Books: Chapter One!

[Dppselej]

Oh, goodness, have I read anything lately that would have anything to do with this conversation...

You people reading LMA--just reread AOFG. Interesting, how much the youth of back then (the good old days?) is like present-day young-people. So much of the satire in the book is applicable to nowadays, though through comparison mostly. EC I would agree is better than RiB (I always preferred reading about LMA's characters as children, to the more tragic stories of them grown-up). RiB had some overt supporting of Transcendentalism in it that was uncalled for.

Fauny, I have finally got to read Shadow of the Bear (and The Midnight Dancers--spent most of it being frustrated with the characters). Most enjoyable. Black as Night is on the way from the library, and I'm excited. Unfortunately, they don't have Waking Rose. Such meanness.

Alyosha and all the rest of you Attolia people out there, I finished The King of Attolia. And I liked it better than the previous two (of which I had a heretical low opinion), which need to be reread and reexamined. Now please try to show me the error of my ways and convert me to liking these books...

[Tirian12]

MR. Anderson, i wil NOT look to see what happens in HP7 and am really glad i made you laugh , i was still VERY surprised!
Secondly i loved your thing on Twilight, it's so true!

[TheGeneral]

When I'm not reading text books...
I like fantasy and crime/mystery books to keep me occupied. Terry Goodkind, Dennis Lehane, Dan Brown, and Terry Brooks are what it's about (CS Lewis too or course)

[ALittleMoreSonic]

If anyone else is a Ted Dekker fan (or a potential fan), I just saw this on Facebook and I had to share: If you go here: http://www.teddekker.com/green/m/downloadblack.php and put in the code 4495, you'll get a free ebook of Black. I was surprised, but it's the WHOLE book, not just a few chapters. Apparently it's only available for a week, though. I just thought that was amazingly cool.

[Shantih]

And I still haven't read any Isaac Bevis Singer, though I want to after seeing quote after quote from his work at the beginning of each chapter...)

Oh, a wonderful author and very interesting man in his own right
I have to say the author I've known to do this the most is Stephen King. I've been put onto a lot of new authors and works from being interested in the quotes I found in his books.

I'm currently reading Les Miserables The Charles Wilbour translation that wisewoman recommended is wonderful, you can always tell if a work has been translated well. I'm going away for a few days and decided to bring Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground to read, rather than dragging Les Mis around.

[starkat]

Here's another review from me on the third book in the Legends of the Guardian King series:

Shadows Over Kiriath brings the plot of the Legends of the Guardian King to a boil. Abramm has signed a treaty to gain support from the neighboring Chesdan kingdom. One catch, he has to marry the First Daughter of the Chesdan king. Madeline, the Second Daughter, has been in Kiriath researching material for her ballads now must act as her sister's proxy.

The Shadow's forces are gathering around Abramm in an effort to thwart his destiny. For a time, things are rocky, but move forward. There are hints that something more is coming. Four years after his marriage, Abramm is forced to rely on Eidon in completely new ways as he is taken to rock bottom.

This book is a remarkable story of faith, trials, and love. Abramm finds that even at rock bottom, Eidon has not abandoned him and that following him is worth it even with the trials. Madeline steps into the roll of First Daughter and Abramm's queen in faith that Eidon will turn her into the queen the Kirathian's need. Karen Hancock has done it again with this book. Her plot not only wraps some things up from the previous two books, but deepens the plot as it heads towards its' climax in the next story.

[Rising_Star]

I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn a couple days ago, and you can read my thoughts on it here. I really liked it.

Now I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. My sister keeps insisting I read Northanger Abbey, but The Sherwood Ring is calling to me quite loudly. I'm torn, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with The Sherwood Ring . . . just because I've been waiting to read it ever since I finished The Perilous Gard.

I think I already expressed my opinion of the Ink trilogy on the other forum, but I'll say again here that Inkheart was my favorite, followed by Inkdeath and then Inkspell. Inkdeath is a lot darker than the first two, and Inkspell is darker than the first one. I liked the expanding of all the characters though, in the last book. I wish it had ended in a more concise manner though. Or at least

SHOW SPOILER

tell us the name of Meggie's little brother!

All in all though, I really enjoyed the trilogy.

P.S."Brooklyn!"

[MissAdventure]

Wow, I go away for a weekend (making waiting for the forum switch really easy) and come back and there's five pages!

Due to my weekend trip, I had great time for reading in the car. I'm now roughly 800 pages into Les Miserables and I love every bit of it. Sometimes, like when he devotes an entire chapter to Waterloo, and how he believes it was an act of God (interesting perspective there), it's still interesting but I want to get back to Jean Valjean.

