JLee22

Sequel to Jurassic Park. This audio version is also narrated by Scott Brick. Despite being streamed across Overdrive courtesy of the library, it was still broken up into CD sections and announced the change of CDs and repeated the last line of the previous CD section before continuing with the narration - overall, distracting.

I admittedly listened to this mostly while lying in my sick bed and didn't pay it the same close attention as I did the first one. I'm not sure if Scott Brick's individual character voices were less distinct in this adaptation or if I was not aware enough to pick out the subtle differences. As I am already biased in favor of the story, I only mentally docked a half star for the (perceived) performance.

One thing that occurs to me about the story in general though: is Sarah's father actually the vet, Dr. Harding, in the original Jurassic Park? And, if so, WTF, Malcolm? That one, seemingly inconsequential, teasing hint is still bugging me. Plot holes, plot holes...

Streamed this off Audible. This edition is 15:10:10 exactly and narrated by Scott Brick.

I love it. That's it. Scott Brick's voice is amazing and he maintains the individual voices of each character perfectly 99.9% of the time. (I can excuse that slip on Muldoon's dialogue in that one scene because the character was drunk at the time anyway; let's just chalk it up to method acting.)

Nedry's death scene in particular was extra chilling despite how many times I have reread this book in print.

5 stars, would listen again.

Nonfiction book about languages and the effect on culture, or culture and the effect on languages. Depends on how you read it and what you think about it, really. Deutscher discusses at length various linguistic theories and how they have evolved over time as the scientific side of intellectual curiosity gained prominence and became more refined with the use of experiments and scientific method that weeded out human fallacies. (Or tried to, anyway!)

He starts and ends with color - the peculiarities of the vocabulary of color in Homer's Odyssey at the beginning of the book and the testing of color differentiation across various languages native speakers at the end of the book - and covers several other topics along the way. It is long and overly confusing at times because the author can't resist making a tangential joke that doesn't really add to your understanding of the subject; in fact, I'm inclined to believe it's more to do with page count requirements. Comprehensive reading of this book may require a graduate-level vocabulary and the high-brow humor may fly over the head of someone not looking for it. He does bring to light several experiments/studies that the general public would not be aware of and explains the reasons for their importance in laymen's terms, or makes an attempt at doing so at least.

It took me three-quarters of a year to read this book because I got stuck in the middle and was bored. I say this as person strongly interested in linguistics but not involved in any particular career related to the field, so this may be more geared to those with a professional rather than a casual interest in languages.

A short audiobook to listen to while I was cleaning up. It was just under 3 hours long (2 hours 57 minutes according to Audible) and decent story. I expected Lord of the Flies, honestly, and got Survivor Jr., the novelization. In hindsight, that should have been what I expected since Jeff Probst wrote it (he writes, go figure). The cover art is also a clue.

It's a child friendly story and focuses on how the four kids, step siblings that are conveniently split into two boys and two girls, are shipwrecked on an unknown island in the Pacific and manage to survive the first few days alone. No children are sacrificed in this story. Note, however, that it is also the first book in a series and ends on a cliffhanger as per book series protocol.

It's a cute story and I would probably listen to the other books in the series if I found free copies via the library or otherwise, but it is not something I would pay for unless I was buying it for my nieces or nephews.

Listened to this in audiobook format via Audible. That particular version is about 10 hours long and the last 2 hours or so is the added in meta-history companion novella for main story, called Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome. The main story, Lock In, is narrated by Wil Wheaton alone. The Unlocked novella has multiple narrators and is told in a parallel story flashback format that reminded me of World War Z.

The story - pretty engaging characters, follows the standard police procedural format of increasingly more important mini-climaxes to the final reveal. The protagonist has the almost cliche backstory of being the "privileged son gone to do good on his own as a cop" with the twist being that he is also one of the persons affected with a disease called Haden's Syndrome in an alternate future America. The disease is a sci-fi combo special somewhere between the Black Death and locked-in syndrome, with the outbreak having occurred in the protagonist's early childhood and the actual story happening in his adulthood and dealing the repercussions of the disease on society.

I enjoyed the socioeconomic and sub-culture emphasis. The world-building exploring how having significant chunks of the population affected with such a disease and how they coped is touched on in the main story and explained more in depth, or at least the nitty gritty details are given, in the companion novella. I didn't particularly like any of the characters or found them relateable, but it was interesting to see how each reacted to events as the story went on and what new piece of their history was going to be revealed.

Pop culture references galore for those who like that sort of thing. :)

The audiobook - I like Wil Wheaton's voice, his tone of voice generally sounds quite nice to my ear, but I found his differentiation between character voices to be sub par. There was a difference, but not a great enough one to distinguish accurately when one character stopped speaking and another did in long patches of conversational dialogue which could be confusing as I don't just sit and listen to the book, I'm generally doing something else to occupy my hands while listening.

