Books
Some books I have enjoyed recently. I have always been a big fan of Douglas Adams
Listed in roughly reverse chronological order with most recent reads being added to the top.
-2008-
Currently Reading:
Titan by John Varley
Recently Read:
The Goblin Reservation by Clifford D. Simak
Peter Maxwell, Professor of Supernatural Studies at Time University, takes a transport beam to another planet to try to investigate reports of a dragon, but he never arrives where he was going. Instead he is diverted to a strange crystal planet by some alien intelligence. When he finally returns home he is rather surprised to learn that a copy of himself did make it to his original destination and returned home to earth a month earlier, and was then killed in an accident under suspicious circumstances. His finds his belongings have been disposed of, his apartment rented to a new tenant and his position at the university filled by a new employee. He has little time to deal with these personal problems though as a mystery involving his trip and a strange prehistoric artifact being kept by the department of Time quickly develops. Accompanied by the woman now living in his apartment, her pet biomech saber tooth tiger, his Neanderthal friend Oop and their friend Ghost he sets out to unravel the mystery. Throw in William Shakespeare, aliens with wheels, a few goblins and trolls, and a time traveling painter, and the adventure takes off.
This a was a fast easy read, but still had an interesting story line worthy of some thought, and some fun characters and pretenses. Since this book lacks the ever present steamy sex scenes in all the John Varley books I have been reading lately, I was able to let my 10 year old son read and enjoy this book also, instead of just sharing the highlights as I have been with Varley. I decided to read this after after reading a good review on Dustyloft and I will keep my eyes open for more Simak books, although every time I say his name I think of some tall silver robed Star Trek alien. “I am am Simak! You have entered our space and we will now take your ship!”
The John Varley Reader by John Varley
This one took me a while to finish, through not fault of the book. I have just been busy, and it contains so much. Having only recently discovered author John Varley, (through his Red Thunder trilogy) this collection of short stories exposed me to a much greater cross section of his works. It also introduced me to his Eight Worlds theme which is carried in many of his books. In some unspecified time in the future aliens invade the earth and the human race is forced to leave the planet and move to colonies on other worlds in the solar system. The stories in this book vary greatly in their theme, tone and length. I of course enjoyed some more than others, but overall it was journey (and that’s what it felt like) worth taking. It also offers an interesting insight into John Varley the man, as each story is preceded by a personal introduction where he shares some background about how the story came to be, or about what was happening in his life when he wrote it. It is interesting to connect his young adulthood in the 60’s alternative lifestyle scene in California as an influence on his vision of the future. Like Heinlein he envisions (or perhaps hopes for) a future where people have overcome many of the social taboos about nudity, love and sex. If you want to learn more about John Varley and be exposed to a nice cross section of his work, this book is worth a read.
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer
My son first read the Artemis Fowl books and enjoyed them, so I started getting them on CD to listen to on long drives and I have found them thoroughly enjoyable. Although they may be considered “children’s literature”, they are well written, creative stories that can be enjoyed by readers of all ages. This is book three in the series. Artemis is a rich boy genius who masterminds grand plans of international crime and intrigue. He manages to discover “the people”, magical fairies and goblins who live deep under the earth’s surface. At first they are mortal enemies, but as the stories continue they gain mutual respect for each other and learn to work together against common enemies.
Making Money by Terry Pratchett
Another excellent installment from Terry Pratchett’s world of Discworld. This book follows the continuing exploits of Moist Von Lipwig whom we got to know in Going Postal. Having successfully reinventing Ankh Morpork’s utterly failed postal system, he is now maneuvered in to overhauling their failing banking system. It is always a pleasant surprise to me how Pratchett can produce so many Discworld books without ever becoming at all boring or repetitive. I find Moist Von Lipwig to be one of my favorite Discworld characters, the gentleman con artist led by instinct and wit, relieving greedy people of their money.
Saint Vidicon to the Rescue by Christopher Stasheff
I am sorry to admit I only made it through the first half of this book. I hate to give up on a book without finishing it, but I found I just didn’t have the patience to wade through this shallow repetitive story while I had so many other great books waiting in my to-read list. I found the writing style to be simple and uninspired and the overall plot to be a tedious, long, drawn out hashing of a simple pretense. I can see it was trying to mix the holy texts of the Catholic cult with a modern computer tech culture, but it just didn’t click. It could have been a fun short story, but there just wasn’t enough meat for a novel. When I come across a book like this it always makes me further appreciate the true talents of writers like Tom Holt, Robert Rankin, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett who have mastered the “wacky fantasy” genre without becoming tedious.
