Two packages arrived in the mail yesterday. The first had Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana, a fantasy novel about Elizabeth I’s reign. I’d seen the book, recently issued in a new edition, in Barnes & Noble a time or three but hadn’t, for whatever reason, picked up a copy. So when the Science Fiction Book Club offeredContinue reading “On More Books in the Mail”
Category Archives: Reading
On a Frustrating Reading Experience
Yesterday I picked up a few books at Barnes & Noble. One was a reference book, another was a history book on the development of the prize courts during the Age of Fighting Sail, another was the first of the Star Trek: Titan novels, and a medieval mystery novel a friend had recommended to me.Continue reading “On a Frustrating Reading Experience”
On a Book Meme
I received this on an e-mail list this morning– Here are the rules: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog (or to this mailing list) along with these instructions. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” orContinue reading “On a Book Meme”
On WarCraft: Dragon Hunt
I bought at Barnes & Noble yesterday Dragon Hunt, the first volume in Tokyopop’s WarCraft: The Sunwell Trilogy manga, written by Richard Knaak, author of three WarCraft novels from Pocket Books, and illustrated by Jae-Hwan Kim. This first volume is slim, weighing in at about 150 pages. I read through Dragon Hunt in about twentyContinue reading “On WarCraft: Dragon Hunt”
On Narnia
Add this to the annals of odd quizzes… The only book which doesn’t take place in Narnia at all, per se, you’re the story of a voyage to find the end of the world and hopefully the Seven Lost Lords (remember Rhoop!). You contain some of the most unique people and places and beautiful descriptionsContinue reading “On Narnia”
On Absolution by Murder
I spent yesterday afternoon someplace I’ve not been since college–the laundromat. The dryer at home decided about a week ago that it didn’t want to work anymore, but the laundry still needs to get done, and so a laundromat it was. Anyone who has spent time doing their laundry at a laundromat knows that youContinue reading “On Absolution by Murder”
Le Morte d’Arthur
Yesterday I gave one of my employees a copy of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. A week before she and I had talked about last summer’s King Arthur film starring Clive Owen and Ioan Gruffudd. She had seen the film recently–as had I–and her boyfriend needed to explain to her who some of theContinue reading “Le Morte d’Arthur”
Warlords of Utopia
Tuesday I finished Lance Parkin’s Warlords of Utopia, his Faction Paradox novel that recounts the trans-temporal war between the timelines where Rome never fell and the timelines where Germany won the Second World War. Warlords is not a conventional novel. Rather, the book feels like a memoir. The narrator, Marcus Americanus Scriptor, states at theContinue reading “Warlords of Utopia”
Reading Thoughts
I stopped by Barnes & Noble tonight and bought two books. One, The Penultimate Truth, a Philip K. Dick novel. The other, The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby’s new book about, well, buying and reading books. Hornby writes on page 14, “I don’t want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much moneyContinue reading “Reading Thoughts”
Narnia
Curiously, apropos of nothing, this came up at work today, in what order should C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books be read? I said, “Publication order–The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe comes first.” My coworker took a different view–in her boxed set The Magician’s Nephew comes first. Oh, the pain! Some may find it curious that,Continue reading “Narnia”