This topic doesn't necessarily have to exist, and I don't mean to invade anyone's private business, but if anyone's willing, I thought we could bring up what we happen to be reading at the moment. There doesn't have to be any lengthy descriptions of a book - I wouldn't mind just hearing title and author. It's just something that I thought up at the spur of the moment, and replies can follow the same way.
For me right now, it's Treasure Island, spurred by the fact that I just finished a biography of Stevenson's fascinating life, and I also have each of his major works lined up as well. It's a bit of a cheat, I admit, since after bringing up my "Problems with Books and Reading" topic, my response is to read a book I've already read. On the other hand, I had read it only once back in the nineties as a project back in homeschooling, so it FEELS like reading it for the first time. As it is, I'm halfway done with it in just a couple days - it's a phenomenally fast read, "perfectly" plotted and paced. Some critics may find it flat, but I believe it accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to tell a bare-bones yarn free of deeper (deliberate) philosophical insight. It's the perfect potboiler.
I finished the first Game of Thrones book, today. I haven't started a next pleasure reading book, though I'll be looking through a Pharmacology textbook for study purposes today.
Game of Thrones reads quite differently from the fantasy books that I'm used to reading. Its shifting third-person limited narrative adds a lot of interest, the characters are quite vivid, and the first books ended by making me wonder what was to come -- but I'll probably not pick up the next one for months, because I simply don't have time to wade through an 800-or-so page book during the semester. This one was already too much of a distraction.
I didn't like all of the book -- some of the chapters I read just to get back to other chapters I was interested in, and at times certain elements of the writing I didn't like. Nevertheless, I'll likely read on sometime in the future.
Got a few things lined up that I'm trying to get through, though I admit that I've slowed down considerably. I've read about 3 or 4 chapters in Dickens's The Pickwick Papers (I want to read Dickens in chronological order to get the feeling of how his style changed throughout his life) and about 3 of the stories in The Jungle Books (which I have, shockingly, never read). Also read a story in a collection called The Hunger and Other Stories by chief Twilight Zone scribe Charles Beaumont (who's sort of being rediscovered) and am halfway through Golden Age radio legend Arch Oboler's sole novel House on Fire, a supernatural horror story. For diversity's sake, I've also got a few library books out that I'm really just sifting through - The Collected Tales and Plays of Nikolai Gogol (probably just going to read 1 or 2 stories), a collection of creature stories (again, maybe a couple select stories), a rather brief nonfiction on Russian literature and The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (already read 2, may very well read the rest).
Yeah, I've really overdone it now. Eventually, I'll have it all sorted out to a couple titles. In the meantime, I want to get in as much as possible.
Wow, sounds like quite a reading regimen.
It's a bit sad to say, but I'm not doing any hobby reading right now. School has taken over that time. I'm looking forward to Christmas break to do some more real reading. Not sure what I'll read next, but maybe the next Game of Thrones or something lighter, a kids fantasy series perhaps.
I finished the original Earthsea Trilogy, and I'm not feeling like continuing on in Earthsea at the moment, but if I can find the first Shanarra book -- maybe at the local used book store that has a big fantasy section -- I might try that or something like it out.
Had to cut down on my previous reading list - didn't finish a lot, also haven't stuck with some as I'd hoped (as usual). Right now, I'm over halfway done with Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, after which I plan to follow it up with Fahrenheit 451; I've also taken out The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories again with the intent to finish it - I'll probably make a post about it when I'm done. I'll get back to Beaumont, Dickens and Kipling again eventually.
I just finished a book called The English Passengers, which was a historical fiction piece, somewhat dark in a British humor sort of way. I enjoyed it, overall, though I won't rave about it.
Just went to the used bookstore today and bought the second Game of Thrones book, A Clash of Kings. It will be my Christmas break read, or at least the first one.
I finished two books over two days - Fahrenheit 451 at last and Davis Grubb's The Night of the Hunter, a significant piece of Southern Gothic which spawned the classic movie with Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. I highly recommend both. Now I'm moving on to another fantasy - Tim Powers's On Stranger Tides, a pirate tale which inspired the Monkey Island point-and-click PC adventure games of the 90's and served as the namesake/source material of the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
Well, over my holiday break I binged on A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. Together somewhere around 1800 pages of reading. I finished the second last night at about 1AM.
I'm not gonna try to tackle the next right now. Maybe in a little while. I need a break from that world, and my semester begins on Tuesday. I probably won't pick up any pleasure reading immediately.
I just finished reading one of the most critically acclaimed fantasy books of our time, The Name of the Wind. It's book one of the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss, who takes an interminably long time to write anything but only writes excellent books. While his world-weaving is interesting enough on its own, the word-weaving is unsurpassed in anything I have yet read. Without giving anything away, it's a story within a story, a tale woven by a master storyteller. I can't wait to read the second book, which is out (The Wise Man's Fear), though work compels me to buckle down at least for the next several weeks. And I really can't keep up the pace of staying up between 2 to 4 am for a several consecutive days, like I did with Name of the Wind. Read it!
I haven't read him yet, but I definitely have heard that Rothfuss is one of the best new talents today. Believe me, he will find his way to the blog very soon.
