8BitsAtATime
Member
I prefer hardback for collecting, softback for reading at home, and ebook for reading when im out and about
anyways.. Im jumping into the Sherlock Holmes books.
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What are you reading? (July 2012)
- Thread starter Maklershed
- Start date
I prefer hardback for collecting, softback for reading at home, and ebook for reading when im out and about
anyways.. Im jumping into the Sherlock Holmes books.
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Way of Kings- Brandon Sanderson:
Probably one of the best Fantasy novels I've read in a long time if not ever. I can not say how much I loved that book. I nearly read through it in about three or four days and had to stop myself from reading because I didn't want it to end. Any recommandations for a book which I might enjoy as much as this?
Loved that book as well. I would recommend A song of Ice and Fire if you havent read it or the Long Price Quartet by Daniel Abraham.
Ullyses- James Joyce:
I tried, I really wanted to like this, but I think that (for me at last) it is impossible to read this book without some secondary literature right next to it. It is just so god damn constructed, that you just keep wondering " Why did he use that phrase? Is there a menaning to this or that...?" And while I can admire that on a level of literary studies it is not so enjoyable if you just want to read... but maybe I will get some secondary literature and finish it someday.
I hate Joyce with a burning fiery passion.
Crime and punishment- Fyodor Dostoevsky:
Good read so far. I wish I spoke Russian so I could read the original. I don't know about the Englisch translation but the German one (the old one, there is a new one but it was not for free... yeah I'm cheap, I know) sounds a bit cheesy sometimes. I just wonder if for someone who speaks Russian, compared to contemporary Russian the language in the book sounds oldish, too. But storywise a great book so far which actually keeps on suprising me. Have read about 20% (damn you Kindle for not having numbered pages), and I don't know, so far this could be a Cohen movie or somthing. Really excited how this will go on.
My favorite author, and yea, if it sounds cheesy the translation sucks. I would describe Dostoevsky's writing as serious, depressing, enlightening with some dark comedy thrown in. Of course, im going by a translation so who knows?
FutureZombie
Banned
Just finished it today. I liked it a lot, but I had an issue with how the magic and gods were handled. I never knew what the "rules" of the world were. It always seemed like who or what was the most powerful was constantly changing and some of the twists weren't really twists because I had no idea of what the limits of different magics and gods were. So if someone just defeated a great evil, I wasn't impressed because I had no idea what made that great evil so powerful, or how the person even defeated them.
Are my critiques answered in later volumes of the series?
I'm going to keep reading, but it would be nice to know that the magnitude of the world becomes easier to grasp.
I really dont think the two books are all that similar. And yes, I know Sanderson is writing the last 2 or 3 books in WoT. I mean, for one, Sanderson can actually write a believable female character or interesting character in general (Mat is cool though)
The problem I have with WoT's female characters is that they are all the same character expect with different mannerisms. They are all overbearing know-it-alls who know whats best because they are female and the men are idiots because they are stupid men. Worst female characters of all time (only slight hyperbole)
At least A Way of Kings the female characters are different. And personally, I find the two main ones quite interesting
The Culture Vulture
Member
FINALLY finished 'We Need To Talk About Kevin". One of the most depressing reads I've ever experience, even more so by the shooting in Colorado.
I thought Sanderson's characters in Mistborn were pretty terrible, but I thought he improved greatly in A Way of Kings
eattomorro
Neo Member
After getting a little over half way through The Woman in White, I decided to stop reading out of pure frustration and dislike to the book. I'd still like to know how it ends, but I'm not going to slog through something I'm not enjoying to find out.
Anyone else quit a supposed classic novel out of frustration or other reason?
And to jump ship I've started this:
Anyone else quit a supposed classic novel out of frustration or other reason?
And to jump ship I've started this:
Vanillalite
Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Finally finished The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, and not sure how I feel about it all. It definitely sort of had it's jump the shark move around book 4, but I was rehooked by book 5. I also liked the ending of book 6.
Still looking back on it I definitely enjoyed the series when it was going for a different kind of flair and flavor. Book 2 was definitely the zenith at least for me, and I liked book 3 as well.
I doubt this is a popular series for GAFers though so I won't talk to much on it. Now to actually finish Artemis Fowl!
Still looking back on it I definitely enjoyed the series when it was going for a different kind of flair and flavor. Book 2 was definitely the zenith at least for me, and I liked book 3 as well.
