Book List 2010 ... month six

Already at 61 before 6/1 my pace is worth trying to maintain. It appears I have committed myself to finishing some series. I expect to still pick up some random books along the way, but am also planning on completing the True Blood and Percy Jackson books as well as an Alan Dean Foster series. Essentially the next few months will see a lot more series fiction being rattled off. It has been too long since I read enough Foster as he is one of my favorite sci-fi guys of all time ...

Magic On The Storm by Devon Monk
This is the fourth urban fantasy book following the magical exploits of Allie Beckstrom in a Portland Oregon where magic has been harnessed. I am a huge believer that in order for fiction to really feel dramatic there must be genuine consequences and that sometimes the peril must lead to something more than a last second save that returns everything to a status quo. Fortunately, Devon Monk is apparently of the same belief. My copy is autographed ...

The Light-years Beneath My Feet by Alan Dean Foster
Book two of The Take Trilogy finds our accidental adventurers trying to make a living while hoping that it can also lead them home.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
I read the first book a while back and then enjoyed the movie. Since the current reading theme is to read series fiction, I am going to crank through the rest of this series.

Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs: The World's Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved by Albert Jack
I love books like this. Jack takes on all sorts of odd topics and breaks them down in an intelligent manner to show how and why these things may or may not have happened ... or at least why people might think so.

The Candle of Distant Earth by Alan Dean Foster
Did our wayward travelers find their way home? Read the books yourself to find out. Foster is worth the read.

Baghdad FC: Iraq's Football Story by Simon Freeman
This book should be titled, Uday Was #*(%ing Worse Than His Dad, but that might not have reached as broad an audience. This book made me both hopeful and despondent about the Middle East and future relations between the Arab world and the West.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier
My daughter had this book with her and had already read it a few times, so I read it to chat with her about it. Actually, it is a good book for a parent to read.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Having read the survival guide book, putting this on the reading list seemed inevitable. It took a while to get the groove of the interlocking histories forming one picture, but once I did and things fell into place I really enjoyed this.

The Demigod Files (A Percy Jackson and the Olympians Guide) by Rick Riordan
I think I should have waited to read this until I finished the fourth book in the series, but I needed to return it to the library so I cranked it out.

Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie by Mark Millar, et al
Given that most adaptations come long after the initial creative process of source material Kick-Ass is unique in that the movie and comic series were essentially created parallel to each other. It is odd that I had not read the series since I do enjoy Millar's work, it is just the budgetary constraints of life that I did not. Soon, I will be listing the TPB of the series in this list when it comes in from the library. I must admit that there were a number of moments in the film where I put my hand over my mouth in an "Oh! My! God!" sort of way.

True Blood And Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things With You by William Irwin, George A. Dunn, and Rebecca Housel
A few years ago, or last year maybe, I read a few books in this series on Serenity, Alias, and Battlestar Galactica. Breaking down pop culture and treating it as the important myths and fables of our day can make for either really interesting reading or really dry reading. I think as long as I stick to the topics I really like I will keep reading from this series in the future.

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
In this 3rd of the True Blood novels we find Sookie travelling to Jackson, consorting with werewolves in addition to her vampires, and getting into a lot of trouble. After reading this I really hope they bring Bubba into the TV series. Just saying. Find a way.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan
Also a 3rd book of a series, much like the entry above. Even though I have enjoyed these books and didn't hate the movie like so many seem to, I still have hope that they make more.


June total = 13 / YTD = 74 (goal 100)