The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov.
This is the third book in his robot trilogy and is again a great combination of the science fiction and mystery genres. The main character, Elijah Baley, whom we got to know in the first two books is off into space again to solve another murder mystery, this time to the planet Aurora. Aurora lies somewhere between Earth and Solaris on the sociological spectrum. It combines the lower population density and ample use of robots of Solaris, with the social interactions and personal relationships of earth. The victim is a robot, which makes the crime not technically a murder, but the circumstances are entwined with global and galactic politics. Baley is summoned to duty and given no choice but to accept, and the future of not only his career but of earth itself rests on his success. Baley gets to team up with his old partner R. Daneel Olivaw, and must use every bit of his cleverness to unwrap the mystery. Similar to the last book, The Naked Sun, he is presented with only one suspect who could have committed the crime, and the assertion that that suspect could not have committed the crime. He has been conditioning himself to face the Outside and is not as crippled by his agoraphobia, but faces a new personal challenge when faced with his first experience with being outside during a thunderstorm.
When I started this series I commented on the apparent differences between Asimov and Heinlein’s writing style, but I found this book to actually be much more similar to Heinlein’s style than either of the other two books in the series had been. The Robots of Dawn was actually written 30 some years after The Naked Sun and it is apparent that Asimov’s style changed over that time. The text is full of long intricate conversations between sharp individuals engaging in a kind verbal fencing to outmaneuver each other, which is a style I had previously associated more with Heinlein. While the intriguing mystery held my attention, the long-winded dialog did get a little tiresome at points. Overall, I am very glad I finally got around to reading this classic trilogy and get to know Elijah Baley and the esteemed R. Daneel Olivaw.
The Naked Sun by Issac Asimov
Elijah Baley is off on another murder investigation involving robots. This time he has to leave earth and head to the planet Solaris, where through generations of isolation and social conditioning human nature has been turned on its head (compared to earth). Where, on earth modern people live in dense population centers in close quarters to other people and never ever venture outside, most having never seen the sun or open sky, on Solaris, the population size is strictly regulated and people live on huge individual estates in isolation from others. Through use of 3D tele-viewing systems people never have to actually be in the physical presence of another and have grown to be terrified of actually seeing each other in person. Also, unlike the earth population which has shunned the use of robots in jobs involving humans, the Solarians each employ dozens of personal servant robots to meet their every need. Elijah is forced to reconcile these great differences as he struggles with his own debilitating discomfort of being outdoors, and the Solarians’ great anxiety of seeing him in person. This book is a both a murder mystery and sociological study of human nature (and nurture). I noticed that the Elijah Baley character seems to have matured some from the first book, Caves of Steel, and frequently seems to be more in charge of his behavior. After finishing this, I am jumping right in to the third book of the trilogy, Robots of Dawn.
Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. I decided to read this book after a friendly commenter suggested the addition of R. Daneel Olivaw to my list of favorite robots. As with most of Asimov’s works this is a well written fiction that takes place in earth’s future. It is a murder mystery as well as science fiction. The main character, Elijah Baley, is a plain-clothed detective in New York city assigned to solve the politically charged murder of a top robotics expert in “Space City”, where the only inhabitants are humans from other worlds, and robots. After earth colonized other planets, the inhabitants of those colonies decided to become separate and independent of earth and over time evolved into a very different society where populations are low, the use of robots is embraced and a lack of natural immunity to disease makes them fear earth people and their germs. While robots are used on earth for mining and farming, their use in the city around people is slow to be accepted with many people distrustful and angry about people losing their jobs to robots. With the earth’s population topping 8 billion, cities have become massive enclosed population centers with strict rationing and social ranking. Most people have never been outdoors and seen the natural sky, sunlight or non-airconditioned air and are naturally somewhat agoraphobic, a lifestyle eluded to in the title. The countryside between cities is occupied only by robots who work the farms and mines. Not an attractive future in my opinion. Like Asimov’s I Robot stories which came before, this book deals a lot with human robot interaction issues and Asimov’s three laws of robotoics.
