I read some more books

The book I was talking about that I was reading while I made my last post (which was about another book that I had already read) was Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character (which is actually all the stories from two older books: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, and What Do You Care What Other People Think). I finished it a while ago though. I guess I forgot to say anything about it here. Anyway, I'm still kind of sick right now (stomach was killing me yesterday) and don't feel up to giving this book a proper review, even though I have a lot that I could potentially say about it.

Actually, I'm kind of torn when it comes to this book: I don't know whether it's a fascinating and quirky set of mostly lighthearted stories that make for an easy and entertaining read or a mindblowing collection of some of the most profound stories I've ever read. Which one would be preferable anyway? I do highly recommend this though, especially since it's more convenient than reading the original two volumes separately.

Since then, I've finished another book. So now I need to find something else to read before I go to work today (would have already done so if I hadn't been sick in bed all yesterday and this morning). The book I just read is Blackout by Connie Willis. I don't normally read science fiction novels (or any novels for that matter) that are less than ten years old. Not out of principle or anything, it's just that there are so many good older books for me to read and they tend to be easier to find. Well, I'd read the two previous books in this "series" (or whatever you'd call it) earlier this year, and found out about this one while I was reading one of them, so I put it on hold.

My tendency to not read books that are too recent has probably just been reinforced. At first, I was excited to once again explore the world of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog: How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last. Comparing it to them, I found that there were more returning characters from the former, but that thematically it seemed more like the latter. About halfway through, I started to become a bit irritated, though. My train of thoughts went something like this, "The book keeps jumping back and forth between all these characters, but doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I'm already halfway through this and I'm only just getting into it. This book isn't nearly as good as the other two. Well, finally we're getting somewhere. Wait, there doesn't seem to be enough book left here to finish the story. There's not going to be any room for denouement here. Something is wrong. Am I reading an unfinished book here? But nothing indicates that this is unfinished. Well, just a few more pages left, so let's see what happens. It's definitely implausible that this story will be finished by the time I reach the last page, but let's finish this weirdness. What's this? 'For the riveting conclusion to Blackout, be sure not to miss Connie Willis's All Clear. Coming from Spectra in Fall 2010.' Oh. Dammit, I'm never reading a recently published book again."

So yeah, somehow I'd missed the fact that I was reading the first volume of a two-volume story, the second of which is not even released yet. I know that there are other people who do that sort of thing. Like the people who waited eagerly in anticipation of each new book in the Harry Potter series or whatever. But I've never really been that guy, nor wanted to be. Enough of this. Time to find something else to read.