Stuckey's 75 books for 2009

I only happened upon this site 2 days ago and am loving it. Joined this group because I have a strange habit of making lists of movies I've watched and books I've read within a years time. This at least gives me an excuse for one of the lists.

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. Dharma Bums - Jack Kerouac
3. The Shining - Stephen King
4. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
5. About a Boy - Nick Hornby
6. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
7. Everything's Eventual - Stephen King
8. A Long Way Down - Nick Hornby
9. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
10. Blaze - Stephen King
11. Duma Key - Stephen King
12. How To Be Good - Nick Hornby
13. Different Seasons - Stephen King

As you may have guessed I am quite the fan of Stephen King and Nick Hornby. I am more than willing to listen to recommendations, I have two more Stephen King books waiting to be read but I usually burn through them pretty quick since I have so much downtime at work now. I'll probably start adding little asides to the books I read when I update for anyone who cares but I'm mostly here just to see what other people are reading and see if what they like interests me.

Hope to get to know some of you better...

Extended List since I joined the group:
14. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
15. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
16. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
17. Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez
18. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
19. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
20. Lamb by Christopher Moore
21. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
22. Firestarter by Stephen King
23. Slam by Nick Hornby
24. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft
25. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
26. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
27. The Lost World by Michael Crichton
28. Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
29. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
30. V for Vendetta by Alan Moore
31. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
32. Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
33. Neuromancer by William Gibson
34. Danse Macabre by Stephen King
35. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
36. Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox
37. City of Thieves by David Benioff
38. Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
39. Night Shift by Stephen King
40. Dracula by Bram Stoker
41. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
42. Cujo by Stephen King
43. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
44. Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
45. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson
46. Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore
47. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Welcome to LT, rstuckey :-) Glad you stumbled upon the site ;-)

I, too, am a Stephen King fan, and I thought Duma Key was his masterpiece (or, at least thus far), though Lisey's Story is my favorite King book.

Have you read Joe Hill yet? He's King's son, but he has his own voice and style. While you can definitely feel his father's influence, he reads a bit more like Richard Bachman than Stephen King (lol... more grit and grime). If you liked Blaze, I think you'd love Heart-Shaped Box.

Looking forward to seeing what you read ;-)

I loved Duma Key. I think it is my second favorite non-Dark Tower book of his after The Stand. Thank you for the suggestion on Joe Hill and while I didn't love Blaze (well I really liked the half about his past) I love The Running Man and think it is one of his more under appreciated novels.

Welcome to both LibraryThing and to the group!

We have a lot of King fans here and there is an entire group of them on LT called King's Dear Constant Readers. You can find that group here http://www.librarything.com/groups/kingsdearconstantrea if you are interested.

hehehe... thank ya, alcottacre :-) I've also joined ;-)

Didn't know there were author-specific groups, I'll have to see if there are any others for my favorites.

14. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

This book is about how a class of junior high students is taken to a deserted island and forced to kill each other until one person is left alive and proclaimed the winner, a program made by the authoritarian regime of Republic of Greater East Asia.

I loved the movie and didn't even know it was based on a novel until about a week ago so of course I had to pick it up as soon as possible. This book is by far the most action oriented novel I've ever read. You are thrust into the action almost immediately and it doesn't really stop until you close the book.

I found it pretty amazing how the author can take a book with 40+ characters and it never really feels rushed or like it is taking away from the storyline of the main characters. Obviously there are some characters that we don't get much from and there are only 10 or so that have there own story lines that go beyond just the section about their deaths, but I really felt that Takami did a great job in giving us just enough to not feel cheated by any of the "fringe" characters stories.

Be warned this is a pretty gory book, and most of what you will read will be about how certain people are dying. The author doesn't skimp on describing the action, but don't think he doesn't dive into the emotions of these kids...it's a tight rope to walk and he does it beautifully.

Hi and welcome to our group. This is my first year on the LT book threads and so far it has been really rewarding. I just watched Battle Royale again a couple of weeks ago, and didn't know it was based on a book - I'll be looking out for it. Have you heard of the YA novel The Hunger Games - it came out last year, the first of a trilogy, is also based on a tournament to the death sort of arrangement and is very popular both with teens and adults who read YA lit.
I've only read one Stephen King book The Stand, which I read last year. I also have recently finished reading Peter F Hamilton's epic Night's Dawn space opera, which although set in the future and science fiction did have a feel of The Stand about it for me.

15. The Dead Zone by Stephen King

Really enjoyed it and surprisingly hadn't heard anything about it really. The only reason I read it now was because the Stephen King group is trying to read his books in order and this was The Dead Zone's month. I would recommend to any King fan and anyone in general really. It's not really all that "scary" in a horror sort of way and it doesn't stray too far into the supernatural (it is there but it is in a way that you can buy into, which is the hardest thing to do when writing stories involving the supernatural at all).

> 6: Oooh, I loved Battle Royale. After I read it, I bought a copy of it for everyone I knew. I got to read it before I found out about the movie so while the movie was quite good, for me it just pointed out what an excellent book it was. It's one I'm definitely going to read again.

16. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - Really enjoyed this book. A pretty entertaining story with a healthy dose of absurd humor. It reminded me a lot of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which I love and makes me want to try out a few more of his books.

The ending was a tad lackluster. There was a certain plot point that no one seemed to get within the story but seemed obvious to me so it hurt the characters a bit. Plus there was a lot of stuff that seemed crammed into the last 50 pages when he could have fleshed it out more. It didn't ruin the book for me though.

Welcome to the group. I am also a Stephen King fan. Also looks like you've got some good titles along with the King. I'll be looking forward to more of your reading and comments. I am reading For Whom the Bell Tolls now as I am also a great Hemingway fan.