SHOW SPOILER Les Mis

I've just got past the part where Marius and Cosette have just met. Aww! Gavroche is awesome, I'm in the middle of him meeting his brothers (unbeknownst to him) and showing them around. Now I know where the "I cancel my subscription" and "The office is closed" quotes come from! I can't wait to read more!

However, I feel cheated. My version (Which is the 'greasy spoon' one that Valia read. That really does get annoying. I just want them to call it a tavern/inn/other synonym and be done with it!) is missing pages. I just can't get a copy of Les Miserables with the entire storyline complete. Thankfully it was only 33 pages (On the left hand side was page 538 and on the right hand side was page 571, and the weird thing is, it looks like it was bound without those pages!) and Hugo doesn't develop and release major plot points in the space of 33 pages. Oh well, I still felt incomplete going on. I'm definitely going to look for the Wilbour version after I'm done; this is a book that I want to keep... but in a different translation and with all of its pages!!

starkat, I've read those Guardian King books... or at least some of them. How many are there in the series? I think I've read 4... or maybe it was 3. Whichever it is, I remember the second to last one that I've read having a very sad ending.

EDIT: I forgot! My friend that's reading LOTR for the first time finished FotR and loves them! She's complained to me about the films leaving out Tom Bombadil, and all the stuff the purists complain about. It's making me so excited about my upcoming reread.

[220chrisTian]

Honestly, the book is one of the skinniest classics in existence already. Eliot's prose is so beautiful, too, I want to bask in it - and the misty pastoral atmosphere she invokes in Marner is wonderfully unique. The criticism that the story is simplistic makes more sense to me, but does every book have to be groundbreaking? I always think people approach this story in the utterly wrong way (and high school English teachers are probably a large part of it); I like to think of it as a folktale of some sort that Eliot found and expanded to suit her needs. And the redemptive aspect of the story is just so powerful.

I agree about SM being a skinny classic! That's one reason I read it. I have yet to read DD or Middlemarch, although I'd love to when I get the chance. I also saw SM as a folktale. It had fairy tale elements, like parts of Jane Eyre. And it is a beautiful story of redemption! I don't know why every story has to be groundbreaking either. I have the same problem with literary criticism. They have some crazy theories sometimes! But this is what I love about works of literature with archetypal elements. The authors plug into something already there, with a fresh outlook.

Meltintalle: Isaac Bashevis Singer! I’ve read “Gimpel the Fool,” “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy,” and The Penitent. I like the last one the best. “Yentl” became the film adaptation Yentl, with Barbara Streisand. I like Singer’s plots; they’re interesting, unforgettable. And I love Jewish literature, music, history, food, ETC. Other Jewish literature: have you read any of Chaim Potok? I’ve read The Chosen [which I adored!] and Old Men at Midnight. Even though I'm a slow reader sometimes, I read The Chosen in less than two weeks, much faster than my high school classmates.

All: Regarding beginning chapters with quotes, Kipling did this all the time. But most of his epigrams were from other works of his. I think it’s a 19th century thing.

Mr. Anderson: LOL! great!

Mods: I love the smilies and new spoiler!

[Glenstorm the Great]

right now i'm reading sense and sensibility for the first time. it will be my first austen where i don't know the whole story. i really like it so far. after i finish that i'm going to read the third horatio hornblower book and then lotr. it's taken years for my friend to convince me and now i'm going to read them. but i had a question- should i read the hobbit first or the fellowship of the ring?

[ForeverFan]

To those reading Sense and Sensibility and enjoying it- I'm glad! It's not exactly my favourite favourite Austen, but it's still a very enjoyable story.

Follower of Aslan, I hope you enjoy Inkdeath when you can read it!

Re SM: Yes indeed.

@ Mel: That could work, yes. I finished reading Castaways on Sunday, and

I quite liked the idea of a character transcending time, but I wish they had of expounded on the idea more! Oh well. >_>

All in all, it was an alright read, but I think I enjoy Redwall better... if one can reasonably compare those two works...

As my sister has been busy, and hasn't had much time to read, I've not wanted to get ahead of her in Little Dorrit, so while I'm waiting, I'm trying to read books to get my 'to read' list on Goodreads down some, so due to that I've read Days of Toil and Tears: The Child Labour Diary of Flora Rutherford by Sarah Ellis, part of the Dear Canada series. I actually enjoyed this one more then I thought I would, in a way, it reminded me of North and South by the fact it was set around a cotton mill/it's troubles, etc. After that I read one of the books from the Heartland (by Lauren Brooke) series, which was alright, nothing too profound. The last thing I read was The Nine Days Queen by Karleen Bradford, about Lady Jane Grey. It was an interesting read, although had a sad ending. A friend lent it to me some time ago, so I figured I'd better get it read and returned to her. Up next is probably another Dear Canada diary...

