Good Books

I have listened to two very good books lately.

The Hunger Games- 
I came to this party late.  Seems many of my friends have already read this book released in 2008.  This is the first in a trio of books that can be read and enjoyed by adults and teenagers alike.

In what I believe is in the future in what is left of North America there is a country of Panem.  The center capitol is surrounded by twelve districts.  The rulers are very harsh and rigid.  Once a year they have a lottery in each district where a boy and girl between the age of 12-18 is chosen to go to the capitol and do a fight to the death.  There can only be one person left alive at the end.

The book is well written and fast paced.  The deaths and violence are a very small part of the book and handled tastefully. The characters are well developed starting with our star Katniss Everdeen.  She is a 16 year old girl that is taught how to hunt by her late father and those skills help her in the games.

I am just starting on Catching Fire, the second book in the series.  I have read where The Hunger Games is being made into a movie to be released next year.  I highly recommend this book to all readers.


Day By Day Armageddon-
I can see where this book would not appeal to all readers.  Still I suggest you not dismiss the book and the second in the series Beyond Exile from the word zombies.

Our main character is an Air Force officer/pilot just outside San Antonio, Tx when rumors of a bad disease going around China and now invading the US cause him to start making survival plans.  The disease it turns out causes the dead to come back to life in a zombie state.  When a living human is bit from an infected zombie it turns that person into a zombie.  The snowball effect causes zombies to quickly outnumber the living nearly a million to one.

The book is written as the officer keeping a journal of what was going.  This is less a book about zombies than a good book that happens to have zombies in it.  The main character has to relocate and picks up human survivors along the way.  Eventually they get a grasp of how bad the situation is and start trying to create a new world as our old way of life is gone forever.

Day by Day does end too abruptly but luckily the second book, Beyond Exile, picks up where the first book leaves off.  If you liked the popular tv show the Walking Dead on AMC at all you will love this book.