Month: December 2017

Popular fantasy novels I plan to read

A dozen popular fantasy novels that I plan to read and my rationale for deciding to read them. Sometimes I had good reasons, sometimes not so much.

Last post I promised to talk about the popular fantasy novels that are next on my to-be-read list.

I’m setting out read a string of fantasy novels (perhaps venturing into sci-fi) that have been very popular, because who doesn’t want to read great books. Oh, and hopefully to learn stuff.

Few fantasy novels have as many reviews as the mega-popular general novels I’ve read recently–I was aiming at books with over 10,000 reviews on Amazon–so this time I’m going for books with over 500 reviews.

Okay, Harry Potter and the ASoIaF books (Game of Thrones and its sequels) have a lot more reviews, but I already read those (give or take).

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More mega-popular books I enjoyed reading

A summary of my foray into mega-popular books and what I learned from them.

Some time ago I set out to cleanse my palate by reading a collection of extremely successful books.

Books I read

From my original list I successfully read (links to my reviews):

  • The Maze Runner by James Dashner (11,198 reviews). Awful.
  • The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (57,762 reviews). Compelling.
  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (14,300 reviews). Delightful.
  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (43,944 reviews). Depressing.
  • The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (2,876 reviews). Entertaining.

Books I didn’t read

I failed to complete All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (27,246 reviews). Yes, it was a beautiful and poignant book about war and humanity and all that, it just didn’t interest me very much.

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Not a review of The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

After Sebastian and Rain get a few things out of their system, they talk about The Sun is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon. Teenagers, romance, fate, and all that stuff.

Rain: We’ve read so many books recently that we haven’t talked about that I don’t know where to start.

Sebastian: Whose fault is that?

Rain: Hey! I wanted to blog.

Sebastian: You were so pleased with yourself having blogged twice a week for a year that you let your personal problems get in the way.

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Alecia goes tramping

Recently I went tramping in New Zealand and didn’t die. Plus I came back with some photos. If you’re nice to me I might let you look at them.

Last weekend I went tramping overnight in the Southern Alps (that’s a big mountain range in the South Island of New Zealand). I used to tramp a lot, but for one reason or another it’s been some time.

New Zealand doesn’t have snakes, poisonous spiders, bears, crocodiles, ticks, killer koalas, bigfoots (bigfeet?), or toxic sharks.

The thing most likely to kill you in the bush (which is what we call our native forest) is the weather.

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Oh, you’re from New Zealand!

This is a short post because I’m not actually here today.

I’m a Kiwi (New Zealander for any ignoramuses out there) but some time ago I spent six years living in the US.

Americans seemed to think Kiwi accents are adorable, though I was frequently mistaken for being British or Australian.

When I pointed out I was in fact a Kiwi, in 99% of cases I got one of two responses:

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