Book 24: The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

I'm back around to non-fiction again and this time we're going for some science.  The Fabric of the Cosmos is an exploration of the basics of the universe, basically what is it?  Through theoretical physics, cosmology and string theory he attempts to define the nature of spacetime.  If you know anything about me you'd know this is right up my alley.

It's 493 pages but 536 pages including the more detailed Notes section, which I'll probably read.  So that makes about 80 pages per day.

REVIEW:  Brian Greene does a nice job of laying down the basics in this book.  He starts with explaining the history of our knowledge of space.  Meaning: what is space?  From there he goes through more of the big questions: what is time?  How did the universe begin?  How will it end?  What makes up the fundamental particles and forces in our universe?

I've read enough of these kinds of books to have basic understanding of these concepts already and my own studies have fleshed those concepts out pretty thoroughly.  But Greene does an excellent job of describing all of these difficult ideas.  He explains things in a very understandably way and, if you desire, there is a "notes" section at the end which explains things in more depth for the mathematically and scientifically inclined reader.  He also does a good job of explaining that most of these concepts are just theories, hypotheses, really.  At the fundamental level, we still don't know most of the answers to the basic questions.

Reading through another science book, I typically judge them by whether or not I learn anything from them.  This book had a couple of large sections that I came away from feeling that I understood things better than before.  Entropy was a big one.  There was a large section on time and whether or not it can be shown to have an "arrow", a direction, from a scientific point of view.  I had a basic understanding of these ideas, but his explanations and the math in the notes section, really taught me something.

There was some rehashing; basic, history-of-science stuff at the beginning.  But he quickly moved on to more of the latest findings and theories, so it never really bogged down.  I found this book quite an interesting read... those without a love of science, physics and/or astronomy may not enjoy it quite as much.  8 out of 10.

Book 23: Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

My schedule was slipping for a couple weeks, but we’re back on now.  Next up is Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.  It’s a bit of a mystery/conspiracy theory novel from what I understand, as well as historical fiction.  I really enjoyed The Name of the Rose when I read it a number of years ago, but wasn’t as impressed with some of Eco’s more recent novels.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Eco’s writing and all of his books that I’ve read have been good, but I’m hoping that this is a great one.

623 pages means 89 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This is the third Templar conspiracy book that I've read.  The first was Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln which was very fun and very interesting.  The second one was Dan Brown's  The Da Vinci Code which was a blatant rip-off of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and basically just dramatized the book.  This one takes on the same subject material, basically, but adds a new twist.  

Eco is a phenomenal writer, his prose is very dense and he tends to incorporate tons and tons of historical material into his writing.  There are two basic types of chapters in the book.  One part tells the story of the protagonists and those are quick and interesting.  There is lots of drama and things happen quickly.  The second type is building the historical conspiracy of the Templars and, because it's a world-encompassing conspiracy, it tends to get very, very arcane.  I wouldn't say that you could just skim through the historical material either, because he tends to build on it from chapter to chapter and he refers back to different groups constantly.  

The other thing about this book is that he uses a lot of foreign languages.  The main characters are obviously well versed in Latin and French at the least and a smattering of other languages when necessary.  With my linguistic background it wasn't much of a problem, but if you do not know at least Latin and French you may need a dictionary, or Google Translate.  I don't think that there was anything critical that wasn't in English, but you might miss some of the flavor.

All in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable read.  I still prefer Eco's The Name of the Rose but this is probably my second favorite of his novels.  It did get a little arcane with all the occult knowledge that he included, but that knowledge is critical to the plot and really is the point of the book so it's something you have to wade through to really appreciate whole product Eco presents at the end.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Book 22: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I should have started this one on Monday, but I'm a little behind.  This time around I'm reading some World Literature, which is what I'm calling literature in any language but English.  I learned Russian specifically to read Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Pushkin in the original and I'm glad I did.  I always felt that something was missing in Russian literature in translation and I find that the works are far richer in their native language.

Clocking in at 735 pages, I should be able to finish in a week at 105 pages per day.

REVIEW: The Brothers Karamazov was a very interesting novel.  I usually feel a bit of dread going into Russian Literature and Dostoevsky in particular because it can get rather depressing.  Dostoevsky is very fond of delving into the depths of desperation, madness and tragedy.  This novel had a bit of that but was well rounded in other ways that had me pleasantly surprised.

It begins as a standard 19^th century family drama.  The story revolves around the Karamazov patriarch, his sons, their servants and their love interests.  The father is a bit of a scoundrel but wealthy.  The eldest son is also a scoundrel, but is more of a playboy.  The middle son is an atheist and a Socialist, practical and serious.  The youngest son is a pious, truthful novice monk and is the main point of view character.

