Category: Reading and Book Reviews

Commentary on reading and books.

The kind of book I love to read and want to write

I describe my ideal book–a high fantasy novel that takes me on an emotional journey–and offer to beta read for you if you wrote it. Or if you’re nice.

When friends in real life ask me what kind of books I write, I tell them “fantasy with dragons”. This has the benefit of being a) true and b) uninformative.

What? Not all books have dragons?

The short answer is that I write the kinds of books I most like to read. (Doesn’t everyone?)

Here’s the long answer about what I love to read and try to write.

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Not a review of Baking Bad by Kim M Watt

I read Baking Bad, the first Beaufort Scales mystery, by Kim M. Watt and laughed a lot. I’m not going to review it, but hopefully I can help you decide whether you’d enjoy it.

While I was AWOL, something wonderful happened: lots of my friends published books.

(Lots of other things happened too, some great, some not so much, but we can come to those later.)

I’m planning to read them and review them, but not on this blog.

Hey, they’re my friends. If I say negative things feelings will get hurt, and if I gush and spout unicorn sparkles about how great they are (the books, not the friends) you won’t believe me.

So I came up with a different plan. I’m going to help you decide if you want to read them. (Again the books, not the friends.)

Today’s victim, I mean, book, is Baking Bad by the lovely Kim M. Watt.

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The horror of Year One by Nora Roberts

Sebastian and Rain read Year One by Nora Roberts and were horrified to discover she managed to make the end of the world boring.

Sebastian: You forced us to read Year One by Nora Roberts. What do you have to say for yourself?

Rain: I’m so sorry! I honestly thought it was going to be good. She’s so famous, the description was enticing, and it has a 4.5 star rating on Amazon with 770 reviews.

Sebastian: I want to explain why it was so bad but I don’t know where to start.

Rain: You could start with the writing.

Sebastian: You thought the writing was bad? Then it must have been dreadful.

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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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