I doubt this is a popular series for GAFers though so I won't talk to much on it. Now to actually finish Artemis Fowl!
Lamel
Banned
I was interested in picking up an English copy of The Brothers Karamazov in the upcoming weeks. Do you have any specific recommendations on which edition I should get in terms of having the best and most accurate translation?
brianjones
Member
from reading around the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translations always get high praise for russian literature
Lamel
Banned
Excellent. That seems to be the consensus everywhere. Thank you.
Yup, though I wasnt a huge fan of their Master and Margarita translation. I liked the edition with the cat and black and red color scheme better. I found McDuff to be quite good as well for Dostoevsky if the penguin edition is cheaper
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Derrida's kind of a chore to read, guys.
Finally finished the Wool Omnibus yesterday. It got a lot better as it went and I definitely got sucked in, already started recommending it to friends.
It reminds me of the Hunger Games in that it is a really great story but not terribly well written. That and the whole post-apocalyptic theme.
Will read more from this author when he returns to the
as promised.
It reminds me of the Hunger Games in that it is a really great story but not terribly well written. That and the whole post-apocalyptic theme.
Will read more from this author when he returns to the
silos
I've read Song of Ice and Fire and liked it a lot. Gonna check out Abraham. Thank you.
Haha, I wouldn't go that far, but I think I know what you mean. For me passionate hate is reserverd for Kafka. I can't stand that guys writing and personality... whiny douchbag.
Yeah, I figuered that the translation is probably not the best one, since it was the one that is available for free, but it is not that it is unreadable. Just some phrases and words that sound terrible out of date sometimes. But since I still enjoy the book I can ignore it for the most part.
A big part of it. Gonna start a re-read soon and am really excited to see how Sanderson wraps things up with this, especially since I think that characters are his strongsuit and WoT is heavily based on it's characters. Funnily I always enjoyed most of the women PoV. Rand and Perrin were the characters I found most boring. But it's been a while since I read this books and maybe this time around I will see things differently.
I can't understand how so many people think that the characters in the Mistborn series were uninteresting. Those were the first Sanderson books I read and I remember that I loved it mainly because of the characters and how different they were. Ah well, different people different tastes I guess.
Maklershed
Member
Can anyone recommend some books that are like The Devil in the White City*?
*Set in the late 1800s, gives a good taste of the time, perhaps a murder investigation
*Set in the late 1800s, gives a good taste of the time, perhaps a murder investigation
It's been well over a decade since I've read The Cater Street Hangman by Anne Perry, but perhaps it would do the trick? It's about a murder in the neighborhood of an upper class family, with a lower class detective trying to navigate the social setting to find the killer, along with a bit of cross-class romance thrown in for good measure. This kicked off an entire series of novels set in the Victorian era, of which I got through ten or so before stalling out. From what I recall they're somewhat cozy, but not overly so, and there was a lot of historical detail to appreciate, with an emphasis on the police trying to work within the caste structures of the period and a healthy dose of romance.
I've always meant to read Perry's other major Victorian series, the William Monk novels, which start with The Face of a Stranger, but it hasn't happened just yet.
FnordChan
I recently finished the Alienist by Caleb Carr which has a similar setting, although it is fiction.
Maklershed
Member
Fnord - Yes sounds good. Purchased for the Kindle.
Taborcarn - ohh I think my dad has that book. Always saw it laying around but never knew what it was about. Time to go on a scavenger hunt.
Taborcarn - ohh I think my dad has that book. Always saw it laying around but never knew what it was about. Time to go on a scavenger hunt.
DieUnbekannte
Member
I didn't know that bitter seeds had a sequel. Thank you for the info. The idea of this series is really interesting. I'm curious about the story so I have to read it soon.
I've heard a lot of good things about Wool and I already have the first book on my kindle but always forgot about it. Maybe I should delay reading bitter seeds and start with wool instead?! So many good books and so little time to read
Finished Player of Games. I think that means I just have one unread Culture novel left, Look to Windward. *sad*
I was a little dissatisfied with how little the "game" actually came into the story. It just isn't that interesting to hear "then he made a good move" (or something similar) for a lot of the time, especially when the actual game is only described in practically no detail.
As one of the earlier novels I appreciated how this one starts to set up one of the ongoing narrative strands throughout all of the Culture books: the affect of the Idiran War on the society of the Culture.
