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I've made it to 50 books again this year, but I'll probably get in at least one more, maybe 2, before 2012 is over.
"Blindsight" by Peter Watts was an absorbing but difficult and challenging read. In the near future, probes fall to earth, alerting us to the presence of aliens in the solar system. We send out a ship to find out what's going on, piloted and crewed by people who are all altered from the norm in some way. Ultimately, I believe the theme of the book is something like, "We can't even figure out how to best communicate across human differences, such as with the mentally ill or the neuro-atypical, or even across the male/female divide. What makes us think we could communicate successfully with aliens?" The writing was beautiful but confusing in a few places and I found myself re-reading to figure out what was being described in terms of the alien presence.
and
"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. The author tends to get shoe-horned into the "chick lit" category, but I just think she's a good writer, period. In this one, a girl named Anna is conceived so that she could be a donor of blood, marrow and possibly organs to her ill older sister. As she reaches adolescence, Anna decides she does not want to be used that way anymore, even if it means her sister, who has a chronic, recurring blood disease, may die. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.
My full comments on both books here.
"Blindsight" by Peter Watts was an absorbing but difficult and challenging read. In the near future, probes fall to earth, alerting us to the presence of aliens in the solar system. We send out a ship to find out what's going on, piloted and crewed by people who are all altered from the norm in some way. Ultimately, I believe the theme of the book is something like, "We can't even figure out how to best communicate across human differences, such as with the mentally ill or the neuro-atypical, or even across the male/female divide. What makes us think we could communicate successfully with aliens?" The writing was beautiful but confusing in a few places and I found myself re-reading to figure out what was being described in terms of the alien presence.
and
"My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. The author tends to get shoe-horned into the "chick lit" category, but I just think she's a good writer, period. In this one, a girl named Anna is conceived so that she could be a donor of blood, marrow and possibly organs to her ill older sister. As she reaches adolescence, Anna decides she does not want to be used that way anymore, even if it means her sister, who has a chronic, recurring blood disease, may die. I really enjoyed this book and recommend it.
My full comments on both books here.
