Reading!

[El Chuxter]

What was worse, the lousy writing, the talking Gamorreans who think they're Stormtroopers, or Luke falling in love with a computer program?

[JimJamBonds]

I read Citizen In Chief, it examines what have the ex presidents done once leaving office. While at times a bit dry and painful all in all it was a good (and interesting) read.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Man, I just want to rip my hair out....I really hate this lady who wrote Children of the Jedi. She is an awful writer IMO.

Hey! She's a wonderful person. All people are beautiful creations. It's just her writing and subject matter that are terrible.




[edit]Since the closest thing to Harry Potter seems to be the vampire teens series by Stephenie "My Name is Spelled Like Combining Both a Man's and Woman's Name" Meyer, I felt obligated to read the first book, Twilight. Surprisingly, it was a fast read (for 500 pages), but it was definitely a teenaged girl audience. Not enough action, but I saw the model of HP in her style or writing. The dialogue is no way teen authentic, but I can see how it got such a strong following. But I have no desire to read any of the other books.

[Slicker]

I just finished up the Thrawn Trilogy and I must say that it was quite good. I had a tough time putting it down. Zahn is definitely a great sy-fy sci-fi writer.

[mtriv73]

[edit]Since the closest thing to Harry Potter seems to be the vampire teens series by Stephenie...

The closest thing to Harry Potter I've read recently is the Olympian series by Rick Riordian. Without much free time to read, I read all 5 books in a couple weeks. They're definitely written for 6th graders, but it's a great story. He doesn't develop this other world within our world as well as JK Rowling but it never lost my interest.

[DarkArtist]

I just finished up the Thrawn Trilogy and I must say that it was quite good. I had a tough time putting it down. Zahn is definitely a great sy-fy sci-fi writer.

loved those books, you should also read Spector of the Past and Vision of the Future as well. two more great books by Zahn.

i'm starting to read Millennium Falcon while I wait for the next book in the Legacy of the Force series, just finished Omen

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Continuing my Patriot Act defiance (tracking library books checked out) by reading multiple genres, I chose a trashy romance novel. How did I pick it? Walking by the rack, I saw an awful title (Dinner First, Me Later?), a clearly birth-certificate-real author name (Candy Halliday), and a cheesy-sounding summary on the back cover.

I can't completely bash the book after reading it, though. Yes, it's filled with stereotyped characterization, weak premises, unrealistic dialogue, and predictable plotlines. But it was a decent story of a father (former Rookie of the Year Chicago Cub) trying to re-connect with his teenage daughter (the wife/mother died recently) while "connecting" with a recent divorcee across the street, all the time avoiding the evil-grandmother-who's-a-former-model-now-modeling-agency-head who wants to damage this whole thing. But it's done now.

Total books so far: 17, about 4800 pages.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

Crossed the 5K page and 18 book levels with Before-He-Was-President Obama's The Audacity of Hope. It was what I expected: semi-specific but mainly an overview of beliefs. With a few humorous and touching items. If I want to get to my adjusted 20-book amount, I have a little less than a fortnight to finish two more books (am part way through Lake Wobegon Days and I want to get to Walter Cronkite's autobio). Anything more than those will be gravy.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

I am running out of summer reading days so I may be near my last books. I just finished Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor. It had it moments when I LOL'd but for the most part it was an effort to trudge through it most of the time.

[Bel-Cam Jos]

My last book might be A Reporter's Life, the autobiography of Walter Cronkite. It's sad to see how he predicted much of the demise of "news" on TV. Interesting how he thought that the Internet would be a good addition to TV, but now it seems to have replaced it in a lesser quality and quantity (shorter blurbs, a.k.a. blogs) by less qualified "reporters." He led a pretty unique life.

So far (I do still have about 5 days of summer left), I've read 20 books, just under 6000 pages. Once summer is "officially" over next week, I'll have complete stats, plus the multi-year ones. I know you all are drooling over all that.