This should save all of the What's your favorite book? or What books did you hate? threads,

As for me, I just finished Conn Iggulden's Emperor: Death of Kings--the second in the series. I'd give it a rating of Good. Though I liked Genghis: Birth of an Empire much better (and would give that a Recommend), you have to take into account that his Julius Caesar books (The four Emperor books), were his first ever.

It's Superman by Tom De Haven - Recommended..
Really interesting view of Clark Kent in the time period he was originally written.

Recently read ILL WIND by Rachel Caine. Interesting magic look at current natural disasters.

Haven't finished WRAPPED IN RAIN, but I'm liking it.

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(I probably won't post anything here that I wouldn't recommend, though.)

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Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Meh. It might be worth reading as a look into what's popular. Make sure you have a high tolerance for entering the mind of a hormonal teenage girl obsessed with a guy.

Son of a Witch by Gregory MacGuire. Meh. Read Wicked or Mirror Mirror first. This one feels self-indulgent.

Recently completed:
Fatherland by Robert Harris. Good.Chilling, well written mystery, if a bit cliched. It's a good subtle alternative future, however. Recommended for mystery lovers. I enjoyed his other book, Imperium much more, and recommend that without reservation.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. In my opinion, she's written the definitive love story. Highly recommended.

[This message has been edited by annepin (edited October 07, 2008).]

Book 3 of Robin Hobb's Tawny man trilogy. It takes her characters from her assassin trilogy which you should read first to fully enjoy the Tawny man trilogy. I'm enjoying it alot. I would recommend it.

I found it when I was looking for another book by Joan Aiken, because I thought her book Jane Fairfax was at least very good. It's the story of Emma written from Jane's PoV. Perhaps there is some obscure law that your last name must start with A if you are going to write Jane Austen fan-fic?

Anne, you and I must have been reading Northanger Abbey at the same time. I just finished it, and loved it, as always.

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I just cracked open Bernard Cornwell's Azincourt

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Jealous! I'm hoping to get my hands on a copy this weekend. Cannot wait!

Annepin and Unwritten - I've been considering reading Northanger Abbey, think I will after such words of praise...

Currently:

Ashling - Isobelle Carmody, book 3 of the Obernewtyn Chronicles. I adored these books when I was about 14/15, but it's been ages since I read them. This particular one isn't a favourite of mine, but overall I would still recommend the series, especially to anyone intrigued by a post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy. The books are notoriously difficult to get hold of outside the author's native Australia, though.

The Other Queen - Philippa Gregory. I will withhold my judgement on this one as I've barely started it, but the opening hasn't impressed me. I think she's a decent writer of historical fiction, but out of the books of hers I've read only The Other Boleyn Girl really sparkles (though sadly the recent film was awful). I kinda know what happens to Mary Queen of Scots already, which might be the problem!

But I was much taken by one book, The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History by James J. O'Donnell...it made a fascinating case that the so-called "barbarians" were trying to preserve the Roman Empire while the Emperors and others were essentially the ones who wrecked it.

Dune: The Machine Crusade by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Jury's still out - the first couple of chapters have felt like a big info dump. Hopeful - it's prequel got better later in the novel.

The Science of Science-Fiction Writing (NF) by James Gunn. Good - interesting mainly for historical insights into SF writing, including biographical info on Wells, Heinlein, Asimov, and the Kuttner/Moore team. Noncomprehensive - nothing on OSC or even Arthur C. Clarke.

Recently completed:

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Good + - The beginning starts kind of slow. I had just finished reading the first four books of the original Dune series and it was difficult for me to adjust to the new style. I felt like they had used a thesaurus to find adjectives, hoping that would make it sound like Frank Herbert. I felt like it tried to juggle too many stories. All that said, I felt that there were some stand-out characters. Two of the most interesting were robots. It got better about half-way through, but it left some of the story lines hanging.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - Fantasy (or YA Fantasy)
Rating: Recommend
The book is more comedic, less romantic, yet as delightful as the Miyazaki movie.

Kitty and The Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn - Fantasy
I've read this novel before, and I Recommend it to those who don't mind vampires and werewolves as characters. The story contains an interesting mix of female empowerment, canine psychology, and theoretical sociology.

