Just got back from 4 days in Switzerland. I spent many hours hiking and sledding and getting way more exercise than ever, and the rest of the time sitting quietly and reading books borrowed from the friend I was reading. My list has nearly doubled in length. I'm up to 15 now.
Junky (William S. Burroughs) - 256 pages
Sourcery (Terry Pratchett) - 270 pages
The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm (Nancy Farmer) - 310 pages
American Gods - Author's Preferred Text (Neil Gaiman) - 650 pages
Hell - Robert Olen Butler - 232 pages
Seven Emus - Xavier Herbert - 175 pages
Jamestown - Matthew Sharpe - 327 pages
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman - 370 pages
And the new ones, with thoughts on each:
I've been recommended this book for ages and finally had a chance to read it. I have asperger syndrome and it was refreshing to read a book from a point of view I understood. For the most part I found it very accurate and probably very useful in educating people about what autism is like. The main difference between me and the main character, aside from the fact that my social skills and general world awareness are trained much higher than his, is that he is obsessed with numbers while I don't like numbers and prefer words (I'm hyperlexic). Great book and good read whether you know someone with autism or not.
I've heard of this book before and grabbed it off my friend's bookshelf because it looked like a quick read. It's an interesting enough story, but I strongly dislike it when a book with religious overtones is sold as something that will "change your life." Taken as a story, it wasn't too bad. Taken as a philosophical work, it was a pretty standard reflection of people's need to believe in some sort of higher power or reason behind the things that happen in their lives, which irritates me.
This book was pretty interesting. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who might read it, but it was very unlike other books I've read on the topic. I didn't know what it was about before I read it and I think that was a positive thing, so I'll leave it ambiguous, and just say it was a very innocent perspective on a decidedly non-innocent situation. Good read. Also quite short and easy to read, good for non-native speakers.
This one was really difficult to read. It's the true story of the author's childhood of nightmarish abuse at the hands of his psychotic mother. Not for the faint of heart.
I had not planned on ever reading this book. I had only seen it in the hands of girls aged about 13-16, so I assumed it was a pile of garbage. But the friend I was visiting said it's actually not bad and very compelling, so I gave it a try. Read through the whole thing in a few hours and was pleasantly surprised. Not at all what I expected and a very interesting story. I will consider continuing the series.
I quite liked this one but was very disappointed by the ending. Then my friend told me there are more books in this series and it does continue. I'll have to find the next one somewhere. It's quite a philosophical work and gave me some good food for thought. At first I thought it was one of those standard Utopia-manual books like Walden Two, which I despise because they always presume that environment can control human behavior when it has been proven time and again that it cannot, but actually it turned out to be a bit more than that, and I enjoyed it.
This was one of a pile of my old books I had left with my friend for safekeeping until I could come back and get it. I re-read it, mostly on the plane ride home. I don't think it's one of Palahniuk's best works, but I like his style anyway.
Now I have a pile of old books I haven't touched in 4 years, retrieved from my friend's place in Switzerland, and I'm looking forward to remembering all the stories I'd forgotten about. I should be well-supplied for a while.
Total pages so far: 4307
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Topic: The Official Bay12 - 52 books challenge 2013 (Read 58958 times)