A Much Needed Reading Update.... Right??

My last actual reading update was 12 April and since then I've posted some poems by Mary Oliver and then some new books from my last Rotary Club Book Sale. So time for my normal update; books read, books started and any new books received. 1, 2, 3.....and we're off and running

Books Completed (since last update)

1. The Antifa Comic Book: Revised and Expanded by Gord Hill (2025). I think I may need to do a political / philosophical type post on books I've read and plan to read in a future post)

"For some reason, since about 2016, I've found myself getting more political, even to donating to Canadian political parties and other groups. Anyway, I'm also getting more interested in exploring issues like tyranny, fascism, etc. When I saw a listing for The Antifa Comic Book: Revised and Expanded (and I don't know where I saw it) by Canadian indigenous author, Gord Hill, I thought I should check it out. It ended up being a succinct, clearly presented historical perspective of both fascism in the world and those forces trying to combat its influence and search for power.

The comic book starts off with a definition of fascism -

- an ideology the promotes a strong, centralized state under the command of a supreme leader (often a cult of personality)

- fascist movements are authoritarian and militaristic, often with a paramilitary force

- ultra nationalistic in nature & inherently racist

- an imperialistic world view

- predominantly anti semitic

- all aspects of society are regimented and all opposition violently repressed

- media, entertainment & educational / cultural institutions replaced with fascist views

- cult of personality is strengthened & the entire state apparatus becomes almost mystical.

Antifa  is an abbreviation of antifaschistische aktion, originally set up by by the German Communist party in 1932 to oppose the Nazis.

The book offers a historical perspective of the birth and rise of both groups, starting after WWI, especially in Germany and Italy. But it goes from country to county over the years, from those in Europe to North America and even in the Middle East. It doesn't go into tons of detail but the points it highlights are clear and concise.

As the updated book progresses, it moves along to current time, with fascist organizations throughout the world. I found it particularly interesting the portions on Britain. My wife, who is British, probably remembers this time, but the battles between right wing fascists (skinheads and white supremacists) and the left wing, trying to protect immigrant communities. 

I especially found how much the police forces & governments focused on protecting these right wing groups from attacks by those defending their countries from them. I also found it interesting how the anti Semitism (which is still a major focus) has also moved along to anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant biases. There is a chapter on Israeli Zionist actions, to create a Zionistic Middle East expanded country. The book ends with the current American administration's right wing tendencies. 

The final sentence leaves hope, maybe "This resistance will only increase in the future.... and the future is unwritten." An interesting book, at the very least. Food for thought (4.0 stars)"

2. Dark Benediction by Walter M. Miller Jr. (Short Stories / 1980).

"Dark Benediction is a collection of Sci Fi short stories by Walter M. Miller Jr. who also wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz, a book I read back in my university days. Dark Benediction contains 14 stories published between 1951 - 1957.

The stories cover topics from a child who suffers from a rare disease where he can't grow (but what else is there about him?); an alien invasion (stopped by a woman with a shot gun?); a man trying to save Mars' atmosphere; an over-populated Earth that stops births and instead develops childlike creatures to be raised by families; an aging actor who now cleans a cinema / playhouse that shows plays with robot actors but who wants a final bow; a plague that cause people to go insane and one man's journey to escape; workers on the Moon who are visited by a traveling whore house and the effect; and a Russian woman who is assigned to kill the American general in charge of the invasion of Russia, etc.

All in all, I enjoyed the stories. Some seemed a mite long but I think that's Miller's writing style. He paints interesting pictures of the setting, characters and stories. Dark Benediction was a particular favorite and I also enjoyed The Darfsteller and Conditionally Human but each had its own merits. Worth checking out, especially if you've tried Canticle before and you want to explore Miller's writing some more. (3.5 stars)"

3. Montgomery Schnauzer P.I. & the Callous Car Thieves by Timothy Forner (Monty Schnauzer #2 / 2025).

"This might sound silly but when I heard of this book series (Montgomery Schnauzer PI), it made me think of the 4 puppies, miniature schnauzers, that my wife and I have had as companions over the past many years. We lost our last one a year ago and we both miss Clyde terribly. Anyway, I had to check out this series, a children's book series, because the main character was, of course, a schnauzer.