As the novel changes gears the role of the youngest son, Alexei, becomes more important as Dostoevsky explores the role of religion in about 100 pages of pretty dense philosophy.  It’s here that the book bogged down a bit for me.  He has a lot of good things to say, but it’s pretty dense and scholarly.

The novel picks up again, however, as the eldest son, Dmitri, begins to take over as the main character.  Dostoevsky loves to write about manic characters behaving irrationally and this is Dmitri to a tee.  Not to spoil things but the book changes into a bit of a crime/mystery novel at this point as the reader tries to figure out the details of one fateful night.

Then the book changes gears again at the end of the novel and becomes a courtroom drama.  The last 200 pages or so deal with a trial and evidence given on both sides.  What was most interesting about this to me was that the author was able to effectively show how the available evidence was able to be interpreted, realistically, it two very different ways, neither of which was entirely the true series of events.

Overall, this was a very rich reading experience.  I’m not a big fan of Crime and Punishment because it was very far into the psyche of a madman but this book really showed Dostoevsky’s range as an author.  It was very engaging for most of it’s 750-ish page length and I have to put it pretty high on my list of best novels.  It did bog down in a couple of places and I don’t really like some of the characteristic traits that Dostoevsky characters tend to have (overly anxious women, manic, passionate men) but it was a very good read.  9 out of 10.

Book 21: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

I'm getting started late on this one due to a mixup with the library.  I found that the library had a compilation of The Walking Dead comics and had a very clever scheme allowing me to keep the book over the holidays but it didn't turn out as intended.  When I checked out the book and flipped it open I found that it was actually volume 3 of the set and the library didn't have volumes 1 and 2.  Bummer.  Oh well, I said, back to the book I was originally intending to read, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.  I have a couple of Potter-philes at work that say that this is their favorite of the series.  Mine, so far, is still The Prisoner of Azkaban but we'll see.

This volume has 870 pages which would be about 125 pages a day, but since I'm getting a late start I'll have to do better than that.

REVIEW:  With this book, the transformation from Children’s Literature to something more mature is in full swing.  Harry is now 15 years old and Ms. Rowling does a great job of writing a teenage boy.  Unfortunately, this also makes Harry a bit of a jerk.  He’s short-tempered with his friends, he’s frustrated with authority figures and he always thinks that he knows more than those around him.  A teenage boy to a tee.

With a darker theme pervading the book there is little room any more for some of the fun stuff.  It’s a good 200 pages before Harry gets to Hogwarts.  Then with everything that’s going on in his life, tests, girls, Voldemort and the new, authoritarian teacher, Prof. Umbridge, even the previous fun parts like classes and friends become more serious and less whimsical.

It’s not entirely a bad thing, however.  I’m very impressed with Ms. Rowling’s ability to alter her world as Harry (and his readers) get older.  The first book was written for a younger audience and it shows, especially, with names like Dumbledore, Hogwarts and Hufflepuff.  As the audience gets older and the theme gets darker, some of the more innocent things about Harry’s world get darker as well.  A good example of this is the self-drawn carriages from previous books.  It was assumed that they were self-driven somehow, but now, Harry can see what is pulling them: skeletal horses with leathery wings.  It turns out that you cannot see these horses, called Thestrals, unless you have witnessed death.  Pretty dark, huh?

It was still a good read and the world and events are still interesting, but the more mature, darker mood of the books has taken some of the whimsy and fun out of the story.  Also, Harry is a bit less likable than he is in previous books.  7 out of 10.

Book 20: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

While reading a lot of older books, I have found that I really like stories about the old sailing ships.  There's just something fascinating about wooden ships, canvas sails and the sense of adventure needed to take one of these things out on the open ocean.  I've read quite a few books from the Age of Sailing Ships:  Lord Jim, Robinson Crusoe, The Sea-Wolf, Treasure Island.  I'm hoping that this one lives up to it's reputation and gives me some great high seas adventure.

Only 464 pages means 67 pages per day but, if it is as good as I hope it is I'll probably finish in about 3 days.

REVIEW:  This book really hit the spot.  I was looking for a good sailing ship adventure and it was perfect.  I knew I was on the right track when I saw that there was an illustration inside labeling all the sails on a typical ship of the time.  If the publisher thinks it might be useful reference to know which is the maintopmast staysail or the mizzen topgallant then, chances are, you’re in for some good nautical adventure.

