I feel I should include the books I started in December in this as well. I tend to have two or three books on the go, strategically placed around the house. A couple in the bathroom, one in my car, another one or two on my dresser. I just never know when I feel it is time for me to put down my phone and actually read something of merit.
So some of these books read may come in spurts. I have three I recently completed and will check off here; Cat's Cradle, Going Postal and Flowers for Algernon.
#2 Cat's Cradle, Kirk Vonnegut
I love me my Kirk. I love his unique style, his minimalist ability to create a scene without too much attention to detail. This was the 2nd time I read Cat's Cradle, a book which I recommended to my wife yet she was unable to finish and so sat on her bedside table for months, beckoning me to finish it. So I did. It's an Apocalyptic novel in which he also sets forward the theme we are all connected. There are certain members on our 'team' which creates amazing coincidences throughout our lives. For the author, this leads from him writing a story on a man who invented an atom bomb to the writer becoming the leader of a small Caribbean country which leads to the Apocalypse. It's a funny/not funny type of read, which I find of most of KV's novels.
#3 Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
I sped-red this (yes I know that's a typo but phonetically it makes my point) after picking it up at the local library because I had to have it back in three weeks. I have about 20 of Pratchett's earlier works but don't own many of the last 20 books he published but probably have read about another 10.This man knows good story and it helps his stories are set on Discworld, a medieval-esque world where wizards run the university, an orangtuan is the local librarian, there is a werewolf on the police force and trolls, vampires, dwarves and humans live together and occasionally kill each other in the great metropolis of Ankh-Morpork. His stories are rife with philosophical moments, satirical comments and a from-the-hip comedic overtone which hides how brilliant a message he often puts in his stories.
In Going Postal, it is the story of a con man, Moist Von Lipwig, charged with bringing the Post Office back to it's former glory while competing against the 'Clacks', a rudimentary tower system symbolic of emails operated by money-hungry corporate men who care nothing of the power of technology only how much money they can make out of it.
What is interesting about Going Postal that this is also the book where GNU Terry Pratchett originates, a bit of Discworld lore. GNU Terry Pratchett is an insider homage to Sir Terry that some computer coders put into their programs and is taken from the clacks system of coding. It literally means that "a man is not dead if his name is still spoken" and by putting such a code prefix of GNU, they let Terry live on, in the nether of the internet. Loved it.
#4 Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
This is one of those one-hit wonder books for authors; Keyes apparently only wrote one other novel aside from Flowers for Algernon but what a huge hit this book was. It was originally a short story, an Icarus flying too close to the sun thing. It is often cited on many 'must-read' books on reddit. I read the short story years ago but found this copy at a local 2nd hand shop and put it in the To Be Read pile.
Algernon is a mouse given super-intellectual abilities, Charlie is the human subject upon which the experiment is duplicated. It is often referred to as one of novels which brings tears to the eyes. Not so much for me but it is interesting to read of how science and society had looked at mental retardation over the decades.
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