“The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins

Excellent, excellent, excellent. I loved this book. It had action, it had romance, and it had a climax- resolution that was reminiscent of Harry Potter (you know the kind that starts in the middle of the book and you cannot put it down until you are though). Yep. just great.

The Hunger Games takes place after the fall of the countries in North America. All that was left was 13 districts and the Capitol of Panem. Panem is reminiscent of the idealist Russian Communist countries that were written about in the 1960s and the Districts, at some point before the book begins, rose up to fight against the Capitol. Each of the Districts were crushed except for District 13 which the Capitol could not put down, so they burned District 13 to the ground. As a reminder of the strength of the Capitol every year one boy and one girl are chosen from each of the districts to fight in an arena until the death. Their will be only one winner.

In this tale we learn about Katniss, one of the contestants of the seventy- third Hunger Games. We learn her background, her motivation, he strategy and the toll that it on her while she is in the arena trying to survive.  As she is in the arena we witness Katniss develop two very strong relationships with two of the other contenders. One is with a young girl name Rue that seems to act as a sudo- sister for Katniss. The next is the other boy from District 12, Peeta. During the development of the relationship with Peeta you cannot help fall in love with him. Peeta is one of the few characters that I have grown so attached to in a book.

Must Read.

One note about the writing: There are many, many sentence fragment. In the beginning of the book I kept having to go back and reread the sentences to make sure that I understood them right. Didn’t have to though, it seems that I understood them exactly as they were written. This is just a warning; or really more of a heads up. If you read it just be aware, but I guarantee that you will be used to it by the first quarter of the book. 

“Dracula” by Bram Stoker

I am only going to say a few things about this book.

First, I didn’t really know what the book was about, and everything I figured would happen in the book happened in the first four very action packed chapters.

Second, that is the last time you will see action. The rest are doctors and professors notes and journal entries trying to understand what has overcome the dear Miss Lucy, and then later what had to be done to prevent the spread onto other people. This comes into importance later when Mrs. Harker also begins to show the same symptoms.

Third, they really could have named the book Van Helsing and everything would have been okay. Van Helsing is the one the figures everything out, explains the phenomenon that is occurring, and devises the plan to kill Dracula. Dracula is in the book but a fragment of the time compared to Van Helsing.

And that is it. It’s a classic. If your interested in reading it do it, but I’m not going to put an all out recommendation for everyone to read, because yea; it was kind of difficult, and not much fun. 

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson

My sister works at Barns and Noble and finally I asked her about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was a book that everyone seemed to be talking about but no one was staying anything. When I asked my sister all she said was that everyone who reads it likes it, there is a lot of Swedish words in it, and you have to make it though the first hundred pages before you are hooked. Then I asked her what it’s about and she finally admitted that she didn’t know.

Well everything that she said was true. A lot of Swedish and the first 100 pages are crucial but once you get through it, instant favorite. Luckily I have had the privilege to spend a significant amount of time in Sweden and so I was fairly familiar with pronunciations and locations but at times it was still difficult for me.

The story is about a rogue background researchers/ security/ private investigator, named Lisbeth, who meets up with a reporter who is working on a private investigation into a missing family member of a Swedish corporate mogul. The duo ends up uncovering the truth about a series of sadistic murders that happened to young women over the last sixty years. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo takes a very deep look into the personal lives of both Lisbeth and Bloomkvest and uncovers the interesting tales behind their family life, values, finances and romances.

I absolutely loved this story and I am looking forward to reading The Girl who Played with Fire.

Must read. 

“The Minority Report” by Philip K Dick

The Minority Report I loved. So I am an inconsistent fan of Philip K Dick. I really did not enjoy the last read A Scanner Darkly but Minority Report was an amazing short story and went deep into the philosophical quandary of pre-crime and the existence of a minority report if pre-cogs did exist. It was very good, and I must admit that I was a fan of the movie. This short story went into a deeper than the movie into the concepts outlined in the movie. The short story was roughly 50 pages long action packed and wonderful. I loved this short story. Must read for every. It will at least offer food for thought for everyone reading. 

“A Scanner Darkly” by Philip K Dick

Okay, so I have been a bit behind on writing about the books that I have been reading. Normally I do my summary and opinions right away to help reinforce the book into my memory bank. I have been pretty busy the last couple of months so I have been failing on this task, but I have still managed to read a couple of things. I will go ahead and write about them now and hope that my memory serves me correctly.

A Scanner Darkly is a book that I have been trying to read for years. After reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I was convinced that I was going to be a complete Philip K Dick fan. This book however was not one of my favorites. It took me forever to get through and the ending disappointed me. It was kind of difficult for me to follow and then the big ending where all is revealed, didn’t happen because I was still trying to piece together what was happening for the character to get to this point.

A Scanner Darkly is about a cop that has become addicted to Substance D. His department begins to do an investigation on him concerning the drug and at the same time he is assigned a task to investigate a mystery person in the Substance D world. We find out early on that he is this person, but his department does not do. In this book we watch the mental deterioration as Substance D literally rips his brain into two. Amazing concept; but I failed to understand it in its entirety. 

"The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories" by Tim Burton

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories is a short poetry book by Tim Burton. I am mostly a fan of Burton's sketch-work which is why I bought this book. This was an interesting poetry book that featured unusual tales of the most socially awkward people that could be imagined. The poetry itself was simple and I am not to sure how any other author would be able to pull it off. Burton has already made a name for himself as an artist that tends to pick the strangest of characters and tries to make the audience sympathize or if at possible empathize with the characters plight. Because of this already established nature and fan base of Burton's work, it made it a lot easier to like the work. However, if this was written by any other artist, I am not to sure that the book would have even made it past the publisher and onto bookshelves.

The other thing that I noticed about the book was that Burton tended to only write about the plight of children (with only a few exceptions). I am by no means a psychologist, but I do find it fun to speculate, and so if I were to guess I would have to say that Burton seemed to be dealing with some childhood angst of being labeled as an outcast, or he seems to strongly empathize with some one of those sorts. Also, the few times that there were parents involved, there was a strong indication of the child being unwanted, unloved, and a complete strain on the marriage. Best illustrated with the title story "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy" as he was a awkward child that the parents did not want, which in turned lead to a strain on their marriage, which in turn negativity impacted their sex life, then ended with the murder of their child to fix all problems.

Overall interesting book, sketches are awesome, like the addition it makes to my bookshelf.

“Crispin: The Cross of Lead” by AVI

This was a very interesting children’s book that takes place in 14^th century England. This story is about a 13 year old boy (who initially is only known as the Son of Asta) who is forced out of the life that he knows after the death of his mother. The steward of the town puts a bounty on his head and the Son of Asta is forced to leave the town suddenly in order to survive (but not before learning that he was christened with the name of Crispin) . After he is forced to leave the town he knows, he meets a very intimidating charters known as Bear. Bear initially takes the boy as a servant and then later brings him on as an apprentice and freely begins to love him like a son.

Along the journey with Bear, Crispin begins to ask question about why he was shunned, why the steward declared him a world’s head, why his mother told him so little about her past and his father’s past. Crispin and Bear are forced to make several narrow escapes from the steward to finally learn the truth why the steward wants him dead.

Along his journey the book explores the struggling class system, the powers of the government and the people’s need for a revolution. This was an incredibly well written and very interesting book. I found the historical pieces of it to be quite astounding. The take touched upon many different aspects of the 14^th century feudal system. This was a very good use of interacting how people could have during this time. If I were a teacher teaching this subject matter I would definitely have my class read this book and have them make comparisons with the in class text.