My Nerdy Friend

The Heart Goes Last

We had a very lengthy and interesting conversation about this book in my mini book club. The writing seems quite light and almost silly, especially when considering a few of Atwood’s more concentrated books, like The Robber Bride and The Edible Woman. However, on reflection, we all agreed that she packed a ton of thought-provoking insight into few words, and hid it in plain sight in simple language and sentence structure.

Her lead characters, Charmaine and Stan, are difficult to like at first, putting possessions and status above honesty and true happiness. In following this path they find themselves installed in an artificial game-show-style community where dissenters may or may not be being killed off and fed to livestock (many things are left as innuendo for readers to draw their own conclusions). Eventually Charmaine and Stan are both forced to re-evaluated their choices and make tough decisions about their new lifestyle which will ultimately fee them from their (literal) prison.

The ending is probably the most controversial part of the book. Does Atwood, a staunch feminist, write an ending in which Charmaine agrees to be programmed into the perfect, adoring wife? Or does she free her from being trapped by societal expectations into merely playing a role?

Rating: Buy it, and add it to your Atwood collection. Love it or hate it, you will want to revisit this book again in the future.

Fossil Hunter

Book Two of the Quintaglio Ascension

In this trilogy, the Quintaglio race discovers that their world is a spherical moon orbiting a Jupiter-like planet, and that the tidal forces resulting from their proximity to the planet will break their world apart in a few hundred “kilodays” (a mere 4-5 generations). This forces them to figure out how to advance from a Rennaisance-like culture to a space-faring population capable of inter-planetary travel, before their world is destroyed. In book one, we encounter Asfan, the Quintaglio equivalent of Galileo with a bit of Copernicus thrown in, who discovers the true nature of their world and throws the religious order into a tizzy.

In book two, Asfan’s son takes on the role of Darwin, exploring the southern pole and discovering a plethora of life forms that lead him to a theory of evolution. He is also an archaeologist, discovering an ancient spaceship that may hold the secret to developing space travel. This second book is much richer than the first one,  introducing a “Watcher” who is apparently responsible for transplanting the dinosaurs from earth millions of years earlier to help ensure their survival while permitting mammals to develop on earth itself. There is also a battle for leadership, a murder mystery, and a population control problem threatening to lead to all-out territorial war.

It’s a real pleasure to read this series. I love how Sawyer has created his characters taking into account likely dinosaur characteristics such as regeneration of extremities, territorial-ism and how that impacts personal space and carnivorism (to rashly make up a word). Brilliant.

Rating: I’m starting to think you should just buy the whole trilogy.

Far-Seer

Book One of the Quintaglio Ascension

Far-Seer is the first book in a trilogy that takes place on a world where dinosaurs rather than homo sapiens have evolved into the intelligent species. Book one follows the discoveries of a young astrologer who embarks on a pilgrimage to witness the Face of God. On this journey, he borrows a “far-seer” and instead discovers that his people live on a spherical moon that orbits a Jupiter-like planet, and that their proximity to the planet is endangering the world on which they live. He is essentially the Galileo of this fantasy world and similarly finds himself condemned and punished for these “beliefs”. The book concludes just as he manages to convince a critical mass of Quintaglios that his discoveries are, in fact, the truth.

The author has thoughtfully created a society of saurian carnivores who must be cautious about how they interact in order to avoid triggering instinctive territorial responses, and who use religious rituals to control population growth, territory expansion and hunting/eating practices.

Rating: Buy it.

The Widow

I found this book in a give-away pile at my friend’s cabin on BC’s Sunshine Coast, and had heard (possibly good) things about it, and if fit my current need for some light reading. Turns out it was a really enjoyable book.

The book embeds multiple mysteries, including who was behind the disappearance of a young toddler and what became of her, was the death of the prime suspect in the case an accident, and is the wife of the now-dead suspect delusional or manipulative. Each time you think you know the answer to any of these mysteries, you almost immediately start to doubt your instinct. It’s a very well-written book, telling it’s story from the perspective of four main characters; the wife of the suspect in the abduction, the mother of the toddler, the reporter angling for a break-through story, and the detective who is loath to give up the case he never managed to solve.

Rating: Borrow it, and if you like to keep books then buy it.

No Time for Goodbye

Well, I have some catching up to do! It seems I am about 3 books behind which unfortunately means the next three entries will be a bit hastily written.