Go Monty!!

Montgomery Schnauzer P.I. and the Callous Car Thieves is the 2nd book in the series by American author, Timothy Forner. There are currently two books in the series, but Monty's dad indicates there is a 3rd book on the way. I read the 2nd book first because it was easier to get a copy. #1 is now on the way. 🐶

So Monty lives in an unnamed city with his Momma, Sarah. Sarah is struggling, as her old beater of a car breaks down on the highway. She needs a car to get to work and discovers a nice little fancy car for sale on line. Walter, the salesman, says he'll accept Sarah's offer and Sarah now has a newer, sportier car.

But..... the next day, Sarah and Monty are arrested by the police for driving a stolen car. Sarah is taken to the police station and booked and Monty is taken to the pound. Monty is desperate to find Sara and also prove that she didn't steal the car. With the help of another dog, he breaks out of the pound and finds his way back to the car dealer.. but everybody is gone and it's shut down.

Over the course of the book, Monty continues to try and discover where the car thieves are and along the way he meets new friends and has lots of adventures. I won't tell you any more about the story, just to say, it's fun and adventure filled. Monty is a smart dog, frustrated that he can't get the 'humans' to understand what he is saying, but always managing to move his investigation along, ultimately to a satisfactory conclusion. The cover art and the interior drawings are all excellent and the story is fun for adults and should be entertaining for kids. Go Monty! (3.5 stars)"

Currently Reading (started since last update)

1. The Golden Ball and Other Stories by Agatha Christie (Short Stories / 1971). 

"Is it a gesture of good will or a sinister trap that lures Rupert St. Vincent and his family to magnificent estate? How desperate is Joyce Lambert, a destitute young widow whose only recourse is to marry a man she despises? What unexpected circumstance stirs old loyalties in Theodora Darrell, and unfaithful wife about to run away with her lover? In this collection of short stories, the answers are as unexpected as they are satisfying. The Queen of Crime takes bizarre romantic entanglements, supernatural visitations, and classic murder to inventive new heights."

2. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker (Horror / 2026). I follow a few podcasts on YouTube by folks who talk about books. A few had advance copies of this book and ranked it very highly so I put in an order for it and received it yesterday. Enjoying thus far.

"In this lyrical, wildly inventive horror novel interwoven with Japanese mythology, two people living centuries apart discover a door between their worlds.

October, 2026: Lee Turner doesn’t remember how or why he killed his college roommate. The details are blurred and bloody. All he knows is he has to flee New York and go to the one place that might offer refuge—his father’s new home in Japan, a house hidden by sword ferns and wild ginger. But something is terribly wrong with the house: no animals will come near it, the bedroom window isn't always a window, and a woman with a sword appears in the yard when night falls.

October, 1877: Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. A monster came home from war wearing her father’s face, but Sen would do anything to please him, even turn her sword on her own mother. She knows the soldiers will soon slaughter her whole family when she sees a terrible omen: a young foreign man who appears outside her window.

One of these people is a ghost, and one of these stories is a lie.

Something is hiding beneath the house of sword ferns, and Lee and Sen will soon wish they never unburied it."

Newest Arrivals (yes... since my last update)

1. Gideon Falls, Vol. 2, Original Sins by Jeff Lemire (2019).

"The lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash, and a washed up Catholic Priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets become dangerously intertwined around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn -- an otherworldly building that is alleged to have appeared in both the city and the small town, throughout history, leaving death and madness in its wake."

2. Modem Times 2.0 by Michael Moorcock (2011).

"Jerry Cornelius—Michael Moorcock’s fictional audacious assassin, rockstar, chronospy, and possible Messiah—is featured in the first of two stories in this fifth installment of the Outspoken Author series. Previously unpublished, the first story is an odyssey through time from London in the 1960s to America during the years following Barack Obama's presidency. The second piece is a political, confrontational, comical, nonfiction tale in the style of Jonathan Swift and George Orwell. An interview with the author rounds out this biting, satirical, sci-fi collection."

