50 books (#5-7) plus meme

5. Thud by Terry Pratchett. I used to love Terry Pratchett. After discovering Douglas Adams when I was in grade 8, the librarian suggested the Discworld books. I was dubious at first, but I ended up loving them. I was a huge fan for a while. I own maybe 15 of the books, many of them signed and I was on an active mailing list for years. The first couple of books in the series are pretty crap parodies of science fiction/fantasy standards, but the next few were funny (although I haven't reread them in years so I may end up cringeing at my poor taste if I ever do). I think the last one I remember actually laughing at was Carpe Jugulum (9 books ago, although there was a big dry spell before that, too). Somewhere along the line, the jokes became secondary to the moralising and the development of technology via magic was too heavy handed to be remotely funny. This one was partially a parody of the Da Vinci Code (not a promising start) and also yet another "why can't we all just get along?" anti-war story. I think this has finally cured me of the automatic impulse to borrow the latest in the series. It wasn't actually bad, it just wasn't good.

6. Unless by Carol Shields. This was also not bad, but not particularly engaging, either. It didn't help that about 50 pages in (after finding the quote I mentioned here) I discovered I'd read at least part of the book before. Trying to figure out whether or not I'd read the whole thing, and if so, why I still had no clue about the ending, captured my thoughts more than the actual book. I have on numerous occasions read half a book before realising I'd read the whole thing before, but I'm still not sure why only the middle seemed familiar of this one. Oh well, at least I found a good quote, plus the phrase "The Burrowing of the Palpable Worm of Shame" which seems to be just asking to be used as a post title.

7. Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. I liked this one, although it was kind of hard to read since every member of the family was so painfully lonely. I kept putting it down to check bloglines etc, but last night when I was nearing the end I couldn't put it down and ended up awake until 2.30am finishing it. Now I want to see the movie, even though all the reviews said it ruined the book (which is why I didn't see the movie and found the book), just to see the kaleidoscope. I'm still not sure about the ending either and I want to know what happens to them next, but the movie probably won't help with that.

8. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart. I just started this on my way into lab this morning so I haven't got very far, but I'm enjoying it. So far the author has managed to gain the piano shop owner's confidence enough to be allowed to buy a piano. It's inspiring me to actually play my keyboard (hopefully that will last until I get home and can actually do so)

I did manage to finish A Confederacy of Dunces, but it was still incredibly underwhelming.

Bonus meme from Andrea:
(Strike out the ones you'll never read; bold the ones you've read; italicize the ones you haven't read yet, but plan to. I also started to put brackets around ones I've contemplated reading but I'm not yet convinced I want to, but realised there was only one book that would be left blank that way, and only because I'd never heard of it (the Shadow of the Wind) so if you have an argument for or against any of the plain type ones, let me know.)

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
All the Harries Potter - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement - Ian McEwan (this will be book #8 in fact)
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert