Book List #2
What I read in February
A combination of ebooks and audiobooks, mostly for entertainment. I’m trying very hard to not doom scroll social media, and books are taking the place of that habit for me. I’m also trying to not give so much of my money to the corporate broligarchs, so most of these are checked out from the library, but I’ve provided links in case you do want to buy any of them. (I do get a small commission when you by from my links, and I very much appreciate your support.)
Here’s my February book list:
Ready Player 2. Loved it. I found it funny that the review weren’t great when this book first came out, so it took me several years to get around to it, but I found it just as good as the first. I did this one as an audiobook, as I already had it in my library because one of my teens wanted it a while back. And I’m a sucker for any book read by Wil Wheaton. All of the gen-x and 80’s references hit me right where I live, and I thought the story was just as engaging as the first time around and maybe even a bit deeper character development.
We are Legion (We are Bob Series). Actually I read the whole series, so this counts as 5 books. These were fun, mostly lighthearted, different twist on some familiar and some new sci-fi themes. Sentient AI whose consciousness used to be a real person, who then creates dozens, and then hundreds of replicants of himself who all become unique characters. I think this could make a very fun show or movie, with the same actor playing all the characters.
Foundation. As much of a science fiction fan as I claim to be, I’d never read this. But after watching the streaming series I wanted to get into the original story. To say that the series is inspired by the books is maybe even an overstatement. Some of the character names are the same, and it starts out somewhat similar, but aside from that original inspiration the streaming series went off in such a different direction that this was almost like reading a totally different story.
The Belt series - 6 books here - all fairly quick and easy reads. Kind of a typical sci-fi with space travel and adventure. Not very deep as far as characters go but fast paced adventure and a fun distraction from the world. I read his Colony Mars series last year and enjoyed it a lot.
Moonbase Delta series - 3 books. Same author as above. A solar storm cuts off moon colonies from earth and all the typical human conflict you would expect ensues. Same as his others, nothing too deep, good fun adventure and suspense, and some fun hard science fiction to get you thinking about what’s possible.
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone - super fun. A sort of tongue in cheek comedy mystery, the description said it was a bit like Knives Out or Glass Onion and I concur. The humor is poking fun at the typical mystery novel and mystery writers and there’s a good amount of “breaking the fourth wall” type of dialogue. Not sure what you call that when it’s in a book - but sort of asides where the author is talking to the reader about his editor and things like that. Good fun.
Braiding Sweetgrass. oh my heart. This book is so good. I had read great review of it and had bought the paper back a while ago and hadn’t gotten to it yet. And then I read that listening to the audiobook was an experience not to be missed and I couldn’t agree more. The book is read by the author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and to listen to her tell her own story makes it so much more meaningful. You can hear the smile in her voice when she’s reading a particularly wonderful part about her kids or her childhood, and you can hear her sadness when she is telling a story of our her ancestors were wronged. I’m very much looking forward to listening to her latest book, The Serviceberry.
That’s it for February. It doesn’t look like a long list but it’s actually 18 books when you count the individual titles in each series that I lumped together.