I read No Time for Goodbye for book club #1, my group of 5, and the general consensus was that it was an enjoyable holiday read. The main character, Cynthia, comes home from a party in her teens to find that her mother, father and brother have disappeared. Twenty-five years later, someone is stirring up the past to make it look like her family is still out there somewhere and are now tormenting her and her husband and daughter. It’s a nice little mystery, albeit somewhat, but not overly, predictable. We had an interesting book club discussion around when we all figured out what was actually going on. I love finding out the different details that we each pick up on when we read the same book. I guess that’s part of what books clubs are about…

Rating: Borrow it for vacation.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the script book for a play written by Jack Thorne, based on an original new HP story by Thorne, J.K. Rowling, and John Tiffany. The book picks up where the seventh HP book left off, with Harry and his friends in the future, seeing their own children off on the Hogwarts Express. It primarily follows Harry’s youngest son, Albus Severus, who, to his horror, winds up in Slytherin House where he then befriends Scorpius Malfoy, son of the notorious Draco.

For some people, I suspect the story brings up feelings of nostalgia for our long past Hogwarts heroes but I’ve never been a big fan of heavy-handed sentimentality. I’m glad we’re revisiting characters that we loved, but I would have liked to see the story move into new territory. (For the record, I had the same complaints about Star Wars.)

Warning! Spoilers follow!

I also dislike time travel as a plot device because so many people get it wrong, and this book is no exception. The two examples that stood out the most for me:

1. Harry yells at Albus and threatens him with the map in timeline 2, but then references it in Act 3 Scene 11, in timeline 1 when the map should not have been “in play”, so to speak.
2. The kids undo the tasks in the wrong order. If they had gone back and undone the lake task first, that would have removed timeline 3, and Voldemort with it. Plus, by undoing task 2 first, they are technically undoing it while in timeline 3, which would have residual impacts on timeline 3, and not timeline 1.

You might think this is nit-picking, but it’s the fundamental problem with time-travel plots. Whatever you do in the past, affects and alters the  future, creating a new timeline, and what you do next happens within the new timeline, even if you travel to the past again. Time-travel is not interchangeable with magic. Just saying.

Rating: Skip it, unless you are highly nostalgic for the Harry Potter gang. Then at least keep some salt nearby because you’re going to need a grain or two.

Book 1 – The Widow

Well, now that the book-per-week is (finally) over, I thought maybe I’d track what I read in a year just as a matter of course. Reading whatever I want, without trying. This is the beginning of that. Plus, I really just liked keeping a record of what I read and I’d kind of like to keep that up. A Year of Not Trying gives me an excuse to keep it up.

So, the first book I read was the Widow. I borrowed it from a friend after a weekend spent at a cabin where a group of us did a book swap. This was an easy, indulgent read. It’s the story of a 3 year old girl who goes missing, told from the perspective the several key players in the quest to find her: the detective, the widow of the recently deceased prime suspect in the abduction, the mother and the reporter who stops at nothing to get the inside scoop. It jumps back and forth in time, leading you eventually to the “big reveal”. Not entirely predictable, but not entirely surprising either, it’s really just enjoyable escapism.

Rating: Borrow it, then pass it on.

I love reading, and a year ago, I embarked on a challenge to read one book a week for a full year. At that time, I wrote this introductory paragraph:

The challenge: to read a book a week for a year. Honestly, I have been undecided about it (which bodes poorly), however considering I can lock in 18 books, give or take, through book clubs, it seemed cowardly not to go for it. At least to see how long I can go. 

Now, depending on how you count them, I have finished 51 (or 49) books. This is short of my goal of 52 book, but still impressive. There were times that the challenge was easy and times that it was extremely exhausting. On reflection, I doubt I would do it again; the expectation of a book a week is just too much to be relaxing and enjoyable. However, I do think a reasonable ongoing goal for me is at least 2 books a month. More important to me going foward is to simply be able to be more selective about what I read.

A few observations from the past year:

1. I started to choose reading over watching TV (at least until I became addicted to The Good Wife in April and Parks and Recreation in October).
2. I read some books that I have been neglecting/avoiding.
3. I purposely chose shorter books over longer ones, which on one hand meant I picked books I might not otherwise have read, but also meant I defered books that were on my “must read” list.
4. I read book 1 of four separate trilogies but not books 2/3. Three in particular I wanted to complete, but didn’t because they were long books to read  (see point 3). These were The Three-body problem, Leviathan Wakes,  and Ancilliary Justice, and I expect I’ll go back and finish them. I also didn’t finish the Mr. Mercedes trilogy, but that’s because the first book was just plain bad. I gleefully re-read books whenever I had a good excuse, again just to be able to finish a book quickly and stay on schedule.
5. I neglected heavy-reading science books (although I did manage to fit in 3 of them). This was the most significant negative impact of the reading challenge, because I really love science reading. I’ve got some backlog to make up for now.
6. I chain-read, meaning I didn’t take any time off in between books. I generally take a break between books because I like to let things just sink in, and in some cases I simply need a few days to recover if the book was particulary powerful. Guy Kay’s Children of Earth and Sky was especially hard to just move on from.
7. Writing a blog post about each book just upped the ante in terms of level of difficulty, but ultimate this turned out to be a good thing. Although I procrastinated a lot, writing gave me the chance to reflect on each book and helped make up for the lack of a break between each one.
8. I believe I read much faster now than when I started. Interestingly, people who read less frequently and/or who read slower had a difficult time believing that I read books quickly versus speed-read by skipping words or sentences.