3. Seeing by Jose Saramago (2004). This is a sequel to Saramago's Blindness.

"On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to go out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o' clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.

But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? A police superintendent is put on the case.

What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness."

4. You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times by Saeed Teebi (2025). New in my local book store, it sounded interesting and is a topic I've been exploring.

"A vital, fearless memoir in the vein of Between the World and Me that explores what it means to be a Palestinian in this moment, the effects of the genocide on Palestinian art and imagination, and that to even claim a belonging to the land from a country thousands of miles away is an act of subversion.

Imagination is a more powerful force than hope.

Acclaimed author Saeed Teebi was at work on his first novel when the attacks on Gaza began in late 2023. The violence and cruelty of the attacks, accompanied by the assent and silence of international governments, stunned many across the globe, like Teebi, into a new state of permanent horror.

What does it mean to be of the Palestinian diaspora in such a moment? What does it mean to be of a people who have sustained such a large-scale assault not only on their homeland, but their entire identity? What is the role of art, of language—of imagination—in asserting one’s identity, when that very assertion is read as an act of subversion?

In this incisive work, Teebi explores, with searing, razor-sharp prose, the effects of genocide on the bodies, minds, and imaginations—of Palestinians especially, and humanity in general.

This is at once a memoir of one family’s displacement, a scathing indictment of global complicity in the face of brutality, and a profound rumination on art and imagination as a means of defiance. It is an astonishing work of resistance by a major intellect, and it is both urgent and timeless."

5. Y:  The Last Man, Ring of Truth by Brian K. Vaughan (Vol. 5 / 2005).

"Yorick Brown, the last man on Earth, finally makes it to San Francisco where his unbalanced sister, Hero, finds him seemingly succumbing to the male-killing plague after losing his still-unused engagement ring to the burqa-clad agents of the Setauket Ring. But is the ring really the key to his survival? And what does it have to do with the mysterious Amulet of Helene, which the Setauket leader is determined to take from Agent 355 by any means necessary. Collects issues #24-31."

There you go. All caught up once again. Jo and I will be starting our weekend by taking her to a chemo session this afternoon and I hope to get more yard work done this weekend pending our sprinkler guy coming to turn us on for the year. :) Enjoy your weekend!

A Quick Sunday Post

Team Homan

Hey there. Happy Sunday. Brighton had a great Saturday in the Premier League, winning 4-0. Go Seagulls! And even though I'm not getting any hopes up for the season, the Blue Jays won their first Spring Training game yesterday too. But.... the best sports news yesterday was the amazing shot that Rachel Homan made in the Scotties Curling play-offs. I hope this link works because it was truly amazing. Check it out.

So this will be quick today as I've only completed one book since my last Blog. I'll provide my review of it, plus what books I've started and any new books I've received since I last updated this,

Just Completed

1. When the Tripods Came by John Christopher (Tripods #0.5 / 1988). This completes this series for me It was excellent, an entertaining YA / Sci Fi series. I've enjoyed John Christopher's work and have since ordered his Prince in Waiting trilogy.

"I had read the Tripod trilogy, a YA / Sci Fi series a couple of years ago when I discovered the three books in a used book store I frequent. After I had completed the trilogy I decided to check out other books by British author John Christopher and discovered that he had written a prequel to the series in 1988, entitled When the Tripods Came, a prequel to the trilogy.

In the first 3 books, the premise is that the Tripods have taken over the Earth many years ago and mankind has reverted to a more primitive time, no tv, no radio, no cars, etc. Each year any children reaching the age of 13 lose their free will when they receive the helmet that will link them forever with the Tripods. Of course there is an underground movement to grab these children and turn them into rebels instead. This guerrilla movement is the crux of the 1st three books, the battle to return the Earth to mankind.

In the prequel, we find out how the Tripods take over Earth and it's fascinating. 3 Tripods land on Earth, one in England, one in the US and one in Russia. They are ultimately destroyed. The books focus is on the one that lands in England and is seen by two young boys out on an orienteering adventure, Laurie and Andy. 