I am going to now reread Hyperion, because it has been awhile.
I was a little dissatisfied with how little the "game" actually came into the story. It just isn't that interesting to hear "then he made a good move" (or something similar) for a lot of the time, especially when the actual game is only described in practically no detail.
As one of the earlier novels I appreciated how this one starts to set up one of the ongoing narrative strands throughout all of the Culture books: the affect of the Idiran War on the society of the Culture.
Contact is trying to avoid an actual conflict with the Empire for the entire book and tries to bring it down from within and Gurgeh's play style in the final game perfectly mirrors the Culture's strategy in the Idiran War.
I am going to now reread Hyperion, because it has been awhile.
Just finished it today. I liked it a lot, but I had an issue with how the magic and gods were handled. I never knew what the "rules" of the world were. It always seemed like who or what was the most powerful was constantly changing and some of the twists weren't really twists because I had no idea of what the limits of different magics and gods were. So if someone just defeated a great evil, I wasn't impressed because I had no idea what made that great evil so powerful, or how the person even defeated them.
Are my critiques answered in later volumes of the series?
I'm going to keep reading, but it would be nice to know that the magnitude of the world becomes easier to grasp.
I'm currently onto book 4 in the series (House of Chains) and it all seems to be, slowly, coming together in regards to the magic systems / rules / gods etc. It is incredibly drawn out and obscure though, especially after the first book, as everything is just thrown out there and you're left to piece it together yourself.
Definitely continue with the series though as they get better and better after GotM which, essentially, is one novel's worth of prologue to the rest of the series. I remember reading somewhere that GotM was written a decade before the rest and it really shows in the quality of the writing from Deadhouse Gates onwards.
At least get as far as Memories of Ice (book 3) which is one of the best fantasy novels I've read in a long, long time. Up there with A Storm of Swords for me.
I've heard a lot of good things about Wool and I already have the first book on my kindle but always forgot about it. Maybe I should delay reading bitter seeds and start with wool instead?! So many good books and so little time to read
The first Wool book is more like a short story. They progressively get longer with most of them novella length. I read the Omnibus edition, which is all the books in one. It reads like a novel with massive cliffhangers here and there along the way. Might have actually been cooler to read them separately when they came out, having to wait for the next installment and left with those cliffhangers, like a serialized tv drama.
Just found out that Fox required the film rights to the book. I kind of thought the whole time I was reading that it could make a great television series, can't see it as a film as easily.
Labombadog
Member
I was looking forward to Wool, but I had a hard time reading The Hunger Games. I fell asleep on it many times and ended up just not enjoying it at all. Going to give Wool a try though.
I would rate Wool above Hunger Games. Somewhere between Hunger Games and The Road on the recent-post-apocalyptic-books scale.
Edit: Has anyone read Leviathan Wakes?
Edit Edit: Actually you don't have to answer that because I just did a forum search and every what are you reading thread since 2011 talks about it
Salvor.Hardin
Banned
Going to start reading this over the weekend.
I'm reading Deadhouse Gates now and finding it a chore. I was about ready to give up on it, which I rarely do, but I suppose I'll stick it out. The biggest problem I'm having with it and GotM is Erikson creates this expansive world and rule set, leaves it to you to figure how all the rules, deities, and magic interact, and fills the world with characters and conflicts that I can't seem to care about.
Finally finished my re-read of Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan. God, what a slog.
Now moving onto:
The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams
Now moving onto:
The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams
I just got to book two of the Wool Omnibus! I started it a while ago but I got distracted so I put it down... but just this week picked it back up again.
Mackenzie 92
Member
Great book. I was so inspired by it that I ended up doing a project based on the real life Terror and Erebus.
I was gonna recommend Alienist as well. Really wonderful book. There's a sequel The Angel of Darkness that covers another investigation, but I didn't enjoy it as much the first.
I really enjoyed the first, third and fourth volumes of <em>Shadowmarch</em>. The second volume, <em>Shadowplay</em> is a bit of a meandering mess. It's not MS&T level, but the series is absolutely worth reading. Great payoff at the end.
exactly what I was thinking while I read Wool 2.
Mackenzie 92
Member
Ridley Scott is involved as well. Honestly I think the omnibus can be contained in a 2 hour movie fairly easily, and I'd prefer a big budget production that would do it justice rather than bastardizing it into a low budget TV show. Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have kind of soured me on TV adaptations.
