Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling: I bet it’s still not safe to post spoilers. What I will say is that The Half-Blood Prince has replaced The Prisoner of Azkaban as my favorite in the series. I’m sure some people will violently disagree with me (especially due to the, er, [...]
I finished these books last month. My reactions have muted with time, so I’ll try to note down quickly my most memorable impressions.
Claudius the God, by Robert Graves: I’ve been meaning to read Claudius the God ever since I finished I, Claudius two years ago, and finally I’ve gotten around to borrowing it from Lamont. [...]
The Fairy Godmother, by Mercedes Lackey: What is there to say? It’s exactly what one expects from Lackey, complete with empowered female protagonist and all. It “overthrows” romance novel conventions in such a predictable way that nothing about the plot is unusual or surprising. Lackey does her best to make her [...]
The following books were read from March to May of this year:
Taltos, by Steven Brust: The first book in the Vlad series, chronologically-speaking, and tells how Vlad meets Morrolan, Sethra Lavode, and Aliera. Also explains how he got Spellbreaker. I’ve noticed that Brust varies his narrative technique for each Vlad novel, and in Taltos, he [...]
The following books were read from late January to March of this year.
Comfort and Joy, by Jim Grimsley: My friend lent me this sequel to Winter Birds after I finished the first two Grimsley books, and despite the lack of novel narrative devices, I think I preferred this novel to its prequel. That being said, [...]
Samguk Yusa: Legends and History of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea, by Ilyon (trans. Tae-Hung Ha): I was in Yenching, looking for books on Yi Sunsin, the famous Korean admiral who nearly single-handedly led the Korean navies to victory against Hideyoshi’s invasion, when I came across this translation of Samguk Yusa, written by the [...]
A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin: Finished this book during the summer, but forgot to add it to the reading log. I have to admit, for about the first half of the book, I was getting sick of the story. At one point, I was feeling particularly upset because the only characters I [...]
Ahem. So you see, lately I’ve discovered that while Widener may not be the perfect library that contains all the books that have ever been published, it still has an impressive contemporary fiction collection. Ah, Hollis, how I love thee. In any case, I’m still prepared to believe that Widener has very nearly all books [...]
Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner: I bought this book on the recommendation of my best friend, despite my initial qualms about her plot summary—she described it as a medieval story about a swordsman and a scholar (I thought hopefully of Narcissus und Goldmund and less optimistically of Mercedes Lackey’s numerous swords-and-sworcery novels). Still, I wanted to [...]
I plan to keep this update brief. Five books are a lot to cover in one blog entry, after all.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon: I read a review of this book when it came out in hardcover, a little over a year ago, and have been meaning to [...]