After this first encounter, life goes on as normal but gradually things begin to change. Firstly there is a television program, called the Trippy Show to which people begin to get quite addicted, including Andy's step-sister, Angela. She must watch it and throws a terrible tantrum once when she misses an episode. Laurie's dad finally agrees to have the local doctor look at her. Oddly he tries hypnotism on Angela to remove this addiction to the show and it works. (Oh, Angela's mom Ilse, who of course is also Laurie's stepmom, has had to go to Switzerland to look after her sick father). 

But this addiction to the Trippy show grows and becomes quite threatening. When more Tripods land, masses of people head to their locations as a sort of cult. This includes Laurie's friend, Andy's mom. Andy moves in with Laurie and his family. The situation continues to worsen. Laurie's uncle and cousin show up one day and try to put a 'cap' on Laurie (this will link him to the Tripods). They have enough caps for the whole family. But Laurie's great aunt, Martha, intercedes and saves Laurie. The family now decides they need to leave England because it has now become to dangerous. And thus begins a journey to Switzerland for the whole gang.

For a very short story, 150ish pages long, there is a lot packed into it. It's a fascinating Sci Fi novel and a great adventure. I like how it explains the beginnings of the Tripod invasion and also provides an inkling to the future underground revolution. Scary and tense and with excellent characters. It's a series that both adults and kids could enjoy equally. (4.0 stars)"

Currently Reading

1. Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie (Tommy and Tuppence #5 / 1973). This will complete this series.

"Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have just become the proud owners of an old house in an English village. Along with the property, they have inherited some worthless bric-a-brac, including a collection of antique books. While rustling through a copy of The Black Arrow, Tuppence comes upon a series of apparently random underlinings.

However, when she writes down the letters, they spell out a very disturbing message: "Mary Jordan did not die naturally." And sixty years after their first murder, Mary Jordan's enemies are still ready to kill. . . ."

(I've broken my promise to stick to no more than 5 books at once by adding two short ones that I had to start)

2. A Field of Vision by Charles Causley (1988). It's February and I thought a book of poetry was appropriate. His work was recommended by Susan Hill in one of her books. I thought I should try it. 

"This latest collection of poems from Charles Causley includes thirty-eight poems and a translation from the German Des Knaben Wunderhorn, 'A Song of Truth'. His travels are reflected in many of the poems, 'In Malacca', 'At the Chateau Lake Louise' and 'I believe you were born in Odessa', but he comes home again and again to Cornwall, where his house, names after a Saxon spring, is celebrated in the lines of 'Sibard's Well'.

Travel and homecoming, reflection and recollection fill these pages. More than once, Charles Causley is drawn back to his childhood in the still dark shadow of the First World War. The spirit of storytellers and ballad-spinners of ancient Cornwall haunts many of these poems. Some like 'Legend of the Raven', are newly written yet might have been old when the standing stones were raised in the far west of these islands."

I'm getting into it and he paints such beautiful pictures. This is Kelly Wood, a short one -

"Walking in Kelly Wood, gathering words

Frail as split leaves, fine sticks of sentences,

Spirals of bracken from the fallen ground,

I listen for the silences of stone,

The stream's white voice, the indifference of birds,

Safe in my quiet house I lay them out

- Leaf, stick and bracken - in the hearth's cold

   frame,

Strike steel on flint against the page of dark,

Wait patiently for the first spark. A flame."

3. On Book Banning by Ira Wells (2025). I saw this in my local and it looked interesting.

"A lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages.

The freedom to read is under attack. There are, today, more efforts to ban books from libraries than ever before. The supposed "dangers" posed by books including The Handmaid's Tale, Gender Queer, Huckleberry Finn, and the works of Dr. Seuss—leading children down a path of sexual deviance, or harming them with racist language or non-inclusive narratives—fuel the puritanical zeal of De Santis Republicans and progressive educators alike. On Book Banning argues that today's culture warriors proceed from a misunderstanding of literature as instrumental to the pursuit of their ideological agendas. In treating libraries as sites of contagion and exposure, censors are warping our children's relationship with literature and teaching them that the solution to opposing viewpoints is cancellation or outright expurgation.

