Need Something to Read?

Hi All,

Its summertime and the reading is good!  What? you say?  Read in the summer? Absolutely - its a great time to dig in to a book that will enthrall you, excite you and just darn keep you entertained!

How can you beat that introduction?

Forthwith - a bunch of links to 'best' of type lists of books.  The only difference is that these will be books in various categories.

General Fiction - Modern Library 100 Best Novels 

Library Thing - Best Contemporary Literary Fiction - over the last 30 years  

Science Fiction - NPR - Your Picks - Top 100 Science-Fiction/Fantasy Books

Fantasy - Paste Magazine - 30 Best Fantasy Book Series of All Time

Fantasy - Fantasy Book Review- UK - Top 100 Fantasy Books

Mystery - BestMysteryBooks.com - Top 25 Best Mystery Books

Horror - Worlds Without End - Nightmare Magazine's Top 100 Horror Books

Romance - Bustle - 13 Romance Novels That Should Be On Every Woman's Bucket List

Western - Western Writers of America - Best Western Novels of the 20th Century

So now that you have an impressive list of books to choose from, where do you find these books? At the library of course.  Click on this link to go to the library card catalog to see if the book that you are interested in is on the shelf!

So...with that list I would think most people's interests would be piqued. If I missed a genre/style of writing that you would like to see, email me by clicking on this link!

Enjoy the books and writing!

Regards,
Stu

A Canticle For Liebowitz - Book Discussion Group

Hi All,

On January 29th, 2015 at 7pm the Farmingdale Public Library will be hosting a book discussion group on the book 'A Canticle For Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller, Jr..

The Wikipedia entry for A Canticle For Leibowitz says that 'it is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the Southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself'.

The book won the 1961 Hugo Award and is considered by many to be one of the best science-fiction novels ever written. Heady stuff for a book steeped on religion, history and science-fiction.

Click on this next link for one of the many reviews of Canticle on the internet. This next link is a full-text, online version of the book - in pdf format.

Click on this link for a audio version of Canticle which was adapted for radio by John reed in the 1980's or so.

For a review from SFReviews.com click here - its about a 2 page review of the book and written back in 2005.  Interesting, quick, concise and fun to compare to reviews listed below. 

For a high-school level evaluation/criticism of Canticle, click on this link from Shmoop - seriously. Its like Cliffs Notes for literature - except the material is on the web.

Another link for literary criticism of the book can be found at this site - from Georgia State University Department of English.   Link goes to a document called, 'Walter M. Miller, Jr's A Canticle for Leibowitz: A Study of Apocalyptic Cycles, Religion and Science, Religious Ethics and Secular Ethics, Sin and Redemption, and Myth and Preternatural Innocence'.

Finally, for a chapter-by-chapter study guide to Canticle, readers should click on this link - still one of the best free summaries and discussions of the novel available.  Quite thought provoking - and written by a college professor at Washington State University.

For a more formal set of questions about the book, click on this link - its a lot like a study-guide in the guise of a set of questions.

Enjoy the book and be prepared for a thought provoking, elegiac, critique on humanity, religion and the future!

(And since this will be the last post of 2014 - Happy New Year!)

Regards,
Stu

The End of the World as We Know It Post - aka Science Fiction Takes Over

Hi All,

One of my favorite genres of books is science fiction. Specifically, I really, really like 'The End of the World as We Know It' (TEOTWAWKI...).

So...without further ado on this rainy, drizzly, grey day, let's discuss some websites that will help readers find the best of the TEOTWAWKI books.

First off, readers should visit Amazon.com. It is a vast repository of book reviews from readers who have read the various books they are writing about.  Review length can range from one sentence to as much as 4 or 5 pages (albeit these are the rare reviews).  Most reviews are a few paragraphs long.  Remember that you get what you pay for.  Since it is free, the Amazon.com reviews can be biased, offensive (to some people or all people...), and have an agenda.  Very few reviews, if any, have profanity in them. That said, it is a great place to get a quick summary of a book.

Click on this link for a list of Science Fiction bestsellers. Note that you can dive even deeper and choose whether you want bestsellers in paperback, hardcover, Kindle Edition or Audio CD format by choosing the tab at the top of the page.

Science Fiction at Amazon.com is broken out into different categories: Adventure, High Tech, Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian, Alien Invasion, Alternate History, Genetic Engineering, Military, Space Opera, , Short Stories, Time Travel, Anthologies and Steampunk.

Click on this next link from BestScienceFictionBooks.com.  There are tabs for Top 25 Best Science Fiction, Best Science Fiction Series, Best Stand Alone SF, and Underrated Science Fiction.  There are other tabs on the site, but these are some of the highlights!!!

SFSite is another high quality review/evaluation science fiction website that scifi devotees spend time on. The Site Index link is extremely helpful on the site as it links to Back Issues, Blogs, Awards, links to Asimov's SF (and a whole slew of other scifi authors), SF Topical Lists, and much, much more.

There are review lists that are Sorted by Issue (actually there are three parts to this list!), Author Book Lists, SFSite Inteviews and much, much more...

This is one of the most extensive, comprehensive and current science fiction review sites available on the web!!! Be warned, you might find yourself wading through the sheer mass of the material for days on end! Not that that is a bad thing for the science fiction reader!

Finally, the Farmingdale Public Library has a wonderful free review and evaluation site called NOVELIST.  Users can search among hundreds of popular fiction and readable nonfiction titles, retrieve author read-a-likes, booklists, and more on the site.  Just enter your Farmingdale Library barcode and you'll have access to the database. It is definitely a top 3 science fiction spot to visit for Sci-Fic aficionados!

With Recommended Reads Lists, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Author Read-alikes, Book Discussion Guides and more, the site is an awesome way to appreciate even more the sci-fic books that you read.  You'll understand more, appreciate more, and relate more to what you are reading! How cool is that?

So...enjoy the links and hope for some cloudy and rainy weather - that way you'll have time to review these two sites and get more out of your science fiction reading!

Regards,
Stu