Amph What book are you reading right now?

I think I overdid it for this year with books. I have alot of catching up to do with both old and new Star Wars novels. Just recently I got Star Wars Crystal Star off of amazon. Its one of many old novels I always wanted to read back then but never had the time or money.

Plus ive been buying a few Wheel of Time books here and there along with David Drake's Lord of the Isles series.

And the Dune books. Still have to get Heretics of Dune and the last book book 6 I think.

But right now Im reading John Grisham's The Firm

 

Regarding the Wheel of Time books, devote plenty of time because they're LLOOOOONNNNNGGGG!

As for me, I'm reading Heir to the Jedi.

 

The Age Of Fire books. The first 3 are character building bios for 3 dragons from the same clutch whos parents are killed and they become separated and make their way. The first book is good throughout. The second is ok but too long through the middle. The third book is the same as the second. I am now starting the 4th book, Dragon Strike where the three meet again when fully grown. One wishes to live away from humans, one wishes to live among humans, one wishes to dominate humans/the entire world.

I have thought of reading The Wheel Of TIme books but even though people call them good they call them long, overly detailed about things like clothing and the series goes into a weird direction in the middle. Opinions are all over the place concerning it.

 

X-Wing Mercy Kill

 

Everyman (2006) - Philip Roth



So, I’m kicking off a bit of a Roth marathon here. I got the most recent volume of the Library of America’s edition of his work, so it has four short novels. I want to review the novels separately, however, since they were originally published that way. And then I might have a few words about the book as a whole after that. But anyway, Everyman is the first in this quartet of short novels; Roth originally wanted them published in one volume, but the publisher balked. This one is the shortest, at less than a hundred pages, and the simplest of the four. The book, which has no chapter divisions, begins with the funeral of its unnamed protagonist; we then flashback to get the details of his life as seen through his lifelong struggles with poor health. Roth has always been fascinated by aging and death; the older he gets the more explicitly these twin specters haunt his work. It’s written in a very simple, straightforward way, with none of Roth’s signature flourishes and there’s little in the way of plot as we work our way slowly through hospital stay after hospital stay. This has what I think is the desired effect, a sort of numbing despair. The book isn’t one of Roth’s masterpieces, but I found it very moving, as usual with Roth and I still have to highly recommend it. 4 stars.

tl;dr – quiet, sparse meditation on aging and death is slow and methodical, but comes with a powerful cumulative emotional effect. 4 stars.

More Book Reviews!

 

About half way done, really great read.

 

Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal, by Max Brand. True story of VMF-212, US Marine Corps fighter pilots in WW2, based on extensive interviews with the survivors. Vivid, you-are-there tales of desperation and heroism.

 

X-Wing the Kryptos Trap

 

Just concluded William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Next is The Dark Lord Trilogy.

 

Star Wars: Hard Merchandise, Book 3 of the Bounty Hunter Wars.

 

Math Doesn't Suck by Danica McKellar - Numbers wise I might be some decades away from the young ladies she's catering to in this book, but if it helps me retain concepts, great. I need to remember this for the job and other things.

Khan Academy has been all kinds of help too. (Sadly not THAT Khan.)

 

Going to start Ananzi Boys by Neil Gaiman.

 

The Civil War: A Narrative -- Fredericksburg to Meridian. The second volume of Shelby Foote's massive Civil War history, it continues the first volume's excellence. Foote's history is comprehensive (though only in his chosen military realm -- political, economic, and social history gets attention bit not the thorough examination he gives the military situation) and immersively written. It's a tremendous history and I'm excited for volume three.

 

I'm reading Allegiance by Timothy Zahn. As I'm reading it, I noticed something odd: the crystal used for Mara Jade's lightsaber. She mentioned that the Emperor must have gotten it from somewhere.

What if the crystal came from Mace Windu's lightsaber? When Anakin sliced off his arm, the lightsaber wasn't blasted away with Mace, but instead dropped to the floor. I know Allegiance isn't canon, but that's just a potential interesting twist.

 

Indignation (2008) – Philip Roth



This was the second short novel in the Roth omnibus I read and I think it might be the best in the book; it’s very much in a dead heat with Nemesis, the final novel in the book, but if a gun was to my head, I’d go with this one. But this one is the tale of Marcus Messner, a young college boy, desperately trying to escape his father’s over-protective neuroses and find a way to get along in a college he finds himself hating. It’s set during the Korean War and there’s the constant specter of death hanging over the story, because if Marcus should be kicked out of school, he’ll get snapped up in the draft. Roth’s characterizations here are just brilliant. Marcus is an infuriating, pompous, neurotic narrator. Dean Caudwell is a self-righteous, but brilliant, prig. And I found it quite interesting that Roth, never an author particularly gifted at crafting female characters, creates probably the best character in the entire book in Olivia Hutton, a troubled co-ed; the way her character unfolds over the course of the novel is fascinating and beautifully done. The book is just so perfectly written with several wonderful scenes. A debate about atheism between Messner and the Dean is a standout, as is a sexual liaison in a hospital. It’s a book I roared with laughter over and found myself ultimately devastated by. Roth really captures the character of Messner and the way in which he lives his life in a perpetual state of seething anger (the indignation of the title) perfectly; it’s a sharp, merciless excision of self-destructive behavior, both a screed and a tragedy at the same time. And there’s even something here that I’m not even going to hint at, because it’s a moment you need to experience yourself, a moment when everything spins on its axis in a way things rarely do in literature and I found myself with my jaw literally hanging open in shock and awe. Indignation is nothing short of a masterpiece, full stop. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

tl;dr – masterful short novel finds the typically excellent Roth operating on an even higher plane; sharp, merciless, gripping and wonderfully characterized. 4 stars.

More Book Reviews!

 

Reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the first time and re-reading The Man in the High Castle for the first time in nearly a decade. I'd forgotten how oddly PKD's characters think and talk in it... lots of skipped words and half sentences.

 

The Humbling (2009) – Philip Roth



Well, it had to happen. After two strong Roth novels, I hit a bad one. This novel is about an aging theater actor who has lost his ability to act (he thinks) and so he decides to have an affair with a lesbian thirty years his junior. That’s about that. And, yes, this was just turned into a movie starring Al Pacino & Greta Gerwig; that sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Anyway, I just found this one pretty inexplicable. There’s no real consistency to the characters here. Axler, the actor, never felt real to me and I never felt like I understood anything about his motivations; the lesbian he has the affair with is even less of a character – some people accused this book of being a thinly veiled sexual fantasy. I don’t know about that, but the female character really is pointless and barely sketched at all. There’s a strange subplot involving a mother fighting for custody of her children that seems shoved in for some sort of thematic reason, but it never coheres and never feels like it belongs. Roth is still a solid prose stylist, of course, and the book is short, but all in all, this one just felt like an entirely pointless exercise. Pains me to say it, but this is just barely average. Recommended against. 2 stars.

tl;dr – Roth’s tale of an aging actor is shallow, superficial, lazily constructed, poorly characterized and strangely muddled. 2 stars.

More Book Reviews!

 

Finished the Krytos Trap(really liked it) next up:

The Bacta War

 

I'm now on Choices of One.

 

Almost done with Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

 

Now, I'm on Honor Among Thieves.

 

The Grizzly Almanac by Robert H. Busch

 

I was reading Firestar's Quest but quit on page 44 as it's so bland and simplistic. I shall now attempt Pyramid by Tom Martin.

 

The Hobbit. I've been a Tolkien fan for a while, and I'm kinda mad at myself for not reading the books. So I thought it was about time that I did.