On Book Banning provides a lively, accessible survey of literary censorship through the ages—from the destruction of libraries in ancient Rome, to the Catholic Church's attempts to tamp down religious dissent and scientific innovation, to state-sponsored efforts to suppress LGBTQ literature in the 1980s and beyond. Throughout, Ira Wells demonstrates how today's book bans stem from the ineradicable human impulse toward social control. In a whistle-stop tour of landmark legal cases, literary controversies, and philosophical arguments, we discover that the freedom to read and publish is the aberration in human history, and that censorship and restriction have been the rule. At a moment in which our democratic institutions are buckling under the stress of polarization, On Book Banning is both rallying cry and guide to resistance for those who reject the conflation of art and propaganda, for whom books remain sacred vessels of our shared humanity, and who will always insist upon reading for ourselves."

New Books

(The two I just started reading both arrived this past week)

1. A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf (1953). This was another of the books recommended by Susan Hill.

"An invaluable guide to the art and mind of Virginia Woolf, drawn from the personal record she kept over a period of twenty-seven years.

Included are entries that refer to her own writing, and those that are relevant to the raw material of her work, and, finally, comments on the books she was reading. The first entry included here is dated 1918 and the last, three weeks before her death in 1941. Between these points of time unfolds the private world—the anguish, the triumph, the creative vision—of one of the great writers of the twentieth century."

2. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (We Solve #1 / 2024).

"A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?"

3. Ms. Tree; Fallen Tree by Max Allan Collins (Ms. Tree #6 / 2024). This has been an enjoyable crime series.

"The sixth sensational instalment in the Hard Case Crime books of Ms. Tree, private detective, from famed Hard Case Crime author Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition).

Fans of pulp noir and hard-boiled detective crime fiction will love this seminal collection of classic comics.

From the minds of award-winning author Max Allan Collins and artist Terry Beatty, comes the sixth collection of classic Ms. Tree stories, collected together for the first time!

Join Michael Tree, the 6ft, 9mm carrying private detective on her thrilling adventures. No case is too small, no violence too extreme, just as long as it gets the job done.

Fans of hard-boiled detective and crime fiction will get a thrill from these “Fallen Tree!”; “Like Father”; “Murder Cruise”; “New Years Evil”; “Coming of Rage”; and more!"

4. The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Oz #6 / 1910). I've been enjoying my journey through the world of Oz.

"The Emerald City is built all of beautiful marbles in which are set a profusion of emeralds, every one exquisitely cut and of very great size. There are other jewels used in the decorations inside the houses and palaces, such as rubies, diamonds, sapphires, amethysts and turquoises. But in the streets and upon the outside of the buildings only emeralds appear, from which circumstance the place is named the Emerald City of Oz."

Horror!

I've been thinking about what theme I could follow since I've finally completed my look at Women Author's Whose Work I've Been Enjoying. It took me a couple of years but was most enjoyable. Of course, it's not an all - inclusive look as there are so many others I've enjoyed. I tried to focus on those where I've read more than just a book. If you're interested in checking those threads out, you can find individual authors in the Focus threads along the right side of the Blog, e.g. for Becky Chambers, check this thread.

Well. I had a great plan to focus on Horror books next but as I checked through my previous Blog entries, I've discovered that last year I did about 5 or six posts on the topic, including favorite books and graphics. So instead of re-inventing the wheel, if you are interested, please go to this thread. It was in September. Just scroll through. Now to think of something else???? War books maybe? I'll keep you posted.

2025 Anyone? Part Deux

I've previously looked at a potential 2025 Reading challenge, a 12 + 4 challenge to read the 16 books I've had the longest on my Goodreads page. If you haven't seen it already, you can go to the link by clicking on 12 + 4 above. The other 12 + 4 challenge I plan to have is to finish 16 series in 2025. (this is a specific challenge. It's possible I might finish more.) The series will follow below.

2025 12 + 4 Reading Challenge - Finish a Series or Two or 16

1. Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) - The Testaments.

"When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.

With The Testaments, the wait is over.

Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.

In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades."

2. Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows) - The Crooked Kingdom. As I understand it, this finished the Six of Crows but not the whole Grishaverse universe series.

