Books: short stories, Anno Dracula, Blackveil
When I was sick, I had very little focus, so I tended to gravitate to short stories. In no particular order (meaning, I switched between the books frequently and don't remember what order I started or finished them in):
11. The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches by Mark Twain
Didn't care for most of it. I keep WANTING to like Twain, but most of the time, I just don't.
12. Sparks and Shadows by Lucy Snyder
A mixed bag. Snyder can lean towards horror, and I tend not to like horror. But I did enjoy getting a deeper look at some of the side characters in her other books, and I enjoyed most of the stories (including a few that were technically horror).
13. A Modern Cinderella Story Or, The Little Old Shoe and Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott
It's odd to read something that calls itself "modern" when it is so obviously dated, which makes me wonder at what future generations will think of our "modernity". But the stories are sweet.
14. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
If there were such a thing as vampirepunk, this would be it. Vlad Tepes seduces the widowed Queen Victoria and becomes Prince Consort... and society changes, yet in many ways stays the same-- there is a definite difference between how the wealthy and powerful approach vampirism and how the poor and downtrodden do.
However, I could have done without the literary hide-and-seek. At first, it was cute when the main detective on the murder case was Inspector LeStrade, but after a while it got old, and by the time Drs Jekyll and Moreau showed up, I was pretty well sick of it.
15. Blackveil: Book Four of Green Rider by Kristen Britain
As the subtitle implies, it's the fourth book in a series that I enjoy. The writing seems to be aimed more at late teens, which colors the tenor of the main romance, but other than occasionally wanting to slap some sense into the main character, it hasn't been annoying. I confess that I'm very curious where Britain will take the story next.
Added bonus! One of the interesting side-effects of the Kindle is that I find I'm much more willing to just stop reading a book that I dislike than I am with dead-tree books. The "screw it, not reading any more of these" folder currently contains:
* Fables for the Frivolous by Guy Whitmore Carryl
A lot like Aesops' Fables, but poorly formatted. The fables are rhyming poems, and the linebreaks are missing. I suspect that I would be more willing to bother with this book if the eBook had been properly formatted. Then again, the rhyming format makes it seem hokey.
* The Game of Logic by Lewis Carroll
I'm not sure if Carroll honestly thinks "some x-Cakes are y-(Cakes)" is supposed to make logic more approachable or if he's really just that far removed from what "approachable" means, but this is another eBook that suffers greatly from poor formatting. Notably, the tables are not images, so that most of them just look like "|||1|||" as the white spaces are removed. As you might guess, a book entirely about logic contains a lot of tables.
* Ten Great Events In History by James Johonnot
Great, perhaps. Interesting, not at all. Johonnot is that high school history teacher who speaks in monotone while reciting the litany of facts that you're supposed to regurgitate onto the test. I find this particularly infuriating, because history is made up of interesting people doing interesting things for a whole slew of reasons, and it took me *years* to get past the "history is boring" notion that all those monotone teachers instilled in me.
11. The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches by Mark Twain
Didn't care for most of it. I keep WANTING to like Twain, but most of the time, I just don't.
12. Sparks and Shadows by Lucy Snyder
A mixed bag. Snyder can lean towards horror, and I tend not to like horror. But I did enjoy getting a deeper look at some of the side characters in her other books, and I enjoyed most of the stories (including a few that were technically horror).
13. A Modern Cinderella Story Or, The Little Old Shoe and Other Stories by Louisa May Alcott
It's odd to read something that calls itself "modern" when it is so obviously dated, which makes me wonder at what future generations will think of our "modernity". But the stories are sweet.
14. Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
If there were such a thing as vampirepunk, this would be it. Vlad Tepes seduces the widowed Queen Victoria and becomes Prince Consort... and society changes, yet in many ways stays the same-- there is a definite difference between how the wealthy and powerful approach vampirism and how the poor and downtrodden do.
However, I could have done without the literary hide-and-seek. At first, it was cute when the main detective on the murder case was Inspector LeStrade, but after a while it got old, and by the time Drs Jekyll and Moreau showed up, I was pretty well sick of it.
15. Blackveil: Book Four of Green Rider by Kristen Britain
As the subtitle implies, it's the fourth book in a series that I enjoy. The writing seems to be aimed more at late teens, which colors the tenor of the main romance, but other than occasionally wanting to slap some sense into the main character, it hasn't been annoying. I confess that I'm very curious where Britain will take the story next.
Added bonus! One of the interesting side-effects of the Kindle is that I find I'm much more willing to just stop reading a book that I dislike than I am with dead-tree books. The "screw it, not reading any more of these" folder currently contains:
* Fables for the Frivolous by Guy Whitmore Carryl
A lot like Aesops' Fables, but poorly formatted. The fables are rhyming poems, and the linebreaks are missing. I suspect that I would be more willing to bother with this book if the eBook had been properly formatted. Then again, the rhyming format makes it seem hokey.
* The Game of Logic by Lewis Carroll
I'm not sure if Carroll honestly thinks "some x-Cakes are y-(Cakes)" is supposed to make logic more approachable or if he's really just that far removed from what "approachable" means, but this is another eBook that suffers greatly from poor formatting. Notably, the tables are not images, so that most of them just look like "|||1|||" as the white spaces are removed. As you might guess, a book entirely about logic contains a lot of tables.
* Ten Great Events In History by James Johonnot
Great, perhaps. Interesting, not at all. Johonnot is that high school history teacher who speaks in monotone while reciting the litany of facts that you're supposed to regurgitate onto the test. I find this particularly infuriating, because history is made up of interesting people doing interesting things for a whole slew of reasons, and it took me *years* to get past the "history is boring" notion that all those monotone teachers instilled in me.