I've never read Christopher Moore yet, though I have a copy of You Suck on Mt. TBR. I do love HGttG, though. Does Moore's usually write with absurd humor?

I always feel cheated by books that rush to the finish line. That, I think, is one of my major beefs with Koontz, or at least with The Darkest Evening of the Year, the only book of his I have finished.

I'll definitely have to keep A Dirty Job in mind if I like You Suck and want more Moore ;-)

I have no idea if absurd humor is what he does in all his books, but I wouldn't be surprised. The book had little summaries about his other books and I'm pretty sure they were all comedies.

>13 SirStuckey: Excellent reading list! Absurdity is Moore's specialty. They're the type of books that, if you read in public, you look up and realize everyone's looking at you because you've probably been laughing out loud (and snorted a few times) without realizing it. I haven't read A Dirty Job yet, but just finished his newest book, Fool, which is a retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear (no knowledge of the play is needed) from the perspective of Lear's fool, Pocket. I loved it. Fluke, or I know Why the Winged Whale Sings, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, and Bloodsucking Fiends are all hysterical as well.

>12 thekoolaidmom: You Suck is actually a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, so you might want to read it first. Most of his books don't have to be read in order, although they often have intersecting characters and overlapping plots, but these two should probably be.

*edited to correct touchstone

Funny thing about Moore is that I noticed him because Borders had Fool on display and I was intrigued by it but of course I am a cheapskate and didn't want to pay the hardback cover. I only happened upon A Dirty Job when I went to find him and was searching through his paperbacks.

I will probably pick up another one of his books when I got to the bookstore next.

17. Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez

I've been a fan of Robert Rodriguez since I saw Desperado when I was an early teenager. After reading this book I admire him as well. It's basically his journal from when he started making his first feature length film El Mariachi and the surrounding hoopla.

As the title states he basically sticks it to the considered norm of how Hollywood directors are made and it's cool to read how he did everything as cheap as he possibly could.

The script for El Mariachi is also included within the book and I really like the movie so it was cool to read that as well.

I would suggest this to anyone who has ever thought about making movies because he is pretty inspirational and is pretty open-minded about how movies can be made. He basically says anyone who has imagination can become a Hollywood director if they work at it enough without having to go to any film schools and from the looks of how he turned out he is probably right.

18. Slaughterhouse-Five

I really didn't like chapter one and I was wondering what I got myself into, but it greatly improved after that and I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

I think I read this in high school, but it's been so long ago I'm not sure anymore. I've been re-reading a lot of the books I read back then, and this is one on the list to reread.

19. The Hunger Games

I noticed all the authors I've read this year have been male so I decided to read a book by a female, and since this book was suggested to me earlier in the thread I picked it.

I liked it for the most part. While it is a lot like Battle Royale at no time did I think that it was ripping it off at all. It uses many less characters than Battle Royale did but it only follows one character and we perceive every character through her.

I liked the girl (Katniss) for the most part but she was so naive about certain things that it was rather frustrating. I liked the way the author kind of threw a curve ball and made the second main character come in about a third of the way through the book and replace the person we thought was going to be the second main character. In fact I liked the character she made her second main character quite a bit because he was kind of a wise ass, and I'm kind of a wise ass.

I only really had a few problems with the book. I wasn't a fan of the writing style at first. I don't know why but it wasn't that engaging for me, but the story was good enough where it didn't bother me too much and I eventually grew to not notice it. I thought the names for some of the people where kind of out of place or too tied in with peoples personalities at times.

It was a good read and quick read and at the end it says End of Book One so she might make a sequel or something which I would probably read.

Feel free to suggest more books by female authors because the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Danielle Steele (who I am not interested in), Ayn Rand and Anne Rice (I can think of others like Mary Shelley too but I have already read Frankenstein).

#19 I agree about the writing style of The Hunger Games. The fact that it was writtem in the first-person present-tense was a little annoying until I got used to it. It sounded like the narrator was writing things down as they were happening. I kept getting an image of the main character with a pen and paper in hand while all the action was occuring (it must have been difficult to write while shooting an arrow from a bow!).

#19: How about one of my favorite female authors - Willa Cather?

Glad you liked Slaughter-House Five. I did not enjoy it though I'd hoped to.

20. Lamb by Christopher Moore

Another enjoyable read by Christopher Moore and I'm quite glad I stumbled upon him.

What I really like about this story is the fact that I don't really see how anyone could be offended by it. When you write a book that is supposed to be funny and have Christ as a main character you take a risk of upsetting people. I imagine some people probably were upset by this book but they really have no reason to be.

Christ is wonderfully portrayed in this book as it talks about how he is growing up and coming to terms with being the Messiah. Besides cussing a few times Christ doesn't really do anything bad in the book. Most of the sinning is done by Biff who is Christ's best friend. Even though he is quite the sinner you can't help but like him because he is so loyal to Jesus because he is his best friend...not because he is the Messiah.

It's good to know that it's non-offensive. That was one of my concerns about picking up the book. I still haven't read the Christopher Moore book I already have, and I'm reticent about getting another until I know whether I like him or not (which is the other major reason I've not gotten it yet).

I've always had to chuckle at the idea Jesus's best friend's name was Biff.

>23 SirStuckey: - Thanks for the review of Lamb. I haven't read Moore yet, but I've been meaning to. Do you think that Lamb is a good one to start with?

I've only read the two, but I think Lamb was a little better than A Dirty Job. They were both equally as funny but I felt Lamb was fleshed out a bit better as an overall story.

I'm going to have to check out Lamb - it's been mentioned now on a few threads as a good read.

21. Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

I recently saw the movie and enjoyed it. Didn't even know it was a book until I happened upon it in Borders and once again the book is better than the movie. Not that it is fair to the movie because to include everything would make it really long.

They didn't include one of the more important character's motivations in the movie and reading the book really opened my eyes to him which was interesting. There were a few extra characters and an array of added scenes that make the book worth reading even if you know how it ends from the movie.

It was an interesting book, uncomfortable at times, but interesting. Since it is a book about "vampires" I guess it could be described as horror, but I wouldn't necessarily call it scary in anyway. I'm not sure a book has ever scared me though so I might not be a real good judge of that.

I would suggest both the book and the movie to anyone.

------------

Looks like I'm going to hit the 1/3'd mark through the year four books off pace for 75. I'm not too worried though considering I didn't start this until basically a month ago and I read 7 books in April (well 9 books technically since I read My Father Bleeds History and Here My Troubles Began but I didn't include them because they are graphic novels and I was only counting regular novels for this). I would like to extend a thank you to the people who have commented on my list and helped me raise the count of my 'want to read' list.

hmm...I don't generally like scary books or movies but I'm interested in this one. Especially in book form, thrillers and horror books don't do it for me - I hate being scared and never understood why people would want to be frightened. But now movies I can watch with friends and thus all the things that would have scared me in the book I will now find hilarious because someone always says something stupid that makes the movie less scary. :) I read a really good review of the movie - and interview with the director - in Esquire I believe it was and have wanted to see it ever since. I think I'll skip the book in this case, even though books ARE usually better, you are right. After I watch the movie I'll come back here to ask you which important character's motivations were not included in the movie and what were those motivations.

Thanks for the review and happy reading!

Hi.. just found your thread. Rebel Without a Crew looks interesting as well. I am a bit of a fan of Rodriguez films as well!

Interesting to read your review on Let the Right One In. I just read it but seem to be the only one who enjoyed the film! I think I preferred it simpler, the way certain aspects were inferred which made the ending more ambivalent! Oh well it will be interesting to see what the American remake takes from the book and I can't want for his undead novel to be released in the UK!

#28,29,30 I only heard about Let the right one in because of the great reviews the movie was getting and am now waiting for my library to get it in. I prefer to read the book, but also love to see how a book is adapted to film.

#6,7,9 I'm waiting for Battle Royale to arrive in my mailbox, any day now.

You know I have seen Battle Royale but have yet to read the book. The review #6 makes it sounds tempting (can't wait to see what you think avatiakh) is it very different to the film?

oops spelling mistake

#32 It's very similar in a lot of ways. I'm sure some of the deaths were probably changed and some of the outside characters back stories were changed/left out to keep the movie timely...but it felt as if the most important parts were left in my opinion.

#22 Firestarter by Stephen King

I don't think this constitutes horror so much as thrilling. There are very few points in this book where the main two characters aren't at a high anxiety level because they are on the run or trying to escape capture. There weren't necessarily a lot of twists and turns but I really didn't know what was going to happen next which added to growing fondness for the book as it went along, and that deserves some kudos to Stephen King.

I was just kind of numb to it at first. I really didn't care one way or the other about the characters, but as time went on my appreciation for them grew.

King added to my list of great bad guy human characters with John Rainbird.

"The Shop" is a really bland name for the bad guy Government Organization.

Not a very good review I know but I was rushing trying to get it out before work.

</i>I have Firestarter in my library. Like the rest of my King books, I'll get to it eventually. Did you ever see the movie?

edited: Trying to close the scripting, but it's not em or i .

</i>

Just killing the permanent italics.

You are our hero, TadAD!

No kidding...I don't know why it was doing it but thank you for stopping them.

#23 Slam by Nick Hornby

I have now read all of Nick Hornby's novels (except the one that's not out until late September). I didn't love this one, but I didn't hate it. The story was interesting to a point and Hornby still writes male characters with more truth than anyone else I have ever read, but there was no part of the book that wowed me like in High Fidelity, About a Boy and A Long Way Down.

This is the second book from the "young adults" section of the Bookstore I have read this year and I wish they had books like this when I was a young adult (they probably did and I just didn't know about them). They are quick reads, get to the point and accurately (for the most part) describe emotions and feelings and confusions of the 12-15 age group. It's a shame kids don't know more about these books. It wasn't so long ago that I was that young and I didn't read that much. It wasn't because I had anything against reading, it's just that I had to read for school (and those books were usually not that entertaining) and I played basketball and I hung out with friends and I didn't really want to spend X amount of time reading a long novel. Books like this and The Hunger Games are good though because they can be read relatively quickly and have enough humor or action to keep me wanting to read.

I just think it wouldn't kill teachers to recommend books like this to students. I am much more entertained by them than I am by Great Expectations or Julius Caesar.

I agree with the last point.. bit more of a mix would be much better. I loathed shakespeare for a number of years after being forced to read Romeo & Juliet.

#39 rstuckey: I just picked up About a Boy yesterday, my only Hornby book. It's good to know you liked it :-)

#35 I haven't seen the movie Firestarter yet. I normally like watching the movies first because I think I enjoy the movies more when I'm not sitting there thinking about what they left out, but since a lot of Stephen King movies can be bleh...and only a few are arguably better than the stories (Shawshank Redemption, 1408 and The Body to name 3) I try to read his novels first so I get the full effect.

Although there are books/movies I would encourage people to read the book first so you get the best experience possible. Those are for books I think are brilliant, Watchman and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest being the first two that come to mind. I liked both movies, but the books are so great you might as well experience them first in their better form.

