New real estate

I've moved and renamed my book blog. Unfortunately, I continued to have an inordinate amount of issues with Blogger. But that's ok, I have a new location and a new name that both fit me much better. Please visit me at 100 Book Ninja.

Dead in the Family = 55 down, 45 to go

Recommendation
Dead in the Family
Charlaine Harris
320 pages


I was turned onto this clever series by my friend Robin. I read the first nine books and Harris' book of short stories all within about 10 days. They were fun and addicting. So I was excited that the tenth book in the series was being released within the month of finishing the first nine.


As with the others, I thoroughly enjoyed Dead in the Family. This is the one of the best series I've read in years - it's my version of addictive chick lit. There was one bad thing about this book though - it was to quick of a read. Guess I should have taken my time, and extended my time of being immersed in the life of Sookie Stackhouse.


Just another reason to go pick up the first couple of seasons of True Blood.


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Blockade Billy = 54 down, 46 to go

Recommendation
Blockade Billy
Stephen King
144 pages

I haven't read a Stephen King novel in years, and I'm not quite sure what made me hit the download button on this one - especially since it is a story involving baseball, admittedly not a sport in which I'm particularly engaged.

The book took place in a time when the trappings of today's version of the sport were absent - big-money contracts, admittance of steroid usage, high-profile romances. Stephen King adds his signature dark spin to a period when baseball was more about the game than the drama.

Billy Blakely is called up from the farm system to serve a stint as a temporary pitcher with the New Jersey Titans. His teammates overlook his eccentricities in favor of his ability to aggressively guard the plate and hit the ball. Of course, it turns out that he's not actually Billy Blakely, but a guy who wanted to play baseball so desperately that he killed the actual Blakely family to make his dream come true.

The story is told through the eyes of the third-base coach, and on the day team management learns the truth, he shares the final game in detail, including: "By the time night fell, we knew were fucked for the season, because our first twenty-two games were almost surely going to be erased from our record books, along with any official acknowledgment of Blockade Billy Blakely."

King is known for his passionate love of baseball. That is evident in the exquisite detail in this book...even if some of it was lost on this non-baseball fan.

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Star Trek: Nero - Number 1-4 = 53 down, 47 to go

Graphic novel
Star Trek: Nero - Numbers 1-4

I grew up in a family comprised of four members who are all Star Trek fans. As long as I can remember, we've gone as a family to see the movies soon after they open. We own them all - first as VCR tapes, now as DVDs. And we've always watched them repeatedly.

When I was looking for a science fiction book so that I could start checking off those books from my list, I started with a search of Star Trek titles. During that process, I unearthed a series of four graphic novels that shed even more light on the Nero/Spock backstory, which played a pivotal role in the latest Star Trek movie franchise.

The four short illustrated novels share glimpses of Nero's catastrophic loss of his wife and home planet and how that feeds an unbelievable, crippling hatred across time and galaxies - a hatred that leads to the capture of an older Spock and how he comes to be marooned on an icy planet watching his own home world be obliterated.

For a Star Trek fan, it was an enjoyable read.

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The Fence My Father Built = 52 down, 48 to go

Recommendation

The Fence My Father Built

Linda Clare

294 pages

We all go through that period in our life where we're not sure where exactly we fit in, where we belong. Muri Pond's marriage has just ended, and she has packed up her two children and moves them to a dilapitted trailer on an Indian reservation with her aunt and uncle. Muri's father, who was part Native American, has recently passed away and left his legacy to Muri.

After not haing seen her father since her parents separated when she was a young child, Muri finds that her father's legacy is a mixed bag. For years, he had battled alcoholism, but never lost sight of his connection to his daughter, his heritage, his people and the land.

Muri encounters challenges from her rebelious teenage daughter, being a newly minted single mother, her faith and trying to figure out who she is and where she fits in. She also encounters resistance from a local rancher who controls nearly the entire town and who wants to buy her land supposedly to obtain access to water rights for his cattle. After being blacklisted by most of the locals, Muri vehementhly fights and uncovers the rancher's true intentions - the illegal selling of priceless Native American artifacts originally uncovered by Muri's father.

During the book, Muri is on a journey to discover who her father was. As she digs deeper, she relives memories from her early childhood with her father and the many things she shares in common him - "If my father loved books, he couldn't have been ordinary at all."

The book also documents Muri's exploration of her father's Christian faith: "Had it been hard for him to separate his Native spirtual leanings from his Christian ones? How had he managed to embrace his ethnic heritage and still hang onto faith that had come from the very people who had robbed Indians of their lands? Had he been like me, undecided in what - or whom - to believe?"

It was an interesting book with insight into challenges that many of us face in our lives.

Miscellaneous = 51 down, 49 to go

So I finally came to terms that the chances of me catching up with blog entries on my past read books wasn't likely, here are my reads from the last month. 

Recommendation

Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
350 pages

Recommendation
Sleep Toward Heaven
Amanda Eyre Ward
304 pages

Recommendation
Little Children
Tom Perotta
368 pages

Short stories
Too Much Happiness
Alice Munro
320 pages

Biography/autobiography
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
288 pages

Movie
Shutter Island
Dennis Lehane
400 pages

Oprah's Book Club
The Reader
Bernhard Schlink
224 pages

Biography/autobiography
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
Johnathan Aitken
400 pages

Biography/autobiography
Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl
Stacey O'Brien
240 pages

Sookie Stackhouse Series = 42 down, 58 to go

I'm more than a little behind in updating this blog...like approximately 15 books behind in posting. So this post will be quick one as I need to get back on track. This entry counts as the remaining nine books in my fantasy category and one in my recommendation classification.

My friend, Robin, recommended the very excellent Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris.

Sookie Stackhouse is the main character and just your average barmaid...except for the fact that she's a telepath. She starts dating a vampire...you know, after vampires have come out publicly out of the proverbial closet after the invention of synthetic blood. And so begins the adventures of her life...vampires, were animals, fairies...along with her fair share of drama, violence and of course, a little romance and sex thrown in. 

Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead and Gone
Dead in the Family

The bonus is that the HBO series True Blood is based on these books. Looks like it's time to rent some DVDs.