My most recent favorite is Passage by Connie Willis. It is a story based around two researchers, Joanna Landers & Richard Wright and their work on "near death experiences." Dr Wright has found a way to chemically recreate NDEs & using volunteers, they are able to get some good data, just not enough. In trying to collect & quantify their data Joanna decides to go under to see an NDE first hand. The story weaves through Joanna's attempt to make sense of her own experiences, the experiences of the volunteers & ultimately just what the data really means. Ms Willis is is able to build a story so insidiously intense that you barely realize that your nails are nubs & you are perched on the edge of your chair. I love a good long book with a super ending. In my experience many writers can create a great book but have a hard time wrapping it up. Not so with Connie Willis. I was so stunned by the ending of Passage that I had to reread the last few chapters twice more just to confirm that I had really read what I thought I had read in the beautifully crafted ending. No gore to speak of even though the setting IS a hospital, no gratuitous sex (shucks) just a really good read.
A tunnel, a light, a door. And beyond it ... the unimaginable.
Dr. Joanna Lander is a psychologist specializing in near-death experiences. She is about to get help from a new doctor with the power to give her the chance to get as close to death as anyone can.
A brilliant young neurologist, Dr. Richard Wright has come up with a way to manufacture the near-death experience using a psychoactive drug. Joanna’s first NDE is as fascinating as she imagined — so astounding that she knows she must go back, if only to find out why that place is so hauntingly familiar.
But each time Joanna goes under, her sense of dread begins to grow, because part of her already knows why the experience is so familiar, and why she has every reason to be afraid.
Yet just when Joanna thinks she understands, she’s in for the biggest surprise of all — a shattering scenario that will keep you feverishly reading until the final climactic page.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (Lynelle)
My favorite book is Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn." I read it as a teenager and it's been my favorite ever since. I know it almost by heart! It's a tale about an innocent unicorn who leaves her forest to go on a quest to find her people. Along the way she encounters events and people who touch and change her, as she touches them. The experiences leave her wiser but changed from who she was when she started out, which is, in Beagle's world, both beautiful and sad. The prose is lyrical and full of magic and beauty, and the characters have an eccentric charm. It's a perfect book to read in the sun dappled light of a park or garden.
The Last Unicorn is a tearful tale of the last existing unicorn's journey out of her familiar forest to save the species. On the way she encounters evil magic, dark castles, cursed towns, and a particularly interesting sea shore. The character's in this magical story invite you to learn with them, while Peter S. Beagle poetic prose are something to remember as he tells a story of bravery and courage. Do love, freedom, and happiness prevail? Or will we forever live in fear in a world without unicorns?
The Last Unicorn is a tearful tale of the last existing unicorn's journey out of her familiar forest to save the species. On the way she encounters evil magic, dark castles, cursed towns, and a particularly interesting sea shore. The character's in this magical story invite you to learn with them, while Peter S. Beagle poetic prose are something to remember as he tells a story of bravery and courage. Do love, freedom, and happiness prevail? Or will we forever live in fear in a world without unicorns?
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Sparrow)
My fav fiction book is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
The reason that I love this book so much is because it really changed my outlook on life and my gifts. It taught me that I do not have to be a slave to what everyone else wants or needs. I need to take care of myself first and then the people that I care about the most. I actually worked this theme into my written statement of Honor, Ethics and Values (which was part of my degree studies with FWTI).
"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life.'" ~ Helen Exley
Though it is not an easy read, this book truly can change your life!
Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex
Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy...to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction...to the philosopher who becomes a pirate...to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad...to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.
The reason that I love this book so much is because it really changed my outlook on life and my gifts. It taught me that I do not have to be a slave to what everyone else wants or needs. I need to take care of myself first and then the people that I care about the most. I actually worked this theme into my written statement of Honor, Ethics and Values (which was part of my degree studies with FWTI).
"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled 'This could change your life.'" ~ Helen Exley
Though it is not an easy read, this book truly can change your life!
Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex
Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy...to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction...to the philosopher who becomes a pirate...to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad...to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.
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