I think I may have the tendency to mix up Asimov’s writing with that of Robert Heinlein in my head sometimes due to the similar time periods they wrote, and the similar reality based, future earth, science fiction style they used. Having read of a lot of Heinlein recently some of the differences stood out while reading this book. Even though Asimov is also known for writing science non-fiction works, I find his fiction contains less of the science lesson factoids so common with Heinlein. I also notice that Asimov’s characters are often more fallible and human, as opposed to Heinlein’s tendency to depict highly effective, rational and clever characters. Elijah Baley is frequently very emotional and makes some irrational decisions based on those emotions, but in the end puts the pieces together cleverly to solve the mystery. I would guess his emotional behavior serves to accentuate the contrast of his emotionless and logical partner, Robot Daneel Olivaw. One similarity to Heinlein is his believable descriptions of future advancements in engineering and technology. I particularly liked his transport system which involved rows of moving conveyor belts, each row moving slightly faster than the next. In the center is a continuously moving transport vehicle. People can easily step onto the outer slowest belt, then work their way inward accelerating more at each level until they are moving at 60mph, the same as the transport vehicles, and can step into the vehicle easily. For shorter distances they can just choose a middle speed belt and ride it to their destination. Reminds me of the moving belts used at Disneyland to allow people to step onto ride cars without the ride having to stop.
Overall I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and by the time I have gotten around to writing this, I am already half way through The Naked Sun, the next book in the robot trilogy.
Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven.
It is the year 1108 AE (Atomic Era, starting in 1945 with the first atomic explosion). In this post industrial age almost all plant and animal life has been driven to extinction by the poisons of industry in the air and water, leaving only the humans who were able to adapt to the pollution, and the farmed yeast they live on. Waldemar the Eleventh is the new Secretary-General, the latest in the line of monarchy of leaders of the United Nations. Waldemar the Tenth liked extinct animals, Waldemar the Eleventh likes planets and the stars, and they say he is not a mental deficient (unlike Waldemar the Tenth who was 26, but whose inbred family had left him with the intelligence of a 6 year old). Hanille Svetz, an agent for the Institute of Temporal Research, no longer being sent into the past to find extinct animals, is now assigned to travel to Mars’ past, when canals were observed on the planets surface, and find Martian life. They find much more life than they expected, including a giant tree extending from the planet’s surface into space. As usual, the mission does not end up going the way it was planned. They end up in earth’s own past struggling to make it back to the present, and then to restore the time line they knew.
This book was a little hard for me to get in to at first, as the writing style is so drastically different than the Heinlein and Varley I have been reading recently. It seemed somewhat less smooth, and the temporal jumps and paradoxes left me struggling to follow it at times, but the overall premise was interesting enough to keep me going. They use ‘extension cages’ to travel in time. The cage itself is just the vehicle attached to the time machine which stays in the present time. The arm between the two “fades off in a direction the human eye can’t follow”. Time travel is still somewhat difficult and very expensive and is reserved for satisfying the whims of the current leader. Post industrial humans have evolved to breath the polluted atmosphere, and now cannot breathe pre-industrial air as it does not have enough carbon dioxide in it to trigger their body’s autonomic breathing mechanism and they just forget to breathe. They use a filter hood over their head which passes the needed gases in the needed ratios for them to breath in the past, or in a martian atmosphere.
After the main story ends, this books includes several stand alone chapters covering the earlier exploits of Svetz, which were eluded to in the main story line. With tidbits of incomplete information from ancient children’s books, he goes to recover extinct animals from the past, often ending up with something which was not exactly what he went looking for. These actually helped fill in a lot details for me and in some ways I enjoyed them as much if not more than the rest of the book, or at least they increased my enjoyment of the main story. I am not sure, but I almost think these should have come first.
Even though I was not so sure in the beginning, by the end I ended up enjoying this book quite a bit, although I am not going to run out and find more books by Larry Niven to read. I think he might be best known for his Ringworld series.
