the movie when it first came out, I figured I would read the book it is based upon first, and then make my decision. I grabbed the Kindle version of the text with some money from a gift card I received for Christmas and have been working my way through it ever since. I've been reading for about four days now, and while the story started a little bit slow and took a little getting used to it has begun to pick up quite a bit.
Stieg Larsson, the author, has a very interesting way of telling his story. The prose isn't quite like anything I've read before given my background in science fiction and fantasy novels, but despite that I've found that I'm riveted. The easiest way to explain the prose is to imagine someone is trying to tell you a very, very good story, but is doing so while trying to read you an essay at the same time. It's quite fascinating really. The dialogue between characters is minimal at best, and the type of prose I'm used to where the author depicts the various actions of the characters from moment to moment seems almost nonexistent, but I have yet to feel like anything is being left out.
It's definitely a writing style that is different from most, and the only way to appreciate it would be to read it for yourself, which I highly recommend, and I haven't even finished the book yet.
At some point I knew I was going to reach the rape scene that has caused so much conversation about the movie, and when I did it was pretty tame to be honest. Not that rape is a "tame" thing in any fashion, but as far as the depiction of what was happening is concerned it was done in a very non-graphic manner that said just enough to make it clear what was happening, but never crossed the line into making the reader uncomfortable. In fact, I happen to know some fairly innocent minded folks who tend to shy away from books and movies that depict anything remotely taboo and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book to any of them.
As a result, I think I will see the movie whenever I have the chance, but I probably won't rush it. Right now the book has me hooked well enough that when I get it finished (probably in the next day or so) I will likely jump directly into the second book of the series before I do anything else.
It isn't often that I stray from my science fiction/fantasy background for pleasure reading, but I'm glad I did this time because the result has been extremely good.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
A Few Books I'll Read This Year
Yesterday in my post regarding some of the things I might like to try and do this year I mentioned wanting to read a lot of books. Well, I did some thinking last night and I think I've got a pretty decent list to start with that should keep me going for the first couple months at least. Thought I would share them with you in case anyone else was looking for some ideas on what to read, or wanted to make some suggestions themselves in the comments.
SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
Obviously, since I do tend to read books mostly from this genre, there is going to be a fair amount of them that I read over the course of the year, but I figured I would start with these:
Fate of the Jedi: Conviction by Aaron Allston
Fate of the Jedi: Ascension by Christie Golden
Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse by Troy Denning
X-Wing: Mercy Kill by Aaron Allston
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
(no link available at this time)
The three books from the Fate of the Jedi series are the final ones in a story arc I haven't gotten around to reading yet. They go pretty quick for me, but the story is pretty good and I've read all of the other Star Wars Expanded Universe stuff since I was a teenager. The new X-wing book is one I just discovered today on Amazon, and it comes out in August. There is no way I'm going to miss that book since those books were my favorite of all-time when I first started reading the Expanded Universe.
The last Wheel of Time book comes out sometime this year by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson and you better believe I will be secluding myself in a closet somewhere and not emerging until it is finished.
POPULAR FICTION
I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what to call this category. It's supposed to be books that are currently popular in today's world. You know, the stuff you hear people talking about at the water cooler in the office, or the stuff those strange lunch-time reading groups like to read. I'll just go with popular fiction, it seems to fit alright I guess.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
THE CLASSICS
I really do need to read more of the novels from days gone by that people seem to think are important. There are an awful lot of them, but I may only work in a couple this year because they tend to be a little to deep-thinking in nature for me.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
My wife is in love with Atlas Shrugged, and I may have possibly read The Fountainhead to impress her at some early stage of our dating history. I figure if I can make it through one Ayn Rand book I can likely make it through another. As for the other two, well, you can't blame me for targeting the classics that are more adventurous for my first foray into the genre now can you?
And of course, all of these books will be read on my trusty Kindle, which has brought me much enjoyment over the past two years. Seriously, if you don't have a Kindle and you do a lot of reading you are doing yourself a major disservice.
SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY
Obviously, since I do tend to read books mostly from this genre, there is going to be a fair amount of them that I read over the course of the year, but I figured I would start with these:
Fate of the Jedi: Conviction by Aaron Allston
Fate of the Jedi: Ascension by Christie Golden
Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse by Troy Denning
X-Wing: Mercy Kill by Aaron Allston
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
(no link available at this time)
The three books from the Fate of the Jedi series are the final ones in a story arc I haven't gotten around to reading yet. They go pretty quick for me, but the story is pretty good and I've read all of the other Star Wars Expanded Universe stuff since I was a teenager. The new X-wing book is one I just discovered today on Amazon, and it comes out in August. There is no way I'm going to miss that book since those books were my favorite of all-time when I first started reading the Expanded Universe.
The last Wheel of Time book comes out sometime this year by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson and you better believe I will be secluding myself in a closet somewhere and not emerging until it is finished.
POPULAR FICTION
I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what to call this category. It's supposed to be books that are currently popular in today's world. You know, the stuff you hear people talking about at the water cooler in the office, or the stuff those strange lunch-time reading groups like to read. I'll just go with popular fiction, it seems to fit alright I guess.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
THE CLASSICS
I really do need to read more of the novels from days gone by that people seem to think are important. There are an awful lot of them, but I may only work in a couple this year because they tend to be a little to deep-thinking in nature for me.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
My wife is in love with Atlas Shrugged, and I may have possibly read The Fountainhead to impress her at some early stage of our dating history. I figure if I can make it through one Ayn Rand book I can likely make it through another. As for the other two, well, you can't blame me for targeting the classics that are more adventurous for my first foray into the genre now can you?
And of course, all of these books will be read on my trusty Kindle, which has brought me much enjoyment over the past two years. Seriously, if you don't have a Kindle and you do a lot of reading you are doing yourself a major disservice.
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