Suggestions for 2012
Mythopoeic suggestions (Sammath Naur)
- Burt recommends The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Comments: This is "throw in the ring see where it lands" recommendation. Collins is not a great writer but she is a good story teller. I listened to the audio book and it had me hooked; then I got pissed at the end. Turns out this is a hidden trilogy which always gets my goat. So why do I recommend it? I think others may enjoy it. It's a simple story, not long, interesting characters, suspenseful plot, there is an ending that offers some closure just not total, a gazillion people have read it and it will be a big Hollywood blockbuster next year...so maybe we should do a group movie date like we used to and skip the book. Just some food for thought.
- Ed recommends John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Comments: We read the book a long time ago and now there is a movie coming out in March. I have a L. A. Times article from last June and now a New Yorker article about the movie and the director, Andrew Stanton. He is best known for "Toy Story", "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E" but this will be live action. If I remember correctly the "John Carter" books are fairly short and a quick read so we may want to read more then one.
- Ed recommends A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
- Comments: Second in the series of A Song of Fire and Ice. I know several people have already read the whole series, including my daughter, and have enjoyed it. HBO will start showing the second book next year and hopefully it will be as good as The Game of Thrones was.
- Anna recommends A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
- Comments: Before Harry Potter came along, this is a classic story of a young wizard in training. It's an intriguing read involving schools of magic, dragons, and curses, which seems to have leant quite a bit of inspiration to the Eragon series. Plus the author is from Oregon!
- Amazon Review
- Brandi recommends Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
- Comments: This was the book that inspired Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle. The book is just as good--if not better. It's both fun and uplifting. Even after watching the movie, there were quite a few surprises left in the book. Just as in the movie, Sophie, a meek young girl, is turned into an old woman by the Witch of the Wastes. When she stumbles on to Howl's Moving Castle, she makes a deal with Calcifer in order to her remove her curse.
- Amazon review
- Steve recommends Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
- Comments: Delightful book, really enjoyed it. An easy read (unlike Anathem). Available from Amazon & Barnes & Noble. Only 2 copies in the state library system.
- Amazon review:
- Vanessa recommends The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear
- Comments: Wow!. An intelligent novel mixing science fiction, fantasy and mythology. Multiple story lines set in different times converging together like the universe collapsing upon itself. Present day Seattle is one time line and another is the far future at the end of the kalpa. Some people in present day are connected to those in the far future. Some can jump between multiverses. What happens when the expanding universe begins to collapse upon itself and back through time? Read and find out.
Some may love this book, some may hate it. It is long and not an easy read, but I found it intellectually engaging and fascinating. (It's about half the length of Anathem.)
- Book Trailer
- Amazon has a slew of reviews, both negative & positive, but here's the most positive reviews:
- Excerpt
- Brandi recommends sharing short stories
for both
- Either at the beginning of the year or the book group before, everyone recommends one short story for everyone else to read.
- Heather recommends Callahan's Crosstime Saloon by Spider Robinson
- Katie recommends Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman for both
- Amazon Review
- Comments: The anti-Christ, angels, demons, and the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse on motorcycles. Oh, and witches.
Non-Mytho Suggestions (Moolelo)
- Ed recommends In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff
- Comments: It is a murder mystery set in 1905 New York City and a small town 15 miles up the Hudson River. Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. A good story that keeps you turning the pages. It has been available at COSTCO.
- Pat recommends Room by Emma Donoghue
- Comments: Told from the point of view of 5 year old Jack, for whom Room is the world. It's where he was born,it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, Ma shuts him in the wardrobe, where Jack is supposed to be asleep when Old Nick visits. But Ma knows that Room cannot contain them much longer
- Pat recommends The Confession by John Grisham
- Comments: I wanted to read something by John Grisham, and this book deals with two subjects I feel strongly about - the death penalty and forced confessions. A young black man is on death row in Texas for murdering a white classmate, even though her body was never found. A few days before the execution, a convicted rapist walks into a minister's office in Kansas and claims he is the real killer. He's dying of a brain tumor, and he wants to set things straight. Will anyone believe him? Will they be able to stop the execution of an innocent man?
- Burt recommends The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
- Comments: This book is as close to a perfect fit for our book group as we'll probably ever find. Short, big print, incredibly well written, acclaimed by almost everyone. It's the coming of age story of a young girl in Latino Chicago, a poetic voyage of discovery. Here are two quotes to give you a feel for the book - "Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life."
"Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can't see."
- Burt recommends Last Days of Ptolemy Grey by Walter Mosley
- Comments: I'm not a big crime novel fan, but I do like Walter Mosley and his Easy Rawlins mysteries (e.g. Devil in a Blue Dress). There is still a crime and a mystery to be solved in his latest book, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, but he has moved up several levels here to what I think is his best book and certainly one of the best I've read this year. Booklist describes it as "a deeply thoughtful, provocative and often beautiful meditation on aging, memory, family, loss and love. I would describe it as love between a grandfather (Ptolemy Grey, 91) and a granddaughter Robyn, 17)that drags both of them back from the edge of abyss. I listened to on audio book which I highly recommend. Whether you read it or listen to it, it may be difficult at the beginning as it is told in the first person by Ptolemy and he is deep into Alzheimer's. Things get clearer for both him and the reader as the book progresses, and it's a rare and realistic look at what it's like to struggle wit! h this disease.