books

In keeping with my tradition of never getting this stuff up at the same time everyone else is doing it, here’s my belated list of books I enjoyed listening to last year—mostly while walking the dog. Jeez, I must spend a lot of my life walking the dog!

• The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
  I refused to see the movies when it first came out, because I didn’t want to watch kids killing kids. By the time the second movie arrived, I’d heard so much about how great the story was that I watched the first on Netflix—and to my surprise, really liked it. So I listened to audiobook and really liked that, too. 
• A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller, Jr.
  This is an SF classic that I read decades ago, one of the great post-nuclear-war novels, set mostly in a monastery somewhere in the American Southwest. I gave it a listen on audio, and found it held up very well—perhaps a little long in places, but with more humor than I remembered.  
• The Gunslinger, by Stephen King
  Years ago, I bought a print of the Michael Whelan painting that was the original book cover (I think) for this book. But I’d never read the book until I decided to give it a try via audiobook. Excellent narration, and a story that did not initially grab me, but had me hooked by the end. 
• The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk
  I don’t know what made me decide to try these very long novels about a Navy family in the lead-up to World War II in the first book, and through the war in the second. Maybe it just seemed like a good deal—a whole lot of hours of listening, for the same price as any other book. Anyway, I was thoroughly engrossed. There were places where it got slow, but overall, I was quite satisfied and moved by the story. 
• Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
  This is another book I decided to try after enjoying the movie. In this case, the book is quite different from the film, and much more complex in its plot. I liked both, but in different ways. I want to try more by this author, but haven’t decided which to listen to next. 
• The Mote in God’s Eye, by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
  Another SF classic, which I’d read years ago on paper. It was a good listen. What surprised me most was how much of it I misremembered. There were scenes I recalled with great clarity from my first reading. The thing is, they either weren’t in the book at all, or were very different. Memory is a tricksy critter. 
• The Dog Who Knew Too Much, by Spencer Quinn
  This is a private eye novel narrated by the P.I.’s dog Chet. The story is good. The dog viewpoint on it all is great. The author really knows how to get into the dog’s way of seeing things. Very funny. There are more Bernie and Chet mysteries, and I’ve got them in my wishlist for the future. 
• Failure is Not an Option, by Gene Kranz
  This is for space aficionados only, but if you’re a fan of the space program, you’ll enjoy the inside look at what the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo days were like for the mission control teams at NASA. It presumes you already know the excitement and doesn’t even try to recapture the thrills. But it does make you feel like you were there, trying to work your way through the life-and-death decisions.  

This one I read as an ebook, but I’m listing it because I really liked it:

• The Red: First Light, by Linda Nagata
  The story of an augmented soldier, this takes us into the world of the near future, where small wars are basically the bread and butter of defense contractors (more so than they are already, I mean). Artificial intelligence has become a necessary adjunct to the working soldier. But exactly where are the AI’s leading? Well thought out, and well told, by a Nebula-winning author. The first of a series. 

Some of these I bought, and some I downloaded from the public library. The options for us as readers just keep growing!