Category Archives: books

Books Everyone Should Read – Part 6

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Watership Down

Usually the books I feature in “Books Everyone Should Read” are available free as eBooks, but alas, not this time. You should read it anyway. Buy a copy (I have about six). You can almost always find it at used book sellers. Pick it up from the library. But get it. It’s worth it.

On the surface, Watership Down seems to be a simple story about rabbits. It is far more than that. It is a complex alegory on the nature of society, of religion, of government, and of human (yes, human) nature. It is also an epic adventure in the spirit of the Odyssey, um… only with rabbits.

Not all of Richard Adams’ books are as well crafted, but they all have some of the most beautifully crafted prose of the past fifty years. I have loved this book since I was a teen, wrote papers about it in college, taught it to High School English students, and I still think it is one of the best books ever written. Read it and let me know what you think.

Gods Behaving Badly – A Review

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I just finished reading “Gods Behaving Badly” by Marie Phillips. Of course I read it on my Sony PRS-505 eBook Reader, and it is available in a variety of eBook formats, just in time for Read an eBook week. Simply put, this was the best book I have read in a long time. It was funny, sad, surprising, sad again, and then funny again.

Imagine the Greek Olympians were still around today, power diminished, living in London. Though they still do their jobs– Apollo still sees that the sun comes up and goes down, Ares still manages war, and Hermes still delivers the dead to Charon the boatman as well as over-seeing the world’s money– they have little extra power and have to work for their money. Aphrodite has a job as a phone sex operator, Artemis walks dogs, and Apollo has an idea for a television show in which he plays a psychic.

The book is well-researched and the gods are perfectly portrayed. The two main human characters in the story are very real and their relationship is very touching. Most of all, the book is extremely well-written. It is very witty, well-plotted, and the language use is wonderful.

I highly recommend this book to anyone. If you have a love of mythology or fantasy you will really appreciate it.

The Oscars – Part I

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It wouldn’t be right to just let the Oscars slip by without a single comment, would it? It probably would– especially since I didn’t watch the awards show. I did see some of the movies though. The only best picture nominee that I saw was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. I liked it, but since I didn’t see the others, I don’t know how it compares. I want to see “The Reader”, but not until after I read the book.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we were only allowed to see a movie after we had read the book first? Yes, I know some movies have original screenplays….

O Pioneers! – Movie vs. Book

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I watched the 1992 Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie of O Pioneers. It was about as close to the book as a movie could possibly be. Jessica Lange was good as Alexandra, and interestingly enough, Heather Graham was very believable as a young Alexandra. David Strathairn is always great and was an excellent Carl, and while Anne Heche wasn’t my idea of Marie, she was passable. Reed Diamond, now playing in Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse (more about this excellent show in a later post) was Emil.

There were only one or two incidental scenes from the book that didn’t appear in the movie, and everything was very well done. I thought that it was a bit more obvious that Emil and Marie had sex in the movie (they had their clothes off) than in the book. If all book adaptations were this good then books might really be in trouble. Fortunately that is not the case.

Note: I have never claimed to be a good critic. As the saying goes, “I don’t know what’s good. I just know what I like.”

Books Everyone Should Read – Part 4

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Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu

Actually a novella, this vampires story predates Dracula. By far my favorite vampire story, it really plays up the predator-prey aspect of the myth, and of course there is plenty of lesbian subtext. Download it in several eBook formats for free HERE. This is a link to Feedbooks.com, but it can be found in a variety of sites devoted to free books.

What I’m Reading Now

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Between grad school, teaching, and trying to write I’m finding very little time to read. I’m still working my way through Royal Harlot by Susan Holloway Scott. It’s not my usual type of read, but I’m enjoying it well enough. Of course I’m reading it on my Sony Reader, having downloaded it from the Sony eBook Store.

Vampire Reading Challenge

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Cozymurders.blogspot.com has a vampire reading challenge going. On the one hand, I feel like “more vampires”? On the other hand, I figure I’ll at least read one Twilight sequel. Might as well join in.

Books Everyone Should Read – Part I

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Moby Dick
by Herman Melville
Arguably the greatest American novel, Moby Dick was that book you were supposed to read for your High School or College literature class, but you watched the movie or got the Cliff’s notes for it instead. Well guess what? It’s a good read. You can pick it up for FREE in several eBook formats by following this link. This leads to Feedbooks, but you can also find it an Manybooks.com and many other locations.

Christmas Gifts

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I got quite a few great gifts for Christmas this year, including a new case with built in booklight for my SonyReader. I was skeptical about adding another pane of glass over the eink screen, but it really is a better option for reading in lower light than any of the clip-on book lights. It is a bit pricy, but hey, it was a present.

Book Cover Pro

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If you’ve been reading my entries for a while, you’ve seen covers of The Steel Dragon and His Robot Girlfriend. I still hope to find a publisher for The Steel Dragon, but His Robot Girlfriend will be self-published (and freely distributed electronically). The covers shown were made with Book Cover Pro software. For anyone wanting to self-publish more than one book and has even a modicum of layout talent, this is a great investment. Since even the simplest custom covers will cost close to $100, this investment of about $180.00 will pay for itself.