#41 About a Boy is great and I only like High Fidelity better from Hornby's books. But High Fidelity is one of my favorite books ever so it would be hard to top.

#40 In my rant I hope I was being fair. I did read a few books that I think were very cool. The Outsiders was good and my senior year we had to pick a book from a list to do a term paper on and I picked 1984 and loved every page of it. I also understand the importance of getting some Shakespeare and books like To Kill a Mockingbird. They just didn't include enough books that aren't necessarily classics but the majority of kids would probably enjoy quite a bit. If you want to get kids into the habit of reading it's probably better to give them more things they would really enjoy than making them read classics that they may not understand or don't care about. In those cases they will probably only read enough to pass the test or write the paper; or just buy the Cliff's notes.

#24 The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories by H.P. Lovecraft

The book was recommended to me by someone who found out I liked to read the horror genre but had never read Lovecraft. I hated almost every word of it...I have been more entertained reading the nutrition facts for water.

Lovecraft wrote short stories (a few could be considered novellas) and while they are different characters for every story, the way he writes makes it feel like the same character every time. It's almost always always in first person and usually in past tense. His tone never changes. Every character seems to be born of good stock (meaning they are white) and feel the desire to tell the reader every single story even though it only matters to elevate the main character over the people of lesser stocks (non-whites).

I've never read an author that has to mention race as much as Lovecraft. I had a pretty heated debate about the fact that his comments don't really show that a certain character is racist but that he is, since he says it in the majority of the stories and mostly in the same way over and over again. My friend (the guy who recommended the book) said that was because it was the early 1900s and people weren't as open about equality as we are now. I said it shouldn't matter because a) there were people back then who had common sense about race and while there are differences it doesn't make a race better or worse and b) we wouldn't stand for it if a current writer wrote like that so we shouldn't let it go now.

It ended up being that I agreed that it wasn't all that integral to most of the story lines (which I still attest shows how it's about the author's ideas about race than a certain character since they do nothing for the story itself). Usually, they were usually a sentence or two that just seemed out of place and jumped out and took me out of story to scoff at his idiocy. I might have even let it go had I been entertained by the important bits of the story, but I rarely was.

He not only repeated the writing style, point-of-view and racial commentary in almost every story but he also often repeated many descriptions in the story. In more than a few stories he used a phrase alluding to the fact that he couldn't describe something because to do so would make the reader or the character go mad. What the hell is that? It's lazy writing.

He would have characters pass out during action scenes or relay action scenes from a second hand source and then broadly describe them later in a few pages when he took 4 pages to discuss the lineage of the main character whose name I forgot about because he is just like every other character. The only part of the whole book where I was engrossed at all was the last part of the short story The Call of Cthulhu where the main character reads a diary entry describing an actual interesting moment where a crew gets attacked by Cthulhu and how some manage to escape. After I read it I wished he would have made the sailor and his crew the actual main characters and not some add-ons to an otherwise boring story.

I understand short stories are often hit and miss (especially when they are clustered in a group and you have no choice but to compare them with the rest of the stories), but I have literally never been so disinterested with a whole batch before. I normally like short stories anthologies, but it's because it feels like a bunch of different stories and not extremely similar ones.

I won't go as far as not recommending Lovecraft to people because honestly he is popular in the horror scene. It's very probable that I just didn't get him and the majority of the people like him. If you want to read something by him I'd check out reviews by people who like them and see what they say. The only real advice I would give would to be to rent from a library or borrow a selection of his stories because despite guarantees that "you will think his stories are amazing" you might just be as bored as me.

"He not only repeated the writing style, point-of-view and racial commentary in almost every story but he also often repeated many descriptions in the story."

Bah. I had the same exact reaction to reading Kipling for the first time. (The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories)Exact. I guess it must be just the era they were writing in. Still. I do not get the appeal for people today.

#43: I have never read any Lovecraft and from the sounds of it, never need to bother doing so.

I just cannot read Lovecraft, his writing isn't for me. I do love his ideas though so I enjoy anybody else's take on them!

Yeah, I think people either love or hate authors from that era. Edgar Rice Burroughs is another one - Tarzan, for instance. H. Rider Haggard is another. I like 'em for the adventure and the atmosphere without taking seriously the racial and gender stereotyping. But I can certainly understand how some are offended or just not interested, and that's as valid a response to them as mine is.

I have only read At the Mountains of Madness but I really enjoyed that one. I can't speak to the repititive writing style having read just the one. Though, isn't this what draws us to certain writers, a singular voice that is repeated in other books with different stories? I am really just thinking about that out loud, mostly because I am reading a book about reading and writing. What do the rest of you think?

Sorry you didn't like Lovecraft but, think of it this way, you can cross all of his books off your future reading. A bunch of room for new authors and titles just opened up.

#48 I would say the singular voice draws me to other writers. My favorite writers often have a writing style that doesn't differ much from their other books and a lot of the writers even repeat themes. I guess the difference is that I like their styles/stories a lot more than Lovecraft's.

Also it's possible the repetitive style was only in the little anthology I read and he put them together in one book for that reason. The book I read only had 18 of his stories in them so it's possible there are completely different ones in other books.

Book 25 - Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

I was going to watch the movie sometime this week so I decided to read the book real fast since it is a Dan Brown book and they can be read real fast.

I enjoyed it much like I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code. I'm not a huge fan of Dan Brown's writing but his stories keep me entertained. What he lacks in character development and some lame contrived dialogue he makes up for with momentum. Once the ball gets rolling on his story you are running through twists and turns and before you know it you have read 700 pages and 130 chapters and are done.