Of Two Minds by Carol Matas and Perry Nodelman - Young Adult Fantasy
Rating: Good

Just Finished

Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones - Fantasy (or YA Fantasy)
Rating: Good
A quick and charming book that kept me guessing, like Moving Castle. Unfortunately, I did not relate to Abdullah as much as I did Sophie in Moving Castle.

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Reading Now

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - Fantasy

How to Write Like an Expert About Anything by Hank Nuwer - Non-fiction
I'm forcing myself to read this book, because I've already checked it out from the library. I don't feel like I'm learning anything new that I can apply to my writing.

Pen on Fire by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett - Non-fiction
I think I would enjoy this book more if I were in a local writer's group.

Reagan's Game by R. Safley - Horror

One thing about this book, though, sticks out like a sore thumb. I read the first three books of the Ender series before giving it up. It was just too deep for my tastes, but the main premise of the first book, Ender's Game, was the closeness of Ender and his sister. It also brought out that he wasn't very close to his parents. After all, they bustled him off the Battle School when he was(I think) about six years old or so. It's been quite awhile since I've read it. My point is that in Treasure Box the MC also has a very close relationship with his sister who dies at the beginning of the book. His father unplugged her life support because she's brain dead and in a coma, and the MC accuses his father of murdering his sister. He hated both his parents for this.

Also halfway through "Les Miserable" but finding it to be slow going. I enjoy the story but the book is too thick to carry around in my purse so I don't get to read it unless I'm doing laundry or something.

*****

Since enough time has passed, I'll post another book I'm reading.

In between other books, I've been reading and rereading Chaplin: A Life, by Stephen Weissman, M. D....not so much a conventional biography as a psycho-biography, dealing with how Charlie Chaplin's early years shaped his life and his work. Makes for fascinating reading.

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Picked up a bit of mind candy at the library. DATING DEAD MEN. It's well-written and funny. A thriller in genre. Not sf of fantasy. Sigh.

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Sci-Fi and Fantasy are not prerequisites. Good or bad, speculative genre or not, this thread's about what you are reading, and if you'd recommend it.

Crystal Stevens:

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I'm now reading ELDEST by Christopher Paolini. It's an interesting story...

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Enjoyably arty, I'd recommend it if you'd like another angle on Bradbury's style. (As an aside, I was mortified when the bookshop attendant saw the book and said, "Ray Bradbury, is he new?")

Currently 60% through reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

I know I'm jumping the gun, but I'd already say I'd not recommend this edition (author's preferred - read, extended - text) as it tends to meander a little too much at times, and sentences that extend for 10 to 12 lines cause my eyes to bleed. I suspect the original edition might be a little more to the point. Yet to decide if I'd recommend the book as a whole.

I've been on a mid-grade fiction kick lately. My Nano project was mid-grade (that 8-12 yr old range, MC was 11. I did it on purpose after many long conversations with my kids' school librarian who laments the lack of good new fiction in that category, and virtually no genre fiction.)

So I just finished
The Mysterious Benedict Society - Recommend
Story about a group of gifted kids and how they are recruited (by the good guys) to help foil a plot to take over the world by controlling people's minds.

I'm reading
Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon - Recommend
I haven't read any Elizabeth Moon before, but this is a great story.

Something I've learned from both stories is about pacing and about what scenes to dramatize. In both cases I've found myself wondering "why did the author bother to detail out that bit?" and then later realized that either the bit that seemed inconsequential turns out to have a role later in the story, or that bit helped you get some aspect of the MC's character or some piece of the setting in mind so that later when it comes up again you have a good visual to go back to.

My son and I are also reading City of Ember but we're not far enough along to recommend it yet.

ie, since my last post (and I'm not even a remotely voracious reader),
Finished: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (Author's Preferred Text edition). I enjoyed it, but not as much as I'd hoped. While some of the more tangential scenes did have some relation to the plot I found them to be inconsequential and laborious. I also didn't quite feel fulfilled with the ending. I'd not recommend this to newcomers to Gaiman, but others may disagree. The standard text may be somewhat abridged and an easier read, however that's not the one I had. Not Impressed.

