Last year I created a combined New Year's Resolution, Reading List, and Reading Challenges for myself. It was simply to read two books a month from my TBR bookcase, a total of 24 for the year. The Bad News is that I only managed to read 15 of 24 books, not even two-thirds of my goal. The Good News is that I managed to read 15 of 24 books, therefore removing 15 books from the bookcase. Consequently, I have decided to try again this year, hoping to either make my goal or even exceed it.
Overall it was a good year. Following is a partial list of the books I did read and would recommend.
Stella Gibbons: Cold Comfort Farm
Hermann Hesse: Siddhartha
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Wild Shore
Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf
Loren Eiseley: The Immense Journey
Fred Vargas: Seeking Whom He May Devour
Joseph Conrad: Victory
Mikhail Bulgakov: Heart of a Dog
Joseph Wood Krutch: Baja California and the Geography of HopeKS Robinson: The Gold Coast
Thomas Mann: The Transposed Heads
Russell Hoban: The Lion of Boaz-Jachim and Jachim-Boaz
Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
Bruce Stolbov: Last Fall
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: We Never Make Mistakes
Karin Fossum: The Indian Bride or Calling Out for You
Ken Grimwood: Replay
China Mieville: Kraken
Dan Simmons: Hyperion
Jack London: The Sea-Wolf
Rudyard Kipling: Kim
Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Ingrid Black: Circle of the Dead
Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland
Philip Jose Farmer: To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Michael Gregorio: A Visible Darkness
Arnaldur Indridason: Silence of the Grave
P. D. James: Death Comes to Pemberley
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching
Eliot Pattison: The Lord of Death
Kim Stanley Robinson: 40 Signs of Rain
Ben Sanders: The Fallen
C. J. Sansom: Heartstone
John Scalzi: Android's Dream
Manil Suri: Death of Vishnu
Showing posts with label SF books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SF books. Show all posts
Monday, January 2, 2012
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Some Great Reads from 2010
It seems to be traditional that summing up the year takes place now. So, here's a list of what I thought were memorable reads for 2010. This is not a list of the best books or whatever--just a list of books that I most fondly remember reading, some of which I have posted comments about during the year. They're in alphabetical order by author, so there's no attempt to rank them. The chances are that the ranking would be different tomorrow, and possibly even the list might be slightly different.
Greg Benford: The Furious Gulf and the rest of the "Galactic Center Series"
Walter van Tilburg Clark: The Ox-Bow Incident
Ivy Compton-Burnett: The House and Its Head
Joseph Conrad: Nostromo
Loren Eiseley: Another Kind of Autumn (poetry) & The Immense Journey
Michael Gregorio: Critique of Criminal Reason & Days of Atonement
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House
Bernard Knight: The Tinner's Corpse
Ursula LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness
N. Scott Momaday: The Way to Rainy Mountain
Eliot Pattison: Prayer of the Dragon
Albert Sanchez Pinol: Cold Skin
Barbara Pym: Excellent Women
Kim Stanley Robinson: Vinland the Dream
Michael Shea: Nifft the Lean
Charles Todd: The Red Door
Jessie L. Weston: Quest of the Holy Grail & From Ritual to Romance
If you decide to read some of these, please let me know what you think of them.
Greg Benford: The Furious Gulf and the rest of the "Galactic Center Series"
Walter van Tilburg Clark: The Ox-Bow Incident
Ivy Compton-Burnett: The House and Its Head
Joseph Conrad: Nostromo
Loren Eiseley: Another Kind of Autumn (poetry) & The Immense Journey
Michael Gregorio: Critique of Criminal Reason & Days of Atonement
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House
Bernard Knight: The Tinner's Corpse
Ursula LeGuin: The Left Hand of Darkness
N. Scott Momaday: The Way to Rainy Mountain
Eliot Pattison: Prayer of the Dragon
Albert Sanchez Pinol: Cold Skin
Barbara Pym: Excellent Women
Kim Stanley Robinson: Vinland the Dream
Michael Shea: Nifft the Lean
Charles Todd: The Red Door
Jessie L. Weston: Quest of the Holy Grail & From Ritual to Romance
If you decide to read some of these, please let me know what you think of them.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Ray Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes
This is one of Bradbury's rare SF novels, for most of his works are short stories. It's set in Green River, Ill., the mythical setting for _Dandelion Wine_ and a number of his short stories--including one set in Green River, Mars, or so it seems. This isn't a fix-up work, such as The Martian Chronicles or Dandelion Wine or The Illustrated Man.
What is wicked is a carnival that comes to Green River in October, long past the season for a visit from what is really a summer event. Carnivals belong in a fantasy world with their wild rides and games and freaks where one can win a toy or stuffed animal, with luck. It promises fun and forgetfulness from the day's cares for a short time anyway.
