Book Post: Bujold, Sacks, Hosseini, Bester, Rowling and Vernon
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold, 328pp [Vorkosigan Saga]
I wasn't sure what to expect - Vorkosigan series hasn't disappointed me yet but I knew very little about this book or the plot. It turned into a pretty fun caper with a few coincidences and several hilarious moments (I love how Miles is pulling out the pictures of his family to show everyone or Mark showing up), and then at the end of the book, boom, it slams you with a serious development that breaks your heart. This series is so so good and I always enjoy spending time in this universe.
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks, 320pp
I really enjoyed this book even through I am not really a science person. Sacks managed to tell us about his childhood including his boyhood experiences of WWII and growing up in London, and also teach various aspects of history of chemistry and also a little physics and other sciences. He described personal experiments but also how the various difference discoveries came about. He is very good at the explanations. He loves the periodic table and he really conveys why it was such a brilliant thing. I feel like I have a much better understanding of the atom and of chemistry and physics because of this book. It was a good read. I loved his later autobiography and this is a good companion to it. He really led such a varied and strange life with so many interests.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, 322pp
I have heard of this book, of course, and saw the movie a long time ago, and I did want to read it eventually. This new year when I was downloading the books from my Dad's Calibre library into my Kindle, I saw a copy and grabbed it. It was a really well written book and it was interesting to be in that world. I love how the protagonist is not perfect; there is no happy ending exactly. The author does such a good way to describe the way of life, whether the childhood in Kabul or escape to Pakistan or life in America or going back to the Kabul just before 9/11. I felt really immersed in this world of these very complicated characters like Baba or Amir. It always hits me how one person can have so many lives that things are not stagnant and it is clear here as well. Some things were too big a coincidences that were hard to buy like who has Hassan' son when Amir goes to find him, and some plot twists I knew about it but this book wasn't about that for me. It was about being in a different world, in another culture and living in it and that was well captured.
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, 241pp [Hugo book]
First book to win a Hugo Award. This book is 70 years ago and it shows. It is a murder novel but a mystery in reverse - we know who the killer is as we follow him as he commits murder, but the second protagonist, the detective needs to figure it out and prove it as the killer works to cover his tracks. The story takes places in the future where some people are telepathic and form their own Guild, and try to promote more telepathic people. The part where Bester describes telepathic dialogue was pretty cool. There wasn't a murder in a very long time but one of the richest men in the world is planning to commit one and elude the telepathic detection anyway.
The writing is very 1950s, very staccato and sometimes slangy. The female characters are very 50s and not exactly well rounded. The twists are a bit weird at times. I do see why this novel was impressive at the time but it was a very weird read. I didn't particularly liked the characters and I didn't know who I wanted to win. I liked the twist at the end at what a Demolition of a person really means.
This book also gave me a good mantra to use in case of travel anxiety - it is a really good earworm to both evade telepaths and also to quell unwelcome thoughts.
The Christmas Pig by J.K.Rowling, 271pp
My Dad got this for the girls for Hanukkah with the intention of me reading it to them but Olivia wasn't too interested. I did read this outloud to Tanya, one chapter at a time, with a lot of breaks, over the last three months. She was into the book enough when I was reading it to her but didn't want me to read every day because she wants time to play. But we finally finished.
This book is J.K. Rowling's book for children about a boy, Jack, who loses his beloved toy pig, DP, and travels to the magical Land of the Lost on Christmas Eve with a new toy pig called the Christmas Pig, who was bought as a replacement for DP. During their travels, they discover various cities filled with lost objects and ideas, try to avoid a Loser, who eats lost toys, and try to find DP before the Christmas Eve ends. Time does work differently in this land.
This book was fine. It wasn't as magical as Harry Potter, but then not much can be. The magical world wasn't exactly appealing although some characters were fun. I did like Jack and Christmas Pig a lot as main characters and I thought the beginning was well done with Jack living through divorce, his mother's remarriage and gaining a new step-sister. Heavy subjects but I don't think those should be avoided by kids. The Land of the Lost was weirdly bureaucratic and there was some stuff that would go over kids' heads but the message at the end is pretty nice. It is an ok book. J.K. Rowling is certainly capable of more (I like her mysteries for adults). It was nice to read to Tanya. I just wish she would want to pick up Harry Potter instead. I have to be patient about that.
Dragonbreath by Ursula Vernon, 148pp
Tanya was reading it and I was reading alongside her because I wanted her to ask if she encountered a hard word; some vocabulary is a little advanced for her. She was fine for most of it; her reading level is above her grade level but she did ask occasionally about a hard word. Plus I like Vernon and wanted to check these books out. This book was pretty cute. I think I like Hamster Princess books a little more as this seems a little more educational, if that is the right word, but I also really appreciated sarcasm in it and I really enjoyed Wendell the iguana. I am sure some jokes went over Tanya's head but she liked it (she still has a chapter to go, so she should finish tonight). In this book the protagonists go to explore the ocean for Danny the Dragon's school paper and encounter various sea creatures. And deal with school bullies. There is also a potato salad that just wants to live.