Finished: Ender's Game (Novel), by Orson Scott Card. I originally read this a long time ago, but I'm not 100% which version I read - it may have been the novelette version then, as I remember no reference to Speaker for the Dead or Valentine & Peter's story. I bought my own copy in November as it's something I'd like on my own bookshelf. I got far more out of it this time, I'm sure. I found the characters well developed, believable (on their own terms) and the technology sufficiently well presented (and ambiguous where necessary) to not appear dated. The YA-ish writing style makes for a quick and enjoyable read. Recommend.

Finished: Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card. I bought this with Ender's Game, having not read it before. I will try to be vague here to avoid spoilers: In general I found the book very enjoyable, however I had guessed the biology 'secret' by about the third chapter and so found it frustrating when most of the characters still didn't get it; I found the speaking of one character's life/death felt a little short and underdeveloped, while the promised speaking of others life/death was absent entirely, leaving me scratching my head wondering if I missed it. In general however, I found the book as a whole refreshing and enjoyable, its alien biology and societies interesting and well developed. Good.

Currently Reading: The Forgotten Children, by David Hill. The story of children enticed to immigrate from the UK to Australia in the early/mid 20th century under the Fairbridge Farms programme. Contrasts the difficulties and abuse that faced these children against the hollow promises and lack of acknowledgement of their situation by the authorities in both countries. The jury is still out on this one.

Recommended.

I also recently read Deerskin by Robin McKinley, based on a recommendation of a friend who liked the other Robin McKinley books (Hero and the Crown/Blue Sword - two of my all-time favorites) I had recommended to her. Well, Deerskin was good, but it was a hard read. First, without going into spoilery details but because I wished I had known as it may have affected my willingness to read this book, or at least read it late at night, you need to know that it's a survivor story (sexual.) It's done well, in fact I think Robin McKinley has done the best job of painting the dissociative state I hear can happen after such an event that I've ever seen. Then again I tend to avoid this concept in my reading so...maybe I haven't seen much. But I felt the ending was a little rushed, and that there were a lot of cases of telling/explaining in the story. Not in a bad way, but in a way that is different than how books are written today (this one was published in 1993.) It was an interesting story and worth the read, but just a little farther out there than the other two books of Robin McKinley's that I've read. I do certainly like that she portrays strong female leads in a positive way. And there's much about Deerskin that I'm still thinking about here several days after I finished reading it. That's a sign of a good book to me.

One possible reason is I'm not a big first-person fan and it's a first-person story (except for a weird interlude in third person near the end of the story, which bugged me because it seemed like the author couldn't figure out a way around a point-of-view conflict, so she just jumped into third person limited for a section and then jumped back to the first-person narrator.)

I just picked up Pattern Recognition by William Gibson (Neuromancer was checked out from the library and the librarian recommended this instead.) It is taking me a while to get into - the storytelling style is a little different, the content is dense, it's taking me a while to sink into his world. Enjoyable concept, though (a woman is a marketing psychic, basically - can sense what will be trendy/successful, without knowing why.) Tentative Good, maybe even Recommend.

In At The Dying by Harry Turtledove strongly recommended

Last book of a long series about a future where Robert E Lee's battle plans aren't found by the federals before the battle of Antietam. The last book is the eventual defeat of a Confederacy led by a Hitler like character. Mr Turtledove really knows his history and writes such rich characters. Every book of his is a pleasure to read.

1901 by Robert Conroy Not Recommended

The book is also the first post-9/11 aware book I've read, and that was fascinating. It wasn't an immensely big part of the book, but there were a few themes and concepts touched on at times during the story that again felt really authentic and accurate to me.

One point of note - there's no real speculative element to the story. Nothing that happened in the story is outside the boundaries of things that could happen today, IMHO. Didn't detract from my enjoyment, and it's notable that it took me a good 100+ pages to figure that out.

Also currently reading Tad Williams "The Dragonbone Chair."
I'm not finished with it yet, but so far it's been straddling the line between Okay and Unimpressive. On the good side, the transmuted-Christianity is handled well; on the bad side, the teenage boy protagonist is boring and sulky.