Book 11 for 2016: The Rosie Project

Book 11 for 2016: The Rosie Project
I like being surprised by things that I wouldn’t expect to usually like. This is why I am a massive Downton Abbey fan, for instance.
So the next book on my 2016 read list come from a recommendation by Bill Gates (not to me personally, but he did give it to at least 50 people: http://ift.tt/22K7mrN); The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion.
On the face of it, this book doesn’t really fall into a category that usually attracts me. For instance, it appears to be a love story. The blurb tells of the main characters goal to find a wife, and the cover is literally adorned with a man carrying flowers; not what I usually read. But then again I don’t want to close myself off to new experiences, and considering I have gone through something of a Bill Gates respect renaissance over the past few years, I sent it to the top of my read pile.
Plus after reading the first few pages I was surprised to find it is written by an Aussie author! Nice to see places like Shepparton and Melbourne mentioned in a story once in a while.
#2016inbooks #TheRosieProject #GiveSomethingDifferentATry from Instagram: http://ift.tt/1R4SVtl

Book 10 for 2016: Tilt

Book 10 for 2016: Tilt
Not quite sure how this book found its way to the top of my ‘to-read’ pile, but as I churned through the short kindle read in less than two nights this post is more of a mini-review than an introduction.
Tilt bills itself as a climate change thriller, which is what originally spurred me into buying it, but where previous ‘cli-fi’ books I had read focused on the science, and how people would deal with it, the entirety of this novel appears to be a conspiracy theory/assassin/political thriller. While there is nothing wrong with that, it wasn’t what I was hoping for.
I loved Kim Staley Robinsons ‘Science in the Capital’ trilogy because it dealt with climate change as a real challenge to be dealt with by real people in practical ways. I enjoyed The Water Knife because it gave a pretty clear picture of how things could all go wrong. But Tilt seemed to focus too much on trying to tie together multiple conspiracy theories (climate change isn’t caused by fossil fuels, MH370, the Rise of China and the doomed Air New Zealand Flight 901 all feature), while the central mystery to the story slowly fizzles, and remains insufficiently explained by the end of the book.
That all being said, this was the writer’s first book, and there is a lot of promise and things to enjoy.
#2016inbooks #clifi #DontKnowIfActualConspiracryTheoristOrJustAQuickBitOfFiction from Instagram: http://ift.tt/1S9mvgr