October Reading

Here's a quick overview of what I've been reading since last time:

A Time Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
   #1, Time's Eye (4 stars)
   #2, Sunstorm (4 stars)
   #3, Firstborn (3 stars)
The Dark Half, by Stephen King (4 stars)
The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling (3 stars)
House of Shadows, by Rachel Neumeier (3 stars)
Ring of Flowers, by Brian Andrews (2 stars)
The Calypso Directive, by Brian Andrews (3 stars)
Love Anthony, by Lisa Genova (4 stars)
The Constant Princess, by Philippa Gregory (4 stars)
The Twelve, by Justin Cronin (3 stars)

I also did a re-read of Cronin's The Passage (3 stars) before reading The Twelve.



Last time I mentioned I was anxious about The Casual Vacancy. It turned out to be quite good. Well, I wasn't really worried about whether it would be good or not; I was worried about whether I would like it or not. And I did . . . with the caveat that it wasn't exactly a pleasant book. The best way I can describe it is as a very REAL book. Real life is ugly. Real people are often ugly (and I don't mean on the outside). This book had a lot of ugliness in it, and not a whole lot of redemption. So . . . reader beware. But it's done very well.

My favorite book of the month, though, is The Dark Half. I sort of stumbled across this Stephen King book; it wasn't on the Insatiable Booksluts' infographic, and it isn't one of his big titles you usually hear about. But King writing about a writer worked well in Misery and The Shining to a lesser extent (not that The Shining was less successful, but the fact that the character was a writer wasn't as central to the story; he could have been anything, the hotel still would have found a way to corrupt him). So, when I came across the summary for this one, it really piqued my interest, and it didn't disappoint. Really, this could have been a 5-star book if it weren't for King's penchant for gratuitous violence. I get that for some people, that's the fun part, the whole point of reading a Stephen King novel. But it's not for me. So I think it speaks very highly of the book, how much I enjoyed it in spite of all those scenes.

With NaNoWriMo coming up, November is probably going to be a very light reading month, as I focus more on writing. Come to think of it, it will probably be a pretty light blogging month as well.

So . . . what have you been reading lately?