I absolutely adore this story. In the fine tradition of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte (though she may have antedated Bronte), Gaskell knows how to write her romance. I don't know what it is about the 19th Century novel, but it seems to have given birth to my favorite novels. THis is no exception. It's a crime that Gaskell is not better known.

This was one of the best books I have read so far this year. Luhrmann is a brilliant anthropologist, a keen and kind observer of people and an elegant writer. I enjoyed not only the content of the book, but also the experience of reading it. It's rare that I have trouble putting down a non-fiction book in order to go to sleep, but both the writing and the research was so fascinating, I had to press on.
As someone who is neither Christian nor skeptical about God's existence, the book was not quite directed at me, but that sense of reading as an outsider just added to my enjoyment and gave me a sense of how this research might apply beyond the bounds of Christianity.
I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good, non-fiction read.

This book was a solid, decent good-kind-of meh. It wasn't as interesting as "The Keep", the other book of hers I had read, but it was certainly a perfectly acceptable book and I enjoyed reading it. I thought the storytelling style was interesting, and though I found some of the extrapolated future bits to be bizarre, they were probably my favorite parts of the book.
I enjoyed it, I read it in less than a day and I didn't feel as though it was a complete waste of my time. Still, I kinda wish I had something more positive to say about it.

This book is a bit hard to speak about - I went into it knowing it was the sort of thing I was going to dislike even as I liked it.
So first the story - in terms of narrative voice, which is the best part, Yu does a great job capturing his character (or possibly himself) and the wonderful absurdity of the background is exceptionally fun to wander around in. The story itself is nearly absent, shunted aside in favor of watching Yu play with language.
My biggest problem with it is that it's either a postmodern exploration of self masquerading as a scifi novel or the reverse. It SHOULD be a marriage of the two, but it just fails to bring them together. If anything, I think Yu was trying a bit too hard to make sure he had, in fact, written something literary and the book suffered especially in the beginning as he swung between the voice of more traditional genre and the conventions of pomo fiction. He did get his stride later in the book, though.
It was good, I'm glad I read it, but sometimes I wonder if this book could have been so much more.

I enjoyed Sharot's glimpse into the workings of the optimistic mind, though I might have preferred a bit more information about the experiments. The data felt a bit scarce in places.
The writing, overall, was excellent, and that which she did provide was fascinating and provocative. This was definitely a fun (pop) science read.

I hadn't originally been planning on reading Feed - despite several friends having liked it, it was zombie horror stuff and not my usual fare and I had other books waving "pick me, pick me!" from the shelves. And then it was up for the Hugo, at which point it moved into the category of "ooh, well written zombie horror stuff" and was suddenly on my to-read list.
It jumped up when it happened to be the only book in my hometown library on that list and I needed something to read over the weekend.

It was brilliant. It was also not horror, at least, not in the way I think about horror. I was certainly horrified at some of the occurrences, but it's not horror unless it's the monsters that scare you. Feed isn't about what the zombies can do to you. It's about what the people can. It's a book about liberty and safety and what it means to be free and tell the truth. It's an allegory of post-9/11 America and what we, as a people, have lost and are losing when we submit to fear mongering (our own humanity, perhaps?).
It is also a very good story. If it were merely a metaphor (and I have this theory...okay, rant, that the zombie and the vampire are always metaphors. However, in the hands of a talented author, they are both metaphor and reified figure), then I probably would have agreed with it, but would not have enjoyed it half as much as I did. She blends fast-paced and well thought out (if a bit predictable at times) storytelling with a powerful, though not overpowering message. Her tone is a bit young and amateurish, which perfectly reflects the twenty-something blogger in whose voice the story is told. It was un-put-downable (except when I had to put it down and go to two weddings) and well-crafted and I loved it. I am rarely this pleased to be wrong.

Greg Bear is on my list of hard SF writers who I will pick up without reservation. His books are thoughtful, interesting and tend towards the somewhat philosophical. This book is no different and, while I enjoyed reading once I finally got past the rather twisty beginning, it was not my favorite work of his. What he did, as a writer, was stylistically interesting, but the actually story grounding the book just didn't have enough of a hold on me for me to truly love it.

To begin, Atkinson is a brilliant writer and I love her style of mystery-writing. "Started Early" is no exception, as it features the return of Jackson Brodie, her protagonist, as well as the numerous incredibly drawn characters that populate an Atkinson novel. She writers with a wonderful knowledge of how people think and the way in which all her characters are realized on the page leaves me in awe.
The mystery is, of course, nothing to sneeze at and her pacing is excellent - she leaves the right number of clues, lets us follow along and guess, but makes sure there are enough surprises in there to prevent boredom,
All in all, Atkinson is yet another excellent example of why those who dismiss certain contemporary fiction because it is nominally genre are missing out on some of the best writers we have.