The complete year-long book list:

11-Nov-15 book 1 – Ancillary Justice
18-Nov-15 book 2 – The Flicker Men
25-Nov-15 book 3 – Something Wicked This Way Comes
2-Dec-15 book 4 – How to Teach Physics To Your Dog
9-Dec-15 book 5 – The Three Body Problem
16-Dec-15 book 6 – The Sisters Brothers
23-Dec-15 book 7 – Leviathan Wakes
30-Dec-15 book 8 – A Street Cat Named Bob
6-Jan-16 book 9 – Pride and Prejudice
13-Jan-16 book 10 – What the Body Remembers
20-Jan-16 book 11 – To Kill a Mockingbird
27-Jan-16 book 12 – Go Set A Watchman
3-Feb-16 book 13 – The Dispossessed
10-Feb-16 book 14 – Transgression
17-Feb-16 book 15 – Thing Explainer
24-Feb-16 book 16 – The Emperor of All Maladies; A Biography of Cancer
2-Mar-16 book 17 – The Paris Wife
9-Mar-16 book 18 – The Big Short
16-Mar-16 book 19 – Big Little Lies
23-Mar-16 book 20 – Practical Demonkeeping
30-Mar-16 book 21 – The Martian
6-Apr-16 book 22 – Linchpin
13-Apr-16 book 23 – The Dinosaur Feather
20-Apr-16 book 24 – The Illegal
27-Apr-16 book 25 – Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
4-May-16 book 26 – Children of Earth and Sky
11-May-16 book 27 – The Robber Bride
18-May-16 book 28 – Sharp Objects
25-May-16 book 29 – Generation Loss
1-Jun-16 book 30 – Death Finds a Way
8-Jun-16 book 31 – A Captain’s Duty
15-Jun-16 book 32 – They Left Us Everything
22-Jun-16 book 33 – Ready Player One
29-Jun-16 book 34 – The Seveneves
6-Jul-16 book 35 – Lamb
13-Jul-16 book 36 – looking for alaska
20-Jul-16 book 37 – f**k it Do What You Love
27-Jul-16 book 38 – Montana 1948
3-Aug-16 book 39 – Mr. Mercedes
10-Aug-16 book 40 – The Art of War
17-Aug-16 book 41 – Station Eleven
24-Aug-16 book 42 – why does E=mc2? (and why should we care?)
31-Aug-16 book 43 – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
7-Sep-16 book 44 – How to Age
14-Sep-16 book 45 – Frankenstein
21-Sep-16 book 46 – An Illustrated book of Bad Arguments
28-Sep-16 book 47/48/49 – Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy
19-Oct-16 book 50 – Beasts of No Nation
26-Oct-16 book 51 – Cold Case Vancouver
2-Nov-16 book 52 – N/A

book 51 – Cold Case Vancouver

This book is a collection of unsolved murder cases from Vancouver’s past, ranging from the 1940’s to 2005. The case stories provide an interesting look back on Vancouver’s somewhat sordid past, and remind the reader of how unsafe Vancouver was, particularly for women, children, immigrants and gay men. I did think the author tended to rush a bit through individual cases, leaving some gaps in the narrative that the reader is left to fill in for themselves. Also, because these are all unsolved cases, and are still considered open, Lazarus was unable to interview active police officers about the files, which could have enriched the content. Instead, she has to rely on newspaper reports, and interviews with friends and family of victims, and with retired detectives. While still making for interesting reading, the cases do miss something from the lack of first-hand police details.

Rating: Borrow it, particularly if you grew up in Vancouver.

book 50 – Beasts of No Nation

I’ll get straight to it: I  hated this book. Its the story of a Agu, young boy (age unknown, but perhaps around 8?) who is kidnapped by a warlord in an African country that is in the middle of a brutal civil war. Agu is forced to be a soldier for the rebel group and to perform unspeakable acts of violence against the innocent villagers of his country, all the while being starved, tortured and raped by the warlord who captured him. It was horrifying and disturbing, and did nothing to help me understand the issue or how to take action to change it.

I am actually not entirely sure what I am supposed to do with this book, other than wish I had never read it.

Rating: Skip it. You should probably skip the movie, too.