There are quite a few situations where Robert Langdon just so happens to figure a clue out or a random person just so happens to say something that reminds him of something that it can get a little 'deus ex machina'-y except that he is almost always a few minutes late to save the day. There are a bunch of little sub-plots in this book (certain events are going to happen every hour) and to find what he is looking for Langdon has to figure out a path by codes and symbols. It was obvious that he wasn't really going to solve these plot points in time because it would have ended the book abruptly and rather ridiculously. Even though I knew this I still enjoyed his figuring out where to go when it wasn't too out of the blue.

I don't know if people think this book is anti-religion (I guess there are some people who think the movie is), but it really isn't. There is some debate between science vs. faith, but when you think it's leaning towards one way you'll find out later it leans towards the other. In the end it doesn't pick sides and basically says both are important in their own ways.

After reading the other one, I decided he was better suited to screenwriting than novels because of his stories. Looks like you might agree on some level.

Book 26 - Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

I tried to read this when the movie first came out but I was a little young and it was a little over my head. I happened across it at a half-priced books and decided to pick it up and finally read it.

This is one of the few instances where I would say to watch the movie first. I think they are both good but the movie was so awesome that it needs to be watched first so you get the full effect of it. Also since there are numerous parts of the book that aren't in the first movie (although I think they took those parts out of the book and made them situations in the third one) you still get a somewhat fresh experience when reading the book. Also I think that the descriptions of some of the lesser known dinosaurs can be a bit confusing without seeing the movie first (even though the movie basically ignores the Procompsognathids completely, but at least they are in the third quite a bit).

There were segments I wish they would have included in the movie but didn't (mainly in the second half of the book) and there are a few characters I thought were better in the movie than the book. It's really a shifting scale and I would consider them about equal, it's just that the movie is one of my favorites so I put that a step ahead.

I liked it enough where I am going to go look for The Lost World.

Jurassic Park is one of my favorites! You might want to look into his Eaters of the Dead too.

Your review of Jurassic Park inspired me - I am watching the movie right now!

I was a dinosaur nut as a kid, and I got to see the movie in a drive-in (it was a double show with Free Willy).

To put it lightly it's awesomeness melted my face.

Now I need to rewatch that movie (I don't think I ever got over my childhood love of dinosaurs!).

#53 I have seen the film The Thirteenth Warrior but not read the book, have to give it a try thanks.

Book 27 - The Lost World by Michael Crichton

The sequel to Jurassic Park and to be honest I liked it more. It felt like there was more action and less scientific and computer stuff to bog the reader down. I liked the characters in this version better. They make references to a lot of the old characters from the first book, but only two really make a return (and one didn't have that much face time in the first). One of the returnees, Dodgeson, is the bad guy in this one. While he was a bad guy in the first as well he wasn't fleshed out that much. In fact, I would say none of the "bad guys" in the first one were fleshed out and they were just put in there to throw off the balance of things while adding another character to kill.

I think the main reason I liked this one better is that the dinos were free range the entire time. This means that we got more dino + dino interaction. We got predator vs. prey, prey and prey working together, and family units within species. While I realize a lot of it was based on theories or stuff Crichton made up; it works for me because I don't know enough about dinosaurs to call any of it out for being off base.

Even the dinosaurs vs. human elements were more diverse. We have humans helping dinosaurs, humans fighting dinosaurs, humans chasing dinosaurs, dinosaurs chasing humans and dinosaurs trapping humans in a confined space. A very fun adventure from cover to cover.

Book 28 - Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
Book 29 - Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

I actually read these earlier in the year but I didn't include them because I was too good too list graphic novels or something. I decided that was stupid, partly because I slacked this month due to struggling with Lovecraft, working a lot and moving and partly because I am reading another graphic novel right now. Why deny myself three perfectly acceptable books for my list? There's no real good reason.

Anyway these are two graphic novels that are quite intriguing. It's the author's telling his father's story throughout WWII. This includes the beginning of the war, pogroms, concentration camps and everything in between. It's an interesting look because it's so personal. Not only do we get one man's incredible tale of survival during WWII, but we also get a look at the relationships this man now has with his son (the author, who we also learn a lot about) and his current wife.

The animation is intriguing. People are portrayed as anthropomorphized animals the main example being nazis are cats and jews are mice. There are more but those are the two you run into most. I would suggest this to people even if they are fans of comic books since this really isn't what the people who don't like them would expect them to be.

Book 30 - V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

Ever since I read 1984 I have liked books about totalitarian governments and people who rebel against them. The idea of Big Brother has always interested me and I always wonder if the government wiretapping and video tapping it's citizens happened gradually enough would people become complacent and not rise against it.

I enjoyed this novel the whole way through but the ending left me wanting a little more. The writing is great, but what else is to be expected from Alan Moore. I liked the artwork a lot too. David Lloyd really captured the look of the city very well.

>58 SirStuckey:: Have you seen the movie? I enjoyed it a lot...which I didn't expect to do.

I've seen the movie and loved it, and I've also read the novelization. I've been wanting to read the graphic novel, as well, but I've just not gotten to it (despite having the book from the library and keeping it past due... the reason I avoid borrowing (renting, really, by the time I pay the fine) books from the library.

Movie: "And what is a revolution... without dancing?"

Me: "So... it's a DanceDanceRevolution????"

*row of friends sitting with me cracks up*

I'm sorry to say, I thought the movie was awful. Natalie Portman seriously needs some acting lessons. She had that one line: "I've always wanted to be an actress..." Again, I made some inane comment and we all cracked up again. There were some other lines that were rife for additional commentary as well... that was the limit of my enjoyment, unfortunately.

But I have some friends who swear it's their favorite film of all time. Sigh.

