Books I've Read
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Eastern Standard Tribe
An industrial saboteur ends up in the looney bin, but designs a better widget. Chapter 15 may be the shortest chapter I've ever seen!
Read:
9/2009
Little Brother
It only took me 60 pages to get the meaning of the title! Very techy story of teen in San Francisco arrested by the Dept. of Homeland Security after a terrorist bombing of the bridge. Too YA for our middle school library!
Words I Had To Look Up:
pizza...cold and clabbered (pg. 339) -- Of milk or cream : having thickened or curdled.
Quote:
Take it from someone who's read the Wikipedia entry:..." -- (pg. 90)
Read:
4/2009
Overclocked: Stories of the future present
Six pretty darn good stories. And to think I almost didn't check this book out!
I found the word "hoodies" disconcerting in the sort of Asimov sort of parody I,Robot, since Merriam-Webster says that word dates from 1992.
Words I Had To Look Up:
saisoneur (pg. 172) -- I got nothun'. "saison" is French for "season". Maybe it is someone who stays for a long time?
Read:
8/2009
Somone Comes To Town, Somone Leaves Town
Fantasy meets the internet. A great book, but I got a little mixed-up sometimes in the non-sequentially told story. I teared up a bit when Alan's mother died. A lot of sadness, a bit of joy. I don't get the title, though.
Words I Had To Look Up:
counting out a float (pg. 136) -- The sum of money added to a cash register at the beginning of a shift for change-making purposes and subtracted at the end of the shift.
craquelure (pg. 293) -- A network of fine cracks that may appear in applied paint over time for various reasons.
Quote:
"Look, I'm not trying to be cruel here, but you're generation-blind. The Internet is a great, but it's not the last great thing we'll ever invent. My pops was a mainframe guy, he thought PCs were toys. You're a PC guy, so you think my phone is a toy." (pg. 275) Wow, he's talking about ME!Library Quote:
To the librarian, this shelf-reading looked like your garden-variety screwing around, but what really made her nervous were Alan's excursions through the card catalogue, which required constant tending to replace the cards that errant patrons made unauthorized reorderings of. (pg. 71) Several other good library quotes on this page.Read:
8/2009Read:
7/2022
Last Bus To Wisdom
In 1951 a boy travels from Montana to Wisconsin to spend the summer with his aunt while his grandmother mends from an operation. Very good!
Read:
12/2016
The Whistling Season
Not something I would have picked myself, this was recommended to me. Good story of life on a homestead farm in 1909 Montana.
Read:
4/2016
Privateer
Book 2 of the Flight Engineer story.
Read:
5/2000
Atomic Lobster
More weird goings-on in Florida. Drugs, sex, violence, and some pretty darn funny stuff in between.
Quote:
Serge reminded the librarian of something. She glanced over at a communal lunatic reading area where the regular cast of homeless talked to themselves, played invisible card games, started unzipping their pants...
The librarian jumped up. "Henry!"
"Whoops. Forgot."
Read:
7/2008
Cadillac Beach
Serge Storms, #6. Serge wanders around looking for some jewels stolen several decades before. Possibly by his grandfather Sergio. Who seems a LOT like Serge! Story is told alternating between the 1960s and what ever the present time of the book is.
Quote:
Mrs. Lippowicz put her hands on her hips and looked sternly at her son. "Why can't you be more like your nice friend Serge?"
Serge turned to Lenny and grinned.Quote:
An empty plastic grocery bag from Publix billowed
out in the breeze and bounced across the street, a Florida tumbleweed.Read:
4/2024
Clownfish Blues
Serge Storms, #20. Serge takes on the Lottery.
Quote:
The reptile was hog-tied with rubber bands and hung from the handlebars of a Schwinn bicycle, joining five other similarly dangling reptiles all wondering how life had come to this.Quote:
I see a disco ball, I say, 'Go with God.'"Read:
5/2024
Coconut Cowboy
Serge Storm, #19. Serge buys a Harley. We learn about sinkholes, a donkey and a hippo, and small town machinations.
Read:
4/2024
Electric Barracuda
Serge several family surprises.
Words I Had To Look Up:
street platting (pg. 110) -- A plat is a map showing the street and layout of a town.
Everglades City (pg. 292) -- Segre tells the tale of the drugs raids in 1983. I thought he was confusing it with the Steinhatchee busts of 1973. I was wrong.
one thing that calms them [bees] down is smoke (pg. 335) -- But why? Wikipedia says it is not only because the bees engorge themselves with honey as a hive-defense mechanism (which I've heard of, from Kelly), but also because the smoke masks alarm pheromones that guard bees release.
