After Game of Thrones, it was just a matter of time before a long fantasy series would get transitioned into a TV series. Outlander is that next series. I purchased Outlander to read before watching the show and in short I think I'm glad I did.

I love time-travel novels. It might be my favorite genre. I picked up Timebound as part of the Amazon Kindle Owner's Lending Library. I started this one a couple of months ago and just never got around to finishing it, until now. Given the long time it took me to finish Timebound, you can probably guess my overall thoughts.

I've been in a reading rut. Most of my reading over the summer has been middle of the road. In fact I'd have to look back all the way to May to find a book I really enjoyed. And finally that rut is over after just finishing Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. I literally just stumbled upon the book surfing GoodReads and found that the book was highly reviewed and decided to give it a shot. I'm so glad I did.

If a friend walked up to me and said, Joel you really need to read this book The Rithmatist. It's about a boy who goes to school at a university where half the students are Rithmatists and the other half are normal. Rithmatists draw circles and figures on the ground with chalk and fight each other.  I'd probably laugh and say something snide and completely dismiss the book. And in all honesty that would have been a shame.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a beautifully written novel. It's one of the best written novels I've read in the past couple of years. Truly incredible, and yet I could not get into it. No matter what I tried to do I couldn't get into this tragic World War II tale. I tried re-reading parts, I took a break from it, and eventually just decided to push through. You ever read something and know its great but just not for you? That's how I felt with All the Light We Cannot See. 

I'm not sure California by Edan Lepucki deserved the Colbert bump. The book was featured a month before its release on The Colbert Report, when Stephen Colbert was reporting on the Hachette v Amazon dispute. The concept sounded fascinating. A husband and wife in California after the world has been desecrated. You never do learn what happened but it sounds like a combination of war, global warming, and society just breaking down.