Book 31 - Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I finally got around to reading koolaidmom's suggestion and she was right, I did love this book. This book just hit all the right buttons. Good pace, excellent character development (I wonder who he got that from), and he didn't get too far 'out there' to make this horror/thriller unbelievable.

It wasn't perfect (I wasn't a huge fan of the ending) but it was definitely worth the time and I will be looking into his short story collection called 20th Century Ghosts and Locke and Key.

I really enjoyed Locke & Key, although that may not be much use as Heart-Shaped Box wasn't my type of book at all!

I hope you try 20th Century Ghosts. I enjoyed it as much if not more than Heart Shaped Box. The stories show such diversity.

Well I did enjoy his comic and I enjoyed parts of Heart Shaped Box so I might just do that, I do like short stories after all!

I was sans internet for a week or so and my internet now isn't exactly blazing fast but I wanted to post a quick update:

Book 32 - Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

A book I very much enjoyed. He has a great mix of both the absurd and believable so even though some of the things these characters do or say are ridiculous it doesn't take anything away from the yarn he is spinning. I will definatitly be reading more of him in the future.

Book 33 - Neuromancer by William Gibson

I found this book while I was moving and since I had never read it I decided to give it a go. For the first half of the book it felt like I had walked into the middle of a series of books set in a specific time and place (and since this is a sci-fi futuristic thriller I often felt I had no idea what the hell was going on). There would be random parts of the story that I just ignored because I was so lost, and I probably wouldn't have continued to read it but I had nothing else to do and it is short enough that I decided to just finish the thing.

As it turns out by the end I was somewhat sucked in, even though I still felt a little out of place. I think the last 100 pages or so were high enough with the action/suspense to keep me reading and since I had no idea what the hell was possible within his futuristic world I really couldn't figure out what was going to happen next on my own.

>66 SirStuckey:: Skinny Dip is my favorite of Hiaasen's work. I wish he'd add a third to that particular series.

Neuromancer is a tough book at times. I'm glad you ended up enjoying it at least somewhat.

Book 34 - Danse Macabre by Stephen King

Stephen King's non-fiction book about the genre of Horror from 1950-1980. It was a little dated for me and a lot of the things he talked about were books I hadn't read or movies I hadn't seen. It did give me some ideas for future books to read but that was really the only part that benefited me.

Book 35 - Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

A pretty damn funny little book, and by little I mean you can read the whole thing in about an hour and a half. I think it could very well be one of those books that everyone who went to a public middle school would enjoy. Kinney captures the melodramatic way middle schoolers can look at the rather mundane problems of their life, where being popular takes center stage and owning the coolest stuff is of ultra-importance. He also invokes the Will Smithian mindset of parents-just-don't-understand which usually comes to a head for most kids at that time in their life.

I want to read the other two books of the series but the price is a little steep for a book that is such a quick read.

>68 SirStuckey:: That's why I got my copies of the first two through Scholastic book orders! $4.99 a book. I'm hoping they'll have the third one available in the fall when things start up again. Otherwise, you're absolutely right. I can't justify paying $16 (or whatever it is) for a hardcover version of such a quick read!

Book 36 - Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox

When you are really young and impressionable you watch certain characters in tv and movies and you just think, "Man if only I could be like him/her." For me that person was Michael J. Fox's character in Back to the Future. It wasn't the fact that he played guitar (I never had the patience) or rode a skateboard (I think it's cool but never really got into it personally). I didn't know why but I just thought he was the coolest character ever and I wanted to be as cool as Marty McFly, just in my own way.

Now that I'm grown I don't necessarily think Marty McFly is the coolest cat around, but I do think Michael J. Fox is. I've always been a fan of his both cinema and television wise, and I was legitimately saddened when he revealed he had Parkinson's Disease, and this is what that book covers really; Four distinct areas in his life that have affected him or been affected by his disease in the last 10 years. The four distinct areas are Work (his last years at Spin City and his work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation), Politics (supporting stem cell research and trying to get candidates to support it as well), Faith (how different faiths have affected him even though he doesn't really consider himself to be of any certain faith) and family.

Having read this book I could say that I have probably not ever been this emotional about a book. There were any outward displays like me bawling and making the ink run with my tears, but I honestly felt every part of the ups and downs of this book. He says things so honestly and with such real emotion that you can't helped but be sucked in. You also get a sort of look at some of the trials of having that disease and it's amazing what he and a lot of other people with it have to go through every day of their lives.

The only real complaint I had about the book was that the Politics section was a tad long. I understand why it was long, it was a major part of his life for the last 10 years and it truly could mean everything ways of elongating his and countless other lives. Honestly it could have been a lot worse, I wasn't bored during the section, I just maybe wish he would have expanded more on the other sections like he did on that one.

One last thing I will say is that you can see how classy of a guy he is during this novel. He doesn't shove his ideas down your throat, he just wants you to see it from his point of view. He doesn't bad mouth people who don't believe in stem cell research, he just wants to inform people of facts that they might not know about it and explain how important it could be for the future of medicine.

There's not much else I can say about this book. I really liked it but I have an MJF bias. I would recommend it to anyone because really it's a quick read that's both informative and interesting.

#70: Sounds like a powerful book and one I will have to look for. Thanks for the review and recommendation!

LOL, I remember, as a kid, I was a big Michael J Fox fan. I had a crush on Alex P. Keaton, and loved Teen Wolf, and of course the Back to the Future movies (and NOW my 16yo daughter loves the same shows and is an MJF fan, as well). One time, my friend tried to convince me Fox had changed his middle name... supposedly, it'd originally been Allen or something... Michael's A Fox. Meh, I didn't buy it.

