This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Summer Book Thingy 2012
Aug
28
2012
Introduction
In the normal course of events, I read about 2 books a year – whatever I can get through during our summer vacation.
This year, however, I made it through 7 books – 4 on vacation and 3 at home on whatever evenings I could manage.
But first, a disclaimer: I actually read over 100 books a year. But 99% of those are books that I am reading to the children and have read bunch of times before. They involve characters such as Papa, Mama, Brother, and Sister Bear. Or Little Critters. Or a Tank Engine. You get the idea.
My book reading started earlier this year. There was a book sale and my wife got Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief for Alpha. We had heard a little bit about the book but did not know if it would be appropriate for him to read, so I started reading it to gauge its content.
I was going to read a couple of chapters one evening, but when I finally looked at the clock it was after midnight and I was halfway through the book. I finished it a couple of nights later. It was very engaging. I do not oppose Alpha’s reading the book, but he’s not old enough yet. Maybe 6th grade. He’ll understand some more of the themes then, and the monsters might not be as frightening. Think about it – should a kid in elementary school be reading descriptions of the Underworld? How long would it take him to close his eyes that night?
We visited my sister and family not long after that. It turns out that my nephew has the whole Percy Jackson series – all 5 books – so he lent them to me for my vacation reading.
Choosing the Books
I like to take a variety of books on vacation, so that I’ll have options if I don’t feel like reading a book or type of book. So, rather than limit myself to only PJO, I visited my local library.
I had some recommendations from Adam Stück, so I looked at those first.
- Watership Down – just from the title, I was expecting this to be a thrilling heroic war story about soldiers who get stranded behind enemy lines.
It’s not.
Adam’s review informed me that it’s a book about rabbits. A really well-written book that tells an interesting story of adventure.
I thought I would try it, but when I saw it at the library I knew I just couldn’t do it – the book was a few inches thick. Too long for a vacation book.
- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell – this one sounded interesting from the title and from the description.
But it too was inches thick – I had to leave it on the shelf.
Side note: I can never remember the title correctly. I get “Strange” correct and I know the other name starts with “Nor” but that’s about as far as I can get. That’s enough for the internet though – it supplies me with the right title.
- Anything by P.G. Wodehouse – Adam may be aghast to know that I had never heard of P.G. Wodehouse until I started reading TMTF. He recommended anything that involved Jeeves.
Our library had only 2 or 3 of his books (he wrote 97, so you think they would have more), and none involved Jeeves.
So I went to another library – one that’s in the same network so I can use my library card to check out their books.
They had about twice as many of Wodehouse’s books, but none with Jeeves, again. I flipped through a few of them and settled on one novel (Do Butlers Burgle banks?) and one compilation (The Swoop! and Other Stories).
- The Trials of Lance Eliot – Adam didn’t recommend this one, he promoted it. After reading and liking The Infinity Manuscript, I figured I would read and like TToLE also.
Disclaimer: I’m not against long books – I would have willingly tackled them back when I was on summer break from school or living with my parents after I graduated from college. But now my summer vacations involve 4 kids who like to jump on my back and spill drinks, so I need a book that I can pick and put down often. I can’t just sit down and slog through anything anymore.
The Readings
On our first vacation, I took the 2 Wodehouse books and the Lance Eliot book (on Kindle – I would have bought the paper book but it wasn’t in print at the time). I was going to bring the PJO books, but I forgot, so that limited my choices.
I thought I would start small. The Swoop! collection was a good place to start since it was a collection of shorter stories. I made it through a couple of those before they became wearisome, so I switched to Lance Eliot.
TToLE was much better than The Swoop! was. Not that Wodehouse was bad, it’s just that TToLE was more engaging. I wanted to keep reading, which I did.
I finished it, and then I had some time left in the vacation so I started Do Butlers Burgle Banks? I did not have time to finish that.
After we unpacked from the vacation, DBBB sat on my nightstand for a few days. I resumed reading it one day and finished it a couple days later. This Wodehouse story was more engaging than the short stories, probably because there’s more time to develop a plot in a long story.
About a month went by until our next vacation. I wasn’t planning on reading much, because there would be no help with the kids (unlike the first vacation where there were family and facilities), so I packed some magazines. Then I remembered PJO and tossed books 2 and 3 into the luggage.
I didn’t make it through any of the magazines, but I did finish Sea of Monsters and Titan’s Curse. And we still had 2 days left in the vacation. I regretted not bringing books 4 and 5, but I didn’t know the books would be as captivating as they were.
Summer Book Summary:
Do Butlers Burgle Banks? was fine. Maybe I would have liked a Jeeves book better. Or maybe I need to read more Wodehouse books to appreciate them more. Or maybe that’s not my style of book.
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series is very entertaining. If I were in charge of teaching a class in Greek mythology, I would skip the textbook and have the kids read this series.
The Trials of Lance Eliot made me slightly disappointed because it’s supposed to be a trilogy but there is only one book. I would have liked to read the next book in the series, but it’s not out yet so I must wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Still not ready.
And wait.
And wait.
This is going to be a long blog post.
All right, I’ll stop.
Errors in PJO:
Out of the 5 PJO books, I noticed 2 errors. These errors were of the sort that should have been caught by an editor or proof-reader, since I found them just reading the book, not even looking for any problems. They were that obvious.
“I’d just assume keep it that way”
– The Sea of Monsters
Page 270 (third paragraph of chapter 20)
The phrase is I’d just as soon keep it that way. They sound similar. I tried to figure out what the wrong way would actually mean, but I gave up.
“Grover and I sat in the pickup bed, leaning against the tow wench.”
– The Titan’s Curse
Page 199 (fourth paragraph of chapter 14)
The author must not have much first-hand knowledge of pickup trucks. They have winches. I think that a wench would not be able to tow much.
Disparities in PJO:
I found only one disparity in the series. There may have been more, but I wasn’t looking for them.
In the first book, the group of thugs near the end of the book reacts to his sword and he doesn’t think that’s abnormal.
In the third book, the girl reacts to his sword and he’s surprised.
When you write about the real world, you don’t need to worry about glitches like this. You know how things work. You don’t need to describe properties of things so much, because you can assume that readers will know, say, how a liquid behaves.
When you write fantasy or science fiction, you create items that don’t exist, so you must describe their properties. This becomes trickier, because the more items you create, the more rules and properties you must track. If you say something behave a certain way, that should be consistent throughout your stories.
In this case, I know that celestial bronze cannot harm mortals, but I don’t know if mortals are supposed to be able to see it. Until book 3, we are lead to believe that it is normal for mortals to see celestial bronze. Then, for one chapter, Percy is surprised when a mortal can see celestial bronze.
But that’s nitpicking. All in all, PJO was a fine series.
Then Ishbi-benob, who was among the descendants of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels of bronze in weight, was girded with a new sword, and he intended to kill David.
2 Samuel 21:16
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:07 pm and has been carefully placed in the Life category.
May 23rd, 2013 at 8:26 am
[…] read this book last year (read my review of Lance Eliot), but I read the Kindle version. Now I finally have the paperback […]