Chat With Ernest Cline: Author of Ready Player One

The following is a chat held on goodreads.com with author Ernest Cline. Cline has gained recent notoriety for his novel Ready Player One (which has become a favorite of many PHBC members). From time to time goodreads will hold interactive chats with various authors. To see upcoming author chats you can go to their blog at http://www.goodreads.com/blog.

Watch live streaming video from goodreads at livestream.com

Free Book Alert! Connor Westphal #1

Local author and PHBC interview subject (http://pleasanthillbookclub.blogspot.com/2009/07/interview-with-local-authors-penny.html) Penny Warner is releasing he latest book (Dead Body Language) free for download on Amazon.com. The offer is only good for 6/28 and 6/29, so act fast.

Below is a brief description of the novel from Warner's website:
When deaf reporter Connor Westphal moves to the California Gold Country town of Flat Skunk to publish her own weekly newspaper, she doesn't expect a
murder to be her first headline.

But she's discovered a body lying
on top of a grave instead of it in.

With the help of her hearing-ear signal dog, Casper, her TTY telephone, and her ability to see what others only hear, Connor investigates the mysterious death,
while trying to avoid a cemetery plot of her own.

Support your local authors!

Click the link to amazon.com to download the book:
http://www.amazon.com/LANGUAGE-Connor-Westphal-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00865SOFO

For more information on Penny Warner you can visit her website below:
http://www.pennywarner.com/

PHBC Milestone Alert!

With our July book selection, the Pleasant Hill Book Club has reached book choice number 50! From the Hobbit (#1) to Communion (#50), the book club has read a lot of great books, a lot of ok books, and even some down right garbage ones.

A brief recap of some standout choices:

Books of the Year:
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Cat's Cradle
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Water for Elephants
(Some honorable mentions go to City of Thieves, The Hunger Games, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

Worst Books of the Year:
You Remind Me of Me
Dumbest Generation
Watership Down
The People of the Book
(Some dishonorable mentions go to Dangerous Days of Daniel X, Then We Came to the End, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and The Little Book)

Books read before their movies were released:
Watchmen
Hunger Games
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Water for Elephants
(soon to add The Hobbit, Ender's Game, and Before I Go to Sleep)

Shortest Title:
Dry

Longest Title (Not including post colon):
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

Most Read Author:
John Le Carre

Books that are a part of a series:
Dangerous Days of Daniel X
Hunger Games
The Hobbit
When Gravity Fails

Books on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die List:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Handmaid's Tale
The Time Machine
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
The Moviegoer
Cat's Cradle
Watchmen
The Hobbit

Books on the Pleasant Hill Book Club 67 Books to Read Before You Die List:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Sex Lives of Cannibals
Lamb
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Hunger Games
Me Talk Pretty One Day
City of Thieves
The Time Machine 




For more on the number 50: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_%28number%29

July Book of the Month: Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber

Via Goodreads.com

On December 26, 1985, at a secluded cabin in upstate New York, Whitley Strieber went siding with his wife and son, ate Christmas dinner leftovers, and went to bed early.
Six hours later, he found himself suddenly awake...and forever changed.
Thus begins the most astonishing true-life odyssey ever recorded -- one man's riveting account of his extraordinary experiences with visitors from"elsewhere..". how they found him, where they took him, what they did to him and why...
Believe it. Or don't believe it. But read it -- for this gripping story will move you like no other... will fascinate you, terrify you, and alter the way you experience your world.

Had to share this

Super Cool!

Google is taking another huge step in becoming the savior of the World's languages and ideas. They have begun a project designed to record all of the World's dying languages. It is a pretty amazing project and worth a look. If you know someone who could help in their quest, please forward this along.

 Explore here: http://www.endangeredlanguages.com

 

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter the Movie

I went to the 9:45am (yes, am) showing of Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter in 3D and here are some notes I came away with.

Pros
- There were actually 5 other people in the audience
- Not the Godfather, but it was fun, lots of gore, big teeth, and presidential kung fu axe play
- The actor who plays Lincoln looks like a young Liam Neeson. That's more of an observation than a pro or con, but I like Liam Neeson, so I put it in this category

Cons
-Not surprising, but very different from the book
-Lots of new characters
-Left out the whole motivation of the Vampires for moving to America and seeking out a country of their own
-You do not need to see it in 3D.No special 3D scenes
-My favorite part about the book was that (besides the Vampire stuff) the book was historically accurate. There were just Vampire explanations to actual historical events. Definitely not the case in the movie.
-The ending is different!Another very cool thing I liked about the book was the end. There was no need to change it. Why they did, we may never know.
-There is no after-the-credits scene. Not a horrible thing, it was just annoying to sit through the credits.

My final recommendation, while the movie will probably win EVERY Razzie Award for 2012, it was still fun and worth seeing.

If you were on a deserted island...

and could only have three books to read for the rest of you life, what would they be? (not including religious texts).

Answer in the comments section.

New Edition to My Library

My parents came to visit from Arizona this weekend and gave me a great gift. A 1979 illustrated version of the Martian Chronciles by Ray Bradbury.

Below are some of Ian Miller's illustrations. There are probably just over twenty of these throughout the book.





"And from the book, as his fingers stroked, a voice sang, ... which told tales of when the sea was red steam on the shore and ancient me carried clouds of metal insects and electronic spiders into battle."
-Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles 

Another Three Panel Book Review

To see more visit: http://www.sfgate.com/columns/threepanel/archive/

The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury by Neil Gaiman

soundcloud.com/neilgaiman/the-man-who-forgot-ray-bradbury

please follow the link

June Book of the Month: Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

I couldn't find a good description on goodreads or amazon, but I did find a trailer. Yes, a trailer.

RIP Ray Bradbury

Another legend has died. Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and my personal favorite book of all time The Martian Chronicles has died today 91.

I'll be re-reading some of my favorite stories of his over the next few days.

More to come.