Hello again!
It's time for my semi-regular Reading Updates!
Week One - A Book with Magic: The Iron Trial by Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
According to wikipedia, Cassandra Clare is the author of The Mortal Instruments series, and Holly Black is best known for The Spiderwick Chronicles series, and that is all news to me. I haven't read either of those, and only picked up The Iron Trial 'cause Half Price Books had signed copies and I had a coupon.
Turns out it's the first book in the Magisterium series. It's about Callum Hunt, a boy wizard of about 12 who's being shipped off to magic school - but with a twist! He doesn't wanna go. Ok... not exactly reinventing the genre. But it does make for an interesting new take on the teen wizard story.
Callum isn't the hero you expect. He's been told since birth that the Magisterium is a horrible place, and he seems hellbent on not fitting in - failing his tests, annoying his fellow students, breaking every rule he can, all in the hopes that they'll send him home and he can go back to life as normal. But of course, he can help but find friends, and as his interest and skills develop, so does the intrigue.
Of course, the Harry Potter comparison is unavoidable. But this book mixes things up in some key ways. The magic is presented as a mastery over the four elements... five? six, I guess. Anyway, each mage has an affinity to one element or another, much like benders in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Chaos mages are the most rare, so of course, the good guys are waiting for the next Chaos mage to come around and be their chosen one, who will defeat the big bad guy.
And, while the story uses the 2 guys and a girl formula for the protagonists, Callum is almost more of a Ron Weasley type - the less popular, less capable, less likable of the two guys, it almost seems he's gonna be a sidekick in his own book. Though as the book reaches it's climax, it becomes clear why that won't be.
All this together makes a book that I really enjoyed, actually. Callum isn't the typical protagonist, but his story kept me engaged. The Magisterium itself is an interesting take on the magic school trope, and I'm curious to learn more about it. And the resolution of the story sets the series in a direction that is interesting and unique enough to make me read the next one.
Week Two - A Book That I Own, But Have Never Read: Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion by Malcolm Hulke
So this week I was gonna finish Let Me In, and when that clearly wasn't gonna happen, I thought "how about a Doctor Who for 'a book i can read in a day'?" And then that didn't happen either. But since I bought it in 2013, I figured it wasn't a total loss, I'll just check off this other goal.
As for the book itself, it's a 140 page novelisation of a sci-fi show from the seventies, so don't expect greatness. It's actually one of the better ones I've read (and I've read 19); good action, a little intrigue, and flippin' dinosaurs.
As for a recommendation, do you like Doctor who? No? Then don't read this.
Yes? ... like, David Tennant Doctor Who? Still don't read this...
You've watched the old show, and actually enjoyed it? Still, you probably don't need to read this...
But, if you're still interested, and you know what you're in for (maybe you've read some of the spin off books, or you're into the Star Wars EU) then give this a shot, 'cause it's a good way to experience old Doctor Who stories without suffering through 1970's BBC production value.
So there we have it! 2 weeks in and still more-or-less on track. For next week, I'm still shooting for Let Me In and as soon as I find a copy of the original Stand, I can dig back in on the Stephen King project.
See ya next time!
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Friday, January 2, 2015
A resolution
Holy Crap, it's been a while!
It's a new year, and that means Resolutions.
And for the third year in a row, my resolution is to read more. One book a week (on average) to be exact. A resolution at which I have failed miserably two years running!
But this time I have a new approach: the 2015 Reading Challenge. I guess that's a thing that Goodreads does, where you say "I'm gonna read hella books" and then you use Goodreads to track how many hellas of books you read. And I'm doing that (I'm "explodenator" on Goodreads, so you know). However that seems kinda unexciting, and so more specifically I'll be using this list. And I realize that I just linked to some women's health blog thing, and that figures since I only know about this list 'cause my mom found it on Pinterest, but whatever, gosh. It's seems like an interesting list.
For those of you who didn't click the link, it's a checklist of goals for your reading, like "A book with a number in the title" and "A book by someone under thirty". It's got 50 things to check off, and since one entry is "A trilogy", that's 52 books - one a week (51 if you don't count "a graphic novel", which I don't, for reasons I will get to).
So as I take this on, I'm gonna lay down some ground rules (for myself - you do whatever you want). First off, One Goal per Book. I could knock out the list in a month if I allowed myself to meet multiple criteria with one book, and as the goal is to read a book a week, I'm not going for efficiency.
Second, No Re-Reading Books. My goal in past years was to read one NEW book a week, so I'm applying this constraint to the Reading Challenge as well.
Third, Graphic Novels Don't Count. No disrespect to comics. Mostly just 'cause it would confuse my count. I spend way too much on comics every month, but I read most of them in single issues, and thus, it would inflate my book count. Plus, I could read a Graphic Novel a Day, just cause they're so light on words, but that would get even more expensive. I'll keep reading them, but it's not part of the challenge.
Fourth, a major concern from previous attempts: What IS a book? And to that I say, a front cover, a back cover, and all the words found between. However, I made a few exceptions for myself in the past. Anything advertised as Multiple Novels (ie. an ACE Double Book) counts as multiple entries. Also, collections of material originally published separately counts as multiple entries. But not short story collections; those are one book each. Or "The Complete So-And-So" if so and so wrote a lot of poems and short stories (like "The Complete Edgar Allen Poe" for instance, is one book). But "The Complete H.G. Wells" counts as hella books 'cause those are all separate novels. Get it?