Rated Lock In as 3 star book but as this version was combined with the Unlocked novella, which I rated a 4, I have averaged the scores on Booklikes to a 3.5.

Most amusing to read, even as a female reader, as it is written in the same tone and style as the weblog by which it is inspired. It is basically a self-help style of book for men (or rather, boys that want to be manly men). There is absolutely nothing derogatory towards women in the book; if anything, it scolds males that treat women badly. I thought the section on childcare was cute, specifically how to braid one's daughter's hair (like a man!) and how to raise a well-behaved son. It does lean on stereotypes to make its point at times, but in a tongue in cheek kind of way. The hardest parts to get through were the instructions on how to do things like tie a tie or start a fire from scratch - neither of which I understand how to do any better after having read the book. Instructions with relevant pictures would be better, in my opinion, but would also have taken away from the book's aesthetic.

Overall, pretty solid advice for a book that doesn't take itself too seriously. It would be a great coffee table book or gift for a guy friend.

A random pick off a list of 2016 must-reads that the library oh-so-kindly purchased a copy of based on my recommendation.

Short summary only - dark as all get out. Creepy and disjointed. I am not a fan of first person POV but it works here because you start to doubt what is going on just as the POV character is in the moment. And yet there is a glimmer of hope, albeit a very dim one. It starts a bit slow and sags towards the end, but the chapters are short enough to keep the pages turning and the figurative language is grimly delightful.

This story bounces between past and present, African and Swiss settings, and between multiple characters. There is dubious consent all over the place and death, specifically a lot of children's deaths. Reader beware.

I have not died, nor have I completely abandoned this book. It is oddly entrenching (is that the word? *checks Merriam Webster* No, it is not. But it sounds good, so NaNo mindset rules apply) and when I finally picked it back up this week, I skimmed through several chapters despite crushingly short breaks at work.

I was amazed at the fact that I've been "reading" this book for more than a year. At first I kept misplacing it around my room as I am reading from my physical copy of the book, then after June my entire personal life collapsed into a ~work-work stress-stress caused by politics-politics at work stress about real politics~ mess. I have read a page here, a quick read there, but finished hardly anything in months. My reading challenge bar chart looks terrible.

Still chugging along, still reading. One thing that struck me about the coincidence of reading Moby Dick during National Novel Writing Month is that it is written in exactly the kind of way that emphasizes word count that most 'chievers like me utilize. The amusement of this realization was worthy of actually writing this progress post. :)

Here's to hoping for more reading/blogging time post-elections!

An alternate universe of Sherlock Holmes canon. I have read it before but I saw the audio version on Audible and decided, eh, why not?

This particular version was narrated by Neil Gaiman (I thought it was Gy-man, not Gae-men? Huh, go figure.) and he has a lovely voice, but it irritated me profoundly that he pronounced Lestrade as Le-stray-d. Just... no. It does not sound nice.

The story, of course, takes place in England, but one renamed Albion and in which supernatural elements are at work and creatures - for lack of a better term - literally rule. The story is narrated by the consulting detective's companion, a veteran of the Afghan war. A strong knowledge of the entire Sherlock Holmes series is practically a requirement due to the reliance on some of the lesser-known canon references used to make the twisty ending come to light. Likewise, the faux contemporary advertisements that break up the chapters require at least a mediocre familiarity with both 12+ grade English vocabulary and classic horror stories.

As evidenced by the name, the main plot shares similarities with Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet." Probably a good place to start as a prequel of sorts for the uninitiated. :)

There are two stories going on here:

1) In contemporary times, a fanboy is initiated into an exclusive club for Sherlock fans (thus the term Sherlockian is used quite often afterwards) and they all gather for a special event: another celebrated BNF has found Arthur Conan Doyle's lost diary and is going to share it. Except he ends up dead. Murdered, naturally. And why call the police when you have a bunch of wanna-be Sherlocks hanging around the place?

Honestly, I would probably go see a movie adaptation of this book purely for that scene in particular.

The mystery escalates of course. There is a Woman involved. And it all ends at Reichenbach.

2) In the Victorian era, Arthur Conan Doyle has just killed off Sherlock Holmes and suffers the consequences from the fans of his time. He is a top-notch drama queen about the whole thing (given a modern reader's foreknowledge) but eventually gets over it. Until he becomes involved in serial murders, "anti-feminism", and escapades worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself.

Extra spoiler: his being miffed at being treated as the Watson at one point.

I loved the fact that Bram Stoker is basically his sidekick and the author writes about Conan Doyle's reflections on his relationships with J.M. Barrie and Oscar Wilde with such depth of emotion; I have no idea if the real life people knew each other, but I would be inclined to believe it based on the presentation of this historical fiction.

Ultimately a happy ending because, as we all know, Sherlock Holmes comes back to life.

Audiobook notes: no idea if the Scottish accent of the narrator is authentic, but I like it. <3

Eh, I use the tags "science fiction" and "fantasy" very loosely with this novel.

As with all of Murakami's works, it skirts the edge of this and that. It is difficult to follow if you are not paying attention, moreso when you are trying to pay attention to an audiobook as it turns out. There are two narrators that switch off on chapters due to the split narrative of the story. I found their voices pleasant to listen to, but their accents for different characters and their pronunciations of certain Japanese words grated on my ears to the point that it ruined those parts of the story for me. I think that I would have preferred to read this one.

I enjoy the themes of reality vs. non-reality that Murakami regularly explores in his stories, this one especially delving into the Russian philosophical side of things, haha. The particular flavor of, ah, graphic detail is definitely an acquired taste though.

Alas, I will not be counting this one for any of my on-going challenges.

Well, this is not the cover on my edition. And it turns out my copy was one of the worse off survivors of the book auction debacle and I will probably chuck it because it is not in a fit state to be passed on. I'm not sure how it survived be read, actually.

This is the second book in the series and lightly covers the basic story of the first without actually summarizing it, and re-introduces a couple of the prominent secondary characters, Murphy (of the police) and Marcone (of the criminal underworld), betwixt whom Dresden tries to survive with varying degrees of success.

Given the obvious title, "werewolves" are involved with this book's plot. I do appreciate how Jim Butcher takes the "when things look bad for your protagonist, make them worse before they get better" approach to writing. It keeps the pages turning, although the chapter end-lines are sometimes... lacking in wit, one could say. They would perhaps flow better as longer chapter segments. The first person narrative style grates, at times, particularly since I can't relate to the male POV, but the author regularly pokes fun at the character's self-confess chauvinism and almost breaks the fourth wall a few times. Some good twists on the werewolf genre and a rather bittersweet, IMHO, ending. Nicely leaves open some plot holes to fill in during future books with regards to Dresden's parents and his past/events that led to his unique circumstances within the magical community.

It is interesting in subject matter, literally about penis thieves as the title says, but as you may imagine, no actual penises are (permanently) stolen. It segues into how the organ theft is very real to the people who experience it and those around them who believe it's happening, but completely imaginary to anyone else around them who don't have the same culture beliefs. The book goes on to describe other culture-bound syndromes and does a pretty good job at breaking down the predisposition to thinking these things only happen in "less civilized" or "less educated" countries, even though that is reiterated frequently by the medical professionals as to why the incidences keep occurring. Notably, the author points out how PMS is almost exclusively an American problem for women, or other American or Western "diseases" like anorexia or pet hoarding that do not exist in our cultural opposites, yet no one would say that the Western world lacks in civilization or culture. (Debatable.)

He mentions the change in understanding and societal perception of, for example, depression as being something mental (and shameful) to something physical (and suddenly curable) and the case studies in the placebo effect. There is the historical precedent of fugue:

Hacking suggests that fugue and other conditions can flourish in a place and time because the right conditions exist in the same way that ecological conditions allow certain species to arise... When those conditions change, the animals die out. In the late 1800s, a niche opened up in Europe to allow fugue to arise, and then it was gone. As a kind of resolution of the dichotomy, Hacking has proposed the term “bioloop” to describe the process by which our ideas and beliefs affect our physiology, and our physiology in turn affects our minds.

The information and suggested analysis is well-written, but the book could easily have been half its present length and made a stronger, more concise argument. However, that is not the author's writing style. A good chunk of the unnecessary writing is about his struggling writing career or the mundane details of his travels to track down information about the phenomena, even including accounts of dead ends that could have been excised from the final copy of the book for pacing reasons. I don't care that you tried the local recipe of chicken in some mid-sized town in China and found it subpar; just tell me about the darned subject of your book.

Solid three, overall.

Oops, fell a bit behind and forgot to finish reading/update the list this past month. Have several in-progress books lying around that I need to finish up and post and that should kick up my progress in the next month or so. July was just so crazy!

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Per the idea borrowed from Merle, the goal is to "travel the world" by reading one book set in every country of the world as listed below with preference given to books by a native author.

List format is also borrowed from Merle. :)

12 out of 200 countries = 6%

North America and the Caribbean 
2 out of 24 countries = 8%

Canada: ?
United States: Capital Dames by Cokie Roberts
Mexico: ?

