Five books I’ve read (or listened to) recently

I see it’s been almost a month since my last post. Shameful. What’s wrong with me? Anyway, a lot has happened in the past few weeks. For starters, here are the five books I’ve read or listened to on audiobooks. All simply mah–velous.

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon. The third and currently last book in the Peter and the Starcatchers series. I love these books. Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson have exactly the right mix of humor, humanity and classic fast-paced adventure. I’d read a hundred of these if there were that many.

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Ender’s Game may be my favorite novel ever. So when this book was released — a direct sequel to Ender’s Game, unlike Speaker for the Dead, which is also a sequel but occurs much later in the life of the main character — I was ecstatic. It’s wonderful. Card captures better than any other living author of whom I am aware what it means to belong to a family or how it feels to be utterly alone without one. Also, if you’ve ever wondered what soldiers returning from war feel like, read this book. Amazing. I pray Card plans to write a direct sequel to this one.

The Hound of the Baskervilles. I had never read any Sherlock Holmes adventures before, but now I’m hooked. I can see how Holmes has greatly influenced modern mystery writers as well as Scooby Doo, although the bad guy at the end of this short novel does not say, “And I would have gotten away with it too if not for you pesky kids!”

The Hard Way ( a Jack Reacher novel). A few months ago someone posted on my blog and encouraged me to read Lee Child’s Jack Reacher’s novels. Bless you bless you whoever you are. Reacher is the tough guy I’ve always wanted to be. Hard Way has a simple premise, but in Jack Reacher’s world nothing is never as easy as it might first appear. My only complaint about the audiobook was the reader, who adopted a strained voice for one character that was impossible to understand. Fortunately the character doesn’t have too many scenes, but whenever he did I wanted to reach through my iPod and shake the reader senseless. Hey, pal. You’re a reader. If I can’t understand you, you’re not reading; you’re making noise.

Nevertheless, The Hard Way is a Jack Reacher winner. I don’t expect to tire of this guy any time soon.

Echo Park. This is my first Michael Connelly book. After listening to the audiobook of this one, I encouraged Lauren to check him out. She’s since read four of his novels and enjoyed them all. Connelly’s reoccuring character Harry Bosch is an older, wiser LA detective who strives to be a “true detective,” one who is meticulously thorough and shows true compassion to the victims of the crimes he investigates. This near obsessive behavior however can drive Bosch to bend the rules of police procedure a bit in ways that aren’t always ethical. It’s a great character. And I’m looking forward to reading more of Bosch’s adventures.