Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card
Flux by Orson Scott Card
The Changed Man by Orson Scott Card
Cruel Miracles by Orson Scott Card
Monkey Sonatas by Orson Scott Card
Unaccompanied Sonata by Orson Scott Card
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card
Lovelock by Orson Scott Card
Magic Mirror by Orson Scott Card
Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Sarah by Orson Scott Card
Rebekah by Orson Scott Card
Saints: A Woman of Destiny by Orson Scott Card
Songmaster by Orson Scott Card
Heart of Darkness* by Joseph Conrad
Breakfast at Tiffany’s and other stories by Truman Capote
The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce Wilkinson
Secrets of the Vine by Bruce Wilkinson
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
Alvin Journeyman by Orson Scott Card
Heartfire by Orson Scott Card
The Worthing Chronicles by Orson Scott Card
K-PAX by Gene Brewer
A Tower for Louisville: the Humana Competition by Peter Arnell and Ted Bickford
The World’s Greatest Buildings by Trevor Howells
Why Paint Cats: the ethics of feline aesthetics by Burton Silver and Heather Busch
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
Crystal City by Orson Scott Card
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
First Meetings by Orson Scott Card
Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
Windtalkers by Max Allan Collins
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
Here we see a continuation with my obsession with Orson Scott Card. He is still cancelled. Moving on…
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson is a jewel and I highly recommend everyone read it. It marked a shift for him away from the sub-genre of cyberpunk that he helped establish and towards near future speculative sci fi that is as sharp and insightful as his previous work. This ended up being the start of the Blue Ant trilogy, but I didn’t know there would be more books in the series at the time, and maybe he didn’t, either. It works as a standalone.
This was also the first time that I read Gibson’s collection of short stories, Burning Chrome. Masterful works, every one. No weak links in the whole collection, and I re-read them frequently. I think I may have been reading Analog and Asimov’s magazines during this time as well.
“Having had a book of short stories chase me away from short form science fiction (referring to Anne McCaffrey’s The Girl Who Heard Dragons) it likewise took another book of short stories to bring me back to the genre. This is a masterful collection with very few weak links. The stories share a general setting and explore the same set of themes from different angles. So, exactly the inverse of Anne McCaffrey’s collection. This is one of the only books in my collection that I re-read with any frequency. ”
And here’s where I took on Tolkien. I love epic fantasy in movies and television. I don’t like reading it. I liked The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I didn’t love it. I LOVE the movies. I don’t know what it is about epic fantasy that I don’t connect with in writing, but I do connect with in visual mediums, but so it is.
I read Tuesdays with Morrie on the recommendation of a friend. It was good. He said if you didn’t cry while reading it, you’re inhuman. I didn’t cry.
On the recommendation of the same friend, I made my first attempt at reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
“Though widely hailed as a literary masterpiece, I confess I was never able to finish reading it. It is a small book. I could have perhaps forced myself to choke it down, but for the first time in my life I gave up on finishing a book on the grounds that I simply disliked it. I had recently given up my attempt to obtain a bachelor’s degree and was determined to continue studying on my own. As such, whatever my contemporaries who were still studying at college were being assigned to read, I would rent from the library and read on my own. But when I ran up against Heart of Darkness, I surrendered. Though many of my friends enjoyed it, I could not. And I made a decision not to force myself to read it. This marked a point in my life where I left off reading mainly classics in an attempt to prove myself as well-read as my more academically successful friends, and gave myself permission to read for pleasure even if it meant indulging in the latest best seller of no real literary merit. I was allowing myself to be who I was and choose my own path, and was able to shed the pretentious air I had cultivated and be more comfortable with the turns my life were taking instead of resentful of lost opportunities. ”
Taking on more classics, I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. The novella, as is often the case, has so much more depth than the movie. It’s a quick read, and still relevant. I highly recommend giving it a read.
K-Pax was so bad, i wondered if it was one of those crappy novelizations of the movie. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t very well written. Very stilted.
Windtalkers was a novelization of the movie, but a decent one hat included some needed background. The author went on to pen some best sellers, I believe.
You’ll see a couple of architecture books in the mix. I have a long-time fascination with architecture, and I find it isn’t often written about in a manner accessible to laypeople. I’ll have to plan a future post about good non-fiction writing about architecture.
At the very end of 2002, I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the first time, and in 2003, I caught up with the then-published books in the series, somehow completely missing Sorcerer’s Stone. Maybe I felt like I didn’t need to read it because the movie was already out? Unsure. Anyway, I was late the Harry Potter party, reading them at age 22, but I am still, to this day, a huge Potterhead. I am a Hufflepuff, for what it’s worth.