Books read this week
Jan. 6th, 2007 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mschatelaineI'll do this challenge thing, since I was so disgusted at my lack of reading new books last year.
Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds
Zima Blue is a collection of Alastair Reynolds' short stories from outside his Revelation Space background. They are widely varied, from the fact-paced action of Spirey and the Queen to the contemplative Signal to Noise. I like Reynolds' stories mostly for their Thinking Big, but the smaller-scale ones are good character stories that don't get drowned out in the New Space Opera.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as much a biography of a 1950's America that is long gone and, as shown in the final chapter, is fast being eroded even from memory, as it is a memoir of Bryson's childhood. The book describes an idyllic Tom Sawyer-like time, when there was no town like Our Town and every town was unique, with its own institutions and characters.
In the main it is a nostalgic book, but the adult Bryson includes perspectives on consumerism, race relations, McCarthyism and the Cold War, which show his childood times to have been less than perfect. Even so, the depiction of the time and the people from the point of view of a kid who hasn't decided if he is going to grow up yet, is warm and generous and the book is laugh-out-loud funny in many places.
(I did this last year as well - lets' see if I can keep it up a little longer.)
Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds
Zima Blue is a collection of Alastair Reynolds' short stories from outside his Revelation Space background. They are widely varied, from the fact-paced action of Spirey and the Queen to the contemplative Signal to Noise. I like Reynolds' stories mostly for their Thinking Big, but the smaller-scale ones are good character stories that don't get drowned out in the New Space Opera.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as much a biography of a 1950's America that is long gone and, as shown in the final chapter, is fast being eroded even from memory, as it is a memoir of Bryson's childhood. The book describes an idyllic Tom Sawyer-like time, when there was no town like Our Town and every town was unique, with its own institutions and characters.
In the main it is a nostalgic book, but the adult Bryson includes perspectives on consumerism, race relations, McCarthyism and the Cold War, which show his childood times to have been less than perfect. Even so, the depiction of the time and the people from the point of view of a kid who hasn't decided if he is going to grow up yet, is warm and generous and the book is laugh-out-loud funny in many places.
(I did this last year as well - lets' see if I can keep it up a little longer.)