I'm sort of in a mix right now - my copy of On Stranger Tides got damaged recently (a corner of pages got thoroughly wet), so I'm waiting for a replacement copy. In the meantime, I've taken out four nonfiction books from the library - an illustrated encyclopedia on science fiction from the 90's, a book on myths and misconceptions about science and religion, a collection from the 50's containing 40 scientists' confirmations on God, and one more on "cracking the code" of the Pentateuch.
Fictionwise, I've got two lined up until I get my new copy, both authors having been mentioned on the blog - War in Heaven by Charles Williams (sort of a detective/supernatural thriller concerning the Holy Grail, by the third great fiction writer of the Inklings who's unfortunately not as well known as Lewis and Tolkien) and A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay (a philosophical science fiction/fantasy with Gnostic undertones about a journey to a fictional planet orbiting the star Arcturus).
I'll probably have to put The Name of the Wind on my list for next, after the GOT series. I happened to start book 4. Didn't intend to but ended up getting an assignment for work that involved lots of sitting and waiting, so busted it open after all. I'm not as into the 4th book because most of my favorite characters aren't featured so much.
On the one hand, I could say that my reading has come to a halt. I'm not reading my novels like I was before. I guess I'm just in one of those natural slumps right now. It's not that I don WANT to read.
After all, on the other hand, I am actually in the middle of a book - the Bible. You see, all my life, I've never actually read the Bible from cover to cover. I've read most of the major stories and am thus familiar with certain events, but I've never "seriously" read it except when mandatory by an outside influence (i.e., church, school, etc.), nor have I read any of the Latter Prophets or the Writings. So I've taken it upon myself to undergo a straight read-through of the entire Bible, so I can say that I've read it at least once in my life. Deeper meditations can come later; right now, it's important to me that I just read the thing. As of this writing, I'm in the middle of Judges, and I must say that it's been a pretty interesting read. I wasn't as bored with the Pentateuch as I thought I would be - all the laws and restatements ended up being very fascinating, even enlightening. I'm really enjoying it.
So I got to work on balancing my Bible reading with my novel reading. I think I can manage it.
My reading has largely halted, replaced by studying and zoning out on less productive things. Ten months of nursing school left.
I stalled out in the fourth game of thrones.
I have been working on archery, at least, and starting to exercise some.
I just finished the fourth game of thrones. It read like an interlude, to be honest. I'm thinking of heading to the used book store tomorrow to pick up the last one that's out. I hope it picks up a bit. We shall see.
I'm currently in the middle of the English translation of Futaro Yamada's The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, which, as far as I know, sparked off the ninja craze in Japan back in the early sixties. It reads as an interesting piece of historical fantasy and, for better or worse, depending on your liking, a manga in prose. It's not perfect, but what is?
I like the blending of actual history with fantastic elements. Reinterpreting history through a speculative lens is actually quite clever, although history itself makes for engrossing reading. I'm keen on trying out some more, in any culture.
The fantastical history stuff is something I think that is quite common in Asian film. I have watched a fair amount of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean film. I really like the very different sensibilities of storytelling displayed in these film traditions -- talking particularly of the historical epic type of films. Two of my favorites are the Korean War of Arrows and the classic Chinese film Hero. A well known example is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, although I haven't ever gotten interested enough in that one to watch it all, having only seen parts on TV or YouTube, I think. But there are many of these films, often covering particular eras or events in a mythic way. These films are often told as heroic tragedies, which seems a standard format in Asian historical-mythic film. The characters are pretty much doomed. It's a different sort of storytelling aesthetic in some ways.
I'm having a bit of a tough time finding what I want to read next. I might dip into a couple titles, just to see if I want to complete them at this moment. Today I started Mikhail Bulgakov's subversive fantasy/satire The Master and Margarita, and though I may not have finished the second chapter entirely, I think I'm going to like this one.
I got halfway through Bulgakov before I felt like moving on to other things, as usual. It's not that I don't like it, I just wasn't in the mood for it like I thought I was. Instead, I read Stephen King's The Shining - great read - and now I'm working through two different books simultaneously, at least in attempt: Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghosts (a fantastic/horror collection of stories by Stephen King's son, who's also a writer) and Stevenson's Kidnapped. Afterwards, I'm seriously considering picking up The Once and Future King. I'll reread/finish Bulgakov at some point.
So, I am just beginning another busy semester today. I haven't been reading anything because I've been so involved with school and travel. I think I mentioned I got a book on the Mongols but I have misplaced it and have to find it. It would be nice to do some pleasure reading this summer, but I actually have nearly 8 hours of lectures two days a week and then additional practical coursework on other days. I may not get much reading in again.
Having finished Kidnapped and Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel, I am next planning on checking out The Hunchback of Notre Dame as well as either The Jungle Book (gonna start it over) or The Phantom of the Opera. I've also started The Once and Future King, and I REALLY enjoy what I've read of it. As I've taken a break to focus on other things, plus the stuff I want to pick up right now, as you can see, I'm thinking of either starting it over again as well or just skimming through it to refresh my memory before continuing.
I really, really enjoyed the Once and Future King.
How was the Scarlet Pimpernel? I'm interested a bit but haven't heard any reviews.