"When you can’t beat the odds, change the game.

Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets—a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world."

3. Jayne Barnard (Maddie Hatter) - Maddie Hatter and the Timely Taffeta.

"Maddie Hatter’s third Adventure finds her in Venice on an all-expenses-paid assignment: report on the season’s most extravagant Carnevale costumes. Determined to land an inside scoop, she enlists the help of her half-Venetian friend, Lady Serephene, to penetrate Madame Frangetti’s Costume Atelier in disguise.

Serephene is pursuing plots of her own: training in secret for a career that’s forbidden by her family, and flirting madly with a low-born Scottish inventor in his airship laboratory. When the inventor’s fabulous new fabric is targeted by industrial spies, Serephene risks not only her family’s displeasure but her own safety to protect him and his work.

Pursued through the floating city’s legendary canals and squares, Maddie must draw on all her hard-won survival skills to keep herself and Serephene out of the spies’ clutches. With the help of unexpected allies among Venice’s underdogs, the daring young ladies just might reach Carnevale’s grand finale alive."

4. Giles Blunt (John Cardinal) - Crime Machine.

"A year after the death of his beloved and troubled wife, Catherine, John Cardinal has moved into a new, but very humid, condo. He has fallen into an easy routine of work on cold case files and platonic movie nights with friend and colleague Lise Delorme. The quiet of a snow-covered Algonquin Bay is shattered when the decapitated bodies of two people are found in a summer home on Trout Lake. The victims, visitors from Russia, are in Algonquin Bay attending the annual fur auction. This is by no means a routine murder investigation as Cardinal soon discovers, but a horrific piece of a very twisted puzzle. Blunt has, once again, given us a page-turning plot, a remarkable cast of characters and the comfort of John Cardinal at the helm."

5. Edgar Rice Burroughs (Land that Time Forgot) - Out of Time's Abyss.

"This is the tale of Bradley after he left Fort Dinosaur upon the west coast of the great lake that is in the center of the island. About them upon the ground, among the trees and in the air over them moved and swung and soared the countless forms of Caspak's teeming life. Always were they menaced by some frightful thing and seldom were their rifles cool, yet even in the brief time they had dwelt upon Caprona they had become callous to danger, so that they swung along laughing and chatting like soldiers on a summer hike."

6. Olivia E. Butler (Exogenesis) - Imago.

"From the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower : After the near-extinction of humanity, a new kind of alien-human hybrid must come to terms with their identity -- before their powers destroy what is left of humankind.

Since a nuclear war decimated the human population, the remaining humans began to rebuild their future by interbreeding with an alien race -- the Oankali -- who saved them from near-certain extinction. The Oankalis' greatest skill lies in the species' ability to constantly adapt and evolve, a process that is guided by their third sex, the ooloi , who are able to read and mutate genetic code.

Now, for the first time in the humans' relationship with the Oankali, a human mother has given birth to an ooloi Jodahs. Throughout his childhood, Jodahs seemed to be a male human-alien hybrid. But when he reaches adolescence, Jodahs develops the ooloi abilities to shapeshift, manipulate DNA, cure and create disease, and more. Frightened and isolated, Jodahs must either come to terms with this new identity, learn to control new powers, and unite what's left of humankind -- or become the biggest threat to their survival."

7. Agatha Christie (Tommy & Tuppence) - Postern of Fate.

"Tommy and Tuppence Beresford have just become the proud owners of an old house in an English village. Along with the property, they have inherited some worthless bric-a-brac, including a collection of antique books. While rustling through a copy of The Black Arrow, Tuppence comes upon a series of apparently random underlinings.

However, when she writes down the letters, they spell out a very disturbing message: "Mary Jordan did not die naturally." And sixty years after their first murder, Mary Jordan's enemies are still ready to kill. . . ."

8. John Christopher (The Tripods) - When the Tripods Came.

"When it comes to alien invasions, bad things come in threes. Three landings. One in England, one in Russia, and one in the United States. Three long legs, crushing everything in their paths, with three metallic arms, snaking out to embrace -- and then discard -- their helpless victims. Three evil beings, called Tripods, which will change life on this planet forever."