Rolling Thunder
As I finished the third Varley book in the Red Thunder, Red Lightening, Rolling Thunder Trilogy I was wishing there was a fourth. His writing is intelligent and his characters are complex and interesting. This one picks up with the daughter, Podkayne, of Ray from Red Lightening, and the granddaughter of Manny from Red Thunder. It follows her adventures in the Martian Navy Music Corps as she get caught up in new dangers unfolding on Europa. The comparison to Robert Heinlein is just as valid in this book as the previous. Like some of Heinlein’s works this book has large sections with very little story developments and instead just shares the thoughts and feelings of the main character while educating the reader about planets, gravity and space travel trivia. At times all the factoids can come across as the author showing off his knowledge (or research more likely) but overall it works well and when the story does pick up it goes in a major way. Also like Heinlein, Varley can’t resist a few good jabs at organized religion, making fun of the rapurists who pop up every time there is a major disaster. I also got a good chuckle out of Podkayne’s take on intelligent design while explaining why she doesn’t want to have kids with an imaginary conversation with her vagina:
ME: Babies are so cute!
MS V: Honey, you need to get a tape measure. Measure me, then measure a baby’s head. Then … you do the math
ME: Oh.
Not a pretty picture. In Homeland America there is an accepted church dogma called “intelligent design”. [...] And if you need another example, tell me why a human baby should be expected to emerge from an opening that can’t accommodate a lemon without discomfort. Design maybe, but not intelligent. If that was God’s intent, then God is a dunce.
This book didn’t wrap up nice and neat, as the main character even admits many stories do, but is still satisfying in it’s conclusion. There is definitely lots and lots of open doors for a next book.
Rocket Ship Galileo
I decided to return to the source while waiting for the next Varley book to come in interlibrary loan. This was a fun read, but seemed to lack in some depth and complexity after the excellent Varley books. I can certainly see the great similarities that lead people to comment that Red Thunder inspired by this book. Although even with Heinlein excellent science content in his science fiction, it seems to be showing its age.
Red Lightning
This was an excellent sequel to Red Thunder, picking up the story with the main characters son, now a resident of Mars. This one really pulled me in quick and held me. His descriptions of a tsunami ravaged Florida was gripping and utterly believable in the context of Katrina ravaged New Orleans. It was one of those fun reads that left me wishing their was more when I reached the end. Again, his vision of the near future technology and politics is compelling and believable, complete with low gravity sex and drugs.
Red Thunder by John Varley
I had not yet discovered John Varley when I came across his name on BoingBoing where they called his new books “tributes to the golden age of Heinlein’s juvenile sf novels.” Being a fan of Heinlein’s work I gave Red Thunder a try and was not disappointed. It does read a lot like Heinlein with lots good science and tech details and some good believable near future inventions. Even though it may be like Heinlein’s “juvenile” sf books, and my 9 year old son read and enjoyed Have Space Suit Will Travel
Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
My son is reading this series and when he brought up details I had forgotten I realized how very long it had been since I had read them. Always worth another read.
Interesting Times
There is a curse. They say: May you live in interesting times. Poor Rincewind the ‘Wizzard’ just wants to be left alone and live a quiet life, but adventure always seems to find him. Once again he is called upon to be the unwilling hero.
Thief of Time
“Even with nougat, you can have the perfect moment”. And of course, never forget Rule Number One!
2007 was a pretty good year for me in terms of books. I discovered some great old Robert Heinlein and finally cracked the discworld nut (tip - don’t worry about trying to read them in order). I read 22 novels, while keeping up with several magazines (Popular Science 
-2007-(below)
Hogfather
Another excellent discworld novel. This one is perhaps notable as the only one (that I am aware of) that has been adapted into a (rather well done) movie (The Hogfather
Where Is Joe Merchant? A Novel Tale
This is a somewhat fun action / mystery story by the popular singer Jimmy Buffett. I particularly enjoyed the heavy aviation and Caribbean lifestyle themes. I recognized a lot of the island names and foods and music referenced in the text. At first I found the prose a little bit forced, almost sounded like reading lyrics at some points, but as I went on and the complexity of the story continued to increase I found myself really enjoying it. It is one of those novels that jumps around between different characters in different places and eventually pulls you in to the suspense of how all the different story lines will converge in the end. Overall a fun enjoyable read.
The Last Mimzy: And Other Stories Originally published as The Best of Henry Kuttner
I sought out this book after watching the movie The Last Mimzy 
The Fifth Elephant
We learn about Dwarvin culture and heritage as Vimes heads to Uberwald on a diplomatic mission.
The Light Fantastic
This one was a bit slower, lot of narrative description and less action, but still overall another good discworld book. Loved the druidic stone computer.
