Book of the Dead

[amanda_in_pajamas]

Title: Book of the Dead (Book 15 in the Kay Scarpetta series)
Author: Patricia Cornwell
Number of Pages: 511
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Book Number/Goal: 28/50 in 2009

Review: I liked this book a bit better than the previous book in the series. ( Cut for possible spoilers )

(no subject)

[jassanja]

Name: Jass
Goal: 175 in 2009
Definition of "book": Hardcover and Paperback, Audio books, Ebooks, sometimes even a grapic novel
Books read so far: Around 60

A little about my goal and my reading habits: I've done the 50bookchallenge for a few years and usually made my goal (as many as possible the first year, then 100, 150 and 175), but last year I did not manage the 175, so I try again this year.

I listen to audio books a lot too... while falling asleep, doing housework or if I am shopping or on the way to work. Sometimes even during work! (Yes, my boss knows, and tolerates it)

Reading is my life, and in 2006 I even got a bookworm tattoo

Fermat's Last Theorem

[nundinae]

Title: Fermat's Last Theorem
Author: Simon Singh
Number of Pages: 368
Genre: popular science
Book Number/Goal: 1/50

Rating: 4/5

Review: I read Simon Singh's books before, and I loved them all. He's got a great writing style, and I especially like how he manages to smoothly include anecdotes and digressions in his narrative. He's great at explaining even the most complicated mathematical concepts in a way comprehensible even for readers who stopped learning maths at high school, but I would have liked the book to have more maths in the appendices, and the unending “proof by induction is just like dominoes” sort of metaphors were a bit grating.

I appreciated his writing about female mathematicians, and how women in general were discouraged¹ from pursuing science, too.
 

1Where by “discouraged” I mean “isolated in her room, without clothes or candles, so as not to be able to read anything at all”, like Sophie Germain.

A Room With A View

[stardancer]

Title: A Room With A View
Author: E.M. Forster
Number of Pages: 204
Book Number/Goal: 1/12+
My Rating: 4/5

This book was written at the turning point between the Victorian and Edwardian Eras of Britain. It is shorter and less complex than Forster's later Howards End (which could be a pro or con, depending on what you're looking for). It has elements of comedy, a rich cast of characters, and engaging dialogue. Its heroine, Lucy, fights her way from strict Victorian codes and boundaries--especially those of gender and class--to the newer, more liberal ways of thinking.

I enjoyed this; Lucy is a sympathetic character, and while the answers to her struggles seem obvious to the reader, it's also easy to understand why she thinks and acts as she does. It is a romance, but most of the romantic elements lie in Lucy's journey to find her place in a changing world.