9. Justin Cronin (The Passage) - The City of Mirrors.

"The world we knew is gone. What world will rise in its place?

The Twelve have been destroyed and the terrifying hundred-year reign of darkness that descended upon the world has ended. The survivors are stepping outside their walls, determined to build society anew—and daring to dream of a hopeful future.

But far from them, in a dead metropolis, he waits: Zero. The First. Father of the Twelve. The anguish that shattered his human life haunts him, and the hatred spawned by his transformation burns bright. His fury will be quenched only when he destroys Amy—humanity’s only hope, the Girl from Nowhere who grew up to rise against him.

One last time light and dark will clash, and at last Amy and her friends will know their fate."

10. William Gibson (Sprawl) - Mona Lisa Overdrive.

"Mona is a young girl with a murky past and an uncertain future whose life is turned upside down when her pimp sells her to a plastic surgeon in New York and overnight she’s turned into someone else.

Angie Mitchell is a famous Hollywood Sense/Net star with a special talent. And despite the efforts of studio bosses to keep her in ignorance, Angie’s started remembering things. Soon she’ll discover who she really is . . . and why she doesn’t need a deck in order to enter cyberspace.

From inside the matrix, plots are set in motion and human beings are being played like pieces on a board. And behind the intrigue lurks the shadowy Yakuza, the powerful Japanese underworld, whose leaders ruthlessly manipulate people and events to suit their own purposes.

Or so they think . . ."

11. James Herbert (Rats) - Domain.

"The long-dreaded nuclear conflict. The city torn apart, shattered, its people destroyed or mutilated beyond hope. For just a few, survival is possible only beneath the wrecked streets - if there is time to avoid the slow-descending poisonous ashes. But below, the rats are waiting."

12. P.D. James (Cordelia Gray) - The Skull Beneath the Skin.

"Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death."

Alt. 1. China Mieville (New Crobuzon) - Iron Council. 

"Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar , acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries us back to the decadent squalor of New Crobuzon—this time, decades later.

It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places.

In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.

In the blood and violence of New Crobuzon’s most dangerous hour, there are whispers. It is the time of the iron council. . . ."

Alt. 2. Leo Rosten (Hyman Kaplan) - The Education of Hyman Kaplan.

"The humorous adventures of Hyman Kaplan, the irrepressible student at the American Night Preparatory School for Adults, and his personal war with the English language. A classic work of American humor."

Alt. 3. Philipp Schott (Dr. Bannerman) - Eleven Huskies (It's possible that there may be more books in this series, but as of now, this is the last.)

"Peter Bannerman, veterinarian and amateur detective, deserves a summer vacation. Peter and his family head to a remote fishing lodge in northern Manitoba for a canoeing trip with his champion sniffer dog, Pippin. But a series of incidents color their plans. The lodge’s sled team of huskies has been poisoned and, at the same time, a floatplane crashes into the lake, killing the pilot and both passengers. While Peter works to save the huskies, it is discovered that the plane crash wasn’t an accident. It was murder. It’s been a hot and dry summer, and one morning the Bannerman family wakes up to find a forest fire spreading quickly. They manage to dodge the conflagration, making it back to the lodge before it becomes cut off from the outside world. Peter soon figures out that the murderer, who probably also poisoned the huskies, must be among the other guests or staff trapped with them at the lodge. The power fails. The now-enormous fire draws nearer. Can Peter discover the culprit in time?"

Alt. 4. Bart Somers (Commander Craig) - Abandon Galaxy!

"Commander Craig Battles for Survival on the Planet Thand.

If Craig makes one false move in this grotesque tournament of cunning and savage skill, he sacrifices his life and the lives of everyone in the galaxy.

If he wins, the deadly League of Outer Space Thieves will be prevented from blowing up the universe. As part of his reward, Craig will receive the exciting beauty Mylitta.

John Craig races against time as he struggles to save the world in the most dangerous adventure of his incredible career."

It's not set in stone yet, but this is one of my 2025 plans. Books may be adjusted. See any that interest you?