Smallwood store (pg. 293) -- A historic building in Chokoloskee, Florida.
Quote:
Coleman kept trying buttons. "What about the manual?"
"I always throw manuals out. Life's too short."
"...(Recalculating. Drive point-seven)..." --(pg. 77)
Read:
8/2011
Florida Roadkill
Serge Storms #1. Well, I learned these books were not published in chronological order, as Sharon and Coleman get killed in this one.
Dry Tortugas has an appearance in this one!
Quote:
...Bambi's first steps.Quote:
"Hi, I'm Seymour," he said, "but friends call me Coleman."Quote:
"It's hot as hell in here," griped the bass player. "Why can't we practice with the door open?"
"I told you, because of the noise complaints from the airport!" said the singer.Quote:
"That's a new one," said Serge.Read:
4/2024
Gator A-Go-Go
Serge Storms, #12. It's Spring Break time in Florida!
Quote:
"I've completely rededicated myself to a life of nonviolence."Quote:
A groggy Coleman startled. Another jab with the pistol. A loud groan. Coleman's eye blinked and stared into the barrel of a huge gun. He grabbed his heart. "Thank God! I was having a nightmare I was out of dope."Quote:
"I'm amazed at the level of thought," said Serge. "And yet you still put your shoes on the wrong feet."
Coleman looked down. "There's a difference?"Read:
4/2024
Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Wierd goings-on in Florida, in the style of Hiassen.
Read:
12/2001
Mermaid Confidential
Serge Storms, #25. Serge and Coleman get a condo. Plus, there's a drug smuggling gang war. And the sick kids place.
Quote:
"It's supposed to count my steps, but I know I've take more than that," said Serge. "And then some unfair score goes up on my Internet Chart of Shame."Quote:
"For whatever reason, just have one of the characters in your book blurt out Mermaid Confidential, and you've got your title."
Quote:
He hung his head with a massive relief sign. Then Serge looked around at all the wordless people staring back at him. "What?" -- Such a great moment, I wept a little bit. Read:
5/2024
Naked Came The Florida Man
Serge Storms, #23. Serge visits the memorable to all the victims of the hurricane that stirred up Lake Okeechobee in 1921 drowned 611 people in Belle Glade (where the memorial is) and over 1,800 statewide. Also, some scrawny girl named Chris wants to play football. I wept a bit reading the epilogue.
Quote:
"Be myself? Okay." He pulled a pint of Southern Comfort from his pocket and lifted it to the sun as he guzzled.
"once again, my words were not chosen with adequate care," said Serge. 'Be like other people."
"That's different."Quote:
...named after the army fort built during the Second Seminole War in 1938.-- 1938? maybe 1838!Read:
5/2024
No Sunscreen For The Dead
Serge Storms, #22. Serge and Coleman help out some senior citizens, and get involved in some Cold War spy residue. Great stuff, I love these books!
Quote:
"Will I be okay?"
"As long as you stay under your deks, you'll be fine," his father lied.Quote:
Then Ted would turn on his tape recorder at the appointed time and hope his correspondence would be read on the air. -- It happened to me, once! Quote:
A good-looking hooker had been first on the scene and called in the explosion over her police radio.Read:
4/2024
Nuclear Jellyfish
Amazing Serge and Coleman tale of diamond couriers, diamond thieves, and traveling salesmen. First fiction book that mentions "numbers stations", although I'm not sure that a 1941 Trans-Oceanic can transmit, even with a Latin bombshell with full, fiery lip, operating it. Whoa, the imagery!
Quote:
... Melvil Dewey of Dewey Decimal Sytem fame, who changed life as I know it, and not for the better. Can't tell you how many times I've been hot on the trail of a book, and the library's aisles run out before I get to the number and I go, 'What the fuck?'... (pg. 51)
Quote:
Serge on the 1909-SVDB Lincoln cent:
"I stared at that empty hole in my penny book every day after school until it represented all issues of emotional rejection. I despise that coin with every cell in my body." (pg. 173)
Read:
8/2009
Orange Crush
Serge Storms, #3. Political race in Florida. Where is Serge?
Words I Had To Look Up:
Morpheme -- A morpheme is the smallest unit of language that contains meaning. Quote:
...was embossed with von Zeppelin's HO-gauge vision.Quote:
"But he's different in other ways," said Escrow. "Acting erratic, bizarre."
"Like how?" asked Perry.