It's a great thriller. It moves quickly enough, though I sort of wish that there was an equal balance of both England and France, such as in A Tale of Two Cities (another high school text I read unfaithfully). The real meat of it is trying to find out who the Pimpernel is and, when that's discovered, how he's going to escape a trap he's headed into. There's a small part of it that could be read as anti-Semitic today (you'll know it when you find it), and the author clearly favors the aristocracy over the common citizens, but all-around, it's a page-turner, and that's all that one could ask for.
So, I've been burning through The Devil's Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe by James Chambers. Chambers is pretty biased, I feel, but it is an interesting and easy read. I really like Mongol history, and I got a look at some elements of it that I don't remember reading about before. It makes me want to dig up what I can about the life and exploits of Subedei (Subutai: English name versions vary), the Mongol general. This may be interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subutai
Anyway, I've just got a handful of pages left. I need to make another trip to the used bookstore to see what can be found.
I'm probably a quarter into The Once and Future King (I've got some 45 pages left to The Sword in the Stone). I replaced my own personal copy of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame not just because of getting a nicer edition, but because I ran into an issue of translation. You see, the Barnes & Noble Classics version was based on an anonymous public domain translation that I actually found to be quite stiff; I got some 60 pages into it before I found I didn't want to go any further. As it turned out, the Modern Library edition was a revised version of that same translation which slightly modernized the text for smoother reading and even reinserted some of the more erotic aspects which were previously left out for Victorian era(?) audiences. You can bet that I am now quite interested in getting the most accessible, contemporary translations of non-English works.
Right now, I'm trying to decide whether I want to restart Hunchback or pick up R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone.
I've just started On the Trail of Ghenghis Khan by Tim Cope. This is a non-fiction book written by Cope who traveled from Mongolia to Hungary on horseback, basically making a journey over the distance or at least the landscape of the Mongol empire (the Mongols invaded Hungary). So far it is remarkably interesting. I found out about the book after watching a national geographic talk that Tim Cope gave (found the talk on Hulu) about his journey. I found it so interesting I ordered his book. I'm looking forward to reading more of it this coming week, as I will be on a vacation from classes during next week.
I've been taking a break from reading, even though it means leaving my current books right in the middle. I just haven't been feeling it recently. I'm kind of at a loss what to do - about anything, not just reading.
However, I think I'm going to attempt to get back into it very soon. Having recently made an unexpected trip to Barnes and Noble this past week, I've picked up Edith Grossman's new translation of Don Quixote, and I hope to get to it steadily. I'm still going to read King and Hunchback, but I want to get into this story right now. That's just the way I work.
I finished the book I was reading before, On the Trail of Ghengis Khan. I enjoyed it. It was a good read.
I tried reading Don Quixote, and I think I read a pretty good chunk of it. I don't think I had a good translation, but regardless, I didn't enjoy the content.
Don Quixote was one of those books that was written, I believe, in an era where you wanted to get the full bang for your buck out of a book. You wanted a really long book that kept going, because books were scarcer and were the equivalent of your evening entertainment. No one wanted Firefly to end in one season, no one wants a book to end too soon. There are plenty of books I wouldn't have minded to be two or three times as long. Nevertheless, Don Quixote wasn't one of them.
But if you look at the size of books like an unabridged The Count of Monte Cristo, I think you can see the different sensibility about book length.
Well, that didn't last long.
I still intend to read Don Quixote (and finish Hunchback and King eventually, possibly rereading them....again.....), but my attention has been moved to other things. I am quite sorry to say that my attention span is very short and very easily broken. I just don't know how to read, really. I can't make up my mind.
As for now, I'm sort of stuck. I'm currently (supposed to be) practicing for a CMH production of Michael Frayn's metafarce Noises Off, which is probably going to be the most taxing part I've ever done, and I have my doubts. For recreation, I've finished the first three chapters (and subsequent 145 pages) of Stephen King's IT, and I'm really interested in continuing with that. Also, both for recreation and for research purposes, I'm seriously considering rereading The Hobbit and, subsequently, The Lord of the Rings, neither of which I have picked up in YEARS - I've only read them once. I'm thinking of taking notes while doing so, jotting down ideas for possible elaborations on stories and concepts that I could develop for myself, should I wish to pursue it.
If you want to know more about the play I'm doing, as an alternative to browsing Wikipedia (although you could still do so), here's a fairly good performance of it caught on video - I suggest listening to it through headphones for maximum sound experience. My part is "Garry", which in this production is the man in the blue coat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmJWPGZp1-Y
I also enjoy a good re-read of the Hobbit.
I'm currently reading The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. It is very good. In last night's reading, it gave me an entirely new perspective of WWII, particularly related to Nazi collusion in Eastern Europe and the Russians. Besides that, it depicts communism and Bolshevism with mind blowing horror and wry experience. Definitely a must read to help understand the 20th century.
Currently, I'm reading The Rats, the debut novel of British author James Herbert, who came around the scene the same time as Stephen King and is sort of lauded as the British equivalent of him. It's about a plague of large mutant rats - kinda gruesome, but not perhaps rather tame for 1974. The book and the author are both significant figures in the horror genre, and I hope to pick up more of him, as I am quite enjoying it.
