Showing posts with label Ernest Cline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ernest Cline. Show all posts

Sunday, June 30, 2024

June Reading Log

 



June Reading Log

June 1 - I have a couple chapters left in my bedtime read – Armada – and three quarters done with Lady Midnight.  In the midst of ebook When Women were Dragons.

Waiting in the wings: Nora Roberts Mind Games and Marie Brennan’s 3rd book in the Lady Trent series – Voyage of the Basilisk as well as Death of Vivek Oji.

Off to watch Godzilla Minus One.

As part of the Shadowhunter series, Cassandra Clare's Lady Midnight was good with Emma and her Parabati, Julius going from fire to fire and also fighting the fire within themselves about each other since it's forbidden.  

Rating ****

June 8: Finished Mind Games by Nora Roberts which was unique, clever, gut wrenching, scary, and heart warming all in one. Nora's books are generally five star reads for me. 

Rating *****

Still in the midst of Zodiac Academy (bedtime read) and When Women were Dragons (ebook) and started The Bone Ships by R. J. Barker which was a random pick.

“For generations, the Hundred Isles have built their ships from the bones of ancient dragons to fight an endless war.

The dragons disappeared, but the battles for supremacy persisted.

Now the first dragon in centuries has been spotted in far-off waters, and both sides see a chance to shift the balance of power in their favour. Because whoever catches it will win not only glory, but the war.”


June 12: Finished Zodiac Academy and won’t be continuing the series. Sort of a college age Harry Potter and the twin girls/woman are clueless and don’t learn from experience. Stepping into one fire after another,  although they know they can’t trust a soul, and the four male heirs are skeezy. 

Rating: ***

Also finished When Women were Dragons  which tells the story of how women were treated in a dystopian world set in the 50’s when they became dragons and how the world dealt with it and how their families dealt with it. Made me mad and sad at the unfair treatment of not only the women, but their children.  Interesting premise.

Rating: ****

Currently reading The Bone Ships which dragged me in and captured me with the unusual story.

Rating:  DNF. Will try again another time.

Father's day:  Went to Texas for a Week to see my dad, and as soon as we got home, went to see John's dad. Lots of traveling. I'm pooped.

June 22: The year is zipping right along, full of zingy and Zen reads, full of zaddy characters, zaffre settings, and zeal.  I added to my stacks when on vacation in Texas when we stopped by a Barnes and Noble while waiting for a table at the restaurant across the way, plus found a little book store at the airport while waiting for a very delayed flight to return home. Plus I had fun exploring my nieces and nephews book shelves and since we have similar tastes in science fiction and fantasy, chatting about stories.  And now I’m off again for a belated father’s day celebration with my father in law so time is short.

June 25: Given up on the last three books in the middle because just not capturing my attention.  Have gotten halfway through Librarian of Crooked Lane but so far haven’t seen her do much librarian work. More sleuthing than anything else.  Ready to dive back into V. E. Schwab’s Darker Shade of Magic. Maybe the 3rd time will be the charm.

June 29:  We’re headed into a heat wave this coming week, and I’m peopled out, so totally ready to hibernate in the cool with one or two or three books. We’re past the halfway point in our 52 Books journey and moving backwards through the alphabet from Z to A. We can be zen, we can zoom, we can zigzag, we can stay in the zone. We can read books that move in reverse chronology. We can read books about Z and the art of … motorcycles, writing, saving the planet, or even the art of stand up comedy. We can read about zoo’s or zombie’s or zorro or zealots. There are so many ways we can go.

Finished The Librarian of Crooked Lane #1 Glass Library - C.J. Archer.  Good but.... ***

And completed my bedtime reread of Venus Prime V: Breaking Strain - Paul Preuss ****

Friday, May 31, 2024

May Reading Wrap Up

 


May Reading Wrap Up

In May I made progress on reading from my physical shelves although I did give up some reading time to binge Grey's Anatomy.  I watched the first episode and fell in like and have been watching it ever since. I only have to cover my eyes when the surgeons are slicing into people. LOL!

I read seven books of which five were physical and two were ebooks. Progress! The longest book was The Belle of Belgrave square at 421 pages and the shortest was Rendezvou with Rama at 304. No chunky books this month. 

My bedtime reads included John Scalzi's Old Man's War, the first book in a science fiction series in which the elderly are recruited, taken off planet and their consciousness is transferred in young bodies to be solders. Interesting premise.  (318) ****

Second was a reread of Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama in which space explorers and scientist board an alien space craft traveling through our solar system, 304)  ****

Third was Derek Paul's A Machine Divine: A Young Adult Steam Punk fantasy in which college studies get involved in politics, a secret society, science experiments, and a mad man running around gassing people, 377) ****

Next was Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, a science fiction, time travel, multiverse type of story in which a man gets kidnapped and the kidnapper assumes his life. 352) ****

Our 52 Books Author of the month was Peng Shepherd and read The Cartographers. A mystery thriller, full of magical realism which had a good premise but meh delivery, 392) ***

The two ebooks I read were 

Nalini Singh's Archangel's Lineage, in the sixteenth Guild Hunter urban fantasy/romance in which Raphael and Elana and the rest of the angels have to fight to save the world on brink of destruction due to ancestors, plus Elena deals with her father's heart attack, 398, e) *****

And Mimi Matthews' historical romance, The Belle of Belgrave Square about a bookworm and ex military hero with secrets of his own, 421, E) ****