"He's started reading."
Dempsey nodded with concern. "Keep an eye on that."Quote:
"Thanks," said Tanya.
"M-m-m-my treat," said Jenny.Quote:
"What's this whole Parrot Head phenomenon about, anyway?" asked Crease.
"It's kind of like AA in reverse."Quote:
A shaken Jimmy Carter appeared on CNN outside a post office in Palm Beach, flames in the background. "I've never seen anything like this!"Read:
4/2024
20 books displayed
[Abadzis - Aiken] [Aiken - Alexie] [Alexie - Anderson] [Andreae - Asimov] [Asimov - Backman] [Backman - Balf] [Ballard - Barnard] [Barnard - Barnes] [Barnes - Barr] [Barr - Beanton] [Beanton - Beaton] [Beaton - Beaton] [Beaton - Benford] [Bennett - Block] [Block - Block] [Block - Bond] [Bonham - Bowen] [Bowen - Brooks] [Brooks - Buckell] [Buckley - Bujold] [Bujold - Caldwell] [Caletti - Card] [Card - Carrere] [Carroll - Chambers] [Chambers - Clancy] [Clancy - Clements] [Cline - Cohen] [Cohen - Collins] [Collins - Collins] [Collins - Connelly] [Connelly - Constantine] [Constantine - Corey] [Corey - Cornwell] [Correia - Crais] [Crais - Crider] [Crime - Cushman] [Cushman - Dana] [Dash - Delaney] [Dexter - Doctorow] [Doctorow - Dorsey] [Dorsey - Dozois] [Drake - DuPrau] [DuPrau - Emerson] [Emerson - Evanovich] [Evanovich - Fairstein] [Falkner - Fielding] [Finnin - Fleischman] [Fleischman - Forester] [Forrest - Francis] [Francis - Francis] [Francis - Francis] [Francis - Frey] [Frey - Galli] [Gantos - Gerber] [Gibbons - Goldstone] [Goldstone - Gramazio] [Granger - Graves] [Gray - Griffin] [Grimes - Grimes] [Grisham - Haddix] [Haddix - Hall] [Hall - Hallinan] [Hallinan - Harrison] [Harrison - Heinlein] [Heinlein - Heinlein] [Heley - Henry] [Henry - Herzog] [Hess - Hiaasen] [Hiaasen - Hillerman] [Hilton - Hochschild] [Hoeg - Horowitz] [Horton - Hyman] [Hyman - Jenkins] [Jennings - Kaaberbøl] [Kaaberbøl - Kaminsky] [Kaminsky - Key] [Khoury - King-Smith] [King-Smith - Kollin] [Konigsburg - Krueger] [Kuang - Larson] [Larson - Leblanc] [Leblanc - LeGuin] [Lehman - Lescroart] [Levine - Linville] [Lippman - Lovegrove] [Lovelace - Lutz] [Lutz - Macleod] [MacPherson - Marcinko] [Marcinko - Martini] [Martini - Mayor] [Mazer - McCammon] [McCammon - McCullers] [McCullers - Meluch] [Meluch - Modesitt, Jr.] [Moffett - Moon] [Moon - Mosley] [Moss - Napoli] [Neville - Niven] [North - Nunn] [O'Brian - O'Brian] [O'Brian - Oppel] [Oppenheim - Paretsky] [Paretsky - Parker] [Parker - Parker] [Parker - Parker] [Parker - Paulsen] [Paulsen - Pease] [Peck - Peyton] [Pfeffer - Pooley] [Pooley - Poyer] [Poyer - Pratchett] [Pratchett - Pratchett] [Pratchett - Pronzini] [Pronzini - Quinn] [Quinn - Read] [Readers Digest - Rhodes] [Rich - Roanhorse] [Roberts - Rose] [Rose - Russell] [Russell - Sacks] [Sagan - Scalzi] [Scalzi - Science Fiction DAW 30th Anniversary] [Scieszka - Scottoline] [Scottoline - Sharenow] [Shea - Silverberg] [Silverberg - Smith] [Smith - Spinelli] [Spinelli - Stead] [Stead - Stewart] [Stockett - Stross] [Stross - Swanson] [Swee - Teague] [Telsep - Turner] [Turner - Ursu] [Vachss - Vande Velde] [Vande Velde - Walter] [Wambaugh - Weber] [Weber - Wells] [Wells - Westlake] [Westlake - Westlake] [Westlake - Willis] [Willis - Wodehouse] [Wodehouse - Yep] [Yolen - Zusak]