The book is the first of a very long series of books with the two main characters.  It covers their meeting and events on their first ship together, with Jack Aubrey as the Captain of the ship and Stephen Maturin as the ship’s doctor.  There’s a good deal of ship’s activity that is documented as well as the exciting parts of ship to ship combat.  The combat scenes are fast paced despite the minutiae of which sails are being pulled in and which others are being raised. 

I found these details to be engaging, especially in a genre that tends to gloss over details in favor of action.  This book had both.  I’m definitely going to continue with this series and have already placed the next volume on my reading list.

Approaches being a classic-worthy novel and is certainly one of the best sea-stories that I’ve read.  9 out of 10.

Book 19: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

I never really cared for American Literature until I discovered Hemingway.  Now that I've read most of his works I'm expanding to Faulkner.  This book was probably assigned in high school English class so it's been something I always felt I should read.  

348 pages in this one, a leisurely 50 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This book took a little while to get into.  Not only is it a stream-of-consciousness style novel, but it jumps around in time and space and has a confusing cast of characters.  Along with the confusing cast and the jumps in time and space you also have sections with no punctuation and others where Faulkner gives dialogue from Southern black characters which he spells out phonetically, “Dont you dare come in dis do widout a armful of wood.  Here I done had to tote yo wood en build yo fire bofe.  Didn’t I tole you not to leave dis place last night befo dat woodbox wus full to de top?”

Once I got into the correct stride, however, the book became much more readable and I began to be able relax and enjoy it.  It’s a rather sad story about the downfall of a traditional Southern family.  Each of the characters feels the loss of status and property in different ways but it’s all pretty melancholy. 

What I found most interesting about the whole story was the relationships between the blacks and whites in the novel.  It’s a complicated interplay.  The blacks have been free for some time now, but they are still segregated into their own communities.  The town’s white population have a complicated view of their black neighbors and seem to spend a lot of time agonizing over it while the black population has the view of “You tend to yo business en let de whitefolks tend to deir’n.”

Probably my favorite passage in the book comes from this narrative and takes place when Quentin, the eldest son, reflects on the relationship between blacks and whites:

“When I first came East I kept thinking You’ve got to remember to think of them as colored people not niggers, and if it hadn’t happened that I wasn’t thrown with many of them, I’d have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.  That was when I realized that a nigger is not a person so much as a form of behavior…”

Well said.  All in all, I really liked the book, though it was rather sad.  I’d give it about an 8 out of 10.

Book 18: Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais

Well, I'm finally finished with the first four Song of Fire and Ice books.  I'll continue with the series whenever I pick up the fifth book but, until then, I'm moving on to other things.  First in line, another classic novel, a collection of five novels, actually.

Gargantua and Pantagruel was written in the mid-1500s and tells the stories of two giants: Pantagruel and his father Gargantua.  It's often cited as one of the best in world literature though, honestly, I'd never heard of it before I started this project.

So, here goes!  841 pages, which is less than my last 4 books and it has bigger type, woohoo!  120 pages a day or so should get me through the book in one week.

HUGE REVIEW:  It’s difficult to describe Gargantua and Pantagruel.  It’s like a combination of The Odyssey, Gulliver’s Travels and Don Quixote all mixed into one.  It’s an extremely crude book book by any standard, filled with drinking, sex, violence and… well… scatological humor.

Between the poop jokes, however, Rabelais actually has a lot to say.  The book is, essentially, very bawdy satire.  As such, it has biting commentary and even outright contempt for politics (with gluttonous, incompetent kings), religious orders (with monks that won’t defend themselves until their vineyard is under attack), the current state of education (with pedantic academics spouting overly-complicated nonsense words) and lawyers (with one judge who decides cases by throwing the dice). 

Rabelais doesn’t just criticize these institutions however.  He also adds his own ideas as to how they should behave.  As a product of the Renaissance, Rabelais believes that one should live fully and follow your instincts.  He preaches pleasure for the body as well as intellectual curiosity and study for the mind.  He was sincerely religious but skeptical of the excessive discipline and asceticism of the monasticism of his time.  It's really quite philosophical.

I would have attempted the French version of this book, but since it’s 500 years old, I didn’t have the confidence in my Old French as in my Modern French.  I can see though that, even through translation, Rabelais has a rare mastery of language.  He writes equally well from the perspective of the crude peasant as from that of the learned intellectual.  I’m sure the puns and plays on language in the book are that much better in the original.  The only real problem that I had was that my edition didn’t translate the many phrases of non-French: Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, German, Italian, Basque, etc.  My knowledge of some of these languages helped quite a bit, but I was thrown by phrases such as:  “Omnis bella bellabilis, in bellerio bellando, bellans bellativo bellare bellantes.  Parisius habet bellas.”  All I got was the ending, “In Paris there are bells.”

