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Dragon Magazine 331 by Paizo
Pandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga) by Peter F. Hamilton
The Wallet of Kai Lung (Penguin Books no.39) by Ernest Bramah
Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss
Give Me Liberty (Penguin graphic fiction) by Frank Miller
A Cook on the Wild Side by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
You Are Here by Rory Bremner
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About meI'm an unemployed 30-something British male. My interests include the past, the future, human behaviour and role-playing games.
About my libraryI'll read pretty much anything. My reading tastes change as I go through phases of interest in different topics. At the moment, I'm into fantasy and Nineteenth Century fiction. I prefer fiction to be thought-provoking, funny or original.
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Member sinceNov 30, 2006
Currently readingPandora's Star (Commonwealth Saga) by Peter F. Hamilton
Judas Unchained (Commonwealth Saga) by Peter F. Hamilton
The Great Gatsby (Penguin Popular Classics) by F Scott Fitzgerald
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I actually did read Stormbreaker and watched the movie. It is the first book I always recommend to my male reluctant readers. I love that it's a series but you don't actually have to read them in order. It's fast-paced with just enough story to keep them interested but not bored! Once they make it through those, if they want more books, I then send them to the On The Run series by Gordon Korman. I love his books, too!
posted by brainlair at 9:54 pm (EST) on Jan 15, 2008
And I have been very slack with book reviews lately! I will have to update them soon.
posted by ForrestFamily at 10:11 pm (EST) on Nov 11, 2007
posted by fannyprice at 11:23 am (EST) on Oct 30, 2007
posted by kcasada at 1:10 pm (EST) on Sep 28, 2007
Alternate history is not my cup of tea
The characters for the most part have no interior lives. Narrative passages that could be used to illuminate the characters, provide motivations, and generally make them three dimensional are used instead to recap/explain/advance plot points instead.
One point that does not ring true for me is the heroines are all modern women with modern attitudes.
Not being a fan of alternate history, I can't really address success or failure of the story, but I don't find anything too unreal. So far the book has been more about the war between the Union and the Brits, rather than North and South. That may change in the last 150 pages, but I don't know.
It's an easy and quick read, the style flows and so far I have not been brought up short by fractured syntax, misuse, or spelling. The editing is excellent. The story never gets bogged down or dull, it's a great read as a palate cleanser after reading more heady stuff, which of course was the author's aim.
I an reading this book for a reading group and would never have considered it otherwise, but If you don't mind fantasy with characters named after real prople it would be, if nothing else, a quick, fun read.
Sorry I can't help you more than that.
BTW, I see you live in Burnham near Slough. You don't happen to work at Wernham Hogg Paper company do you?
posted by geneg at 10:17 am (EST) on Sep 19, 2007
posted by ForrestFamily at 4:06 am (EST) on Jul 24, 2007
Sorry it's taken so long to reply. I'm a sporadic LibraryThinger (ie, when I have spare money to splurge on books...). I did move, and all is well. How're you?
Lauren.
posted by museli at 10:06 am (EST) on Jul 13, 2007
posted by midnightrose at 1:37 pm (EST) on Jul 10, 2007
I see you noticed the other post with the similar idea to your book bin.
I just wanted to personally say that I think it's a great idea as it is different from a wishlist. Hopefully one day LT is able to implement something like this.
Currently I'm doing the same as you with lots of browser bookmarks for the non-wishlist boooks. All the best, ryn
posted by ryn_books at 1:11 am (EST) on Jun 22, 2007
I mentioned Shillony as even though his work might not be that easy to get ahold of, he has the ability to write about inherently controversial events without seeming as though he has an ax to grind.
Also, I might note that Louise Young's "Japan's Total Empire" has the virtue of dealing with Japanese imperialism as a mass movement. Like Shillony, she's working at getting beyond the pat standard interpretation of letting the Japanese military being the scapegoat for all the ill-thought-out moves of the Thirties.
posted by Shrike58 at 7:02 am (EST) on May 29, 2007
Not knowing what your library resources are and how much you like to own your own books, I'd say start with Saburo Ienaga's "Pacific War" and Carol Gluck's "Showa" for general overview. While Ienaga is an angry polemicist, his work is still classic; Gluck is a more restrained in her assessments and will take a bit of the edge off.
I'd then look at the relevant sections of Gerhard Weinberg's "A World at Arms" for military aspects. If you have access to inter-library loan this might also be a good point to read Leonard Humphries' "Way of the Heavenly Sword" for the pre-history of the violent Japanese military politics of the 1930s.
By this point you might want to look at Herbert Bix's "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan." This is also a very polemical work, but it seems to be unavoidable. If available, it wouldn't hurt you to look at the relevant sections of the volume of the "Cambridge History of Japan" dealing with the 20th century.
Finally, try to get hold of Ben-Ami Shillony's "Politics and Culture in Wartime Japan," if only because he apportions what seems like appropriate blame to Japan's parlimentarians for the disasters of World War II. He's also said to have written a good book about the assorted murder plots of the Japanese military in the Thirties, but I've never gotten around to looking at that book. Inter-libary loan is your best bet here.
I wish I could suggest one good book about the Sino-Japanese conflict, but one modern book is not coming to mind.
posted by Shrike58 at 12:30 pm (EST) on May 27, 2007
This is my 2nd day at LibraryThing, haven't posted any books yet, but saw the Nordica/Baltica group and saw your question.
In my 20s (68 now) spent 3- years in Finland. Those years turned me in to a kind of Finophile, so here is a suggestion or two.
Civil wars are always ugly. Even Eino Jutikkala the well respected Finnish historian, in his -A History of Finland- gives only 6 pages to the civil war. There is a great novel though, a triligy really, that gives a fine, fair, human, and in Vol.3, even hopeful telling of those times. The title: -Under the Northern Star-, vols. 1,2 & 3. Vol. 1 covers the generation just before the Civil war; Vol.2 (sometimes titled -The Uprising-) covers the war; Vol.3 (sometimes titled -Rconciliation-) tells of the time after the war, and the painful healing from the bitter fighting. I've only read the 3rd Vol. and loved it. Next for me will be Vol. 2 and then Vol, 1. You're Questions will most directly be answered by Vol. 2, of course. Look for the translation by Richard Impola, ISBN 0-9685881-7-4 (pbk.:V.2)
I'll resist giving further suggestions now but if you want more just let me know.
Hei hei, Robert Redd, Utah, USA
posted by rbredd at 7:11 pm (EST) on Mar 9, 2007