[narnian1]

The Council of Elrond chapter? I really loved that chapter. But then I'm a sucker for good history (even if it's fictional ) and that chapter was loaded with it.

That's easily one of my favorite chapters in the trilogy for that very reason,
I can understand others getting bored with it, but I couldn't have been more fascinated with it, I loved it entirely. In all three books, the only thing I hated in the story was

SHOW SPOILER

The scouring of the Shire chapter, I truly feel the book should have gone like the movie did, from the coronation to the grey havens, I was happy when the movie omitted that. Though I was upset Tom Bombadil missed out

O my goodness! i just finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and *SPOILER* all who have read this please discuss and don't tell me anything important from HP7 because i have yet to read it.

Yeah that was ruined for me too,
you will most definitely enjoy the final book, I loved it. Together with HBP they form my favorite two books, I can't split them up.

[Valiant_Lucy]

Up next is probably another Dear Canada diary...

Oh...I have all of them except for the newer ones. Which ones do you like the best? I think Turned Away, by Carol Matas is my favorite. The time period (WWII) is great, and the main character is quite interesting. She loves Agatha Christie, and going to the movies every week. It was fun to hear her opinions of the "brand new" Agatha Christie books. I also liked Brothers Far From Home, and A Trail of Broken Dreams, and A Prairie as Wide as the Sea (which was the first one I got/read). My least favorite would definetly be An Ocean Apart. I was a bit bored by that one.

On the Ink books--I looooooooooove Inkheart to death. It's just really really good, and feels very "bookish". I actually liked how they kept escaping/getting recaptured. It made for a different plot. Inkspell...I thought this was amazing when I first read it, but I don't like it nearly so much now, and I'm afraid I don't even know why. I haven't really read Inkdeath and I'm not entirely sure I want to.

[Shadowlander]

Regarding Silas Marner, I don't mean to offend fans of the book (of which there are apparently many here) but it just struck me as being a little full of "fluff", as my 11th grade teacher called it when we did the same thing in our term papers or writing projects. Never underestimate the power of the adjective! This seems to be the very thing which appeals to some but it made it difficult for me to read. And even though reading it again after many years the book rose in my estimation the story was kind of difficult to move through, largely in part because of the writing itself. Years ago in high school I had issues understanding what Eliot was trying to say and it was only due to this recent re-read that I discovered that it wasn't so much the language as it was her difficulty in putting down simple ideas in a linear fashion. I wish I'd kept the library copy of SM a bit longer because I had a couple of pages marked which demonstrate what I'm trying to explain and I was prepared to write down a few paragraphs as a sort of explanatory aid. Everything is fluffed to the point where one could seriously trim the story down to about 50 pages and really not lose any major plot points. Eh...it wasn't my cup of tea, and I'll leave it at that. But I guess high school sort of ruined some things for me and Silas Marner might have fallen into that category where it sits glumly next to The Scarlet Letter and Billy Budd. Nuff' said.

Glenstorm, definitely read the Hobbit before you start on Lord of the Rings proper! It's a short and easy read (and thoroughly enjoyable in its own right) and sets up the story in LotR very nicely! It's coming time for a reread of the series for me, come to think of it.

[Lady Courage]

should i read the hobbit first or the fellowship of the ring?

Oh, definitely The Hobbit! It is written in a very different style than The Lord of the Rings, but it's so darn cute! Anyway, some things in LOTR have so much more meaning to them when you've read The Hobbit first.

I just read Pride and Prejudice and today picked up The Count of Monte Cristo from the library. I must say I had no idea it was that BIG! I'm not afraid, I've read the LOTR of heaven's sake, but I think I'm a little daunted. I'll survive.

[ForeverFan]

Val: My absolute favourites from the Dear Canada series are Whispers of War (because we always need more Canadian War of 1812 fiction! ) and With Nothing But Our Courage, which was the Loyalist one. (I'm a rather big fan of the Loyalists.) I also liked Orphan at my Door because it was set around the city where I was born, and even mentions it once or twice. Hence, my liking it. But all of them are pretty good- some of the topics/time periods chosen don't interest me as much, but all in all, it's been a fun series to read and see what new ones they come out with. The WWII one was interesting- I recall the Agatha Christie bits that you mentioned.

@ Lady Courage: Welcome to NarniaWeb, & the books thread! I recently finished The Count of Monte Cristo and enjoyed it very much. I hope you enjoy it as well!