The Magician's Land - by Lev Grossman
I was finally able to get the third and final book from the library just in time for the premiere of the series on SyFy TODAY. Appreciate the post by the author to fans of the books explaining that the show is different from the books and why and that it is OK. I caught the pre showing of episode 1 on the SyFy website and yes it is a lot different from the books but they got the characters and the essence of how magic is portrayed right. I can't wait to watch how the story unfolds in the series.
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
After reading Slade House, I thought I would like to read more by this freaky but brilliant writer. My friend read Cloud Atlas for book club and her comment 'weird and confusing' put me off a bit. So I thought Bone Clocks is the most recent before Slade House so I will start with that. Reading an author backward (just like I did with Neil Gaiman) is a strange journey that not many get to take. My first thought is The Bone Clocks would have been a bit a of a spoiler for Slade House and in Slade House there is quite a bit of detail about something that is initially just alluded to in The Bone Clocks so it would have been a bit confusing without that background. I recently heard the author say in an interview that he reuses characters from one book to another. So readers going forward will recognize a character and think ah there he is again. However since I am going backwards I don't have that ah ha moment. I wonder if that will change how I understand the characters once I get back to the beginning and see where they started with the retrospective of knowing where they are going.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Because every now and then for book club we feel guilty for indulging ourselves with popular crime or YA novels and think we ought to read something smart so that we can talk intelligently to other smart people.
The Archived by Victoria Schwab
I keep seeing her as a recommended author so finally I decided to try one of her YA novels. The more recent and popular novels were all checked out from the library or at least I could not get the first book in the series. The Archived is probably not her best effort but it was available. The concept is unique and I liked the characters but it didn't grab me the way Hunger Games or Six of Crows did so I probably won't continue the series. I may give her another read once I can get the first book in her most recent series.
I'm also reading some free or cheap books - if any of them turn out to be outstanding I will write them up here.