Belize: 
Nicaragua: 
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Panama

Antigua & Barbuda:
Barbados:
Cuba: Adios Muchachos by Daniel Chavarria
Dominica: 
Dominican Republic:
Haiti: ?
Jamaica:
Puerto Rico:
Bahamas
Grenada
St. Kitts & Nevis 
St. Lucia
St. Vincent & the Grenadines
Trinidad & Tobago 


South America 
0 out of 12 countries = 0%

Argentina: 
Brazil: 
Chile: Deep Down Dark by Hector Tobar? / My Documents by Alejandro Zambra?
Colombia: 
Peru: 
Uruguay: 
Venezuela:
Bolivia
Ecuador 
Guyana 
Paraguay 
Suriname 


Africa 
2 out of 54 countries = 4%

Algeria: 
Egypt: The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany
Libya: 
Morocco: 
Tunisia

Cape Verde:
Ghana: 
Guinea: 
Ivory Coast: 
Liberia: The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper?
Mali:
Nigeria: The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin?
Senegal: 
Sierra Leone:
Togo: 
Benin
Burkina Faso
Gambia 
Guinea-Bissau
Mauritania
Niger 

Cameroon:
Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver?
Sao Tome & Principe: 
Central African Republic
Chad
Republic of the Congo 
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon

Ethiopia:
Kenya: Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum by Kennedy Odede, Jessica Posner
Rwanda: 
Somalia: 
Sudan: 
Tanzania:
Uganda: 
Burundi
Djibouti
Eritrea
South Sudan

Botswana: 
Mauritius: 
Mozambique:
South Africa: 
Zambia: 
Zimbabwe:
Angola
Comoros
Lesotho 
Madagascar
Malawi 
Namibia 
Seychelles
Swaziland


Europe 
2 out of 49 countries = 4%

France: Marivaux?
Germany: 
Greenland: 
Iceland: 
Ireland: Colm Toibin?
Italy: 
Netherlands: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier?
Spain: Manolito Gafotas?
Sweden: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Switzerland: 
United Kingdom: The Dead Duke, His Missing Wife, and the Secret Corpse by Piu Marie Eatwell
Andorra
Austria 
Belgium: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque?
Denmark 
Finland 
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta ?
Monaco
Norway 
Portugal 
San Marino
Vatican City

Albania: 
Azerbaijan: 
Bulgaria: 
Chechnya: 
Croatia: 
Georgia: 
Greece: Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis?
Hungary: 
Montenegro:
Romania: 
Russia: 
Serbia: 
Ukraine: 
Armenia
Belarus
Bosnia & Herzegovina 
Czech Republic 
Estonia 
Latvia
Lithuania
Macedonia
Moldova
Poland 
Slovakia
Slovenia


Middle East 
1 out of 16 countries = 6%

Iran: Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi? / Children of the Jacaranda Tree by Sahar Delijani?
Iraq: 
Israel: 
Kuwait: 
Lebanon: 
Qatar: 
Palestine: 
Saudi Arabia: In the Land of Invisible Women by Qanta A. Ahmed

Turkey:
Yemen: Henna House by Nomi Eve?
Bahrain
Cyprus
Jordan
Oman
Syria 
United Arab Emirates


Asia 

5 out of 31 countries = 16%

Afghanistan: The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg? / In My Father's Country by Saima Wahab
Kazakhstan:
Kyrgyzstan: 
Tajikistan:
Turkmenistan 
Uzbekistan 

Bangladesh:
India: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Nepal:
Sri Lanka: A Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman?
Pakistan:
Bhutan 
Maldives

China: Leaving Mother Lake by Yang Erche Namu, Christine Mathieu? / Four Sisters of Hofei by Annping Chin?
Japan: Geisha, a Life by Mineko Iwasaki
Mongolia: 
North Korea: In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
South Korea: The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim
Taiwan:
Tibet:

East Timor: 
Indonesia: 
Malaysia:
Myanmar: The Lady and the Peacock by Peter Popham?
Philippines: Monstress by Lysley Tenorio?
Singapore: Aunty Lee's Delights by Ovidia Yu?
Thailand:
Vietnam: The Novice by Thich Nhat Hanh
Brunei
Cambodia: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung
Laos


Australia and the Pacific 
0 out of 14 countries = 0%

Australia: Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay(?) / Fly Away, Peter by David Malouf(?)
New Zealand: The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera?
Fiji 
Kiribati 
Marshall Islands 
Micronesia 
Nauru
Palau
Papua New Guinea 
Samoa
Solomon Islands 
Tonga 
Tuvalu 
Vanuatu