Amazing book. Got a little long, but overall awesome read. Sad to hear the sequel sucks.
It kind of reminded me of
Which I had just finished.
Then tried some african literature
and just couldn't get into it.
So moved onto this gem.
Really enjoying it so far. I like the premise. Interverse travel sounds more exciting now then regular space explorations.
if anything it's far more relevant and prescient than anything the Forever War mustered up--worth a read if you're a fan.
your the first to say anything positive. Will check it out. Thanks! Add it to the backlog. My Kindle is starting to resemble my steam account. So many books, just sitting there but constantly getting more. .
TestMonkey
Member
Finished Perdido Street Station. Liked it for the most part but can't get over the sudden moral stance Issac makes at the end.
Moving onto
Moving onto
Found out that Book Six of Wool is already out. It's called First Shift - Legacy. A Silo Story. It's a prequel to the Omnibus. I downloaded it immediately and promptly devoured it in about 3 hours, give or take.
Damn I love this story. Still want to know more. I recommend this obviously if you liked Wool. It answers a lot of questions about how it all came to be. Be warned though, it is fairly depressing.
I think it's time to move on to a more feel good story...
Damn I love this story. Still want to know more. I recommend this obviously if you liked Wool. It answers a lot of questions about how it all came to be. Be warned though, it is fairly depressing.
I think it's time to move on to a more feel good story...
CF_Fighter
Member
I won an Advance Reader Edition of the book from the publisher a couple weeks back. The book isn't on sale until October 16th. "The Passage" is one of my favorite books and this one is just as good so far. There are characters meeting up from the first book and their continued storylines together are great. Flipping through the book Cronin is really expanding on the world he created in the first book that we never really touched on. Just to let you know we do get some more Year Zero goodness as the world goes to shit.
DesertEater
Member
A week ago I finished Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase. I loved it. A lot more than 1Q84, which is the last book I read by him.
Right now, I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I wanted a non-fiction book to read for the summer. This book gets mentioned a lot with praise here so I figured I should give it a shot. I'm about 100 pages. The books IS really interesting and enjoyable to read. The author also does a great job at explaining things. Though, I do feel lost sometimes with the dates.
Will start reading James Joyce's Dubliners. Haven't read anything by him so I figured this should be a great book to start with.
Right now, I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I wanted a non-fiction book to read for the summer. This book gets mentioned a lot with praise here so I figured I should give it a shot. I'm about 100 pages. The books IS really interesting and enjoyable to read. The author also does a great job at explaining things. Though, I do feel lost sometimes with the dates.
Will start reading James Joyce's Dubliners. Haven't read anything by him so I figured this should be a great book to start with.
Yeah, that's the most frustrating part of the series for me so far - there's just so little explained outright that you're left to put the rules together yourself on the fly. I found that using this as a reading companion really helps to point out some of the things I didn't pick up on myself; it's basically a read through of the Malazan series, with comments from a newcomer and someone who has already finished the series.
If you get halfway through MoI and still aren't feeling it, though, I'd probably advise just just giving it up as something that you just couldn't get into. There's not much point persevering if it hasn't grabbed you by then.
Labombadog
Member
I would rate Wool above Hunger Games. Somewhere between Hunger Games and The Road on the recent-post-apocalyptic-books scale.
Edit: Has anyone read Leviathan Wakes?
Edit Edit: Actually you don't have to answer that because I just did a forum search and every what are you reading thread since 2011 talks about it
Well I will definitely read Wool. Going to pick up the Kindle later on. I accidentally read a spoiler on it and it's making me want to read it much later until I can forget what I read.
Funny you bring up Leviathan Wakes, because I just requested it from the library along with Clash of Kings.
Hey there. I'm in need of some book recommandations for my summer vacation. So far I've got "Life of Pi" on my list but I think that I need at least two more. Though I normally read a lot of fantasy I thought that this vacation I take a break from that genre. Books can still have sureal or slightly fantastic elements.
I love Murakami, but since he is pretty unique I don't think that there is anything similar out there, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Also really liked Shadow of the Wind, is the sequel any good?
Please no sad and or depressing books.
Thank you!
I love Murakami, but since he is pretty unique I don't think that there is anything similar out there, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Also really liked Shadow of the Wind, is the sequel any good?
Please no sad and or depressing books.
Thank you!
iAmMaximus
Member
Extremely LTTP with both.
