Imagine a world where there are no books, where nobody reads, where nobody thinks for themselves. Where the world is run by machines, by robots. Where the human race is, quite literally, stoned, and often self immolates for no discernable reason. Welcome to a dystopian 25th century America. Reading has been outlawed, books have been destroyed, the public at large has been drugged, and the government is run by an intelligent, never-aging robot whose only desire is to be able to end his life. Mockingbird […]
For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on…
Once in a blue moon, someone gives you a book that you would have never picked up on your own, and you can’t put it down. Shantaram is one of those books. Set in Mumbai, India in the late 70s and early 80s, Shantaram is the semi-autobiographical story of Lin, an escaped Australian convict. Lin was serving nineteen years for armed robbery when he escaped over the prison walls, hopped a few planes, and wound up in Mumbai. What follows is a sweeping story that […]
The one where I think I’m glad I didn’t live in 16th century England…
The Queen’s Fool is one of those books that sat on my bookshelf for awhile, getting passed over time and again for something else. I don’t know if it was the cover (it does look a little romance-y) or the blurb on the back, but it never really jumped out and demanded to be read. Then one day, I found myself reaching for it, and I couldn’t put it down. Set during the tumultuous years after King Edward’s death in the sixteenth century, the novel […]
The one where I’m glad I didn’t decide to walk to Canada…
One of my closest friends hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) a few years ago. She’s an experienced hiker; she did the Appalachian Trail a few years prior to that. (And we’re talking through-hike. All eleventy million miles of it. Both the AT and the PCT. This is something I would never do. I don’t pee outside, let alone hike. I’m not really sure how it is we’re friends.) Anyway, my hiker friend happened to be visiting while I was reading Wild, and I asked […]
The one that’s kind of like The Hunger Games, but…not at all
I feel like everyone on the planet has read this book, so I’m not sure what else I can add to the discussion. We all know the story by now: a dystopian Chicago, teenagers who have to choose their faction – and their future as well, the brave young girl who goes against the grain, the realization that we may not all fit in to one neat little box, the older mentor she sort of falls in love with, the sacrifices of the parents. I […]
The one where the guy isn’t quite as hot as Ranger, but he’ll do
Oh, Janet. I love you. I love your slightly control freak women who don’t exactly have a handle on their lives, your devilishly handsome men who like to live in the grey area of morality, and most especially, the wacky hijinks you cook up. The Chase picks up where The Heist left off, with FBI Special Agent Kate O’Hare and master criminal Nick Fox (get it with the names?) secretly teaming up to recover a Chinese artifact that has gone missing. See, the Chinese loaned […]