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Kurt Vonnegut's
absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a
man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the
planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we
follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life,
concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an
American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't
let the ease of reading fool you - Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or
simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story,
and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it
are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces.
One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are
discouraged from being characters."
Slaughterhouse-Five is not
only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any
written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences
in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against
butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the
same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found
in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic
fact gives it a unique poignancy - and humor.
I'm
not quite sure why this is considered one of the best books ever
written. It was good. I enjoyed reading it. But I can't say that it
blew me away and my life is forever changed.
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Limu was different than all the other Hawaiian sea turtles - he was
blue! But while other turtles made fun of him, Limu still had fun
growing up in the sea, bodysurfing the big waves, laughing with seals
and making friends big and small. Follow Limu’s adventures, as he
discovers that no matter what he looks like on the outside, others like
him because of the good turtle he is on the inside.
The moral of the story is one that parents teach their kids: beauty is on the inside. Yadda yadda yadda.
What
I disliked about the book was the clear lack of editing. Three
sentences in a row end with the word "water." Within a span of four
pages, Limu has "never seen so many different types of seaweed before."
My son loves this book, so we read it over and over and over, and I cringe every time I get to these two sections.
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Thought Police. Big
Brother. Orwellian. These words have entered our vocabulary because of
George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984. The story of one man's
nightmare odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world
ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only
information but also individual thought and memory, 1984 is a prophetic,
haunting tale.
More relevant than ever before, 1984 exposes
the worst crimes imaginable--the destruction of truth, freedom, and
individuality.
I
can't believe it's taken me this long to read 1984, when most people I
know read this in High School. Though -- considering how depressed I
feel after reading this novel -- perhaps it's best that I haven't read
it until now.
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It’s just a small story
really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist,
some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of
thievery....
Narrated by Death, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new
novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a young foster girl living
outside of Munich in Nazi Germany. Liesel scratches out a meager
existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she
can’t resist – books. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi
book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever they are to be
found.
With the help of her accordion-playing foster father,
Liesel learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors
during bombing raids, as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her
basement.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
If
I could give this book more than five stars, I would. Zusak's writing
is a work of art and the way he describes the world during WWII is a
complex mixture of beauty and ugliness. He plays with the senses. Can
you imagine "tasting a sound with your ears?"
The characters are real. They laugh, they cry, they make mistakes.
This
book is not for the faint of heart. Set during the reign of Adolph
Hilter, this book deals with the cruel reality of war. You learn right
off the bat that the narrator is Death -- I really, truly love the way
he is written -- so you know that this is not a book full of rainbows
and puppies.
It's not quick or light, but totally worth it.
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Sookie Stackhouse is a
small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps
to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She
is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability." She can
read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along
comes Bill. He's tall, dark, handsome - and Sookie can't 'hear' a word
he's thinking. He's exactly the kind of guy she's been waiting for all
her life.
But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire.
Worse than that, hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, with a reputation
for trouble - of the murderous kind.
And when one of Sookie's colleagues is killed, she begins to fear she'll be next ...
I have never been so happy to finish a book.
I wanted to read the series before watching True Blood on HBO. I should have just watched the show.
There
were too many plot holes and I found myself wondering if I had missed
something. So I re-read several parts, and it still seemed like things
popped up out of nowhere. There was not enough motivation behind her
characters' actions to make sense.
I also find it completely
unacceptable that a book from a Big Name Publishing Company is sent to
press with so many grammatical errors.
The
sex scenes? Awful. Horrendous. It seriously made me wonder if Harris
had ever had sex, or watched porn, or read anything about sex before.
It felt like I was reading a thirteen-year-old virgin's expectation of
what sex is like. As written by said thirteen year old. I much
preferred Stephenie Meyer's fade-to-black scenes in Breaking Dawn, lame as they were.
Hopefully the show is better.
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Loop me in, odd one. The words, spoken in the deep of night by a sleeping child, chill the young man watching over her. For this was a favorite phrase of Stormy Llewellyn, his lost love, and Stormy is dead, gone forever from this world. In the haunted halls of the isolated monastery where he had sought peace, Odd Thomas is stalking spirits of an infinitely darker nature
Through two New York Times
bestselling novels Odd Thomas has established himself as one of the
most beloved and unique fictional heroes of our time. Now, wielding all
the power and magic of a master storyteller at the pinnacle of his
craft, Dean Koontz follows Odd into a singular new world where he hopes
to make a fresh beginning—but where he will meet an adversary as old and
inexorable as time itself.
St. Bartholomew’s Abbey sits in
majestic solitude amid the wild peaks of California’s high Sierra, a
haven for children otherwise abandoned, and a sanctuary for those
seeking insight. Odd Thomas has come here to learn to live fully again,
and among the eccentric monks, their other guests, and the nuns and
young students of the attached convent school, he has begun to find his
way. The silent spirits of the dead who visited him in his earlier life
are mercifully absent, save for the bell-ringing Brother Constantine and
Odd’s steady companion, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.
But trouble
has a way of finding Odd Thomas, and it slinks back onto his path in the
form of the sinister bodachs he has met previously, the black shades
who herald death and disaster, and who come late one December night to
hover above the abbey’s most precious charges. For Odd is about to face
an enemy who eclipses any he has yet encountered, as he embarks on a
journey of mystery, wonder, and sheer suspense that surpasses all that
has come before.
I
finally got around to reading book #3 in the Odd Thomas series.
I
loved the first two and I expected this to be just as wonderful. And it
was. Up to a point. Then I wondered what all the fuss was about. The
end was anti-climactic, which is unusual for a Dean Koontz novel.
I'm
hoping that the fourth book is better.
