Reading pleasure.

I love to read. A good book is an enjoyable adventure into a new world. Some books become like old friends, cozy, comfortable and fun to be around no matter how you feel.
The books I’ve read lately are new to me, but not new on the market.

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
It delivers. Yes, it’s a YA(young adult) novel but that doesn’t bother me. I’ve found so many good novels in the YA section and this is another one to add to my list. A compelling story, well written, great dialogue, it’s a page-turner. Three people recommended this book to me long before it hit the silver screen. I just read it, thanks to a generous gift from my son-in-law, Colin. I can’t wait to read the other 2 in the series.

If you are curious about other YA authors, I highly recommend Philip Pullman, Lani Taylor, Charles deLint to name a few.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
It’s a great story on many levels. Similar in scope to The Stand, it brings back many of King’s key character types along with moral and environmental dilemmas that link the local and global with the universe. But, it’s long. With over 1,000 pages, I really feel if King wasn’t such a famous author someone would have edited the beginning a little tighter and cut back on some of the mid-section character analysis that slows the pace of the story. However, nobody can get into a character’s head like King. I really liked the book and recommend it.

Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
A story revolving around red-neck loggers in a small town, it’s not my favorite subject matter. I usually love books told in first person narrative. I like getting inside each individual character’s mind and understanding their story. But Kesey struggles with this form sometimes having two people speaking in one paragraph. He tries using parenthesis at the beginning to help the reader figure out which character is telling the story, but it just doesn’t work. It’s confusing and slowly paced. There are areas of beauty and genius but they are few and far between. Kesey was very well known when this book was published and obviously not edited. Too bad. I did like the way he used a song connect the narratives of the different characters, a nice cinematic touch.