Various Reads

Since last we met, I’ve been reading from various books in trying to close out the year with 50. That’s the number I read last year, and there is no reason why I can’t match it again. For my Sunday School class I’m reading through Sacred Marriage, but we do one chapter a week, and I haven’t done the math to see if I’ll get this one finished. I could read ahead, but I’ve got plenty of printed pages from other sources to forge on ahead with.

I recently finished a book I reviewed for LibraryThing called Doubleback, by Libby Fischer Hellmann. I really liked the fast pace and the differences of the two main characters. Hellmann has a great knack for keeping the reader constantly entertained.

I’m also trying to wrap up Four Past Midnight by Stephen King. I’m on the last novella, The Sun Dog, and have about 60 pages to go. I wasn’t all that thrilled with this collection. It doesn’t begin to compare to Different Seasons, but that is a tough comparison considering the classics that King penned with those. I’m attempting to catch up on my King reading, but I’m 19 years behind. I’ve read everything of his up to Four Past Midnight, with the exception of The Dark Tower books. I still have two more of those to buy, and plan on reading them straight through…eventually.

Another book I’m working on is called Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick. I’m not very far into it, but it’s an interesting historical work so far, and makes me fondly recall Love and Hate in Jamestown (which I highly recommend if you are at all interested in early American history…John Smith was an extraordinary man). I may or may not get it finished by Thanksgiving.

Every workday morning, before leaving, I read two facing pages from a book called The Fiction Dictionary, by Laurie Henry. I’m rapidly nearing the end of it, so I will have to choose something new for my morning short read. I have a few ideas in mind, but nothing concrete yet.

And then there are the books most of you won’t give a hoot about, such as Getting To Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher and William Ury. I just read a bit of it here and there, but it’s pretty good so far in the early goings.

Something else I’m trying to complete is an old 1990 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. I have hundreds of old digests like that that I haven’t read yet. I’m trying to decide of 2010 will be a year of magazine catching up. I have many years of Realms of Fantasy, a dozen or so Cemetery Dance issues, some Weird Tales, and lots and lots of Asimov’s, Analogs, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Along with more Ellery Queens and a few Hitchcocks. I have an inclination to see how many I can finish up, but there are SO many books I want to read also. Such as finally reading Foundation and all the supporting books for it, catching up on more King, and taking a trip back to the magical worlds of Terry Brooks. Not to mention all the older science fiction classics I want to read. In September and October I read three H.G. Wells novels (The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Invisible Man) and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There are many more to finally read, not to mention a lot of Heinlein, Dan Simmons, Jack McDevitt, and other favorites. The problem with being a lover of books and reading is that they continually keep putting out more that I want to read!

Which brings to mind the people who continually read things like Dune or The Lord of the Rings once a year. Okay, I acknowledge how great they are and the sense of enjoyment they provide, but subsequent readings only reveal so much, and there is so much other stuff out there unexplored!