Things I've noticed: I'm getting behind on my reading

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m pretty regular in terms of what I read; I like to visit my favourite genres, current author, my two book club selections as well as whatever other book tickles my fancy in any given month.

Right now (20 days into the month) my list looks like this (let's focus on September):

Which shows I’ve still got a book dating back in July (and it’s not even mine, I’ve borrowed it from a friend), two from August (Luckily I own both of these) and six remaining from this Month.

Lets break it down shall we?

Science Fiction: This month I’m planning the read Agent to the Stars, by John Scalzi – I loved Old Man’s War a few months back and this was the next one published.

Horror: I had originally written The Flesh Eaters, as it is the 2011 winner of the Bram Stoker Award for best novel, but it is actually the third in a series, starting with Dead City, by Joe McKinney, so there you go.

Fantasy: The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.  Completed, blogged about it here.

Book Club 1: Ubik, by Phillip K. Dick.  Completed, actually it was a re-read from an earlier Phillip K. Dick read through I did in the mid-90’s.

Book Club 2: The Passage, by Justin Cronin.  Currently Reading – actually re-reading, but am quite excited as it’s sequel The Twelve is coming out next month.

Matheson: …Now You See It.  Won’t be touching this one until I finish his previous book, Shadow on the Sun, which was my Matheson book from August.

Me: Die Trying, by Lee Child.  Completed – after reading Killing Floor for one of my book clubs last month I just had to continue on with the series.

Classics: The Plays of Aeschylus, which I’m not going to be starting for at least a few more months as I’m still working on the previous book in my Classics list, The Old Testament (I’m currently up to Proverbs), but haven’t touched it since I started my new job.

So there you go, I attempt to read eight books a month and if I have time left over I hit my backlog of comics and magazines (which I haven’t looked at since May).

Thank goodness there haven’t been any Saw novelizations as I think October is going to be crazy busy as it is (8 movies, including the original short, a comic book, and two PS3 games).

Book Review: Killing Floor

All right – who’s been hiding these Jack Reacher books from me?  Seriously – no one is willing to admit it?  Fine then, we’ll do it your way.

Normally I’m a guy who appreciates three specific genres: Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction, but every once in a while I find an author and character in other genres I can’t help but want to follow; Lucas Davenport in the Sandford’s Prey series, or Spenser by Robert B. Parker, Heck if I’m being honest even those Gallagher siblings in Nora Robert’s Irish Trilogy, grabbed me as characters and demanded that I follow them through however many books they appear in.

And now I’ve got Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.  What’s funny is although my friend Ron brought it up as his book for book club, Reacher is mentioned in a throwaway line in one of my picks from a few years back Under the Dome, by Stephen King, as a reference for one of the characters in that book – which to be fair, Ron mentioned at the time.

So last month I dig into the first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, and I’ve got to say the character grabbed me from page one.  While sitting at a restaurant, Reacher sees a number of police pull up in cruisers, jump out of their cars and run straight for the diner.  Looking around he casually notes the other people present and immediately deduces that the police are there for him.  For me, this puts Reacher, who is about to get into a whole lot of trouble, in a bizarre position of control, a position he maintains throughout most the book.

I guess I would classify the book as “Men’s Adventure,” in that Reacher is almost always a man of action moving through each scene like a super-cool guy who is “The best at what he does, but what he does isn’t pretty” and the part of my brain that loves characters like these, from Spenser to Schwarzenegger’s Dutch in Predator, just eats this stuff up.  The book took me about three days to finish reading it on the bus and over lunch hours and I loved it.

Sitting on my desk in front of my right now is the second Reacher book Die Trying and assuming it’s as good as the first I’ve definitely found a new series that I’m going to have to start following.

So thanks Ron – very fun book and the beginnings of what look to be a very cool series.