Reading: Earthsea

I've been wanting to read more of Ursula Le Guin's work for awhile now and recently got the chance to do so.

This month I read the first two Earthsea books. I enjoyed her world building, and it was easy to get into Ged's story as he learned to be a wizard then set off on his adventure.

I liked how she didn't mention Ged's race until further along in the story. Which she did deliberately because she knew many white readers wouldn't accept a non white hero. (1967).

Also interesting is that the first book was initially a stand alone. It wasn't meant to be a series. A line she wrote about Ged going off on further adventures was wrapping the story up. Yet it turned into a hint of further story for the series.

After that first book she wrote Left Hand Of Darkness. Then travel brought setting for the second Earthsea book. Ged is still a part of the story, but he's not the main character. Tenar is introduced here, this book is her story.

February reads

With February being a short month I only have two books for this post. 

Defender (Foreigner #5) Cherryh, C.J.
I enjoyed reading this book, though it seamed a little slow in spots. The way this one is placed in the series it setting things up to have the characters arriving at the distant space station in the next book. There were a few jokes towards the end of the book with mistranslations, and the dowager character makes a good power play move. The dowager is one of my favorite characters in the series.

Explorer (Foreigner #6) Cherryh, C.J.
This one was rather enjoyable to read with the various levels of intrigue going on. With the space ship dealing with both the space station and new (to them) aliens and the two groups of humans not wanting to cooperate with each other conflict is present through the whole novel. There was also a nice bit of action in this book.

January Reads

Because I've had a lot going on I've unintentionally neglected my blog. I have been reading though and have read 5 novels over the month of January. I figured I'd share what I read here, and I'm hoping to write some proper reviews at some point. As opposed to a quick few sentences on what I thought of the books.

These are listed in reading order, and I've linked them to their Goodreads pages.
Islands Siddons, Anne Rivers
The first novel read in 2011. This is one my mom lent me I might not have picked it up otherwise. That being said I did enjoy reading this one. The characters were interesting and I enjoyed how she described the setting related details.

Tara Road Binchy, Maeve
Another loan from mom. While the story started out quite a bit earlier than I had expected it worked for the book with setting up the characters and the plot. I enjoyed how much the two main characters grew from their experiences over the course of the novel.

CassaStar Cavanaugh, Alex J.
I really enjoyed reading this book. There were enough details about the setting to create a mental image of the world around the characters, without getting to bogged down in details. The characters are fleshed out nicely and their actions kept the story moving at a good pace.

Scarlet Feather Binchy, Maeve
While I did enjoy this book, I liked Tara Road better. There were developments between some of the characters that felt a little forced. Though the nine year old twins in this book are a riot. I was laughing out loud a few times while reading.

Precursor (Foreigner, #4)  Cherryh, C.J.
I started reading this series last year and I enjoyed this book better than some of the earlier ones. The world is well defined and the alien species is really interesting. Because this is book four I don't want to say to much because it would spoil things in the earlier three books.

So I Joined Goodreads

Thanks to a blog post by Karen I've decided to sign up over at Goodreads. I've only poked around the site a little so far, but I like what I've seen. It's handy how they have different shelves to add books on, especially the "to read" one. I've been on Librarything for awhile now, which is useful to catalog owned books, so it feels weird adding things on Goodreads that I don't own. I only have so much real shelf space for books at home, and some of my books both loaners and owned are sitting around the house in various locations. (And yes, I do have plans to buy another book case or two sometime soon).

Anyways, I figure I'll spend some time this weekend adding books to various shelves on Goodreads. I'll probably start with the to read shelf so I make sure to have a handy list of books I want to buy or borrow. Though the ones my mom loaned me will probably be read first so I can return them to her. Then at some point I can use my Librarything list to add books to the 'read' shelf on Goodreads.

Further down the line I'm planning on integrating some of the Goodreads widgets onto my website. I have a page for reading, and haven't been sure how to organize it. With the widgets it will be easy enough to quickly display what I'm currently reading along with some of my favorite books. It will be interesting to build virtual book shelves as I enjoy reading many types of books.

So, anyone else on Goodreads? (Or Librarything?)