There are several chapters in the books that are essentially lists or catalogues  of various items, from insults to methods of fortune telling to lists of books in a library.  These can be quite tedious to get through, though they typically have quite a few wry comments interspersed throughout them and one of them, the list of books, produced my favorite title, “Of the Gentle Art of Farting in Company.”

All in all, Gargantua and Pantagruel is great social satire disguised as the adventures of two very crude giants and their associates.  Laugh out loud funny in parts, thought provoking in others.  9 of 10.

Book 17: A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

This is the fourth book of the Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin.  It's also the last book for this mini-marathon as I don't yet own the fifth in the series.  As soon as I pick that one up I'll continue.  This one is a little smaller than the last, only 976 pages (!) so it should be slightly easier to finish, haha.

140 pages per day to finish this one in a week, but I've been going through the series at about 200 pages a day so I'll probably stick with that, it's a good rhythm.

REVIEW:  This book was my least favorite so far.  Apparently, Mr. Martin had too much material for one book so he split it into two volumes.  Instead of giving half the story for all the characters he decided to give the full story for half the characters.  The only problem with this is that few of the characters that I'm interested in are in this book.  Instead of Jon Snow, we get Samwell, instead of Tyrion we get Cersei, instead of Bran we get Sansa.  In addition, he decided to expand on the happenings in some of the more remote areas of his world.  Personally, I think that much of that action could have happened "off-screen" and been handled by references and allusions to the results.  Martin gives entirely too much information and it bogs down his narrative.  It's less like reading The Lord of the Rings and more like reading The Silmarillion.  Those that have read the two will know the difference.

In addition to slowing down the plot, his over detailed prose is starting to become a bit repetitive.  The terms "mummer's farce" and "useless as nipples on a breastplate" were used many times and his description of food and eating is still very repetitive.  Hot juices running down chins and into beards is a common occurrence as is tearing the wing from a plump, crisp capon.

Don't get me wrong, I still think that the story is great and the weaving together of the separate plot-lines is genius, but the writing is still pretty average.  I'm not sure what it is about most fantasy and sci-fi authors that makes them such mediocre writers... something about people with great ideas but little talent as a wordsmith.  I could name a dozen or more writers like that.

The same complaints from this book as the previous coupled with the absence of most of my favorite characters and locations makes this my least favorite so far.  By contrast, the next book, being focused on the characters that were left out of this one, should be one of the best.   5 out of 10 for this one.

Book 16: A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

I'm not actually going to say much about this yet, because... ahem... I'm not quite done with the previous yet.  Between my sick kid at home and Halloween activities I'm a little behind.  I should be done today or tonight though, so I'll be starting this one sometime today.

These things keep getting bigger!  This one is 1128 pages which is way too many pages per day.  Yeesh!

REVIEW:  A Storm of Swords is by far the darkest volume in this series so far.  There was a point in the first book that had me so outraged that I wanted to put the book down and quit.  This book has several such moments.  With The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was able to balance tragedy with heroism, but the realistic tone of Martin’s books don’t allow that kind of escapism.  As a result, the story falls deep into tragedy leaving you wondering who will even remain alive at the end of the series to put the pieces of the world back together again.

The survivors of this book continue to live, however, and fight desperately to do so... and similarly, I continue my struggle to continue through to the next book.  The writing and the plot are still ponderously slow with almost a hundred pages at the beginning simply bringing the reader up to speed with the characters from the last book.  There are very good scenes to be had, though, and the battles are particularly brilliant with the fighting at the Wall in the north as shining examples.  In fact, all the parts dealing with the characters in the far north, at and beyond the Wall are, by far, my favorites.

The fall from grace and/or death of many of my favorite characters gave birth to some very strong nihilism.  There was a very large part of me that wanted the armies from across the sea to come and burn the whole thing to the ground.  This world needs a clean slate at this point and it’s hard to predict what Martin will do next.  There are still 2 books in the series I have yet to read, however, and 2 more that are still unwritten, so I’m sure that the author has very large and very complex plans for them. He is nothing if not painstakingly detailed.

The big swing into tragedy in this volume, coupled with the same slow, extremely detailed plot progression made this one harder to read than the previous:  6 out of 10.

