This page documents the books that I am reading and any comments that I may have about them.  My current book is marked as "In Progress".   Often I read more than one book at a time, so you may see several marked as in progress.  The books shown as "Not Started" are those that are on my list to read, in the order that I anticipate getting to them in.

Clicking on any book title allows you to purchase that book at Amazon.com

Warning:  Comments may contain plot spoilers for each book!  Red highlighting at the beginning of my comments indicates spoilers for the specified book.

While the science gets complex at times, the book itself is quite readable and informative.

Anyway, the story, while good, was a bit overdone.  How many meteorite-in-the-Artic books do we need?   The Ice Limit came to mind while I was reading this one, as did another similar story which has slipped my mind for the moment.  The basic idea has been overdone.

Also, things were just a little too easy in this book too many times.  When the Republican's assistant needs to break into her boss's computer, the line was basically "good thing we had that discussion about his password last week, where I managed to sit down and guess it in 5 seconds."   Stuff like this happened just a little too often for me.

I also felt like the writing was a little amateurish at times, particularly when one sentence paragraphs like "And then it happened" peppered each chapter.  This is grade-school suspense at it's finest, and I expected a bit more from Brown than this kind of writing.

Personally, I don't agree with Brown's conclusions.  I do believe the real-life Sion is hiding something; that's obvious, but I'm guessing the Grail story is just misdirection. 

I felt like for the first 200 pages I kept thinking "how much more of this are we going to go through before Christ appears?!?"   When He finally does appear, it is pretty much how I expected it to go.

After this, it's on to Volume 3, which is basically Tolkien's two longest poems about the Elder Days.

This is going to be quite a hard series to read, largely because much of it will be repetitive or will deal with obscure poetry and writings.  However, I intend to make it through all twelve volumes before about mid-2006.   I think as I get into the middle volumes in the series, the history of The Lord of the Rings, the writing will get a bit more easy to follow, and possibly a bit more interesting.

Although I am coming to love The Silmarillion, it took me many years to get to where I could really even follow it.  Reading the early writings that became the background for The Silmarillion is really like starting all over again.

I read 40 books in 2003.  That's up about five or six books from the previous year.  Looking back, I guess I read some really fantastic stuff this year, and some books that I doubt I'll ever pick up again.  2003 saw the long awaited fifth installment in Stephen King's Dark Tower series finally appear.  After holding on to the book for many years, I at last read Hemingway's True at First Light.  I discovered Homer Hickam and read Pat Conroy's newest entry.  John Eldredge's Wild at Heart will remain in my top ten list of all time for many years to come. 

I can't say that it was hard to choose the two winning books for this year.  And I'm really not sure my choices are 100% correct, but, for what it's worth, here they are:

Having said that, I did like this book.  I read it quite quickly, but it wasn't enough to keep me up late at night just having to read one more chapter.

One of the things I've always liked about this book is that a lot of it take place in my home state of North Carolina.  The "far blue mountains" that the title refers to are most likely the Blue Ridge Mountains

The Sackett series ended up having about 18 or 19 books in it.  L'Amour's goal was to trace a fictional family from England to America to the west, and possibly into the present day.  He didn't make it all the way through before he died, but the resultant series of books is really worth reading.

I really enjoyed the book, and it didn't go quite where I expected it to.  My disappointments with it were largely based on the fact that some things seemed just to be too convenient.  A little too easy... John Grisham like.  Still, it was a good book, and I'll anxiously await Hickam's next release. 

A few items from previous books are wrapped up here.  We learn how Cuthbert died, and why Roland and Cuthbert turned their guns on Alain.  I was really pleased to learn that Alain's death was a mistake.  I hated the thought that he had turned traitor, which is how it sounded in Book 4.  Having Black Thirteen show up was fantastic.  I loved how Callahan said it... I got chills when he said something like "God help me, I have Black Thirteen in the church basement."   In fact, I got chills just typing it then. 

I waited in silence for several years, wondering with each new King book what in the world this Dark Tower thing was.  Then, finally, The Gunslinger was released to the masses.  It turned out that a limited edition had been published years before, and had been largely overlooked.  Now, for the first time, we were able to enter the universe of Roland of Gilead, gunslinger, knight, and his search for the Dark Tower in a world that had "moved on"... that is to say, had emptied.

But disappointment soon followed as word of a second book never appeared.  I remember the day that it finally did show up on the shelves.  I remember picking up my copy and rejoicing at the chance to rejoin Roland on his quest with book two, The Drawing of the Three. 

While an excellent book in itself, things really heated up a few years later when book three, The Waste Lands, appeared.  It looked like we were finally getting somewhere. The Tower, to quote King, was closer.   The Waste Lands ended in an agonizing cliff hanger, and I had high hopes for a fast appearance of book four.  I got instead an eight year period of silence.  Every single book published by King began to reference the Tower, the Beams, even Roland himself.  But where... where was book four??  Word was out from the publisher that we could pre-purchase a copy, which I immediately did, but still, the silence continued.

One afternoon, I opened my mailbox to find a package with a return address from Donald Grant, Publisher.  Here, at last, was book four, Wizard and Glass.  I showed it to my roommate.  Eight years, I told him.  Eight long years waiting for this book.  MY world had moved on by then.  I'd started and finished college in that time.   I was gainfully employed.  Would I still be able to lose myself in Roland's world?

I could.  Wizard and Glass was easily the best book in the series.  Turning back to Roland's past, we discovered things to help us understand how he became the emotionless machine that he seems to be in the present.   King promised to finish the story in the not too distant future, telling us to expect three more books.

And then the unthinkable, the thing I had feared, the thing I dreaded, happened.  While walking along a road near his house, King was struck by a van, and was almost killed.  It was touchy at first, and I thought that Roland's story would die in a hospital bed along with King. 

King made it, and the Dark Tower stories have all been written now.  Book five is due out later this year, followed closely by six and seven.  What I just finished reading today was Book 1, revised and expanded.  30 years after writing the first book, King went back and fined tuned it, bringing it in line with later decisions he made in the course of the series.  I highly recommend it, changes and all.

With one book to go, I had assumed that the Glorious Appearing would be the climax of the twelfth book, but it looks like it could happen right at the beginning.  Either way, it's going to be interesting.  

My favorite story was one called The Shoddy Lands, in which the protagonist takes a journey into a world where only certain things appear real, while everything else seems like a bad shadow.  I was surprised and delighted with the ending, when we find out what the "shoddy lands" really are.

And now, here it is only February, and I already have a leading candidate for my "book of the year" award.  Man, what a great book this was.  It's written really well, and it tells the fascinating story of a group of young kids in West Virginia in the 50's as they learn to build and launch their own rockets.  

One thing I was pleased to see in this book was the correction of an omission that I pointed out to Mr. White in his last book.  In "Shark River," Ford's name is given as Marion W. Ford.  I brought this to Mr. White's attention via email, and he responded that I was correct, a line had been inadvertantly left out that explained that the "W" was a special NSA designation.  Late in Twelve Mile Limit, we are given a brief mention of the "W" initial.