Turn the Page... Tuesday

It's January 5th - the first Tuesday of the month - time for Turn the Page... Tuesday.  And BOY do I have a bunch of books to talk about this month (lots of time in airports and on planes - BOO - then lots of time off - YAY).
But first, thanks to Adrienne of Some of a Kind for the idea of TTP... T.  For more info and to see what other bloggers are reading, check out her site.  Then join in!

SO... what did I read this month, you ask?  A little bit of everything, starting with...

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
This is book 3 of the Sookie Stackhouse books.  This series is the basis for the HBO Show "True Blood".  I've never seen the show, but the books are fun.  Imagine vampires living among humans as fellow humans with a "disability" - allergic to sunshine and drink blood.  This book is a story of just another "day in teh life" of a telepath (Sookie) and her adventures with the vampires.
I'll admit, I blew through this book rather quickly... and it was enjoyable.  But it's not my favorite Sookie story.  I've noticed this seems to happen in novel series - so books are just better than others.  Maybe this one is setting up story lines for future books.  We'll see.  I'll probably tackle Book 4 next month.

Next, I attempted to read Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger (got about 1/2 way through).  It's not a very cheery story and a tough one to read following a Sookie story.  I found the "undertones" of F&Z interesting, however, with Franny rejecting what seems to be the "status" associated with the people around her - it matches my occasional thoughts on the consumerism of people these days.    Anyway... I might go back to it eventually, but for now it's on the shelf. 

Speaking of cheery... the next one was anything but.  For Book Club, I recommended Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and the members selected it for our January meeting!  I thought I read this in high school (who hasn't), but I honestly don't remember it having the impact it had on me this time through.  Written in 1950, the parallels to today's society are SCARY (fast cars, big screen TVs and a lack of intellectualism or even "thinking" - Sheesh!).  I'm really looking forward to our discussion on the 13th.  Even though the book was short, I don't expect the conversation to be the same.

I learned a new word between reading F451 and my next book, The Maze Runner by James Dashner.  Dystopia: the opposite of an Utopia... a nightmare world.  The Maze Runner is set (in Book 1, at least) in a dystopian world - a maze, where vicious creatures roam at night, so you better be inside - even though you were doing everything you could to escape.  TMR is a book written for teens (teen boys, I would assume), but I found it quite enjoyable.  It was a quick read (as most teen fiction seems to be for me), but also quite exciting.  When I got to the end of the book I saw that it as listed as Book I.  I just learned there are two more books to come... but I have to wait till Fall 2010 and 2011.  ARRGH!  :)

So, what am I reading now?

I completely switched gears again and am reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.  I picked up a hardcover copy at last month's book sale & noticed that it was a Book Club selection from a few years ago (before I was a member).  I'm about 100 pages into the book and can't really comment on it yet.  If I remember, I'll make a note about it in next month's TTP... T.

See ya then!