Book 15: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Well, here we go, the second part of the epic series by George R.R. Martin.  The end of the last book was action-packed and spurred my interest after a very long introduction.  This book promises to be full of action and intrigue.  I have a few friends that, when I mentioned that I was debating reading all of the books in a month (there were only 4 at the time), said that it wasn't possible.  Seeing that as a challenge, I'm off and running into book 2... and it's a huge one: 969 pages in my edition.  That's a whopping 140 pages per day just to stay on schedule.  I'm gonna need a whole lot of luck to finish these on time.

REVIEW:  Finally finished this book.  The story is moving along a bit better now but Martin still bogs himself down with too much detail.  I appreciate it to a degree because a lot of the realism is from the attention paid to the details, but sometimes he just digresses took much from the story.  For instance, the characters have frequent feasts and Martin likes to describe it in minute detail:

"They began with pears poached in wine, and went on to tiny savory fish rolled in salt and cooked crisp, and capons stuffed with onions and mushrooms.  There were great loaves of brown bread, mounds of turnips and sweetcorn and pease, immense hams and roast geese and trenchers dripping full of venison stewed with beer and barley.  For the sweet, Lord Caswell's servants brought down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans and spun-sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spiced honey biscuits and blackberry tarts, apple crisps and wheels of buttery cheese."

Sounds tasty, but come on, get on with the story.  He tends to do this sort of thing with food, banners, any kind of group of people, et cetera.  While the story is interesting and the action is moving along, it moves very slowly.  It reminds me of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan in that way... both authors take about 1,000 pages to move an army from one city to the next.  Is it realistic?  Sure.  Is it interesting?  Well, yes.  But it takes quite a bit of determination to get through it.

I can still think of several fantasy genre series that I like better than this one.  The story is very interesting, the characters are rich and the setting is detailed but, it just moves so slowly that I find myself wanting to skip ahead a few pages now and then.  Overall, I found it a bit better than the previous due to the plot picking up speed a bit:  8 out of 10.

Book 14: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

This series has become very popular lately, no doubt due to the new HBO series based on the books.  I know a couple of people who absolutely love these books and can't stop talking about them.  I also know a couple people who say they're crap.  I guess we'll find out which side I agree with in about a week.

807 pages!?  Ouch... that's about 116 pages a day.  Hope it's good, 'cause that could be painful otherwise.

REVIEW:  This book was a little hard to get through.  As the first book of a long series, it took a long time to get up to speed.  About 500 of it's 800 pages were, essentially, an introduction to the characters and locations involved in the story.  Once it does get going, however, it became much more interesting.

It is definitely a fantasy novel, but written very realistically.  There is little magic and a lot of the action is political in nature.  The Game of Thrones are basically the political machinations of the half-dozen or so lords and their King.  The story is as epic as The Lord of the Rings, or perhaps even more so, but far grittier, rough and bloody.  It is a no-holds-barred look at war in a medieval setting with all the death, destruction, rape, pillaging and burning that implies.

I have really only a few complaints about the book.  First, the story is very dark and gets darker throughout the book.  It could do with a bit of humor or some other respite to help lighten the mood.  Secondly, it is an extremely well detailed story... Martin doesn't omit any little detail in his descriptions of people, places or plots.  While it nice to see someone write his story so thoroughly, it bogs down the story quite a bit and makes it harder to read than necessary.  Finally, I'd like to see him tone down the sex a bit.  I'm no prude, but there is a LOT of sex in the book, consensual sex, incestuous sex, rape, you name it.  There is usually a reason for it, so it's not exactly gratuitous sex, but it's very close to pornographic in sections.

Rich and complex, realistic and gritty this book still suffered a bit from a slow start.  I'd give it about an 7 out of 10.

Book 13: Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

I know a few people who just detest Joseph Conrad but, in my limited readings (I've only read Heart of Darkness) I find that I actually enjoy his writing.  I find it impressive that he writes such good prose for a non-native English speaker and I think that his depictions of the human psyche are quite interesting and believable.  I had a couple of Conrad novels to choose from and Lord Jim kept popping to the top of the list so, with very little knowledge of what it's about, I'm going to give it a go.

It's 417 pages in my copy so that makes about 60 pages per day.  I have a couple of other events coming up this week, however, so I'll probably have to do a bit better than that.

REVIEW:  I had a hard time getting through this one.  It didn't capture my attention quite as well as some of the other books I've been reading lately.  I also had a lot of things going on this past week and wasn't able to read as often as I'd have liked to and maybe that had something to do with it.