Next up, I had a couple things in mind, but having gotten myself worked up about it, I think I've set on something else. See, one of my birthday presents this year was a copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Well, as I seem to be going on about it, I might as well eat my own words and read it myself. I only hope it's worth my own praise.
On another note, the play went well. Our Friday night performance was probably the best, getting the most reaction out the audience. We held in a different venue than we usually do, and that felt weird, as it wasn't on a traditional stage like at SC4. But we made due and it worked.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell sounds interesting to me, as I said, and I want to pick up a cheap copy.
I haven't finished the Gulag Archipelago yet, but I'll probably work through that slowly over time. I kind of want some light reading for December.
Once again, I might change up my reading schedule. Having undergone a rewatch of the movies recently, I'm planning to read through the Harry Potter books - not all at once, of course. I'm thinking of making it an every-other-book sort of thing. That way, I can still fit in Strange & Norrell.
I am just now entering into a new phase of life, wherein I will theoretically have some more time for reading for a bit. But I need to make some choices about what I read. I stalled out part way through the Gulag Archipelago. I want to finish it but I'd also like to read something in the fantasy genre. I need to hit up the used bookstore here and see if I can find anything, or else order this Norrell business from online.
Update:
In accordance with the recommended reading, I was given Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell as a Christmas gift and I'm currently beginning chapter three. It's enjoyable so far, and I'm looking forward to continuing it. More thoughts to come.
Finished The Rats - great read, though I wouldn't put it particularly on the Recommended Reading section, as it's not fantasy oriented and would probably be off-putting to our readers.
Once again, though, my reading list has changed, as I am not currently reading Strange & Norrell. Rather, I have chosen to begin one of my Christmas presents, which is, in fact, another World Fantasy Award winner - Patrick Süskind's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, a 1985 "literary historical fantasy" which is one of the most popular German novels of the 20th century. Basically, it uses horror and magic realism as metaphors for existential human alienation, but rather than be overly pretentious, what I've read so far is actually a finely crafted story on its own. It was adapted into a movie by Tom Tykwer in 2006, if you're interested in it. The author is planned to appear on Masters of Fantasy.
For more information, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume_(novel)
Well, it took me a couple months(!!!), but I finally finished Perfume, and it was a marvelous read. See, reading ABOUT books and writers on my computer, among other things (like watching YouTube videos on end), tend to be a significant leech on my attention, so what can (or should) take a few weeks at most turn into big projects. There were entire swaths of time where the book just sat on my floor, but just these past couple days, I managed to turn in 50-70 in a day. I'm surprised! It only happened when I made the determined effort to set everything else aside and focus on the book. I really support my recommendation.
As for what I plan to read next, I have an idea. I'm thinking of A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., which has been sitting for my shelf for an uncounted amount of time. It's a 1960 science fiction novel, considered one of the absolute classics of the genre, having won the Hugo Award for Best Novel (one of the highest awards in the genre) and never been out of print. It's a post-apocalyptic story about an order of monks at a monastery who have preserved the achievements of civilization and are simply biding their time, waiting for the right moment to reintroduce them to society. It's one of the few sci-fi stories that can be seriously considered pro-religion, let alone Christianity, and I feel that I have a need to support works like this.
Of course, that's my modern reading. In between reading Perfume and waiting for no apparent reason, I finally started reading Don Quixote a few days ago, and I've been going steadily at it; I've gotten 14 chapters of the First Part under me, and I'm surprisingly more interested than I imagined I would be, in that, where I expected it to be boring after walking away, I returned to it and found it highly engrossing. I was surprised that the windmill scene was so brief, considering its infamy, and, based on your report, I expected to find more bathroom/vulgar humor in it (personally, I don't have a problem with that, and I plan on reading more books that are more overt in said humor). So far, a clean read. My only fear is that it will start to bore me once I get halfway through, as it's a rather long picaresque which, by nature, runs on little outright plot. Still, if these first chapters are anything to go by, I'll enjoy the rest of it. I sincerely hope so.
That's about all from my end.
Hmm. A Canticle for Leibowitz sounds good. I wouldn't mind reading it, myself.
Currently, I've been so busy with work and home responsibilities that I haven't been reading much, but I think that I will soon have more time for pleasure reading. Maybe the above book will wind up on my list.
Well, I've changed my reading choices ONCE AGAIN, though I have to say that it's been an eye-opener. See, I recently purchased new Modern Library editions of three books I have, and one of them is The Scarlet Letter (the others are Moby-Dick and The Count of Monte Cristo). Thus, I set aside Leibowitz for the time being, and, to my surprise (somewhat), I found that I'm actually enjoying Hawthorne's work. This time, having learned more about it, I'm prepared for the tragedy and grimness of the text, so I can accept it without much fuss. Granted, I was rather bored by the first 38 pages - which, to the savvy reader, consists of an autobiographical sketch called "The Custom House." I just felt that it didn't really serve the story in an effective way; I'm glad I read it at least once (I restarted it about 3 times), and in a way, it does set up the main story, but it could have been done in about 2 or 4 pages. I guess I have no problems with digressions, but what I really wanted was to get to the meat of the story. Oh well.
