*** Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
** Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
** Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay
** George MacDonald Fraser – McAuslan. Entertaining for a while but not particularly gripping. A bunch of amusing anecdotes about being in the army shortly after the end of WWII.
*** John Scalzi – Old Man’s War. Great. An interesting reversal of the typical “raw recruits sent out into the great big universe” type of story, with the recruits bing able to benefit from age and wisdom. Also, kind of a nice wish fulfillment for anyone who’s getting older and feeling it.
*** John Scalzi – Ghost Brigades. Pretty good. Sequel to Old Man’s War, but not as novel. More interesting exploration of the same universe.

The first book of the Hunger Games trilogy was great, immediately engrossing, good characters, interesting and strong female lead. The other two were letdowns (though I have to admit I blazed through all of them). The plot becomes tangled and repetitive, the ending is unsatisfying and uncreative, and most importantly Katniss’s failure to ever really become her own person and be a leader is an abject failure of the series.

*** P.G. Wodehouse – The Works of P.G. Wodehouse

Seriously, all I did from late April until early June, books-wise, was plow through this gigantic Wodehouse tome (thank god I didn’t have to carry it around on actual paper). I spent a solid 5-6 weeks on it and am still only 30% finished, and I read fairly quickly. I gave it up not because I didn’t like it but because dear lord that’s a lot of Wodehouse. So, recommended. Now, everyone knows that the jewel in Wodehouse’s crown is Jeeves and Wooster, and this is mostly stuff that isn’t quite that good. On the other hand there are some real gems hidden in this collection. For all their good qualities, the Jeeves books are fundamentally static comedies. Like a sitcom, whatever situation is set up at the beginning in order for hilarity to ensue must be resolved by the end with everything basically back to how it was when it all started. In other words, neither Jeeves nor Bertie ever grows or changes as a character. There is essentially no character development, no growth or change; and so there’s a limit to how compelling these people can be in the long run. Now, I think every piece of Wodehouse I’ve ever read has been of the light comedy type, but there were several in here that involved actual character complexity and development that I really enjoyed. I’ll be returning to this later.

*** Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Flanders Panel
** Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Sun over Breda
*** Philip K. Dick – 11 Science Fiction Stories by Philip K. Dick
*** David Foster Wallace – Oblivion

I actually saw the horrible movie version of The Flanders Panel. It was horrible, though you do get to see Kate Beckinsale’s boobs. The book was significantly better, in that it was entertaining though immediately forgettable. Breda is another of Perez-Reverte’s “Captain Alatriste” books. I liked the first one a lot; this one less so. There’s a lot of “war is miserable” stuff in it, which I usually don’t particularly mind, but this book just didn’t connect for me. I’ll probably keep reading Perez-Reverte and Alatriste if I’m in the mood for entertaining adventure books; he’s generally pretty good.

Hey, old short stories by Philip K. Dick. They were entertaining at the time, though mostly not particularly memorable. I often find “golden age” science fiction a little strange to read because it’s so distinctly of its time in some ways; for example, no one writes about Martians or Moon men any more.

Oblivion alternated between fantastically annoying and thought-provoking. This was my second read; the first time I found it fantastically annoying, evidence I thought that DFW was out of ideas and had crawled up his own meta asshole. I started a review that I never finished. Same thing this time, except a couple of the later stories were good enough to deflate my need to rant about how annoying it was, and I didn’t finish the review. Some day, I will manage to properly review this book. Oh DFW, you wily bastard.

*** Herman Melville – Bartleby the Scrivener, a Story of Wall-Street
** David Sedaris – When You are Engulfed in Flames

Bartleby was my first Melville; I somehow managed to get through high school without reading Moby Dick. It was pretty good; I’m planning on reading more Melville.

I used to think David Sedaris was hilarious and occasionally moving, and I didn’t get a whole lot of either from this book. I don’t know if he’s changed or I have, though I did think he came across more like an entitled schmuck whining about first-world problems than I ever did before. Maybe it’s that now instead of just being a regular entitled American schmuck like the rest of us, he’s now a famous and wealthy schmuck living what sounds like a marvellous life.