Imbri
Resident Night Mare
My apologies if there is already a thread for this. I went hunting through the forum, but couldn't find one.
Being a lifelong bookworm and fledgling writer, I'm curious to know what other people like to read. You never know where you'll find a suggestion for a book that will become a favorite. I think the oddest one I got was from an Anne Rice novel - the character was very fond of Ovid. I picked up a copy of Metamorphoses and it's become one of my favorites. So, post what you're reading here.
To keep it from being spammy and so people can get an idea of what the book is about, write a couple of sentences below the title and author, please, even if it's the summary copied off the back cover.
Here's my list for right now:
Satellite Night Fever by Jack Hopkins
This is the third in a trilogy (the first two were Satellite Night News and Satellite Night Special) from the mid-90s. I'd read the first one, but never the following two, until I managed to track them all down. They take place in the 23rd century and center on the Satellite News Team - a group of reporters covering the solar system... and the mishaps they encounter tracking down stories. In this book, they are trying to uncover who stole a cache of nuclear weapons (meant to be used in creating a statue out of a large column of stone in a crater on Venus), as well as the Spot, a space station studying the sun. While protecting the vast populations of the solar system are important, the priority is, of course, scooping the other stations on the story, especially the hated team from QINS!
It's campy, light, and funny reading. Not meant to be taken seriously. In other words, a perfect beach read.
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley
Another book from the late-90s. This is a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, actually the second time McKinley has told the story. In the late 70s, she wrote Beauty, which is definitely one of my favorite short novels. This time, the story is a little darker, a little more tied to magic and roses, and a little harder to follow in some places. That isn't to say it isn't a good book; it is, just that you need to pay a little closer attention at times.
Beauty's family (her father and two sisters - Jeweltongue and Lionheart) suffer financial ruin and are forced to leave the city, relocating to a small cottage in an out-of-the-way village. Their father makes a trip, gets lost on the way home, ticks off the Beast, Beauty goes to the castle as hostage in his place, you know the general gist. It's the twists that make this interesting.
Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the War of the Roses by Sarah Gristwood
This is non-fiction. I love history, and the Plantagenets are my favorite of the royals. The War of the Roses, called the "cousins' war" at the time, is a very interesting period. It divided families, not unlike the US Civil War would several hundred years later, and watching which faction was in power is much like watching a tennis match... on an international level. Most histories, and certainly most wars, are told through the male point of view. They were the ones in power, and certainly in this time period, women were not considered to be very important, so even biographical details can be sketchy. Gristwood has pieced together some of the major female players of the time - Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York - and tells the story of the political ping pong match through their actions.
It isn't the quickest read, but it is very interesting.
OK, those are my currents. The first two will likely be changing in the next day or so, since each one is 200 or so pages. I'll likely replace them with something else, since I hardly ever read just one at a time. What are you all reading?
Being a lifelong bookworm and fledgling writer, I'm curious to know what other people like to read. You never know where you'll find a suggestion for a book that will become a favorite. I think the oddest one I got was from an Anne Rice novel - the character was very fond of Ovid. I picked up a copy of Metamorphoses and it's become one of my favorites. So, post what you're reading here.
To keep it from being spammy and so people can get an idea of what the book is about, write a couple of sentences below the title and author, please, even if it's the summary copied off the back cover.
Here's my list for right now:
Satellite Night Fever by Jack Hopkins
This is the third in a trilogy (the first two were Satellite Night News and Satellite Night Special) from the mid-90s. I'd read the first one, but never the following two, until I managed to track them all down. They take place in the 23rd century and center on the Satellite News Team - a group of reporters covering the solar system... and the mishaps they encounter tracking down stories. In this book, they are trying to uncover who stole a cache of nuclear weapons (meant to be used in creating a statue out of a large column of stone in a crater on Venus), as well as the Spot, a space station studying the sun. While protecting the vast populations of the solar system are important, the priority is, of course, scooping the other stations on the story, especially the hated team from QINS!
It's campy, light, and funny reading. Not meant to be taken seriously. In other words, a perfect beach read.
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley
Another book from the late-90s. This is a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, actually the second time McKinley has told the story. In the late 70s, she wrote Beauty, which is definitely one of my favorite short novels. This time, the story is a little darker, a little more tied to magic and roses, and a little harder to follow in some places. That isn't to say it isn't a good book; it is, just that you need to pay a little closer attention at times.
Beauty's family (her father and two sisters - Jeweltongue and Lionheart) suffer financial ruin and are forced to leave the city, relocating to a small cottage in an out-of-the-way village. Their father makes a trip, gets lost on the way home, ticks off the Beast, Beauty goes to the castle as hostage in his place, you know the general gist. It's the twists that make this interesting.
Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the War of the Roses by Sarah Gristwood
This is non-fiction. I love history, and the Plantagenets are my favorite of the royals. The War of the Roses, called the "cousins' war" at the time, is a very interesting period. It divided families, not unlike the US Civil War would several hundred years later, and watching which faction was in power is much like watching a tennis match... on an international level. Most histories, and certainly most wars, are told through the male point of view. They were the ones in power, and certainly in this time period, women were not considered to be very important, so even biographical details can be sketchy. Gristwood has pieced together some of the major female players of the time - Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York - and tells the story of the political ping pong match through their actions.
It isn't the quickest read, but it is very interesting.
OK, those are my currents. The first two will likely be changing in the next day or so, since each one is 200 or so pages. I'll likely replace them with something else, since I hardly ever read just one at a time. What are you all reading?