I still intend to get to Leibowitz soon, but being on a classics roll, I'm seriously considering having Moby-Dick being my next choice. And remember, all this is in between reading Don Quixote, which I am highly enjoying. I finally reached some of the bathroom humor, but it doesn't bother me. In fact, it's rather humbling to find so lofty a work go for what a snob would consider "the bottom of the barrel." As I write this, I'm about to start the last quarter of the First Part (Chapters 17-52).
No barb in that "snob" comment, I trust! Hah. No offense taken.
A lot of earlier works had long digressions in them. I ran out of steam on Quixote during one, if I remember correctly. Years ago, I visiting a historic site in Illinois, a historic farm set up as a living history exhibit. In it there was a bookshelf and the presenter said something the gist of which I've never forgotten. It went something like this, "a lot of the books from back then were very long. Entertainment was not as easy to come by, and books were not easily acquired. People read them little by little over a long period of time, and they wanted their money's worth."
A farmer or tradesman with little light to read by and little time to spare who indulges in the expense of a book might very well want the extra pages of diversion and an experience of something other than what he is familiar with.
Well, I finished The Scarlet Letter yesterday, which means I read it within a week. I absolutely loved it. It's a gloomy, tragic book, but gloriously and passionately so. I guess that's how I can describe Hawthorne's prose: passionate. He keeps you so caught up in the majesty of the moment. It's definitely recommended if you haven't read it already.
Even more good news: as I write this, I've just put about 100 pages (and 15 chapters) of Moby-Dick behind me in one day, and I'm thinking of cranking out a few more before the night's out. Melville's just as passionate as Hawthorne - a rather intimate writer with some weighty philosophical musings about him. I love it.
Man, I really seemed to have picked up on reading now. I hope it lasts. A break wouldn't hurt, but I don't want to lose the momentum.
I have read at least part of The Scarlet Letter. It's been years ago, though.
Now, if you finish Moby Dick I'm going to tip my hat to you (at least, I'll admire the effort put forth).
Glad you're in a good groove with reading.
Now that my health is back to where I can be more active, I have begun more outdoors projects on the homestead. Still not much reading time, but I'm working on a map project that I'm excited about.
Well, in the midst of transferring a whole bunch of live CD's onto my computer, as of tonight, I have officially finished the First Part of Don Quixote, thereby having made it halfway through the book. It's quite a moment, especially how I'm not bored by it even when it appears that it would be boring (the digressions and side-stories are actually quite entertaining). I'll be really glad to say that I've read this one in it's entirety.
As for Moby-Dick, I'm enjoying it immensely. What an incredibly eloquent book! To top it all off, the digressions into whaling life (a whole chapter on then-current cetalogy and several musings on the moment) have been most fascinating. I gotta admit that, on some level, I like it better than Quixote, but I still have to keep in mind that they're two entirely different books with two very different audiences in mind.
Well, the groove didn't last. I've been so distracted by downloading music and typing out lists that my reading has considerably suffered. However, while I'm still in the process of putting more music on, I've walked away from the lists for a while, and I'm picking up books again. Due to my increasing fascination with them in my research on fantasy, plus interest in the man himself, my most recent book picked up is an omnibus edition of Mervyn Peake's three Gormenghast novels. I think I'm about 50 pages into the first book right now, and I'm definitely hooked. When I'm finished with it, I plan to give it an approving entry in the recommended reading - my first for a series (in the new format). It's sort of a surreal Dickens, though that does fall short of giving it its total due. I plan to highlight Peake in the future, as I feel he needs the representation.
But I haven't given up on my other reads. As of tonight, I am relieved to say that I have FINALLY finished the Second Part of Don Quixote, thus putting the whole book entirely behind me. I can't say I enjoyed it as much as Dr. Samuel Johnson - I think I was quite ready for it to be over - but I did sincerely get pleasure out of it, which must be what Cervantes intended. Basically, the book did its job, I highly enjoyed it, and at some point, I think I would read it again, particularly if I had more schooling on it. Sure, I can do my own research, but I'd like to hear it from an actual professional in a classroom. In my own experience, once you really commit to the story, it reads in such a way that you want to continue with it. One thing happens after another, and it's not boring by any means. Both Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are true icons, and I'm glad I was able to experience them the way they were meant to be.
On to Moby-Dick next, as I'm over halfway through it.
Wow, Coir. You're getting through some seriously long works. Good for you. Hope you're enjoying it.
So, I haven't been reading lately, but that is soon to change. I just ordered cheap used copies of three books: The Name of the Wind, by Rothfuss, The Lies of Locke Lamora, and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. All three come from the article that I recently posted, although the Rothfuss novel was first recommended by Bear here.
Although I haven't been reading, I have been writing — editing and revising. I'm going to be preparing for release four different books that I have had sitting around for far too long. Since I really don't have much interest in pursuing traditional publishing at this point, I'm going to go the route I went with my collection about fiddling that I self published years ago, only these I will focus on as Kindle books primarily. I do intend to do hard copies, though.
The first of these four is a themed collection and is coming along nicely (it is also the one most thoroughly revised, as I've been shaping it on and off for the past 11 or so years) and I hope to finally release it before November. Then I'll move onto the first of the fantasy novels that I've had sitting around waiting to see the light of day.