Now, as I said, my ultimate goal is to read more new books. Not to enrich myself or expand my mind, but simply because I have way too many unread books cluttering my house. I'm not going for literary, entertainment, historical or whatever, value - just sheer volume of... volumes.
I have so many books 'cause I am quite fond of buying cheap used paperbacks. But reading books is competing for my free time with other equally valid pastimes such as reading websites like Cracked and Straight Dope, reading comics, watching TV, Movies, and Youtube, playing video games, and tabletop games; and other less savory pastimes like getting 16 hours of sleep a day (BTW, I do work... I was just listing the things I do with my SPARE time, which is only spare because it isn't spent fulfilling grown-up-type obligations).
... Yeah, I'm not done yet. In addition to this reading challenge, I have set two goals. One, a long term goal, is to read all of Stephen King's books, in the order they were published. No deadline on that one, and I jump ahead whenever he releases a new one, just to stay current. But the nature of this side-challenge is that, when I reach a book I have already read, I must reread it. And that doesn't count towards my overall goal.
Two, I have a calendar from Half Price Books. Maybe you have it, too. Each month it features a different author, and gives their list of Favorite Books. I will try to read one book each month by that author, as well as one from their list. No promises, but I'll use it as a guide.
And so you say "Andrew, that's half your books right there! Throw in a Stephen King every other week, and the list writes itself."
Except... remember when I said I've never actually met that book-a-week goal? I meant I REALLY FAILED, and in order to be at a book-a-week average for 2013-15, I'll actually have to read 92 books this year. Which is totally do-able. But Netflix is also a thing. Which hurts.
Anyway, Happy New Year, folks!
It's a new year, and that means Resolutions.
And for the third year in a row, my resolution is to read more. One book a week (on average) to be exact. A resolution at which I have failed miserably two years running!
But this time I have a new approach: the 2015 Reading Challenge. I guess that's a thing that Goodreads does, where you say "I'm gonna read hella books" and then you use Goodreads to track how many hellas of books you read. And I'm doing that (I'm "explodenator" on Goodreads, so you know). However that seems kinda unexciting, and so more specifically I'll be using this list. And I realize that I just linked to some women's health blog thing, and that figures since I only know about this list 'cause my mom found it on Pinterest, but whatever, gosh. It's seems like an interesting list.
For those of you who didn't click the link, it's a checklist of goals for your reading, like "A book with a number in the title" and "A book by someone under thirty". It's got 50 things to check off, and since one entry is "A trilogy", that's 52 books - one a week (51 if you don't count "a graphic novel", which I don't, for reasons I will get to).
So as I take this on, I'm gonna lay down some ground rules (for myself - you do whatever you want). First off, One Goal per Book. I could knock out the list in a month if I allowed myself to meet multiple criteria with one book, and as the goal is to read a book a week, I'm not going for efficiency.
Second, No Re-Reading Books. My goal in past years was to read one NEW book a week, so I'm applying this constraint to the Reading Challenge as well.
Third, Graphic Novels Don't Count. No disrespect to comics. Mostly just 'cause it would confuse my count. I spend way too much on comics every month, but I read most of them in single issues, and thus, it would inflate my book count. Plus, I could read a Graphic Novel a Day, just cause they're so light on words, but that would get even more expensive. I'll keep reading them, but it's not part of the challenge.
Fourth, a major concern from previous attempts: What IS a book? And to that I say, a front cover, a back cover, and all the words found between. However, I made a few exceptions for myself in the past. Anything advertised as Multiple Novels (ie. an ACE Double Book) counts as multiple entries. Also, collections of material originally published separately counts as multiple entries. But not short story collections; those are one book each. Or "The Complete So-And-So" if so and so wrote a lot of poems and short stories (like "The Complete Edgar Allen Poe" for instance, is one book). But "The Complete H.G. Wells" counts as hella books 'cause those are all separate novels. Get it?
Now, as I said, my ultimate goal is to read more new books. Not to enrich myself or expand my mind, but simply because I have way too many unread books cluttering my house. I'm not going for literary, entertainment, historical or whatever, value - just sheer volume of... volumes.
I have so many books 'cause I am quite fond of buying cheap used paperbacks. But reading books is competing for my free time with other equally valid pastimes such as reading websites like Cracked and Straight Dope, reading comics, watching TV, Movies, and Youtube, playing video games, and tabletop games; and other less savory pastimes like getting 16 hours of sleep a day (BTW, I do work... I was just listing the things I do with my SPARE time, which is only spare because it isn't spent fulfilling grown-up-type obligations).
... Yeah, I'm not done yet. In addition to this reading challenge, I have set two goals. One, a long term goal, is to read all of Stephen King's books, in the order they were published. No deadline on that one, and I jump ahead whenever he releases a new one, just to stay current. But the nature of this side-challenge is that, when I reach a book I have already read, I must reread it. And that doesn't count towards my overall goal.
Two, I have a calendar from Half Price Books. Maybe you have it, too. Each month it features a different author, and gives their list of Favorite Books. I will try to read one book each month by that author, as well as one from their list. No promises, but I'll use it as a guide.
And so you say "Andrew, that's half your books right there! Throw in a Stephen King every other week, and the list writes itself."
Except... remember when I said I've never actually met that book-a-week goal? I meant I REALLY FAILED, and in order to be at a book-a-week average for 2013-15, I'll actually have to read 92 books this year. Which is totally do-able. But Netflix is also a thing. Which hurts.
Anyway, Happy New Year, folks!
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