In which the reader shares his thoughts on the books that possess his imagination throughout the year.
(Photo Credit: Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash)
The last two years have found me reading far less than I have in any years since starting a blog in 2005…and far less posting on the blog as well.
Though the numbers are not impressive, I read some truly impressive books this year, stories that I thoroughly enjoyed and would heartily pass on to fellow book lovers.
Foregoing any other preamble, and in no particular order, here are my favorite reads of 2019.
As Labor Day passes here in America and those of us who enjoyed a day off return to work, it is time to acknowledge that Autumn is here. Perhaps not “officially”, but for me it is Autumn all the same. Particularly when the weather this week will be so accommodating, with Fall-like temperatures every morning.
Twelve years ago I started a reading event, inspired by what others were doing in the relatively new medium of “book blogging”, that celebrated the kind of old-fashioned, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night reading that I enjoyed doing come Autumn. I knew there had to be others who felt the same way I did, and I wanted to get to know them…YOU…and thus R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril, affectionately known as R.I.P., was born.
I sit here on an unseasonably mild August day, as we approach the tail end of Summer, and reflect upon the fact that it was two seasons back, on a much colder day, that I last wrote anything at all here on what for twelve years had been my most frequent and enjoyable method of processing creativity in the form of books read, films watched, art enjoyed.
Midori Snyder mused today on blogging and connection and reached out to me personally to converse about it, and as I just happened to finish my latest audio book read, I thought it would be nice to come here, dust off the cobwebs, and write.
It was back in what seems like an age ago that I did something I had never done, to my knowledge, in my entire life: I read through a series of books back to back. Richard had recommended the work of Louise Penny, and though the first book was rough in spots, I fell deeply for the inhabitants of the Canadian village of Three Pines and for the Chief Inspector who would soon bring his much larger world crashing into their smaller one, Armand Gamache.
I read the first seven or eight novels, one right after the other, in preparation for the August 2012 release of what was then her new Gamache novel. All these Augusts later I find myself again pining for Three Pines, pun intended, and the new novel that will arrive on the 29th.
(Cover by artist Paul Youll)
Polly Newton has a plan: become a starship pilot and travel the galaxy. And in the pursuit of that plan, she is relentlessly focused.
But you know what they say about the best laid plans.
When the Martian native and her twin brother Charles are informed by their mother, director of operations on Colony One, that she has enrolled them both in the prestigious Galileo Academy, even the prospect of captaining starships in half the time it would take on Mars cannot assuage her despair. For Galileo Academy will take Polly Newton to the once place she has never wanted to go.
Earth
I don’t suppose that it is possible that anyone is unaware of what is happening later this week, but in the event that you were, until just this moment, stranded on a desert island with a volleyball for a companion, this should get you up to speed:
Yes folks, it is true. We are finally going to be able to return to that galaxy far, far away to a time period that is achingly close to the one we all love: that of the original Star Wars trilogy. Rogue One starts this week, and I for one am very excited.
I know that must come as quite a shock.
The fire of that excitement was stoked over the weekend as I partook of the Rogue One prequel novel, Catalyst, by author James Luceno. If the trailer has you curious about the story of the two dudes facing off in the field and what they have to do with the construction of “the ultimate power in the universe”, then it is well worth making time over the next few days to read Catalyst.
Continue reading Star Wars Catalyst: A Rogue One Novel ~James Luceno