Quote:
Originally posted by Not Bob
And while I am on my way there, I will need something to read. Any suggestions? I'm not interested in any non-fiction that has anything to do with any events after 1980. With respect to fiction, my taste is pretty eclectic, though I am not usually a fan of stuff that is too high-fallutin. In other words, no Umberto Eco, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, or Mickey Spillane.
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I just finished
Children of God, which is the sequel to Mary Doria Russell's
The Sparrow. I'm having difficulty deciding which one I liked better. They're both sci-fi, sort of, but they don't really feel sci-fi. They read more like a historical novel from a time that hasn't happened yet. The basic premise is that the most logical group to organize an expedition to investigate the discovery of intelligent life in Alpha Centauri is the Society of Jesus. Russell was a paleoanthropologist before she turned to a life of novelist, and I loved her characters.
I also recently read Neal Stephenson's
The Diamond Age, which I think I like a lot better than I did
Cryptonomicon, which I liked. It (
The Diamond Age, not
Cryptonomicon) is more solidly in the sci-fi genre (sub-genre: cyberpunk). I haven't started any of the Baroque Cylcle, though I have the first one sitting on my shelf.
My favorite non-fiction book that I've read this year is Temple Grandin's
Animals in Translation. Grandin is autistic and she holds a Ph.D. in Animal Sciences. She's designed a good hunk of the slaughterhouses in the United States, and she thinks that her autism--specifically the way that she thinks in pictures rather than words--helps her understand animal behavior better than the non-autisic. The beef industry pretty much follow what she has to say religiously.
I'm in the middle of
The Nautical Chart by Arturo Perez-Reverte right now, and so far so good. I've liked everything else I've read by him
The Flanders Panel,
The Club Dumas and
The Seville Communication. If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with the
Flanders Panel, which is the first of his that I read. They're all sort of mysteries, but it's the personalities of the characters that make the books interesting.