I've thought about picking it up, but worried about the politics that would be in it. It's good to know he's not using it as a platform to prostelitize.

#72: Michael J. Fox's real middle initial is A (his real name is Michael Andrew Fox), but there was already a Michael A. Fox registered with the Screen Actor's Guild, so as a tribute to one of his favorite actors, Michael J. Pollard, Fox changed his middle initial.

#74, that's too funny! All these years later, and I have no way of contacting her to tell her she's right. LOL...

Oh well, it was a conversation held over a copy of TeenBeat, so I suppose it's forgotten.

#74: Just one of those bits of trivia I have had in my head forever and never had a use for until now :)

Book 37 - City of Thieves by David Benioff

I am quickly finding out that I lack the ability to review books well. I always say roughly the same thing if I like them or think they are ok. I only really have a lot to say if I really dislike them but I usually only read books I think I'll enjoy.

So here we have a book I really liked quite a bit and I can't tell you with any eloquence why. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and the characters and the masterful mix of both the humorous and tragic. It's sort of an odd-couple buddy adventure about two Russians in Leningrad during WWII. It's an efficient read, not a lot of wasted words or sections. Everything that happens is pretty substantial in terms of either plot or character development.

This bumped Let the Right One In out of my Top 5 of the books I've read this year:

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
2. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
3. About a Boy - Nick Hornby
4. City of Thieves
5. Lamb - Christopher Moore

#76: City of Thieves looks very good. I will give it a try!

RS, don't be so hard on yourself with the review thing. Your thoughts about the book were expressed well and sent me to learn more about the book....I now have it on my look out for list. Keep doin' that.

Book 38 - Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

I was turned on to this book by Stephen King from Danse Macabre and I wouldn't say I was disappointed. The story itself is very dark, twisted and gripping as it follows a young couple who move into a new apartment building in New York and find that they live amongst strange people. Then our main character Rosemary gets pregnant under strange circumstances and her neighbors act even more strange. I know that is a lame description as I basically just said random things were strange but I don't want to give too much away as I knew quite a bit about the story already before I read it.

One thing that did bother me is that the worst character in the whole book is Rosemary and she is the character you follow around the whole time. She is just to naive and old-fashioned. I know I grew up in a more modern era where women thought about more than getting the perfect home, fixing up the perfect eay and then filling it up with babies but it feels like even women who think/thought like that would still be a little smarter than Rosemary ever was. You just want to yell at her at random times throughout the book to pull her head out of the clouds and figure things out. Of course she eventually did figure these things throughout the book but it almost always was too late. There were a few specific things that she did that especially annoyed me but I don't want to go into them because they ruin important parts of the book.

I'm not going to say that Levin is unable to write women because there are other women in the story who play important characters and aren't nearly as ridiculous as Rosemary. Her naivety was probably intentional as her character but it still annoyed me. The rest of the book was pretty good though and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good horror tale.

#79 I saw the film in the 80s and whilst I enjoyed it hugely, Rosemary drove me mad. I mean get some backbone! Probably very unfair of me but I was only teenager.

It is my understanding that the movie adaptation is one of the best around in terms of following the book....so that being said I imagine Rosemary is just as frustrating in the movie as in the book.

You should try another Levin, The Boys from Brazil Another good read and also made into a movie. I've never read Rosemary's Baby, though I should have by now.

Book 39 - Night Shift by Stephen King

This was King's first published collection of short stories. As far as collections go it's always hit or miss and can be hard to rate the book as a whole. Some stories you may love and some you may be scanning ahead to see when it ends. I would say after the first story "Jerusalem's Lot" which was basically his homage to Lovecraft I really enjoyed it.

It has some great stories like "Children of the Corn" and "The Ledge," a few short ones that still pack a punch like "The Man Who Loved Flowers," and they even have two stories that are tie-ins to other novels "Night Surf" which seemed like his first incarnation of the disease in The Stand and "One for the Road" which gives us a story about the area in Salem's Lot a little while after the novel ended.

Definitely worth picking up if you like to read short stories, and this is probably my second favorite series of collections i have read from him (Different Seasons was just too good to be overtaken).

I think I enjoy his short stories more than his novels, partly because his writing seems tighter but also nostalgia (they used to terrify me as a kid!). Have you read Nightmares and Dreamscapes?

Although I agree Different Seasons his best (I mean it has shawshank redemption and the body!)

No I've only read four of his collections.

Night Shift
Different Seasons
Skeleton Crew because I really wanted to read The Mist
Everything's Eventual for the Dark Tower story and 1408 (which I thought wasn't as good as the movie).

I actually own Just After Sunset but haven't read it yet.

I've read all of the collections over the years. Granted, it's been some time since I read Night Shift but it's got some of his most classic early stories. Which ones didn't you like?

I didn't like Jerusalem's Lot due to the style is was written letters and diary entries and the type of language he used. The old fashioned style of writing seemed to forced to me and took me out of the story.

There weren't anymore that I didn't like, but there were a few that I just thought were 'meh'. The Mangler started good but the ending was kind of corny to imagine and I thought it was too absurd to be taken seriously. Strawberry Spring was a good character study but the story didn't appeal to me that much.

Yeah, endings have always been his difficulty. Sometimes I think it's because the ending suffers by comparison to the rest of the book, almost rushed through.

Book 40 - Dracula by Bram Stoker

I'm rather torn about this book. On one hand I like the mood, action (when it's there) and the story itself. That being said there was a lot of the book I didn't like.

