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listersgirlAhaha! I finished both the Books of Enormousness. Life is good.
Mary Balogh Simply Unforgettable
Oy. I felt like this book was scolding me, since the whole (continually brought up) theme of the book was that being content or mostly happy (like the heroine insisted she was before she met the hero) isn't nearly good enough, that life isn't worth living if you're not out there trying to find perfect happiness (which, of course, only comes from true love). What's wrong with being mostly content? What if I don't want to open myself up to the possibility of being miserable on the road to being actually happy? Bah.
Colin Bateman Divorcing Jack
Colin Bateman really wants to be Christopher Brookmyre, but he's just not. Not that the book was actively bad or anything, but I was bored and uninterested and only finished it because I was standing in Fringe lineups.
Gideon Defoe The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists
So cute! So funny! So unbelievable that he actually got paid to write this!
Judith McNaught Almost Heaven
Light, fun historical romance, featuring lots of scandal, plot complications, and interfering secondary characters. Enjoyable if forgettable.
Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy
Nominally it's about Lata, whose mother is trying to find her a suitable husband, but really it's about India after the partition, family dynamics, politics, religion, love, and how all those things affect each other. I think I did myself and the book a disservice by reading it in small chunks - I had a hard time getting into it at first, because there was too long between each instance of the various plotlines, and I found that some of them seemed to have no relevance. The beauty of this book, though, is how things tie together (and also occasionally how they really don't). By the time I hit the last few sections I was completely engrossed. Absolutely worth reading.
Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon
Awesome, awesome book. The present day plotline involves complicated e-business dealings in the Philippines, the historical one codes and World War 2, but it's so much more than that. Although I skipped over some of the seriously in-depth math stuff. Ok, I'm totally making this sound like a lame book, but it's really not! You should read it! Although I have to say, the problem with books written in 1998 that are at least in part about new, highly astounding computer technology is that it's not that astounding anymore, and I had to keep reminding myself of when it was written every time I caught myself saying "So?".
Mary Balogh Simply Unforgettable
Oy. I felt like this book was scolding me, since the whole (continually brought up) theme of the book was that being content or mostly happy (like the heroine insisted she was before she met the hero) isn't nearly good enough, that life isn't worth living if you're not out there trying to find perfect happiness (which, of course, only comes from true love). What's wrong with being mostly content? What if I don't want to open myself up to the possibility of being miserable on the road to being actually happy? Bah.
Colin Bateman Divorcing Jack
Colin Bateman really wants to be Christopher Brookmyre, but he's just not. Not that the book was actively bad or anything, but I was bored and uninterested and only finished it because I was standing in Fringe lineups.
Gideon Defoe The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists
So cute! So funny! So unbelievable that he actually got paid to write this!
Judith McNaught Almost Heaven
Light, fun historical romance, featuring lots of scandal, plot complications, and interfering secondary characters. Enjoyable if forgettable.
Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy
Nominally it's about Lata, whose mother is trying to find her a suitable husband, but really it's about India after the partition, family dynamics, politics, religion, love, and how all those things affect each other. I think I did myself and the book a disservice by reading it in small chunks - I had a hard time getting into it at first, because there was too long between each instance of the various plotlines, and I found that some of them seemed to have no relevance. The beauty of this book, though, is how things tie together (and also occasionally how they really don't). By the time I hit the last few sections I was completely engrossed. Absolutely worth reading.
Neal Stephenson Cryptonomicon
Awesome, awesome book. The present day plotline involves complicated e-business dealings in the Philippines, the historical one codes and World War 2, but it's so much more than that. Although I skipped over some of the seriously in-depth math stuff. Ok, I'm totally making this sound like a lame book, but it's really not! You should read it! Although I have to say, the problem with books written in 1998 that are at least in part about new, highly astounding computer technology is that it's not that astounding anymore, and I had to keep reminding myself of when it was written every time I caught myself saying "So?".
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:08 pm (UTC)Am almost finished Stephenson's earlier book Snow Crash and quite liking it, though wondering whether he and William Gibson ever got in any fights about it and Virtual Light. Meanwhile, futuristic books written in the past, yes. There's an analogy about McDonald's styrofoam burger boxes, for instance. Poor Neal extrapolated so much stuff really brilliantly, but couldn't have known McD's would get rid of the styro box practically right after the book was published. Sucks to be Neal.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:40 pm (UTC)Cryptonomicon!!
Date: 2005-07-21 06:57 pm (UTC)Re: Cryptonomicon!!
Date: 2005-07-21 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 08:29 pm (UTC)I want to read those, definitely, but I'm letting my wrists recover a bit first.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 07:51 pm (UTC)If you liked it, you might also like Desirable Daughters (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0786885157/qid=1121975289/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_3/102-5917525-0400126?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) and The Tree Bride (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1401300588/qid=1121975289/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_sbs_4/102-5917525-0400126?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Bharati Mukherjee--if you haven't already read them.
I was struck by this--The beauty of this book, though, is how things tie together (and also occasionally how they really don't)--because that's just what these two books are about.
K.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-21 08:28 pm (UTC)Oh, and
Date: 2005-07-21 07:55 pm (UTC)* "There's such a thing?" I know, but it seems that some people can't handle them.
Re: Oh, and
Date: 2005-07-21 08:33 pm (UTC)