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Excerpt from Ready Player One

December 31, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I just finished Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. I had certainly heard about it before, but I hadn’t read the book or seen the movie. If you are looking for a book with lots of 80s pop culture nostalgia, this is the one to read! While set in 2045, the protagonist and his competitors must learn everything they can about 1980s technology, music, movies, etc. in order to solve the clues that Halliday has left behind. I don’t read a lot of sci fi/futurist fiction, but this one was full of references to the TRS-80 Color Computer 2 (saving programs to cassette tapes), War Games, and so much more.

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Excerpt from Before the Fall

December 24, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / 2 Comments

I have been reading Before the Fall, by Noah Hawley. The book begins with the end – protagonist Scott saving a four-year-old boy after their plane goes down in the ocean. It then examines the lives of each of the passengers and how they got there, Scott processing the accident and the investigators trying to figure out what happened. I has been a fascinating story so far. Sensitive readers beware that there is some crude language in this one.

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Excerpt from A Spark of Light

December 17, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I quite enjoy Jodi Picoult and the way that she portrays her characters, each individuals with unique backstories and relationships. And she is not afraid to tackle difficult issues, as you’ll find when you read this one!

I am currently reading A Spark of Light, which juxtapositions an armed hostage situation with the very personal situations the various women and men are facing.

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Excerpt from Past Tense

December 10, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / 3 Comments

Jack Reacher is always one of my favorites. Last week I picked up Past Tense by Lee Child, and I am enjoying it as usual. This one is slightly different in that there are two parallel stories running, and they have into yet intersected, but I am at the point where they should soon. One story is about Reacher and another is about a Canadian couple, and I have enjoyed a few asides about them behaving a certain way because “they were Canadian.” I’m always interested in how people see the differences in Canadian and US culture.

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Excerpt from The Atomic City Girls

December 3, 2019 / 3 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I have just started reading The Atomic City Girls, by Janet Beard. In searching it up on Amazon just now, and realized that there is also a book called The Girls of Atomic City, on the same subject, so be aware if you are looking it up that there are two very similar books out there. The Atomic City Girls is billed as a novel and The Girls of Atomic City as a true story.

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Excerpt from Camino Island

November 26, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I just finished reading John Grisham’s Camino Island, which is a heist/intrigue novel rather than his usual legal thriller. As the plot surrounds rare manuscripts and writers, there is a lot of insight into the writing life and publishing world. Grisham draws together the disparate threads of the plot together for the grand finale and reveal.

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Excerpt from Badlands

November 19, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I just finished reading Badlands, book #3 in C.J. Box’s Highway series. I rarely end up reading series in order, but in this case I have actually read books 1 and 2 (in that order!)

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Excerpt from Winter in Paradise

November 12, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / Leave a Comment

I picked up Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand, which was billed as a mystery, but it is far closer to literary or domestic thriller so far. There is no investigation into the death of the main character’s husband and the others in the helicopter with him, and I’m not even sure at this point that they’re actually dead. Things are very suspicious…

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Excerpt from The Beekeeper’s Apprentice

November 5, 2019 / 2 minutes of reading / 3 Comments

This week I am reading Laurie R. King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice: or, On the Segregation of the Queen (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Book 1). I’ve read a number of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, including one with a female Sherlock Holmes (Study in Scarlet Women). This one gives Sherlock a new apprentice, a young woman who meets him after his retirement and studies under his tutelage. There are a number of smaller mysteries within this book. I’m not sure whether that trend continues, or whether I am now onto the “main” mystery.

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Excerpt from The Secret Adversary

October 29, 2019 / 1 minute of reading / Leave a Comment

I just finished reading Agatha Christie’s The Secret Adversary, the first Tommy and Tuppence story. It’s been many years since I read it last. I had forgotten the layers upon layers of adventure and misdirection. It is classic Agatha Christie, with fun and memorable characters. Definitely worth a read.

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