May was a tough month for reading. The sun came out, the birds started chirping and the amount of time spent inside reading seemed to dwindle down. Even with the extra daylight and warm weather, I managed to stay on track. Five months down, seven to go.
This was one of the more difficult books to finish so far this year. Mainly because it just wasn’t that entertaining. I picked it up because I knew roughly the story behind Dorian Gray. There is a painting of Dorian and the painting starts to age while Dorian stays looking young.
It sounded really interesting but Oscar Wilde takes 3/4 of the book to get to any of the ‘good’ stuff. The majority of the book is about the painter, his friend and Dorian…a bunch of rich guys in old world London. They spend their time going to dinner parties and talking about nothing of any real substance.
It isn’t until the last quarter of the book that you find the real meat of the story, when Dorian becomes obsessed with the painting as he spirals out of control, living a seedy life of sin just to see how those sins are projected onto the painting. The ending is quick, to the point and great. The problem is getting to the ending is a chore.
Jo Nesbo is one of my new favorite writers. His style is similar to Stiegg Larsson (it helps that his stories also take place in Sweden) so if you enjoyed the Millenium trilogy, you’ll probably also enjoy Nesbo’s books.
This one is coming out as a movie soon, so it prompted me to read the book before I see the movie (which I will). This is the second book by Nesbo that I’ve read and this one held up just as well as the first. The Headhunters is a story about a recruiter, an executive recruiter (headhunter) and an art thief. Very similar to The Thomas Crown Affair in that you have a successful businessman who also steals art. That’s probably the only connection between the two stories but it’s a good plot to start with nonetheless. In this story, the main character ends up stealing from the wrong person and people around him end up getting killed and he struggles to stay alive as he’s chased by the man he stole from.
This is a great story, quick, fun and easy to read. I have high hopes for the movie but we’ll see how it stands up.
Unbroken is an amazing story of a WWII bomber whose plane crashes in the Pacific and who eventually survives on a raft for over 40 days! It’s amazing to even consider anything remotely close to that. He eventually finds land unfortunately its enemy territory and he becomes a POW for over two years, enduring unbelievable conditions only to come home and be haunted by his experiences.
This is a wild ride. The story takes you from happy to sad to angry to happy back to sad and disappointed and back to happy. The author doesn’t hold back and sometimes I even found it hard to root for the guy. At other points in the book I got so disappointed for him and couldn’t BUT to cheer him on.
The person in this story went through so much, it’s hard to think twice about any of the negative things that happen in the story. It does however have a happy ending but it’s a long road to get there.
This a great book, written by Laura Hillenbrand the author of Seabiscuit. Check it out if you get a chance.
First things first, this is a novella, a short(er) story…it still counts.
I really like this author. I’ve read some of his fiction back in January, some of his non-fiction on writing back in December (I’m actually right in the middle of another of his books on writing at the moment as well).
This is his first novella in a series about Atlanta Burns, a teenager who’s been in trouble with the law and who is recently back in her old town. She keeps finding trouble and trouble keeps running into her. Her problem is less of trying to do the right thing, but the approach she takes in trying to resolve issues…a lot of the times she uses a shotgun to get her point across.
I think this is technically a YA book but what isn’t these days, right? If you want something a little different and quick to read, this one isn’t bad (and it’s only $.99) but there are definitely other books i’d recommend before this.
This was a completely random selection. It’s a collection of short stories that was recommended on a blog that I follow…and it was free, so why not?
This one interested me for a few reasons, one of which is that I love travel and the author is a travel junkie…so while reading, I’m also living vicariously through him. The other is that at it’s core, it’s really about finding something you love and creating a career from it.
Have you read 
This is a true story, written by the only survivor of a Navy SEAL team in Afghanistan, recapping what happened and how he survived. The story is pretty amazing. The author takes you from SEAL training (kinda like watching Hell Week on the History Channel) to the mission, before, during and after. It’s very detailed and at times graphic.
Snow Crash was an interesting story. It is sort of like reading the Matrix, only this was written long before the Matrix was made (back in 2000!). It was also very long and complex, which you might assume.
This was a tough book to finish. Truth be told, I started it last year sometime and had to put it down. It wasn’t bad, it was just a touch book to read – but one that I always came back to wanting to finish. Kevin Kelly is the founder of Wired magazine and throughout this book he compares how technology has evolved over centuries with how biological evolution has evolved. He shows that they follow a similar path of evolution and to fully understand where technology has been and where it is going, you need to understand how biology has evolved. Fascinating stuff but again its not light reading.
The Purple Cow is about standing out and being unique. Whether that’s creating a unique product that people can’t help but buy or maybe it’s about standing out in a job search and making yourself look better and more unique than everyone else.
This is a modern mythology story where all of the Gods from the past are walking amongst humans in the heartland of America. As people migrated or were brought to the America, they brought with them their Gods and idols. They worshipped and feared their Gods and in this new land, that’s all it takes to bring the Gods to life. Over the years however, these Gods are growing weak because people do not worship them any more and new Gods are appearing all the time (media, technology etc..) These new Gods are waging a war with the old Gods.
A great spy novel. This has been heralded as the first modern day spy novel that all others spy novels after it have been influenced by in one way or another. It was written back in the 60’s and that doesn’t hurt it a bit even 50 years later. It’s a fast-paced thriller well worth your time.
