The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

Anchor, 1998, 311 pages 

Original Copyright 1985

ISBN: 9780385490818

Read: September 2025, age 47

 

Beautiful, haunting, terrifying, and boring as all get-out.  It was a good book to have read, but doesn't make me want to go find more like it.

 

Rating: 4 

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void - Mary Roach

W.W. Norton & Co., 2011, 334 pages, 

ISBN:  9780393339918 

Read: July 2025, age 47 

 

Very little to do with Mars, but all kinds of interesting tidbits about the space program that I hadn't heard anywhere else, and very well told.  Lots of fun.  I'll keep my eyes open for more from this author.

Rating: 4+ 

Band of Brothers - Steven Ambrose

Simon & Schuster, 2001, 336 pages 

ISBN: 9780743464116 

Read: May 2025, age 47

 

It was an interesting book, with interesting things happening, but filled with names and promotions and wounds to people that I didn't know and didn't care about, who popped into and out of the story all along the way.  

 

I think that the main people who would care about all the individual details were there, and this book didn't really help you know the people or their experiences.  

 

It was okay, and I'm happy that I read it - it was a nice, relatively focused window on the war in Europe from D-Day on, but the narrative was weak.

 

Rating: 3 

Monster Hunter: Siege - Larry Correia

Baen, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-4814-8255-4

Read: February 2025, age 46

 

Monster Hunter International, book 6

 

Fun, violent, generally pretty good for a shoot-em-up thriller.  I prefer this one, having Owen as the POV character, as opposed to the last two.

 

Rating: 4

Hogfather - Terry Pratchett

Harper Torch, 1999, 421 pages

Read: January 2025, age 46 

Discworld, book 20

 

This was yet another fantastically quotable book,  funny, and deeper than it had any right to be.  Prime Pratchett, in other words.  

 

My only real quibble is that in the ebook format, the footnotes were unlinked end-notes, and that didn't work very well for me.  Reading them all at the end just isn't the same.

Rating: 5

Into the Wild - Jack Krakauer

Anchor, 2009, 228 pages

Read: December 2024, age 46

 

Basically a long-form journalism report on the death of a kid who underestimated what it would take to survive on his own in Alaska, it was more compelling than it had any right to be, and I quite enjoyed it. 

 

Rating: 4

Monster Hunter Nemesis - Larry Correia

Baen, 201, 368 pages in the hardcover

ISBN: 978-1-4767-3655-6

Read: August 2024, age 46

 

Monster Hunter International, book 5 

Not my favourite MHI book - Franks is better as a supporting character than carrying the whole book.  It was okay, overall - lots of action, but not as much planning or banter or such.  Lots of plot happened, though.  

Rating: 3

One for the Money - Janet Evanovich

Simon & Schuster, 1999, 320 pages

Original copyright 1994

Read: April 2024, age 46

 

Stephanie Plum, book 1 

 

Really a lot of fun.  I read this after watching the movie, and was surprised at how well the movie adapted the book - they were very much the same, and I had fun with both of them.

 

Rating: 4

Monster Hunter Alpha - Larry Correia

 

Baen, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-4391-3458-0

Read: Winter 2021, age 41

Monster Hunter International, book 3

This was an interesting book, in that the main character for the first two doesn't really appear in this book.  We do get a lot of answers to background questions, and lots of fighting and shooting and monsters being both good and evil.  It was fun.

Rating: 3+

Monster Hunter Vendetta - Larry Correia

 

 

 

Baen, 2010

ISBN: 978-1-4391-3391-0

Read: Summer 2021, age 43 

Book 2 of Monster Hunter International

 

Just as much fun as the first, with every bit as much gun porn and monster shooting.  I don't think that it was a particularly good book, but it was a fun book.

Rating: 3

 

Patricia Briggs - Alpha and Omega

Penguin, 2007, 172 phone pages

ISBN: 9781101413791
Read: June 2020, age 42

Alpha and Omega, book 0.5

A reasonable starting point into a new series, it's unfortunate that it only appears in an anthology.  On the other hand, novellas are cheap from whichever ebook retailer.  It felt a bit hurried, though that's likely just part of the novella format.

It's pretty necessary to start the series here, though - the sequel starts right away and there's no recap.

Rating: 3