Book meme II
Read the preceding entry first if you care.
1. Adams, Watership Down. Interestingly this was the only one where I knew the first sentence off the top of my head (just the primroses one). I had to look everything else up. We read this in English class in middle school somewhere, I think 8th grade (alohamike may remember). I read The Plague Dogs afterward and didn't find it nearly as compelling. I have a copy of Tales from Watership Down (a gift from captaino I think) but don't remember it making much of an impression on me either. I saw the Watership Down animated movie once, ages ago.
2. Card, Ender's Game. I hate loving this book because OSC is an anti-gay Mormon nutjob. I tried the next couple in the series and wasn't grabbed by them at all. M. Night Shyamalan could probably have a productive conversation with him. Ender's Shadow was an interesting concept, if someone awkwardly executed, but I enjoyed it too.
3. Holland, The Man Without a Face. Another in the minority of cases where I saw the movie first but liked the book better anyway (usually I have a primacy bias).
4. Knowles, A Separate Peace. This was 10th grade English, I'm pretty sure. It didn't make much of an impression on me at the time but I re-read it again a few years later and found it a lot more engaging. This has a movie version too but so much of the book happens in Gene's internal monologue that it's hard to do right by it. I've also read the quasi-sequel, "Peace Breaks Out" but didn't like it as much either. People need to learn when to go out on a high note a la George Costanza.
5. Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. 9th grade English, I think. This book just rocks. The bit at the end where Scout lingers on the Radleys' doorstep and sees everything that happened over the last year from Boo's eyes resonates with my yearly personal stock-taking.
6. Niven & Pournelle (still in alphabetical order!), Lucifer's Hammer. A very gripping reality check about post-apocalyptic survival.
7. Sagan, Contact. Again, saw movie first, think it's fantastic, but like the book better, again because a lot happens in Ellie's introspection, and the stuff they were forced to leave out of the movie (which is 2+ hrs already). I think the questions asked by the book are particularly more interesting because *five* of them go through the experience which makes it harder to write off as an individual hallucination or whatever. My only problem is that I dislike the ending to this book -- Sagan spends the entire novel being pretty even-keeled, stressing the importance of knowing what we don't know, ambiguity, etc. and then she goes and finds the damned circle. It just seems utterly inconsistent with the spirit of the entire rest of the story.
8. Stephenson, Cryptonomicon. Exhibits Stephenson's characteristic problem with endings but is otherwise a kick-ass production that perfectly captures so many aspects of my life (geekdom, working for startups, Asian culture, etc.). The business plan, and Randy's trip report of his jungle excursion had me in stitches. This is easily my favorite of his books that I've read. Snow Crash and Zodiac are probably next. I've made it through the Baroque Cycle but it's overwhelming -- will need to go back and read it again the next time I have nothing to do for few weeks :-) (also after I've brushed up on European history, which I think would help a lot). I thought Diamond Age had a lot of interesting stuff in it but by the time we get around to the drummers etc. it just sort of trails off into incomprehensibility.
1. Adams, Watership Down. Interestingly this was the only one where I knew the first sentence off the top of my head (just the primroses one). I had to look everything else up. We read this in English class in middle school somewhere, I think 8th grade (alohamike may remember). I read The Plague Dogs afterward and didn't find it nearly as compelling. I have a copy of Tales from Watership Down (a gift from captaino I think) but don't remember it making much of an impression on me either. I saw the Watership Down animated movie once, ages ago.
2. Card, Ender's Game. I hate loving this book because OSC is an anti-gay Mormon nutjob. I tried the next couple in the series and wasn't grabbed by them at all. M. Night Shyamalan could probably have a productive conversation with him. Ender's Shadow was an interesting concept, if someone awkwardly executed, but I enjoyed it too.
3. Holland, The Man Without a Face. Another in the minority of cases where I saw the movie first but liked the book better anyway (usually I have a primacy bias).
4. Knowles, A Separate Peace. This was 10th grade English, I'm pretty sure. It didn't make much of an impression on me at the time but I re-read it again a few years later and found it a lot more engaging. This has a movie version too but so much of the book happens in Gene's internal monologue that it's hard to do right by it. I've also read the quasi-sequel, "Peace Breaks Out" but didn't like it as much either. People need to learn when to go out on a high note a la George Costanza.
5. Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. 9th grade English, I think. This book just rocks. The bit at the end where Scout lingers on the Radleys' doorstep and sees everything that happened over the last year from Boo's eyes resonates with my yearly personal stock-taking.
6. Niven & Pournelle (still in alphabetical order!), Lucifer's Hammer. A very gripping reality check about post-apocalyptic survival.
7. Sagan, Contact. Again, saw movie first, think it's fantastic, but like the book better, again because a lot happens in Ellie's introspection, and the stuff they were forced to leave out of the movie (which is 2+ hrs already). I think the questions asked by the book are particularly more interesting because *five* of them go through the experience which makes it harder to write off as an individual hallucination or whatever. My only problem is that I dislike the ending to this book -- Sagan spends the entire novel being pretty even-keeled, stressing the importance of knowing what we don't know, ambiguity, etc. and then she goes and finds the damned circle. It just seems utterly inconsistent with the spirit of the entire rest of the story.
8. Stephenson, Cryptonomicon. Exhibits Stephenson's characteristic problem with endings but is otherwise a kick-ass production that perfectly captures so many aspects of my life (geekdom, working for startups, Asian culture, etc.). The business plan, and Randy's trip report of his jungle excursion had me in stitches. This is easily my favorite of his books that I've read. Snow Crash and Zodiac are probably next. I've made it through the Baroque Cycle but it's overwhelming -- will need to go back and read it again the next time I have nothing to do for few weeks :-) (also after I've brushed up on European history, which I think would help a lot). I thought Diamond Age had a lot of interesting stuff in it but by the time we get around to the drummers etc. it just sort of trails off into incomprehensibility.