swingbeat 5/26: The Scar by China Mieville

This is the second book I've read by China Mieville, after Perdido Street Station.

I liked this one even better than his previous work. The world was well-crafted, and this time the story gripped me from the very beginning. BTW this book exists on its own; you don't need to have read Perdido Street Station to understand this.

Mieville takes the reader from one refugee of the city of New Crobuzon, out to a floating city on the sea, on an epic, hubristic quest. Once you think you know what the ultimate goal of the city is, in pops a new wrinkle. But in the end, Mieville sums it up nicely.

I can't really say much more without revealing too much. Suffice it to say that I've already started reading his next book :). Recommended.

swingbeat 4/26: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

Ah, this is the book!

Bridget recommended this book a while back to me, and I finally got around to picking it up. It's good, but for me, it took a while to grab my attention. There were weeks where I put it down and just didn't pick it up. I eventually was forced to read it on an airplane flight recently, and once I got past the 1/3 mark, it got much better.

From the beginning, Mieville's writing was excellent. He is eloquent and he weaves the fantastical city of New Crobuzon, resplendent in its own history and presence. If anything, that's what kept my head in the book - even though the plot seemed to jumble around finding a direction for the first third of the book.

If you like Neil Gaiman, you should pick up this book. I won't ruin it by telling you the story. As for me, I'm going to go find some other Mieville books to read! Recommended :).

swingbeat 3/26: Bad Twin by Gary Troup

This book has ties in with the Lost TV show. The author, Gary Troup, boarded Oceanic Flight 815, and was the book that Sawyer was reading on the TV show (and Jack burned the last few pages of).

The author is obviously not Gary Troup, but some ghost author (can't find his name right now). All in all, this was just a detective story, and it kind of mentions the Hanso Foundation in a tangential way. The publishers/marketers were just trying to add to the Lost Experience, but I would have been more interested in a book about Lost itself than this story. The writing was not bad, and the plotline was mediocre and somewhat predictable. Not Recommended.

swingbeat 2/26: The God Who Changes Lives Edited by Mark Elsdon-Dew

(where is everyone!??)

This is a book that is associated with the Alpha course, a Christianity 101 course given by my church. Anyway, this book is a collection of testimonies by people who went through the Alpha course, and they talk about how the course has affected their lives. The first couple of stories were inspiring but then the rest got kind of old. I personally coudln't relate to many of the people. Most of the stories were about people who were drug addicts or some other destructive behavior.

Only one of the people in this 12 story was someone I could kind of relate to - someone who was consumed more with materialism and the world than drugs or alcohol. Anyway, I felt this book was directed at a different audience than just me, and (I think) few of the readers on this blog, so I'm going to give it a "Not Recommended". It's nice light reading though.

ewee (8/26): The Harmony Silk Factory, by Tash Aw

This book was a gift from Shiny-eye, who thought the book would be the kinda thing that I'd like...something that might suck me in, and I might have difficulty putting down.

All-in-all Tash Aw's first book is almost those things. It's a good read and is engaging enough. It paints enough of the colliding forces of communism, British colonialism, Japanese invasion, Malaysian culture to keep the pages turning. But it's not quite unputdownable. Instead, it's the ideal commute companion. Whether it's 30-60 minutes of company along a pleasant ferry ride, or a welcome escape from an uncomfortably overfull BART ride, it was the perfect accompaniment to beer or coffee (on the ferry), or a thankful escape from sweat and all-over body contact (on BART).

If I make it to KL this January, I'll let you know if any of the book resonates with me on my travels. (Not likely, as the bulk of the story -- and some of its most engaging parts -- deals with the jungle and countryside in Malaysia.)

Overall, the book is a pleasant read with interesting narrative structure. Three very disparate narrators, whose stories (mostly) combine to make some point about the mallablility of truth, identity, self. Read my copy, or check it out at the library, I don't think you'll need to buy your own.

[And hey, kw! -- *No pictures!* pbbbbth!]