Mr. Burke's Reading List

Bluebeard -- And Other Folklore Tales , by Clifton Johnson, 1920 I don't know how long ago I downloaded the free ebook of Bluebeard . I'm not even sure why I did. I probably was looking at the best-selling (or most-downloaded) free classics on Amazon, and it was probably there. I hadn't read it before, so why not. This was a short, in-between other books, book to read when I didn't have something else available -- or when I was going to sleep and I had the light turned off already. (It disturbs the wife.) The book is short (Amazon says 52 pages) and I probably could've read it in one sitting. However, the nature of the book and the times when I was reading it caused me to nod off more than once. It is a collection of fairy tales/folk tales from around the world. They might have been children's stories once upon a time, but with all the monsters and mayhem in them, I wouldn't want to read one to any child right before bed. Not unless I wanted them crawl...

I generally don't like setting reading goals. I always have some in mind, but they always seem to get away from me -- especially when social media and the rest of the Internet are around. (And their great ancestor: the TV set.) One of the problems is that Goals are generally boring and somewhat non-specific. Read 10, 20, 30 books. Okay, what kind of books? How big? In 5th Grade, I got tired of not having a star next to my mind, so once I finished the 100-page biography I took out of the library, I started reading the chapter books in the back of the classroom, and other things that were probably below my reading level (unlike the biography). I even read a couple of the books more than once because I knew I could reread them in one day. I got a lot of stars, enough to rival the leaders of the class. But I didn't push myself, read anything challenging. (On the other hand, I won't deny that I read stuff that was fun, which is important, too.) Getting to the point, if I decid...

Rounding out the things I've read recently: When I was in the pool, I generally had an old magazine, such as Analog or The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , which I was might be momentarily upset, but not devastated, by its loss should it slip into the water. And one point I had, again, picked up the Stars anthology, which contained stories by science fiction authors based on the songs of Janis Ian ( At Seventeen ). The few I read were a mixed bag. The book was won, not bought, so I can't say that it's something I might've chosen to begin with, but with the line-up, I know why I held onto it. I'm not sure where I put the book, so I didn't get to finish it. I've also been raiding the library for copies of Phil & Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius series, to find out what all the hubbub was about. So far I've found and read Volume 4: Agatha Heterodyne and the Circus Of Dreams (128 pp) Volume 5: Agatha Heterodyne and the Clockwork Princess (...

A Great and Terrible Beauty , by Libba Bray, 2003 This book came to me via a book raffle at Lunacon , a general science-fiction convention based, for the most part, in Rye Brook, NY. It's the longest running NYC-area con. The actual winner of this lot had already won a pile of books, so when she walked up, she grabbed a pile and came back and gave them to me. Glancing at the titles, she was more the target demographic than I was. Anyway, after a year or so of sitting on my shelf, I started going through the pile of books. (Another book in that pile was How to Be a Zombie , which I read earlier in the year.) Reading the description of this and another book, I was afraid that I had a bunch of Teenage Paranormal Romances , a genre that didn't exist all that long ago and now has an entire section in the last remaining Barnes & Nobles locations I visit. I didn't have to worry. A Great and Terrible Beauty does have some romance, but it isn't the paranormal kind...

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking , by Susan Cain, 2012 This is a book that was given to me by my wife. She told me, "Read this." As that is not something that happens often -- if ever -- I took it and put it on the side to read "next". (I believe the idiom "-ish" might be appropriate here.) She might hand me something that she thinks I might be interested in, but never tells me to read anything in particular. A couple days after I started it, she let me know it was a library book and asked if I'd finished yet. Whoops. Hadn't occurred to me. However, by that point, I was hooked enough that I reserved electronic copies at both the Brooklyn and New York Public Libraries . I appreciate the NYPL's opinion of my reading ability, but it turned out that this volume was still in their 3-day loan category. Seriously? So this book has the distinction of my reading it in both paperback form and electronically, ...