Books I've Read This Week

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is a book I've been meaning to read ever since I finished her Blackout/All Clear duology. I was surprised but pleased to find out that this book takes place in the same universe as Blackout/All Clear. Unfortunately that also means that I had a very good idea how the time travel plot would play out. It won the Hugo and Nebula awards back in 1993 so I came into it with high expectations considering the other Hugo/Nebula winners I can think off the top of my head are Dune, Ender's Game, Neuromancer, American Gods, The Windup Girl and the afore mentioned Blackout/All Clear. Sadly it didn't live up to my high expectations even though it is a pretty darn good book. In 2048 we are able to send people back into the past to observe things. Our historian Kivrin is about to travel back to the 14th century to observe contemporary life. Unfortunately, the technician who is to send her back to the past falls prey to a 21st century disease and she ends up smack dab in the middle of the black plague. We are left with parallel stories of how the people of the 14th and 21st centuries deal with epidemics.

The Best of Down Goes Brown by Sean McIndeo is hilarious. By the time I was on page 6 I had already laughed out loud on 4 separate occasions. Honestly this book is worth the purchase price if you only ever read "A Look Back at Game Seven of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final (which, due to a scheduling error, had to be published twelve hours early)" which is one of the best piece of satirical writing I've ever read. Seems like a great gift for that hockey lover in your life and I thoroughly enjoyed every chapter. I'm now a follower of the blog and twitter feed.