But this carnival, Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, not only comes at the wrong time of the year, October, it also comes during the night when most people are asleep. It doesn't enter the town in broad daylight with a parade and open trucks displaying the exhibits to bring the people, but it comes in the dark, quietly and surreptitiously.
Aside from this clandestine entrance, Bradbury also provides the reader with several clues through the names he provides. For example, the name of the carnival gives several hints as to its true nature. "Cooger" sounds like cougar, a large predatory feline, also known in various parts of North and South America as a puma, a mountain lion, or a panther. The other owner's name is Dark, which is a suggestive name, especially in fantasy work. Moreover, he carries a walking stick whose head is a carved serpent. One more hint comes from the carnival's name; "Pandemonium" is the Satan's Palace in Milton's Paradise Lost. This carnival is hell.
The major point of view characters are two young boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. Their names are also suggestive. "Hallow" means to make holy or sacred. An archaic meaning of "hallow" is a saint or a holy person. Will's name certainly hints that he is on the side of the good. Charles Halloway, his father, tells us he and his wife, both half-bad, "put their good halves together and... got one human all good to share between." That "one human all good" was his son Will.
Will's best friend Jim Nightshade, however, seems a bit more ambiguous about his place in the scheme of the novel. First, his last name, "Nightshade," is frequently paired with a modifier--deadly nightshade. "Nightshade" is a poison, perhaps best known as belladonna. Secondly, his encounter with the lightning rod salesman very early in the novel suggests that Jim is ambivalent about his relationship to the world. It doesn't end with just one occurrence, for throughout the novel, Bradbury offers up several troubling incidents involving Jim.
This carnival's threat is that it seems to be able to grant people's wishes, which plays on the old saying that one should be careful about what one wishes for, because one might find the wish came true. The carnival or its owners can make wishes come true, but only at a terrible price--one's soul. Several of the townspeople paid that price, Mr. Dark is now determined that Jim will join them, not as a victim, but perhaps as a partner some time in the future. While Will and his father face a physical threat, Jim's is a more dangerous one; it is moral.
Although this is fantasy and the wicked possess magical powers, they are opposed by ordinary humans whose greatest weapon is laughter. Evil, apparently, can not face up to open, honest, and courageous laughter.
What is wicked is a carnival that comes to Green River in October, long past the season for a visit from what is really a summer event. Carnivals belong in a fantasy world with their wild rides and games and freaks where one can win a toy or stuffed animal, with luck. It promises fun and forgetfulness from the day's cares for a short time anyway.
But this carnival, Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, not only comes at the wrong time of the year, October, it also comes during the night when most people are asleep. It doesn't enter the town in broad daylight with a parade and open trucks displaying the exhibits to bring the people, but it comes in the dark, quietly and surreptitiously.
Aside from this clandestine entrance, Bradbury also provides the reader with several clues through the names he provides. For example, the name of the carnival gives several hints as to its true nature. "Cooger" sounds like cougar, a large predatory feline, also known in various parts of North and South America as a puma, a mountain lion, or a panther. The other owner's name is Dark, which is a suggestive name, especially in fantasy work. Moreover, he carries a walking stick whose head is a carved serpent. One more hint comes from the carnival's name; "Pandemonium" is the Satan's Palace in Milton's Paradise Lost. This carnival is hell.
The major point of view characters are two young boys, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. Their names are also suggestive. "Hallow" means to make holy or sacred. An archaic meaning of "hallow" is a saint or a holy person. Will's name certainly hints that he is on the side of the good. Charles Halloway, his father, tells us he and his wife, both half-bad, "put their good halves together and... got one human all good to share between." That "one human all good" was his son Will.
Will's best friend Jim Nightshade, however, seems a bit more ambiguous about his place in the scheme of the novel. First, his last name, "Nightshade," is frequently paired with a modifier--deadly nightshade. "Nightshade" is a poison, perhaps best known as belladonna. Secondly, his encounter with the lightning rod salesman very early in the novel suggests that Jim is ambivalent about his relationship to the world. It doesn't end with just one occurrence, for throughout the novel, Bradbury offers up several troubling incidents involving Jim.
This carnival's threat is that it seems to be able to grant people's wishes, which plays on the old saying that one should be careful about what one wishes for, because one might find the wish came true. The carnival or its owners can make wishes come true, but only at a terrible price--one's soul. Several of the townspeople paid that price, Mr. Dark is now determined that Jim will join them, not as a victim, but perhaps as a partner some time in the future. While Will and his father face a physical threat, Jim's is a more dangerous one; it is moral.
Although this is fantasy and the wicked possess magical powers, they are opposed by ordinary humans whose greatest weapon is laughter. Evil, apparently, can not face up to open, honest, and courageous laughter.
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