Ein2 » books

[Fifty Books Finished in June]

Eingang — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 02:30:38 +0000

I finished my 50th book of the year, Moonraker (Ian Fleming), at the beginning of June, part of my Read 50 books in 2005 goal on 43 Things. I never had any doubts that I would be able to do 50 in a year, since I’m a big reader, using spare time in queues or on buses to read. Just in case you’re bored, here’s my list of 50:

January

The Bad Beginning, book 1 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Reptile Room, book 2 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Wide Window, book 3 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Miserable Mill, book 4 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Austere Academy, book 5 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Ersatz Elevator, book 6 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Vile Village, book 7 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Hostile Hospital, book 8 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Carnivorous Carnival, book 9 in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Slippery Slope, book # in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unofortunate Events
Tides of Light, book 4 of physicist Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series.
Seventh Son, book 1 of Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series.
The Eye of the World, book 1 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I listened to the unabridged version as an audio book.

February

Red Prophet, book 2 of Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series.
The Great Hunt, book 2 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I listened to the unabridged version as an audio book.
Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb, an unabridged audiobook.
Star Surgeon by James White, book 2 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Major Operation by James White, book 3 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Ambulance Ship by James White, book 4 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Sector General by James White, book 5 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Star Healer by James White, book 6 of his Sector General space hospital series.
The Secret Garden by Fances Hodgson Burnett.
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan.
Southern Cross by Patricia Cornwell.

March

Code of Emergency by James White, book 7 of his Sector General space hospital series.
The Genocidal Healer by James White, book 8 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Final Diagnosis by James White, book 10 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Mind Changer by James White, book 11 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, an unabridged audiobook.
Consider Phelbas by Ian M. Banks, one of his Culture series books.
Use of Weapons by Ian M. Banks, another of his Culture series books.
Zodiac by Neil Stephenson.

April

Double Contact by James White, book 12 of his Sector General space hospital series.
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, an unabridged audiobook version.
Jennifer Government by Max Barry, another unabridged audiobook.
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend, the second book in her Adrian Mole series.
Indemity Only by Sara Paretsky, book 1 of her V.I. Warshawski novels.
Deadlock by Sara Paretsky, book 2 of her V.I. Warshawski novels.
Killing Orders by Sara Paretsky, book 3 of her V.I. Warshawski novels.

May

The Dragon Reborn, book 3 of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I listened to the unabridged audiobook version
Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat, book 2 of Victor Appleton’s classic Tom Swift series.
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, about his adventures in travelling around England.
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. I listened to the unabridged audiobook version.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, book 1 in his Ender trilogy. I listened to unabridged audio book version.
God Stalk by P.C. Hodgell

June

Holy Fire by Bruce Sterling
Moonraker, by Ian Fleming

Now that the first fifty are out of the way and I’ve read another 29 since then, I’m switched my goal to reading 100 books by the end of 2005. With only 21 to go and three months left, will I be able to do it? Of course! And you can, too, so get reading!

See more progress on: Read 50 books in 2005

[Fifty Fabulous Book Binges]

Eingang — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:54:01 +0000

I’ve seen many people profess a goal this year to read at least 50 books. Given that I read incessantly, I don’t think I should have any trouble reading 50 books in 2005. Even discounting juvenile literature, which tends to be shorter and easier to digest, I still believe I’ll be able to make 50 books in the first six months.
“How do I do it?”, you ask. I usually read an hour or so before going to sleep. Combining this with a high reading speed, you can knock through books at a good clip. I also like to read in the bathtub. I often take a book with me there and read for an hour, at least once a week. Finally, I have many books in electronic form, courtesy of Project Gutenberg and Baen’s WebScriptions project. This means I can carry many books easily with me on my handheld to read on planes, trains, and buses, and while waiting in line.
Oh yes, I also listen to unabridged audio books. I belong to Audible and I download two unabridged books a month to listen to on my iPod. I find it very soothing to have someone read me to sleep (remember that from when you were very young?). I set the iPod to “sleep” in 30 minutes and pick up in an audio book at the point I last remember hearing. This is usually a very slow way to get through a book as I often fall asleep within five or ten minutes of starting.
I plough through more of an audiobook while working on my 10 000 steps goal. I do 4- and 6-kilometre walks along the Brighton seaside. To do the 6-kilometre walk and return home gives me about 8500 steps and takes just over an hour. Many unabridged audio books I choose will fit into 8-12 hours. If I’m walking every day, like I should, in theory I can listen to one audiobook in under two weeks.
Step up to the plate. See if you can make 50 books this year or match my list.

[Time Travel Title]

Eingang — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 22:51:21 +0000

I’ve been participating in a discussion of The Time Traveler’s Wife at Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms community. If you have read the book, you know that Henry always travels through time naked involuntarily. That reminded me of a time travelling story I read in the 1980s where the protaganist travelled naked on purpose. He explained a naked man was less startling in any time than a person in clothes wildly out of sync with the time in which the traveller finds himself. Imagine, for example, how remarkable it would be to find a traveller on the road in front of your house fully clothed in full Elizabethan regalia or some whacky futuristic clothing. While naked people are unusual on the road, at least they’re not anachronistic.

In addition to time travelling, I believe the story may have involved some kind of barrier which trapped time travellers and broke their machines, if they used a mechanical method of time travelling. The protagonist hit this barrier and ended up in a society heavily controlled with an active police presence. When he interacted with the locals, they thought he might might have been “Slandutch” or “Slandeutsch” because he spoke still in complete sentences with a traditional English word order and verb conjugation. For example, where he would say, “Are you Slandutch?”, the temporal natives said things like “Be you Slandutch?”. The local police eventually caught up with the protagnist and he’s jailed with a variety of other humans and aliens who have also been time travelling.

I’m guessing this story was written between 1950 and 1970, although I read it in the early 1980s. What is the name of this story and who wrote it?

Further Info/Purchasing Info:

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Disclosure: Amazon links have a referrrer program link in them that generates revenue for an international discussion-based virtual community to which I belong. Your cost is not affected.