Books read in June and July

Wow, haven't done one of these in a while.

• Me: Let's see... there was Time Storm, by Gordon Dickson, which I don't have much to say about other than it's kinda neat but got a bit too weird for me by the end. It's about a fracturing of the space/time continuum in the universe, which manifests itself as walls of mist rolling across planets and changing the era where they pass, so that for example Texas in 1980 becomes Texas in the 1880s, or Kansas turns into the Kansas Ocean that existed in prehistoric times, or New York suddenly has floating taxis. Being a history buff, that's the part that intrigues me the most, but the book itself concentrates more on the main character's struggle to stabilize the mistwalls. Which is very cool and very well-written, but not what drew me to the book in the first place.
  
  ::shrug:: Still, it's my second time reading it. It's good enough (IMHO) to read twice.
  
  Also re-read The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, for about the twentieth time. I think I first read it at Daniel's age. Brilliant book. I've practically memorized it by now. Am not sure Daniel's old enough to read it yet. He's a bit less mature than I was at his age. Then again, he's a boy, so that shouldn't be a surprise.
  
  Also am struggling through Starfarers, by Poul Anderson. I've been plugging away at this for a while now. It's going slowly.
  
  Am also slowly, slowly making my way through Fifty Degrees Below, by Kim Stanley Robinson. I have a huge huge HUGE geekcrush on KSR, and love this book, but for the first time I'm finding myself a bit bogged down and even sometimes a tad bored with one of his books. It's the sequel to Forty Days of Rain, set in the near future where global warming has caused extensive flooding everywhere (eg, small island nations have disappeared and Washington DC had to be evacuated as the waters reached up to the Lincoln Memorial's mid-knee). In Fifty Degrees, the North Atlantic current it showing signs that it's going to grind to a halt, plunging much of the world (especially Europe) into an ice age. A bunch of scientists, lobbyists and politicians are trying to figure out how to avert disaster. Very gripping, except I'm about a third of the way through the story and so far have mostly been reading about how one scientist has decided that rather than spend a fortune paying rent for a basement bachelor apartment that's still covered in mud and mildew (about the best one can expect in post-flood Washington DC), he's going to live in a treehouse. It's really cool, but gets a bit tedious after a while.
  
  Also, read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, because how could I not read it? As Chris has still not read it, I'm keeping mum on spoilers on my lj. Besides, I already reviewed it (see above link).
  
  
• Chris: Dunno.
  
  
• Daniel: Lots of D&D books. And Deathly Hallows. Which he declared to be his "favourite book of the series, except for JK Rowling's excessive bloodlust."
  
  
• Justin: We have started reading Farmer Boy together. It's got history, told from a boy's point of view, it's got farming & gardening, and, most importantly, it has a whooooole lot of food.
  
  
• Chris and the Boys: Finished Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake (Chris' fourth time reading it to Daniel, and third time reading it to Justin), and started Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I'd forgotten how much I like that book. Am actually sitting in on a few of the bedtime readings :)

Linkage

Links! More fannish links! Because we just finished watching Bridge to Terabithia and although it was beautiful, I am feeling rather bummed.

So I've got two vidlinks and four picturelinks, and since they all contain spoilers for Deathly Hallows, I will put them behind a cut-link because ( my husband is so lame he still hasn't read Deathly Hallows, and most probably won't until he reads it to the kids at night, which, considering it's taking him about six months per book and he's on book #4 right now, could be right after movie #7 comes out. )