At last, I finished Moby-Dick just this afternoon. Gotta say, I really, really enjoyed it. It was probably a mistake, though, to read both it and Don Quixote at the same time, as both are rather heavy on entertaining but numerous digressions. It made it annoying when either one just wouldn't get on with the story, so this last little bit when I focused only on one book in succession was a more rewarding experience. Again, it's a book I would read again, particularly if I go for a higher education.
Now I can devote my time to Peake, though I also want to read something else, especially for October, as it's a particularly festive season. However, I want to do something smaller, so as a compromise, I'm seriously considering one of my recent purchases - The Auctioneer by Joan Samson. It's a non-supernatural (to my knowledge) horror novel from the 1970's in the spirit of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and presumably the influence for Stephen King's Needful Things; it's about a charismatic figure who comes to a small American town and exerts a destructive influence on the townsfolk by making them auction off increasingly important parts of their lives. It was going to be made into a movie, but the author died of cancer, and plans fell through; it was also her only novel, so it's been out of print for decades, only recently released this year.
Unless someone else wants to take the month, I've already got an idea for October's Recommended Reading, something that will fit well with the Halloween mood (the Viewing I have to think of a bit more, but I have an idea here as well).
I finished The Lies of Locke Lamora. Have to say, it was a page turner. It was well told, with a thoroughly arresting fantasy world. The story takes place pretty much entirely in a single city, and it mostly follows the workings of the criminal underground and a con artist named Locke Lamora. The presence of magic and such adds extra complications to his trade. If you're looking for a book with morally superior heroes, this is not it.
I've not been doing this for books, before, but I'd say I'd give it a 6 out of 10. It was a page turner, very interesting, compelling world, but I'm not sure that I'd want to continue on in the series. It was a satisfactorily stand alone book, I'm not ruling out that I might pick up another, but I'm also not sure I feel like I want to spend a bunch more time with Locke Lamora the character.
I finished The Auctioneer just this Sunday. It, too, was a great page-turner - more of a thriller than a horror, though there were some horrifying/dreadful aspects about it. It was certainly worth the wait for the publisher to get a hold of it, and I hope it becomes more popular.
As for my next, I'm considering Dean Koontz's Whispers, which seems to be a suspense thriller with horror overtones, which is par the course for Mr. Koontz's output. However, I'm also considering another early 70's horror classic - Thomas Tryon's The Other (a psychological story) - and another shorter fantasy - Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (you can probably expect to see both this and The Broken Sword soon on the Recommended Reading). I'm still reading Peake, of course, and I intend to finish it, but I want to do something shorter, as well.
Also, I can't make any promises or estimates on release dates, but I'm really thinking about adding another entry to the Masters of Fantasy series. I still have several lists of authors lined up already, and it's bee since February/March that we last heard from it. Some I really want to get to, and others are really in need of more knowledge on the part of readers. I just have to make time for it.
I've just barely started The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making, and judging from the first couple pages, it's going to be good. I'll post again when I finish it.
I'm already a chapter into Whispers, and it looks to be promising, although more of a thriller (meaning little, if any, horror - not complaining, of course). From the looks of it, these are going to be some long chapters (30+ pages), so I don't know how quickly I'll be done with this one.
On the fantasy/sci-fi side, I've forgone my previously mentioned suggestions and gone with my birthday present for this year - Tales of the Dying Earth by Jack Vance, an omnibus collection of all four novels in the setting Mr. Vance created. I'm already over 70 pages in, and it's really good, though they're more a series of interlinked stories than straight novels. I've already spoken of Vance and the Dying Earth on Masters of Fantasy, but here's a link to one of the resources again, just to catch you up:
https://www.blackgate.com/2013/06/02/the-dying-earth-an-appreciation/
I'll definitely be recommending it at some point!
Well, I've stalled on Peake and Koontz, but I intend to get back to them at some point. I'm one story short of finishing the first quarter of Vance's book, and I finished John D. MacDonald's acclaimed thriller Cape Fear a few days ago - wonderful read, highly recommended.
With Halloween fast approaching (just 9 days away as of this writing), I really wanted to read something seasonal, but I didn't want to pay a whole lot of money on Amazon right now, and what I was looking at wouldn't be here until mid-November. Also, after our personal get-together and a few comments made during that time, I suddenly had the urge to get back into short stories (hence my "Brief Shout-Out" topic), as I feel I had been neglecting them. Therefore, I managed to satisfy myself both ways by picking up Stephen King's Night Shift, his first collection of stories from 1978 made up of everything that he had previously published in magazines plus a few new tales. King is a writer I really admire - I wouldn't make all of the choices he's made in his life, and I certainly won't say he's the incomparably best writer I've ever experienced, but I really dig his sheer commitment to the craft, and I feel that he's earned a place in the pantheon of great noteworthy American authors. He's the writer who most inspires me to take up writing, though I never do. Maybe I will, someday, when I feel I have some good stories to tell.