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
Thursday is back for more adventures! This one is a little different, being about the ‘real’ Thursday Next about which all the previous books were written. She was not happy with how she was portrayed at times, and has to deal with trouble from her fictional self.
Wintersmith
More fun adventures with Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegles
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
I enjoyed this book more than “Sail Beyond Sunset”, the previous Heinlien book I read, even though it was similar in a lot of ways. It had the same main character, but had more of a plot driven story line and only occasionally lapsed into the lists of family names and relations that got so boring to read.
Maskerade
by Terry Pratchett
To Sail Beyond Sunset
This one was a bit of a challenge for me to read all the way through. Although it starts with action, in the future, it quickly becomes a memoir of the main characters life through the 20th century. It often becomes rather slow and tedious with lots of names, dates and places that I could not always keep track of. It does have some of Heinleins telling social commentary, and eventually gets more interesting. It should also be noted that it contains an unusually large amount of discussions of the characters sexual activity. No real steamy stuff, but everything from innocent teen exploration through marital bliss and on to adultery and incest is discussed repeatedly. Surprisingly it just got a little old after a while. Random Numbers is a great name for a cat though.
A Hat Full of Sky
The Wee Free Men
The mac nac feegles and Tiffany Aching are some of my favorite discworld characters.
Going Postal
JPod
by Douglas Coupland. Interesting to read something so new, really grabbed it somewhat randomly of the shelf after the lego figures on the cover caught my eye. Quite a bit of techno geek lingo and cubicle culture stuff. Most the tech stuff makes sense, some of it is complete nonsense. Also includes quite a bit of gratuitous filler pages with long lists of numbers, random tech jargon and stuff. Story was interesting, funny how the author included himself in the storyline. He seems a bit over pleased with his cleverness at times, but overall a fun read.
Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul
Douglas Adams is of course one of the best humor science fiction writers of our times, but if you have not read any of his books outside of the Hitchhikers Guide series (namely Dirk Gently books), then you are missing some really good stuff.
“… once she had recovered from the shock of discovering that virtually everything the human race had ever chosen to believe in was true. Or that it continued to be true long after the human race particularly need it to be true any more.”
“Immortals are what you wanted,” said Thor in low, quiet voice. “Immortals are what you got. It is a little hard on us. You wanted us to be forever, so we are forever. Then you forget about us. But we are still forever. Now at last, many are dead, many dying,” he then added in a quiet voice, “but it takes a special effort.”
Easy Travel To Other Planets
Not about traveling to other planets. May be about breaking the communication barrier between humans and dolphins, a new “information sickness” disease, and the dawn of a new emotion on mankind. More surely about people, relationships, learning to accept the past and coming to grips with your future. “I’ve tried and tried and tried to understand, but sometimes a person just never comes back.”
Snuff Fiction
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Revolt in 2100 & Methuselah’s Children by Robert A. Heinlein
This book impressed me more with Heinleins genius than anything of his I have read before. I did not know when I started this book (which contains the 2 separate books in one) that it is actually the third volume in his “Future History” series, but it stood well on its own. He has written many stories that take place in different times and places with different characters, but which all share the same future historical time line of major historical figures and events. I thought this book did a great job of combining the insightful social commentary of (the sometimes slow) “Stranger in Strange Land” with the basic plot driven storyline of (the sometimes simple) “Have Spacesuit Will Travel”. He examines a future America which has turned into a dictatorship theocracy, and the growing revolution to overthrow it. Two favorite quotes:
I believe very strongly in freedom of religion - but I think that freedom is best expressed as freedom to keep quiet. From my point of view a great deal of openly expressed piety is insufferable conceit.
and
“I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force but secrecy… Censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter undertakes to say to its subjects, “this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know”, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, no the rack, not fission bombs, not anything - you can’t conquer a free man, the most you can do is kill him.”
I Know You Got Soul by Jeremy Clarkson
A fun little read read from the Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame. In this book Clarkson gives a subjective, somewhat self indulgent treatise on certain machines through history that he feels have “soul”. His choices range from steam ships to the space shuttle and often include choices which he admits have many flaws, but it is often those flaws which add to their unique character. Includes a lot of interesting historical factoids.