The book is roughly split into three main sections.  The first part reads very mysteriously as you are told about the title character, Jim, and that there is something about his past that haunts him.  Little by little we are let in to the secret and all comes out eventually.  The second part deals with the complete story of the event that has shaped Jim's life.  It reminded me of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner the way that the narrator is held enthralled while the main character tells his unfortunate story.  Finally, we are shown the effects of this event and Jim's gradual redemption through the assistance of the narrator.

It was this final part that seemed to drag on a bit.  I kept wondering how much could possibly be left while I still had 150 pages to go.  Conrad managed to keep the story going, however, and I eventually made it to the end.

The plot was interesting and some passages were very well written but, ultimately, it felt more like a chore to finish the book.  I certainly didn't hate the book, but it wasn't one of my favorites.  It's definitely a good book, but not for me.  5/10.

Book 12: Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert

Time for a bit of weird science fiction.  I know it's going to be weird because it's Frank Herbert and, while his Dune series is very well constructed, his other works of fiction tend to be decidedly odd.  From the back cover:

"A team of government operatives is sent to invade the site of Dr. Hellstrom's secret Project 40.  What they find are specially bred scientists with huge heads and stunted legs who develop weapons that hum with deadly insect venom... chemically neutered workers capable of poisoning the world ... hidden tunnels immune to atomic fission ... hormones for ecstatic sensual pleasures ... and the vats -- where everyone finally ends to nourish future generations of Hellstrom's horrifying hive."

Sounds like good stuff!  312 pages in this one which makes about 45 pages per day.

REVIEW: Lots of nudity, crazy cultists, selective breeding, experimental human societies and secret government agencies, in short, almost everything you could want from a good old classic sci-fi book. There are a number of themes that this book has in common with Herbert's masterpiece, Dune, particularly, the secret human colonies and selective breeding programs. After getting used to his writing style again, I found myself getting more and more into this book. Most of it reads like a government spy thriller. A secret government agency has discovered some evidence of strange goings-on at a remote farm in Oregon, they send agents to investigate who never return so they become more and more invested in trying to uncover their secrets until a major conflict is imminent. It was very tense and very interesting. Herbert has a way of making even his most unusual ideas seem, not only pausible, but realistic. I'm a big fan of this author and this was another great one from him. The ending was a little abrupt however and you wish it would go on for another 50 pages or so... even so, I'd give this one a 9/10.   

Book 11: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe

I wanted to get a little bit of non-fiction into my rotation of books and this will be the first.  I've seen bits and pieces of the movie version of this book, but have never seen the whole thing.  It is considered one of the best non-fiction books around and I've always been interested in air- and spacecraft so it seems a good fit.  My copy of the book has 436 pages so I need to read 63 pages a day to finish in a week.

REVIEW:  This was a really interesting non-fiction book.  It read more like a novel with the characters introduced, the story building to an exciting climax and the denouement at the end.  It tells the story of the birth of the Space Age in America, starting with the fighter jet test pilots and progressing through Project Mercury and the first human spaceflights.  The astronauts and test pilots of the book all appear as heroes in the classical sense, "single combat warriors" as Wolfe calls them.

All-in-all I really enjoyed this book.  I feel like I learned something about an era that I didn't really know much about.  It dragged a bit in some places but, since it is non-fiction, it is inevitable that some  parts will be more interesting than others.  I'd give this one a 9 out of 10.

Book 10: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

I'm worn out from the last couple books, so I want something quick and easy this time.  At about 300 pages, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd should allow me to take my time. Besides, I've never read anything by Ms. Christie and, I assume, she must be famous for a good reason, right?  This one came up on a lot of lists as the best of her works, so I thought I'd give it a try.

REVIEW:  I expected this one to be pretty good based solely on the reputation of the author, but it exceeded my expectations by far.  The writing was very entertaining and had me hooked from the first chapter.  It was, pretty much, exactly what I want from a mystery novel.  The clues were all presented before the reveal, allowing you to make guesses as to "who dunnit" throughout.  In fact, it was complicated enough that I revised my own personal list of suspects at least 3 times before the end.  And I still got it wrong.  Mostly this is due to the great twist at the end.  I didn't see it coming at all.  I'm not going to spoil it, of course, but it got me good.

9/10 - one of the best of the genre and definitely one of my new favorite books.

Book 9: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

This one was recommended by a friend of mine at work who just finished it.  She said it was a great, classic adventure story and, having enjoyed Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, it sounded pretty good.  It's also part of a trilogy, which I didn't know, including this novel, Twenty Years Later and The Man in the Iron Mask.  Throw in The Count of Monte Cristo and that's 3 more books to add to my reading list.  Bonus!

