Trim the TBR—September Planning and Reporting

[Viji]

SEPTEMBER, 2019 - #3

Title: Inferno
Author: Dan Brown
Date Read: 09/12/2019
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
As the title implies, the basic theme has been taken from Dante Alighieri’s dark and epic masterpiece Inferno from The Divine Comedy. Bertrand Zorbrist, a genius genetic scientist, with a renowned past for finding cures for many human illnesses by his break through inventions, is worried about the fast escalating population and feels this would lead to the extinction of the human race. His plea to WHO to support his experiments to create a plague to shrink the population to tolerable levels is rejected outright and he goes underground with the help of an exceptional security company and succeeds in his mission by inventing an air borne virus to curb population.
Robert Langdon, the renowned Harvard symbologist finds himself waking in a Florence hospital with a suspected bullet wound in his head and without any memory of the past two days. He continues to have a vision of a silver haired lady who is frantically telling him to ‘seek and find’ something in the midst of a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Sienna Brooks , the doctor attending to him in the hospital is another genius, who is trying to find out more about her abnormal intelligence condition, helps Robert to get out of the hospital and takes him to her flat. She locates an object with a bio hazard sign hidden in his Harris Tweed jacket which happens to be a device that gives them an idea about the peril facing the humankind and they launch into a quest to find out the place where the virus mentioned is hidden and to destroy it within the next 48 hours. A few lines from a legendary poet, Dante, to guide him, Robert and Sienna launch into a frantic race to achieve their goal. It involves the research in Florence which leads them to Venice and finally to Constantinople.
It is a fast moving thriller with lots of information about Dante and Michael Angelo, the great art galleries of Florence and treasures contained by them in addition to graphic details about Venice and Constantinople.

[Nicole R]

I will be closing this thread on Wednesday afternoon, so be sure to get your lingering reviews posted by then!

[Jen]

Brave New World Revisited
Book: Brave New World Revisited
Author: Aldous Huxley
Does not fit the September tag.
Hardcover version was 164 pgs but I read paperback.
**** 4 stars
Fascinating that Huxley predicted so many of the issues facing society today. The swing to more authoritarian governments, the environmental problems, over population, rising incidence of mental health disorders, they are all there in some form. He did underestimate many and I bet he would have been distraught to see how accurate his predictions were.
For those who loved Brave New World this is well worth the read and for those concerned over the state of the world, this guy had it figured out long ago, before it was trendy.

[Idit]

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
200 and something pages.
3 stars

I found this book a bit tedious, and his obsession with gay people a bit outputting.
It's the story of a war in space that doesn't end. and part of the reasons it doesn't end because of the craziness of time - by the time you reach somewhere, hundreds of years have passed otherwise and things might have changed, but you have no way of knowing, so the war continues on.

I did like the way time was flashing by.
and I get what he tried to do with alienating the hero from the current people of earth - who are so different to him.

It is a commentary about war (was written I believe around Vietnam war) and has some poignant moments.

But at the end, it felt like a good short story stretched thin (like a feel about a lot of science fiction).

[Nicole R]

Kszr wrote: "OK - my #3 is Less
Stars ****
I admit that I read this last month, but at least its close, right?

The protagonist is Arthur Less, a gay man who goes on an adventure to avoid the w..."

Hi Kszr, we applaud your adhering to the honor system! Unfortunately, because you read it before this month, it won't count. But, you can still cross it off your list!

[Nicole R]

Jemima wrote: "My #3 is:

[book:Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me Abou..."

Hi Jemima, it looks like this is just a post that this is your book and you started reading, but you have not yet completed it. So, I have not given you points for it based of this post. If there is another post after this then I will catch it then--I just wanted to make a note and if I interpreted this wrong, then drop me a PM.

[Nicole R]

Jemima wrote: "Just completed my September TBR read ‘Whiskey in a Teacup’ by Reese Witherspoon. I gave it 4 stars. I found it a lovely relaxing read with lots of yummy recipes, pretty photos and fun stories about..."

I see this now! I have it recorded so we are all good.

[Nicole R]

Idit wrote: "The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
200 and something pages.
3 stars

I found this book a bit tedious, and his obsession with gay people a bit outputting.
It's the story of a war in spac..."

I gave you 200 pages for this book, but feel free to PM me if you want to put in the exact page count.

[Nicole R]

Points for September have been calculated! Please feel free to double check the spreadsheet to make sure I got your reads recorded correctly. You can find then in the last tab of the tracking spreadsheet.

If you have a question about the scoring, please send me a private message.