It's written as journal/diary entries or letters. That's all well and good but it puts everything in the past tense and makes the characters have to make lame reasons for why they are still writing in it even though they are in dire situations. The pacing isn't very good, partly because of how the story is told and partly because he always throws in random asides (usually one of the women writing how great it is to be loved by brave men). It wouldn't bother me so much if some repeated thought that has nothing really to do with the story was in almost every entry/letter that is over a paragraph long. For as long as it takes for the big showdown ending (and stoker does stretch it out) it is pretty anti-climatic.

How the book went for me. I struggled through the beginning, both in getting used to the style and form of writing and getting into the story. I started to like it in the middle and was really starting to like it going into the end. I then got frustrated with how much he stretched it out right before the end and was then let down by the ending.

I probably would have only given this 3.5 stars but it has done so much to inspire some really good vampire stories that I pushed it to 4.

Some of us are going to read this one for our Halloween list. We'll have to talk more about it then.

Book 41 - The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

A strange book for me. I think I would have loved it if I would have read it about 8 years ago. I still liked it now, but only because I remember feeling the same way the main character felt in a lot of ways. I would say I feel the same way in some aspects even now, but toned down quite a bit.

I didn't love the story at first. It didn't really feel like anything was happening, but by the end you kind of understand the emotional side of the journey more so it makes more sense. The writing style is a bit off-beat but I rather enjoyed the conversational way the main character talked. I know some middle/high schools have kids read this book and I wonder how girls like it as it seems more directed towards the male psyche. That being said I wonder how the girls in my class related to The Outsiders which is the coming of age story we read, and is also highly masculine.

My Dad used to teach The Outsiders in 9th grade English class. The girls loved it as much as the boys.

I really enjoyed Dracula when I read it several years ago... but I was surprised at how 'the original' was so very, ,very unlike anything popular culture has done with it.

A very common reaction to many of the original gothic and horror tales.

I agree I was shocked when I read Frankenstein it was so much better than anything I had seen (no I couldn't watch Kenneth Branagh's version). Mind you I hear there was a burlesque version in 19th century.. the mind boggles but it might of been amusing!

oops bracket misplacement

Book 42 - Cujo by Stephen King

Basically everyone knows the plot of this. Rabid Dog traps a mother and son in a car for a few days in the middle of summer. The story itself was good. I enjoyed the way King put everything together and towards the end it felt more like a thriller/horror, even though it got a little too drawn out for my tastes towards the end.

What I didn't like started with the way that he still tried to make little supernatural ties in the book when I thought it would just work better overall as a totally realistic story. There was too much precognition and some weird stuff with the kid's closet that didn't fit right in my opinion. This was also the first Stephen King book where I didn't really like any of the characters. They seemed to just do and say stupid things or acted in ways that annoyed me so I could really care less about them. In fact the character I liked the most was the pre-rabid Cujo and I wish he would have added a few more sections with him than with some of the other characters.

In the long list of King novels I have read this does not rank as one of my favorites but it certainly isn't my least favorite. One tip though if you want to read this read The Dead Zone first because it shares a location and some characters with a side plot in that story. You could probably get away without reading it but you might get a little cofused at a few minor spots.

Books 43 and 44 - Wicked and Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

I like how things that are accepted as a certain way when we are kids is turned around and thrown on it's head in a darker more adult way (well I like it when it is done right anyway). Wicked did a great job of explaining how the Wicked Witch of the West became how she was and it actually made a little sense. He even abided by the orignal book by Frank L. Baum quite a bit with only a few things that were changed.

Son of a Witch was a little stranger in that it's about a character we learn just a little about in the first one and his life is basically just confused all the time. He doesn't know who his parents actually are. He doesn't know if he has had sex or if he is a father. He doesn't know if he is gay, straight, or bisexual. He doesn't know if he has any talents. The list goes on and on. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if the ending had a little more closure. It basically just ends and he is still confused and thinks he is worthless.

I will read A Lion Among Men but I will save $10 and get it when it comes out in paperback next month.

#96 I haven't read Cujo but I often prefer scary realism to supernatural stories. I am not sure why, probably because I can identify more with the situation!

#97 I read Wicked a while ago but made the fatal mistake of not reading the original (plus I only had vague memories of the film). Suffice to say I didn't get most of it. It requires a reread!

Yea I read the Frank L. Baum original right before I read Wicked. The original takes maybe an hour or so to read and there are some differences between it and the movie.

Book 45 - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson

A pretty good little short story that only suffered because I already knew what the main twist was. I guess that is the bane of all well known classics though. This book also had a few other short stories and I enjoyed them all except one were he wrote it with a Scottish inflection so it was very hard for me to get into a good reading flow before I would have to read a word and try to figure out what it really was.

Book 46 - Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

Moore's first novel and a very enjoyable one. It's a quick read, and it reminded me a lot of the Carl Hiaasen book I read earlier. Not that the characters and plot were similar, just in the way he introduced his characters. This still doesn't beat Lamb but it was a fine compliment.

I'm getting close to finishing another book and keep getting behind on these little reviews. Hopefully I will put the next one up when I finish it, but knowing me I'll probably wait until I finish the one after that.

Book 47 - Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

A book of autobiographical essays that were at best hilarious and at worst entertaining. There are two sections and while the first section wasn't bad I wasn't blown away by how funny it allegedly was. Then I got to the second section....

He has a lot of essays about trying to learn French and French classes and living in France and I thought it was some of the funniest things I've read. I took three years of French in High School and I think I only passed because the teacher felt bad for me. I was horrible at it and I celebrated when I found out I got a good enough grade on the final to get a C- in the class and never have to take it again.

That being said I think Sedaris has a way of writing things were if you can empathize you think they are brilliant and if you can't you are amused or entertained but not blown away. I would suggest reading something by him because it is by no means a waste of time....hopefully you get something that strikes you and the experience is enriched.