673 pages this time, so that makes about 97 pages per day.

REVIEW:  This one kicked my butt.  My sister dared me to read it in French.  Unable to turn down a challenge like that, I tracked down a copy and did it.  It took me a few extra days but I managed it.  I'm not entirely sure if it was just my rusty French or if it was the book itself, but I found it to be rather shallow.  There was little to no character development and very little nuance in the plot or characters.  It wasn't a bad story and it was rather entertaining in parts but it felt a little cliché fairly often.  It may be because this book set the mold and others copied it (too often) but it was hard to ignore.  It got so bad at one point that I laughed out loud.  Chapter 65 begins thus: "C'etait une nuit orageuse et sombre."  Literally, "It was a dark and stormy night."  Wow.

So, that's it, a good bit of fun and decent story but a bit shallow and cliché.  Dare I start a rating system?  6 out of 10.

Book 8: "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling

Enough of this high-brow stuff!  It's time to get back to where I left off with Harry Potter.  I found the first one to be a really good children's book.  Right up there with some of the classics.  The next two were also quite fun and addictive.  So, on to book 4.  734 pages, but they're very easy to read.  105 pages per day.

UPDATE:  At first, I didn't find this book to be as addictive as the third in the series "Prisoner of Azkaban", in fact, I fell behind a bit in the middle of the week.  But as I got further into it, I became progressively more interested. In fact, I stayed up until 1AM reading the last 200 pages because I just couldn't put it down.  This book was the first in the series where I felt that there was a large amount of substantial content left out of the film version.  To me, this is a big plus, because even though I'm reading the book 6 years after the film was released, and 11 years since it was first published, there is still a lot of material left to explore.  This is also the point in the series where things take a dramatic turn toward a darker storyline.  The final few chapters are very tense and, even knowing the ending from the film, you don't really know how everything happens.

With all the publicity and fanfare surrounding the Harry Potter franchise it is tempting to dismiss the phenomenon and try to distance yourself from the frenzy.  But, I truly believe that the series will stand the test of time and I am sure that I'll be revisiting it from the beginning when my little ones are old enough to enjoy it.  Thanks Harry, for another fun adventure.

Book 7: "Diary" by Chuck Palahniuk

My sister-in-law is a big fan of Mr. Palahniuk but I've never read any of his works.  I decided to include one of his books in my little project here and picked one fairly randomly from her shelves and now it's time to dive in.  It's not the one that my sister-in-law thinks is the best (Choke) or his most famous (Fight Club) so I think it might actually be more representative of his work than the others.

By reading the last couple books in 5 days instead of 7, I have completely caught up with my schedule and have a full week to finish this one.  At 272 pages I only need 39 page per day and, after two weeks of 100 pages per day, it should be a nice, leisurely read.

UPDATE: My first impression, after reading a lot of classic literature was, "My goodness, modern literature sure is vulgar."  But, after I got used to the changes in style this book really grew on me.  It went from that initial revolting to intriguing to very interesting.  I'm not sure that I was happy with the ending and this was one of the only times I can remember hoping for an unhappy ending... though it's difficult to figure out what that would actually mean with this book.  My favorite  line was, after spending an entire chapter describing what different paint colors are made of (crushed beetle shells, crawfish ink, charred bone), that: "The more you know about art, the more it sounds like witchcraft."  Very nice.

Book 6: "Emma" by Jane Austen

Only two days late now.  Made up quite a bit of time with Book 5.  So now, on to something girly!  Hahaha.  Seriously, I really like Jane Austen.  Her stories are not always brilliant; I found Mansfield Park to be particularly dull.  But, her mastery of the English language is amazing.  You rarely come across such well crafted prose.  So, with that prologue, I'm looking forward to some good Regency era reading.  462 pages means 66 pages per day.  I'll probably shoot for more to try and finish it in 5 days so that I'm completely caught up.

UPDATE (08/29/11) - Another enjoyable read... It must be getting rather tiresome to hear nothing but positive reviews, but I spent quite a bit of time choosing my first few books for this project to make it as enjoyable as possible, so it's really no surprise.  Pride and Prejudice is indisputably Jane Austen's master work, but Emma comes in a very close second, in my opinion.  What I enjoyed most was the growth of the title character, Emma. In the beginning, she is meddlesome, arrogant and headstrong but, through a series of bad judgments on her own part and the effects her actions have upon her friends, she gradually learns from her mistakes and becomes a better person for it.  Other than, perhaps, Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, it's a change unseen in most of her other characters.

