Books like Chocky — picked by fans

I read this trilogy in 1998 when I had just finished high school.

Even then, I understood the book presented Frodo as the main hero, but I was always aware that without Sam, Frodo couldn't go far. He was just a gardener in the beginning, but when the books were over, he proved himself and even became the mayor of the Shire.

Seeing a regular guy carrying the main hero on his shoulders is something else. The decisions he made and his forcing himself to do more transformed him into a natural hero and a leader.

This book took me to places that I never knew existed.

Once I began to read the book, I was drawn into a land of beauty and realism that I could literally see as I read the story. I learned so much about the strengths and weaknesses of a human being. It made me examine my own inner self.

I saw terrible things happening to deep and intense people in the story, and I saw them react in the best and the worst ways. The beauty and pain that Donaldson put into this book were far more than I had expected or been ready to face myself.

Clarke is the master of the sci-fi short stories in my view, and this collection is a great example of his genius. My dog-eared paperback is over forty years old, and I pick it up often for both nostalgic and professional reasons. With evocative titles such as "The Nine Billion Names of God," "No Morning After," and "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth," these stories were just what my young, curious mind needed. In just a few pages, Clarke had an amazing ability to pull you into the world of the character and make you care. Both my children have read and enjoyed this book. Brilliant collection.

I picked this up in a bookshop due to the cover as it stirred my curiosity. And when I read the first line, "I had reached the age of six hundred and fifty miles," I found myself walking to the cashier to buy it. This is quite an unusual premise by a quite unusual and versatile writer. It breaks a number of rules by switching from first to third person, but I found it worked. I found myself constantly trying to guess what was happening, and where it was going. That may not sound like a recommendation, but I found I couldn’t put it down without knowing why. And when the last chapter delivers the big twist, I turned back to page one and started it all over again! It then becomes a different book and is still enjoyable.   

This book stands as one of the last great paper encyclopedias created for children in this day and age of digital searches, and that is what I love about it. As you leaf through its pages, it is reminiscent of turning the stone pages of our own planet’s 4.6 billion-year-old story, featuring the evolution of life, culminating in us! This beautifully illustrated and written encyclopedia presents the most up-to-date information about planet Earth in a style and format designed for children, but which will appeal to a wide range of readers. With hundreds of photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and maps, it presents an impressive overview of our globe—beginning with the history of the universe and ending with today's conservation issues. A truly spectacular reference. 

My own work, even in retirement, entails teaching and writing on changes in planetary systems that impact us dramatically (e.g., climate change). To engage students it is most helpful to have a highly engaging account of Earth’s own dramatic history over its 4.6. billion years. This book provides that in non-technical, jargon-free language that anyone of high school and college age, as well as older, easily understands.

This book is a little more Space Opera than Sci-fi as it focuses more on the adventure than the impossibility of the technology. It takes place thousands of years in the future when man kinds had spread out across the galaxy and forgotten about Earth, for the most part. The characters are not deep, and the story relies more on action than complexity, but it’s fun. It moves from one event to another, the main character is a bit of a rogue that you can’t help but like and his female counterpart is smarter, faster, and deadlier than he will every be, so it's good she is on his side. One of the reasons I like these books (10 book series with some spin-offs) is because it is very different from my style. If my books were Angus Steaks, these would be an Ice-cream Sunday.   

I generally don’t enjoy works of fiction that feature writers as their main characters. The process of writing, while influenced by life, is nevertheless a solitary process, difficult to capture in an interesting and meaningful way. William Goldman manages to do that, mostly by focusing on the backstory of story, on the flow and emotions of existence that contribute not only to the tales a writer tells, but their need to do so. The Color of Light feels both fantastical and real, steeped in preposterous events and genuine emotion, in a way that traces both the artistic process and the vagaries of life.

I have written speculative fiction, and the protagonist, Angel, a feisty, courageous, enigmatic, curious survivor is placed into such a setting. Climate change, one of my personal concerns, has wreaked havoc with the geographical, and therefore the political world, as we know it. It deals with the way elites take what they see as the necessary action to continue their privileged lifestyles.

The author managed to make me empathize with almost all the characters on some level, regardless how selfish, wicked, good, generous, or courageous they may be. I encountered elderly heroes and heroines, resourceful individuals and communities, victims, self-serving demagogues, cruel leaders, uncaring servants, unquestioning followers, and a group of talented and determined resistance fighters bent on turning a terrifying world into a just and equable future.

This gorgeously illustrated coffee-table volume draws on Black’s expertise in science writing and paleontology. She begins with the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago, then moves in short chapters through milestones of the rise of life on Earth. Prehistoric plants harden into coal in the Carboniferous Period, 359 million years ago; dinosaurs roam the Morrison Formation of the western US, 156 million years ago; and small blobs of molten glass from Laos reveal a powerful meteorite impact 790,000 years ago. You’ll never see the timeline of life the same way again.