Andrea’s September book of the month is…
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
First off, a big F.U. to Oprah for tarnishing the book by making it part of her reading list club. Stop it. I had no idea it was one of her picks until about 2 seconds ago when I went to Amazon to grab an image of the cover and link to it here. So I plead ignorance and I can say I picked it purely on the reasons as follow:
- Same author of No Country For Old Men.
- Pulitzer prize winner.
- Post-apocalypse America. Awesome.
- With that apocalypse comes the likeliness that road warriors and war lords will appear as well. Flippin’ awesome.
- $9 at Costco. Those prices get me everytime.
Hyperion - The Review
Well, I finished despite the slowdown that occurred due to school starting up again. 3 cheers for me.
Some thoughts -
- Off the bat, it’s a solid read. The book is basically just the history of the pilgrims making the voyage to Hyperion (as it’s part 1 of a 4 book series). The characters’ stories are compelling, emotionally charged and exciting. And even though it ended on a cliffhanger, the book could really stand as its own entity of a story.
- I’m a science fiction novice (in the book world), and on a scale of reading easiness I would rank this is in the intermediary level. I personally never understood the mentality of authors to drop a reader into a futuristic world without at least a tiny bit of orientation. The pace automatically slows down as you try to get a handle on a world that was written as if it was common knowledge to the reader. Once you can get past that, it’s clear sailing. Or just read the background information wikipedia as I wished I did beforehand.
- A movie is in the works for the book, combining the first 2 in the series. It will be interesting to see how they cram that much content in, and I’m very skeptical it will be even remotely good. But hey, prove me wrong. I’ll be happy to eat crow on this.
Andrea’s book rating out of 10 with 1 being suckage and 10 being brilliance: *6.75*
best bookmark ever.
llibreria - bookstore - Amsterdam (via MorBCN (de vacances))
Nicole’s August Pick: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
Plot: “The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known…of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect — a man divided in his soul…of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame…and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.”
Reasons why I chose this book:
- Because my cousin Stacie won’t shut up about it. Seriously. For like 10 years, I have heard nothing but nagging from her about how much I need to read this book. Even though nagging is a tactic I use frequently (and to great effect, may I add), she’s bugging the crap out of me and I’d like the madness to stop before somebody gets hurt.
- Because the plot sounds like nothing I’d ever willingly choose to read on my own, which can sometimes be a good thing (thinking outside the box and whatnot).
- Because I didn’t realize that it was once an Oprah Book Club pick until I went to purchase it on Amazon, at which point I’d already committed to reading it for August. I was sort of horrified, but whatever. C’est la vie. (International flair!)

