[[image:ftw-doctorow.jpg:For The Win:right:0]]I had not read one synopsis nor any reviews of Cory Doctorow’s novel For The Win when I started reading it. I barely knew what it was going to be about. All I knew was that it was a science fiction novel. The novel follows the lives for several young people in various locations in the world, from California to Mumbai to Shenzen to Singapore. Oonline gaming (of the Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing kind) is an important part of their lives in one way or another. However, their lives become intertwined with gold farming, greedy and violent thugs, disapproving parents and an indifferent game company. When I started reading I was waiting for the science fiction part to kick in but it never seemed to. All the technology featured were modern information and computer technology at work. No cyborg technology. No artificial intelligence. Most certainly, no spaceships, aliens and energy […]

[[image:plum_1cover.gif:One for the Money:center:0]] Books Read A Year in the Merde by Stephen ClarkeOne for the Money by Janet Evanovichnumber9dream by David MitchellTwo for the Dough by Janet EvanovichThree to get Deadly by Janet EvanovichShadow of the Giant by Orson Scott CardFour to Score by Janet Evanovich a Books Bought A bunch of Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich OK, so I usually like to vary my reading and try to even things out (male author, female author). But last month was a little bit different. It started out normally enough with me reading A Year in the Merde. This book is about an Englishman who moves to Paris for work, and the year he spent there, learning the ins and outs of the Parisian way of life. It covers the difficulties in finding an apartment, French girlfriends, and the complications of ordering coffee! It’s hilarious, and sort of reminds […]

[[image:notw2.jpg:The Name of the Wind:center:0]] Books Read Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (started in July)Turtle Moon by Alice HoffmanQueen of Babble by Meg CabotCompany by Max BarryThe Name of the Wind by Patrick RothfussDead Souls by Ian RankinDoomsday Book by Connie Willis Books Bought Doomsday Book by Connie WillisKushiel’s Justice by Jacqueline CareyFirst Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde This is the second installment of my Nick Hornby-inspired monthly accounting of books read and books bought. The easy things about the Books Bought list in August was that I ordered them online from the Science Fiction Book Club. Not too much to tell there – except that Kushiel’s Justice and First Among Sequels are both sequels of series that I’ve read with great pleasure, so I’ve been looking forward to getting them. I don’t usually like books with too many sequels. For instance, I greatly enjoyed Dune, but not so much […]

[[image:books.jpg:Book Image taken from the internet:center:0]] Books Read: The Storyteller by Mario Vargas LlosaSnow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa SeeThe Polysyllabic Spree by Nick HornbyLittle Children by Tom PerrottaThe History of Love by Nicole KraussFragile Things by Neil Gaiman (started by not finished by end of July) Books Bought: The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick HornbyFurious Observations of a Blue-Eyed Ojibway: Funny You Don’t Look Like One Two Three by Drew Hayden Taylor This entry was inspired by one of the books I read in July, The Polysyllabic Spree, in which Nick Hornby writes about the books he bought and the books he read on a monthly basis. Hornby, of course, was writing for a magazine and got paid for his efforts. But because of his witty descriptions not only of the books he bought and read, but also the events occurring in his life at the time of […]

Following Perdido Street Station, I went on to read a smaller book called Wild Ginger by Anchee Min. A completely different genre than my previous read, Wild Ginger is the story of a girl growing up in the 60s and 70s during the Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China. [[image:wg1.jpg:Wild Ginger:center:0]] This story draws on Min’s experiences growing up in China. She was born in 1957 which makes her a contemporary of her novel’s protagonists. In 1969, Wild Ginger starts out as a 14-year-old who has had many confrontations and beatings due to the fact that she has yellow-green eyes. She has foreign (bourgeois) blood and due to her family background she has been labeled the child of enemies of the state. Told from the point of view of Maple, her only friend at school (who shares the bourgeois stigma by being the child of 3 generations of […]