So there it is, my new second-favorite Jane Austen novel.

Book 5: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway

When I read The Old Man and the Sea a few years ago I became completely enthralled with Hemingway's writing.  Reading The Sun Also Rises soon afterward pretty well confirmed it.  Since then I've read all his books except this one.  I'm still behind since my vacation, but I'm not going to throw myself any more softballs.  495 pages means 71 pages... in order to catch up completely I'd have to read 165 pages a day... I think I might shoot for 100 and see how it goes.

Update: Finished the book on August 23rd taking 5 days at just about 100 pages per day.  Another great book!  This one is about a group of partisans fighting in the Spanish Civil War.  One of the most interesting aspects of this book was the was the way Hemingway wrote the dialogue.  You are reading the words in English, but the characters are speaking Spanish and the written words, while awkward in English are very good translations of what would actually be said in Spanish.  It makes for some interesting reading, in my opinion.  It's a very deep book, at it's core and the characters spend a lot of time figuring out what's important to them in wartime and how a country can be torn apart by civil war.  Sad, but very good.

Book 4: "Robinson Crusoe" by Daniel Defoe

I needed another "easy" book to help get back on schedule after vacation threw me so far off.  I was originally scheduled to finish this book on August 13th and I'm now 3 days overdue.  At 282 pages, I need to get through 40 pages a day to finish in a week.  More if I want to catch up a bit more.

Update: Finished on August 18th, still 4 days behind.  Great book though.  I was looking for something exactly like this: someone marooned has to recreate civilization from scratch.  The concept is interesting and the execution here is quite good.  You kinda forget that it's fiction and not an account of someone's life.  The other thing that I liked was that, being 300 years old, there were some parts that were a little uncomfortable, dealing with slavery and treatment of native peoples... and, surprisingly, Defoe also seemed uncomfortable with these issues.  Rather progressive for someone writing around 1700.  Anyway, the book holds up to its many years and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Book 3: "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, I know, this one was cheating.  I've read this one before... multiple times, actually.  But, I was going on vacation and wanted something fun to read.  I brought a total of 3 books with me on vacation being wildly optimistic about how much time I'd have to read.  Turns out, I only read 36 pages.

It took a total of 10 days to finish this book.  Though, in all fairness, once I got back home I finished it in 4 days.  Put me way off schedule though... gonna have to work double-time to catch up.

The Hobbit is still an excellent book, I never would have finished so quickly otherwise.  I'm just waiting until my son is old enough to appreciate Tolkien.

Book 2: "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens

I've always disliked Dickens but, to be fair, I hadn't read any of his works since high school. So, I decided to give him a second (and possibly last) chance.  368 pages meant about 53 pages per day  but it ended up being not-so-bad.


He's still overly wordy, but the story was engaging and kept me interested through to the end.  I have to say, I wouldn't mind reading more Dickens... later... much later.

Book 1: "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov

For a science-fiction book published in 1951, this book was surprisingly not-dated.  The only part that felt a little out of date was the over-optimism about atomic power.  Asimov seemed to feel that nuclear power was the answer to most of humanity's problems and their key to the future.

Again, I'm reading a book that is the first in a series.  In this case it's a much more extensive series encompassing at least 7 novels, more if you include other authors writing sequels.

This book was so good, in fact, that I finished it in 3 days.  Leaving some extra time for my next, dreaded, book... Dickens.

Book 0: "The Red Wolf Conspiracy" by Robert V.S. Redick

This book wasn't really a part of the project.  I read it as a proof of concept, just to see if I could really read a book in one week.  At 462 pages, I needed to read 66 pages per day.  With just my round trip on the bus to work I was able to do it pretty easily.

I saw this one on the shelf in the library and thought it looked interesting.  And, to my surprise, it was quite good.  It had been a while since I read any fantasy books.  This one had a nice, complex plot, a rich world and lots of great characters.  The only real problem is that it's the first in a trilogy, which means that now I have to add volume 2 (The Rats and the Ruling Sea) and part 3 (The Night of the Swarm) to my reading list.

Getting Started

For some time I'd been lamenting the fact that at my current rate of reading, approximately one book per month, I would only get through about 600 more books in my lifetime.  Clearly not enough.  So I thought that it would be much better to try to read one book per week, which would add up to about 2600 books in my lifetime.  Much better!

This blog will follow this project from beginning to end.  I started with the idea to try it for 8 weeks and have now decided to extend it to one year.  52 weeks, 52 books.

Wish me luck!