Only Human by Tom Holt
Another irreverent wild romp by Tom Holt. When God and his son J get away for a little fishing trip, his other lesser known son Kevin decides to have a go at Mainframe, the computer which God uses to run the world. He soon finds him self in over his head on a system designed only to be used by omnipotent users; with a unlabeled keyboard and an instruction manual that would not presume to tell such a user what to do. We follow several separate story lines of characters whose lives have suddenly changed for some unknown reason, as the souls of people, machines, animals and even a painting exchange places with each other. This continues to get stranger as the story progresses and the story lines merge. A crazy fun read.
Have Spacesuit-Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
I thought I would try another Heinlein. This one was lighter and easier to read than Stranger in a Strange Land, more plot driven with a good story line that moves along quickly. At times it seems like a “young adult” book, maybe because the main character is a teenager. Written in 1958, it is not clear when it is supposed to take place and offers a kind of “future is not what it used to be” take on science and engineering - they have a moon colony, but use slide rules (trusty “slip stick”) and the main character works as a soda jerk. Fun read overall.
-2006-(below)
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin
This book is quite a bit different from Rankin’s Brentford stories and I found it to be one of his best I have read so far. The quirky nursery rhyme connections reminded me a lot of Jasper Fford’s stuff, although his treatment was handled differently. Good stuff all around!
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
A science fiction classic which I for some reason only recently discovered. Although I found the slow progression of the story line frustrating at times, I can see why this was a cult hit. The examination of big government, organized religion, free love and the mankind’s failure to live up to his potential is compelling stuff.
Snow Blind by P. J. Tracy
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Fairy Brewhaha At The Lucky Nickel Saloon by Ken Rand
A fun pretense which would have been better as short story. Definitely got tedious at times. Made me appreciate even more the true skill of Rankin and Holt in writing not repetitive wacky prose.
A Shortcut in Time by Charles Dickinson
A very enjoyable story. What if key moments in your life happened differently, how would your life have turned out - somethings worse, but maybe somethings better.
The Art of the Catapult: Build Greek Ballistae, Roman Onagers, English Trebuchets, and More Ancient Artillery by William Gurstelle
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents By Terry Pratchett
Only You Can Save Mankind (Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, 1.) by Terry Pratchett
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
The Antipope by Robert Rankin
Brentford Triangle by Robert Rankin
East of Ealing by Robert Rankin
Sprouts of Wrath (F) by Rankin and Robert Rankin
The Brentford Chainstore Massacre by Robert Rankin
Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt
Flying Dutch (A Thomas Dunne Book) by Tom Holt
Ye Gods — by Tom Holt
Monkeewrench by P. J. Tracy
A fun high tech thriller - mystery set in Minnesota.
Live Bait — by P. J. Tracy
Dead Run by P. J. Tracy
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Happened upon this one by accident on the library new books shelf. I enjoyed it immensely. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with “Chrono Displacement” disorder which causes him to time travel spontaneously, involuntary at random moments, leading to intriguing paradoxes. Only his body travels though, leaving him naked and penniless wherever he arrives. A science fiction story, a love story, a character study.
“He first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she’d known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare’s childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old”
The Eyre Affair — by Jasper Fforde
Lost in a Good Book (Thursday Next Novels) by Jasper Fforde
The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next Series) by Jasper Fforde
Something Rotten (Thursday Next Novels) by Jasper Fforde
The Big Over Easy : A Nursery Crime — by Jasper Fforde
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
Sometimes billed as Harry Potter for adults this book was deep, enthralling and amazing. A group of high society English gentlemen who study “magic” as a hobby discover that is all very real. A wonderful read that left me peeking out the corner of my eye for bits of magic around me in the real world.
Monsieur Pamplemousse : A Gastronomic Mystery by Michael Bond
The Pamplemousse books are fun mysteries packed with appreciation for fine french cuisine. Even though I do not consider myself a “foodie” I found these all very enjoyable, and I think they would be an extra treat for the kind of person who can’t walk past a restaurant window without peaking at the menu in the window.
Monsieur Pamplemousse & the Secret Mission by Michael Bond
Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Cure by Michael Bond
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams at his finest. If you have only read his Hitchhikers guide books, give yourself a treat and check out the Dirk Gently books.
Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Nine tomorrows;: Tales of the near future by Isaac Asimov
Banquets of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov
The Year Before Yesterday: A Novel in Three Acts by Brian Wilson Aldiss
MILLENNIUM by Ben Bova
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