The Akamai Reader

Throwback Thursday (19) November 8, 2012

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Title: Dragonflight

Author: Anne McCaffery

Original Publication Date: 1968

Available at: Amazon – Kindle – Barnes and Noble

From Goodreads:

HOW CAN ONE GIRL SAVE AN ENTIRE WORLD?

To the nobles who live in Benden Weyr, Lessa is nothing but a ragged kitchen girl. For most of her life she has survived by serving those who betrayed her father and took over his lands. Now the time has come for Lessa to shed her disguise—and take back her stolen birthright.

But everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa’s world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them left these days. Now brave Lessa must risk her life, and the life of her beloved dragon, to save her beautiful world. . . .

Dragonflight is the first book in Anne McCaffery’s epic Pern series which spanned decades. It was one of the first fantasy books I read with a female protagonist. I didn’t have much experience with them so I didn’t think much of the faults that I would later reflect on when I reread it, which I did earlier this year. You can read my review here.

What I didn’t like about the book was the misogynistic roles the women had, but what I probably should take into account when I read this book is when this book was written. Feminism was a radical extremist group in 1968 and McCaffery may not have wanted to turn readers away. I can’t say for sure what her motives were but women’s rights weren’t a given. It was a relatively new thing.

Taking all that into consideration this is a very good book. It has dragons with a symbiotic relationship with humans. They are the  saviors of the planet! How much sweeter could it get? And Lessa? She ends up saving them all. So she does end up with much more power then she originally had. I think it’s McCaffery’s sneaky way of giving women their due.

When I read this in January I hadn’t reflected on all this to this extent. If I had I would have given it a much higher rating. I might have to go back and edit my review!

Throwback Thursday (17) October 25, 2012

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Title: Coyote Blue

Author: Christopher Moore

Original Publication Date: January 1, 1993

Available at: Amazon – Kindle – Barnes and Noble

From Goodreads:

As a boy growing up in Montana, he was Samson Hunts Alone — until a deadly misunderstanding with the law forced him to flee the Crow reservation at age fifteen. Today he is Samuel Hunter, a successful Santa Barbara insurance salesman with a Mercedes, a condo, and a hollow, invented life. Then one day, shortly after his thirty-fifth birthday, destiny offers him the dangerous gift of love — in the exquisite form of Calliope Kincaid — and a curse in the unheralded appearance of an ancient Indian god by the name of Coyote. Coyote, the trickster, has arrived to transform tranquillity into chaos, to reawaken the mystical storyteller within Sam … and to seriously screw up his existence in the process.

This was the first book I read by Christopher Moore and I loved it. Christopher Moore is one of the funniest authors I’ve ever read. I need to reread the book to get a sense of it again because I last read it in 2008 but Coyote was one of the best characters ever. Ever since then, whenever I’ve come across a book with a Coyote character I’ve tried to read it.

It’s because of this book that I was turned onto the world that is Christopher Moore. I usually save his books until I’m feeling pretty down. His books will lift me out of a funk and cheer me up. His writing helps me gain perspective. Needless to say, I’m a huge Christopher Moore fan.

Throwback Thursday (14) October 4, 2012

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

Here’s how it works:
1. Pick any book released more than 5 years ago. Adult, YA, Children’s; doesn’t matter. Any great book will do.
2. Write up a short summary of the book (include the title, author, and cover art) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
3. Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
4. Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list!

Title: After Dark

Author: Haruki Murakami

Original Publish Date: January 1, 2000

Available at: Amazon – Kindle – Barnes and Noble

From Goodreads:

A short, sleek novel of encounters set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami’s masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore.

At its center are two sisters—Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s toward people whose lives are radically alien to her own: a jazz trombonist who claims they’ve met before, a burly female “love hotel” manager and her maid staff, and a Chinese prostitute savagely brutalized by a businessman. These “night people” are haunted by secrets and needs that draw them together more powerfully than the differing circumstances that might keep them apart, and it soon becomes clear that Eri’s slumber—mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime—will either restore or annihilate her.

After Dark moves from mesmerizing drama to metaphysical speculation, interweaving time and space as well as memory and perspective into a seamless exploration of human agency—the interplay between self-expression and empathy, between the power of observation and the scope of compassion and love. Murakami’s trademark humor, psychological insight, and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery.

After Dark was my introduction to Murakami’s writing and I instantly fell in love with him. His writing is not only mesmerizing and entrancing, it’s vivid and mysterious. His character hold a mystique to them and Mari had an ethereal quality that I loved. Once I finished this book I was hooked on Murakami. I would go on a binge reading fest reading only his books for quite some time. He also introduced me to the wonderful world that is Japanese writing. I would eventually slow down but I still have a soft spot for his prose and for this book.