Off the Bookshelf: A Memory of Light, The Bowl of Heaven, The Way of Kings

Two warriors face off on a vast plateau. In the background there is a vast skyscape, the left side filled with a storm cloud, the right with a sunset.

It’s spring and I’ve been trying to get back in shape in anticipation of three months spent coaching my daughter’s softball team. This in turn has led to a resurgence of book reading as I download new audio books to listen to while working out at the gym or taking the dog for 45-minute walks.

Summer Reading List 2012

A spaceship descends through a planet's atmosphere.

Summer’s come and gone and so has my annual summer reading list. I blogged about the “prelist” back in the spring, but never got around to posting a formal list to Nuketown even though I put one together on GoodReads. Here is is, complete with status: 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson Caliban’s War by James … Read more

Summer Reading Prelist 2012

I recently went shopping for some new ebooks for my iPad, and decided to look up a few of my favorite authors. Surely, I thought, David Brin must have a new book out by now. And it’s been a while since I checked up on John Scalzi. In every case I found that my favorite … Read more

Off the Bookshelf: Hull Zero Three, Reamde, New Space Opera 2

With the holidays long over and the major work rush of January and early February completed, I’ve had a chance to dive back into fiction. As has been the case for the last few years, science fiction dominates my reading list, but historical fiction and thrillers keep sneaking in. Hull Zero Three Greg Bear’s Hull … Read more

Off the Bookshelf: Altered Carbon, The January Dancer, Dreadnaught, In Death Ground

 DreadnaughtI’ve been able to make a serious dent in my summer reading list over the last few months, knocking out four books in two months.

Given how busy work has been, that’s not to bad. Of course, it helps that I was on vacation for 10 days, which allowed me to knock out two of the books (Dreadnaught, In Death Ground) and most of a third (The Shiva Option, the sequel to In Death Ground).

The 8-hour road trip to get our vacation spot also allowed me to make a serious dent in the audio version of The Letter of Marque by Patrick O’Brian, one of his Aubrey/Maturin novels about naval warfare in the early 1800s.

Summer Reading List 2011

Summer 2011 is well underway, and so is my summer reading list. While some summers I know exactly what I’m reading in the spring, this summer I stumbled into my reading list. Work’s been crazy busy (leading to June’s deficient of posts at Nuketown) but even with a high workload my brain demands an escape to my summer reading list.

I’ve divided my reading list into two parts: The Summer List and the Island List. The Summer List consists of books I’ll be reading throughout the summer, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The Island List is a subset of books that I’ll be taking to Butler Island on Lake Champlain with me for my much-needed, oft-dreamed of summer vacation.

You can follow my progress through my Summer Reading list on GoodReads, the social networking site for bookworms.

Off the Bookshelf: Evolutionary Void, Realms of Cthulhu, iPad Book Readers

After a long hiatus because of too much to do at work, I’ve finally gotten back to reading fiction … because of work. Specifically because of the iPad I’m trying out at my day job. I work at a college, and we’re piloting the iPad to see how tablets might be integrated into the academic … Read more

Off the Bookshelf: Century Rain, Reversing the Anthology, Temporal Void

I finally finished New Moon by Stephanie Meyers, and I have to say the vampire/werewolf/teenager love triangle left me cold. The main character, Bella, is whiny and unsympathetic, and she’s exactly the sort of emotional heatsink that I’ll be telling my son to avoid in ten years or so.

Finishing the book allowed me to move on to my proper summer reading list, starting with Century Rain and The Space Opera Renaissance. While both books were already on my bookshelf, I did still find myself buying another book for the list: Peter Hamilton’s The Dreaming Void.