The Five Fakirs of Faizabad

First of all I finished my 6th book this year and the 6th book in the children's book series The Children of the Lamp. This is a fun little series chronicling the lives of two modern day genii. I have overall enjoyed the series but I have noticed that the farther you get into the series the more pluralistic it gets in regard to religion. Overall though I have enjoyed the series and would recommend it to a discerning reader. The Five Fakirs of Faizabad was a fun read. Ninety four to go

The Scarlatti Inheritance Book #5

The Scarlatti Inheritance By Robert Ludlum is a fun thriller that will engage you with its World War II setting and corporate dark dealings. It deals with the son of a self-made billionaire who joins the Nazi cause in his pursuit for power and his mother who tries to do anything to stop him from ruining everything his father did. I enjoy Robert Ludlum's books and this one was no exception. The Scarlatti Inheritance is an afternoon well spent.

In other news I recently watched the movie The King's Speech with my parents and I enjoyed it immensely. I can not think of a movie I have enjoyed watching as much or that was as well made. I enjoyed it enough that I put a hold on the book that its based on at the library.

Five books down ninety-five to go!

Book #4 under my belt

Recently I finished the fourth novel of the 100 that I plan to read this year that I haven't read before. I am starting to realize how great a task it is but I will press on.

The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II   is a historical fiction novel by Jeff Shaara. I greatly enjoyed this book. He set it during the campaign in Africa. He tells it from the perspectives of leaders on both sides and men on the ground on the Ally side. It's interesting how he paints the General Rommel in such a way that you like the man while realizing how horrible the Nazi's themselves were. We see Rommel in an almost complimentary light.
The book in general was an enjoyable if a bit long read that informed and entertained. I finished it knowing more about that campaign and WWII in general than I had ever known before. A must read for a History buff or anyone who enjoys historical fiction. 

Challenge Books 2 & 3 and other miscellaneous matters

Since I last updated this blog I have finished 2 books that I had previously never read. One of them was For Whom the Bell Tolls By Ernest Hemingway and the other was The Sorcerers' Plague by David Coe. For Whom the Bell Tolls was quite good. Hemingway painted a very good picture of the Spanish Civil War. His characters are excellent and the way he tells his story is quite interesting. His worldview is never blatantly disturbing but certain elements make you wonder. The other  book was an epic fantasy novel I quite enjoyed. It didn't have a central character per say but it did have a wide and excellent cast that have separate stories that get woven together in the fabric of this story. I definitely want to get the next book in the series.

Today I saw the movie True Grit, the modern remake. I liked it however it was a quite gritty film at points. It also had a few funny parts. I haven't been reading quite enough to get 100 books done so I'll have to make it up this week.

2011 Challenge Book 1 - The Venerable Bede

The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the British People is a history of the British Church written in the 8th century. It is the first of the one hundred books I plan to read this year.

Bede chronicled the advance of the church from Caesar's first invasion to its state as he was writing. This work does many things such as chronicling  the spread of Christianity to one of the world's future powers, and giving insight to the early Britain political structure. But one of his most lasting effects was in our dating system. While he did not invent the term Anno Domini (In the year of our Lord) he did popularize its use. Because of his use of it to this day we refer to dates as A. D. However this is starting to disappear. Today there is a tendency to use C. E. instead of A. D. it can represent many things from Common Era to Christian Era. The reasoning behind it seems to be that even though the birth of Christ is the center of our dating system we don't want to offend people by making that widely known. However it is my opinion that we should continue to use A. D. as it points to the same thing as C. E. If we are going to have a dating system focused on one single event we should not be ashamed of that event. Bede used that method of dating because it focused on the most important date in History. For that reason I believe we should remember and honor Bede by continuing with his choice of words in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven.


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Ecclesiastical History of the English People
by the Venerable Bede
310 pages of text read

My goal for 2011 is to read 100 books I have not read before