Books I've enjoyed lately.

[arib]

This isn't something I do very often, but I wanted to share some really good books I've read lately.

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow- http://tinyurl.com/56ebzz
In my opinion, this is Cory's strongest writing to date. Teenaged hacker kids fall afoul of the DHS, and use technology and their wits to bring the Bill of Rights back to San Francisco.

At times, the book becomes a political manifesto, but is so enjoyable to read, I honestly didn't mind, even when I disagreed with parts of it. The book is also full of real-world technology that can be used by anyone for hacktivism (eg- using a TOR service for anonymous web browsing, e-mail encryption/decryption, using a faraday cage wallet to shield RFID chips). If you buy Little Brother in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, be advised that it's located in the Young Adult section.

The Sinestro Corps War, Vol. 1 http://tinyurl.com/5baog6

The best Green Lantern story I've read, ever. As far as I'm concerned, Geoff Johns could write the Metropolis phonebook, and I'd read every page. Sinestro, the yellow-ring-wearing facist of GL lore is back, and he's brought an entire corps of yellow-ringed baddies with him. The scale is epic, and is a lead-in to a fantastic story that's still in progress. Ethan Van Sciver's art is wonderful, and he does a great job making each Lantern's use of their rings look unique. Part 2 and a volume of additional SCW stories are both due in July, or wait until the softcover editions come out, probably before the winter holiday shopping season.

Thud!, by Terry Pratchett- http://tinyurl.com/5bkaec

Where's my satirical comedic fantasy novel by one of my favorite authors? Is that my satirical comedic fantasy novel by one of my favorite authors? It goes "HARUUUGH!" That is a hippopotamus, it is not my satirical comedic fantasy novel by one of my favorite authors.

Seriously, go read. I also read and enjoyed Pratchett's Making Money, which is a direct sequel to Going Postal. Nobody's sure how many more books Terry's got in him, so I'm loving them to bits while I can. Thud! also introduces "Where's My Cow?" which was made into it's own book recently, too.
As much as Pratchett's Discworld books can each be read as stand-alone, reading them all (or makes each book more enjoyable.

I'm about to start The Accidental Time Machine, by Joe Haldeman.

What are you reading?

Comments

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Just finished Bujold's Passage (The Sharing Knife, Book 3). As you might expect from the title, it was largely a travelogue but I enjoyed it none the less. Set in a world where Bujold has said there is not a big bad to be defeated but rather conditions to be endured. Don't read this book if you want to see things come to final conclusions. The book is about the journey, and specifically the things we never even knew to look for that we find along the way.

Other than that scads of re-reading. I also got a copy of Rabbi Marc Angel's The Search Committee: A Novel. I may start reading it over Shabbat.

[arib.livejournal.com]

Rabbi Angel wrote a novel? That's awesome.

His son was one of my favorite professors at YU.