Well, I haven't gone back to Peake and Koontz yet, and I've even set Vance aside, but I have every intention of going back. Just recently, I've put most of my energy into King's Night Shift, which I just finished a couple days ago, and Tim Powers's The Drawing of the Dark, which I also finished. I also restarted Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, but while I intend to finish it as well, for the past couple days, I've been focused on the big one - Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo. This one is going to be a task, given that my Modern Library edition (which I am 98% sure in unabridged) is 1,462 pages long! (That's 117 chapters!) Thankfully, it's a real page-turner, having put 200 pages behind me already.
I've also started looking over Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer, a slim volume, and I'm really encouraged by it. I hope I can clear up some of my psychological problems and get to writing at some point.
I've done some more setting aside - Monte Cristo is on hold for a bit, as is Pickwick - but I've also gotten a quarter of the way through Vance. Right now, I'm trying to focus on one of my Christmas presents as well as a title I've bought for myself recently. The former is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré, a very influential Cold War spy novel from 1974 that served as an antithesis to James Bond and was later adapted into both a miniseries starring Alec Guinness for the BBC and feature film starring Gary Oldman; it moves at its own pace, and I'm really interested in it. The latter is Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur, which I've barely started and can't give a steady impression of right now, but I'm hoping to be just as taken by it.
REALLY mixing up my reading here. Still working on Tinker, Tailor and Ben-Hur, but I've also started John Steinbeck's East of Eden - really good - and another fantasy novel, that being Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter - also really good.
Also, on a whim and after a small bit of research, I decided I wanted to pick myself up a new Bible. I got an NKJV Reader's Bible, which is set up for ease of reading by eliminating chapter and verse distinctions to make it read like more of an actual book while keeping the form of the classic King James text. (Got nothing against my Apologetics Study Holman Christian Standard Bible, but I just prefer some of the classic, well-known wording better.) Here's the link for it:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0785216103/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
In addition, because I've been interested in it for quite a while and I wanted to further understand the viewpoint, I got a copy of the Qur'an via the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition line; I intend to eventually get some books explaining it in a Christian context, but I feel I'm doing any interfaith dialogue a disservice by being ignorant of the original text.
I Just finished reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairy Land in a Boat of Her Own Making. Yes, it took me a long time but I've been keeping busy in other ways.
I'd recommend the book. It was a good read. If she writes a sequel I'd probably read it, too. It was a mix between Lewis Carol, the Never Ending Story, and The Chronicles of Narnia. Something in that realm.
As an addendum to the above, I've moved on to Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. After the first 50-or-so pages, I can see why Bear was recommending it so thoroughly on the basis of writing style. He is, for the most part, a good word-smith. The story is also engaging to this point (though can't help but acknowledge the fact that it is a fantasy novel that begins with a tavern. . .).
I just finished The Name of the Wind. I'm not sure if "finished" is the right word because I devoured it. I even stayed up until well after midnight reading by the light of a lamp one night, which is not something I've done in a good while. Quite an enjoyable read and I will be ordering the next in the series. Something Coir said, though, may apply. The third book is not out yet, and that makes me a bit nervous. Hopefully, Rothfuss will not prove to be a Martin when it comes to completing a series. . .
I would be displeased by that.
So, I'm currently reading Six of Crows, which is a fantasy heist story. So far so good.
But I wanted to write that I also finished The Wise Man's Fear. This is the sequel to The Name of the Wind, bringing me up to date in that series. Now I'm stuck in the same position as with Game of Thrones -- hoping for a finish to the story. I think there is a much better chance with Rothfuss than with Martin. At any rate, The Wise Man's Fear, ca 1100 pages in my copy, was also a page turner but I do not know how Rothfuss plans to cap off this storyline with just one more book. I could see it done with another 2,000 pages or so (as in, two books), but at the pace he's been going I do not see how we can reach a conclusion with just one more book. Maybe that's why it's taking a while.
The later part of Wise Man's Fear had some issues, I'll say. This includes a somewhat adolescent-feeling take on sexuality (and the herb-chewing contraceptive was an easy out) and I'm also a bit confused by some of the spots that Rothfuss breezed over. Did we not get the trial scenario or the shipwreck and pirate stuff just as a matter of time considerations? It felt a bit clipped.
Any thoughts?
Not really. I haven't read the books yet, but I HAVE heard somewhere that his intention is for this trilogy to be the opening sequence to a much larger story yet written. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Taking on a sequence is a large effort with no guarantees. One will just have to wait and see.
Here's an article on Tor about it: https://www.tor.com/2018/03/07/patrick-rothfuss-kingkiller-chronicle-prologue-the-doors-of-stone-book-3/
I've been so hooked on my computer lately that I really haven't been doing much reading at all. I'll try to get back into it.
I just finished Uprooted by Naomi Novik. It was a serious page turner. This fantasy book has its roots (har har) deeper in European folk tales (think Grimm, although her influences seem to be more eastern European) and the shades of horror, suspense, and enchantment than anything resembling a Tolkien-influenced world. In short, it was a suspenseful read and a mysterious world full of lurking danger and a real sense of a truly horrific evil that was being combated. I do have a couple small critiques, but I don't want to include them as this is a book that could really be hurt by spoilers. I'd recommend for adult readers.
As an addendum, I did finish Six of Crows. It was not on the same level with Novik or Rothfuss' books, but I still may get the sequel as it kind of finished mid-train in the narrative. Six of Crows started slowly and took me some time to get into, but it was a page turner by the end, and despite its flaws, there are some quality aspects to it. As I said, I may get a copy of the next book so I can finish the story arc.
Probably against my better judgment, I've got about four books going again (one which I technically haven't even started yet). I was going to pick up Peake's Gormenghast novels again, but I've let other things come first; I'll get to them soon enough, hopefully, for the recommended reading. For my four current choices, I've just started The Complete Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson, having gotten one third of a larger story under my belt, and I also have Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales ready to pick up, though I've made quite a few excuses not to; I've also read the first few chapters of Frank Herbert's Dune, and just tonight, inspired by the recent Hulu miniseries, I've started Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Yeah, it's probably too much, and knowing myself, I'm probably going to skip one or two of them eventually. For right now, I'm at least making an effort to do something about it.
Also, keep a look out for some changes on the blog. I can't say when I'll get to it, but if you haven't got the indication from one of my most recent forum topics, I'm planning on pursuing a new avenue.
I'll bet that you've picked up by now that I juggle a lot of reading. I CAN stick with a book, but more often than not, it depends on my mood, which fluctuates really easily. Sometimes this is related to something I'm looking over online or a TV show I've watched or even a specific title on my Amazon wish list that I've been eyeing for some time. Whatever the case, I have a difficult time making up my mind. It's not that I don't have enough to read, it's that I can't make up my mind. I don't know if anyone else goes through this.
Well, I'm in a situation right now. I've shelved Stevenson, Hawthorne, and Heller for an indefinite period, but I'm keeping Dune around, though I haven't been at it for perhaps a couple weeks. I've also got a library book out which I've barely started - Dickens and the Invisible World: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Novel-Making by Harry Stone, a now-out-of-print work that explores the influence of fantasy and folklore in the works of Charles Dickens; consider it research for "Masters of Fantasy" as well as personal edification. Having been looking up and researching Zelda games online, I suddenly have a taste for epic adventure fantasy piqued, so I've read a couple pages of my copy of Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion Tetralogy, but I also have Peake's Gormenghast omnibus out again - I REALLY WANT to read those books! Finally, I just started a purchase I just got today: a brand new translation by Lawrence Ellsworth of Alexandre Dumas's classic The Three Musketeers. If you only count the physical copies, that's 5 books at once! Yeah, it's probably too much, but I can't really make a solid choice. They all interest me.
Well, that's what I'm reading. How about you?
I've been reading some spiritual works, one on the topic of the baptism of the Holy Spirit by Derek Prince, and I also read Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry by Kris Vallotton. The latter book was given to me for possible use at church in something I've been asked to be involved in. Both books were beneficial and had a lot of good info. Had some concern over a couple points that I will have to think about more.
Just started Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake. I think it'll take me a bit to get used to his distinctive writing style but I'm too early in to make any calls about enjoyment. I just got to chapter 4 this evening, I believe.
I tend to read one book at a time. I think I have juggled more in the past, but if so they tend to be very different types of reading, such as a history and a novel or something like that. It's not something I do often, though. For the two books I mentioned at the beginning, the Kris Vallotton book was given to me while I was reading the Derek Prince book. I more or less stopped reading the Prince book, read the Vallotton book, and then finished the Prince book.
Well, with some reshuffling, I've narrowed down my books. I've set aside my fantasy/sci-fi momentarily to focus on The Three Musketeers, which I've cracked the first 100 pages of; I partly wonder why I've never picked this up before, because I'm loving it so much already, but then I remember that it's probably the translation that gives such a connection. Anyway, it's a classic that worth its fame. I haven't looked at my Dickens nonfiction library book since I mentioned it, but I've going to take it out again for another month and see if I can give it another go (otherwise, I'll just take it back and wait for another time).
I've also picked up yet another book - R. D. Blackmore's Lorna Doone. Despite having gotten only 50 pages through it, I have an impression that I'm really going to like it. There's also an interesting story behind it: I have two versions of the book, both of which I intend to keep - the one I'm reading, the black-spine Penguin Classics version (a recent purchase), uses the text of the 1869 first edition, which keeps a lot of the antiquated style, while the other one, the white-spine Oxford World's Classics version (which I've had for a few years), uses the 1883 revised 20th illustrated edition, which it says that Blackmore himself preferred. Rather than keeping one and donating the other to the library (my usual method), I intend to read it now as it was originally published and, in time, read the other eventually and see if I can pick up on the revisions; sure, both versions come with explanatory notes regarding the revisions, but I want to read the text itself and see which one I like better.
I intend to pick up a copy of Lorna Doone. I haven't read it yet, but my sheep (collectively called the "Doonies") bear the names of Lorna Doone, Maire Doone, and Hector Doone. When/if I introduce a new bloodline to the sheep down the road, I intend for the next family name to be the Poldarks. . .
Well, like I said, there are at least two versions to look out for:
-Here's the Penguin Classics version, based on the first edition (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143039326/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
-This one's the Oxford World Classics version, which uses a stylistically revised edition (https://www.amazon.com/Lorna-Doone-Romance-Exmoor-Classics/dp/0199537593/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=)
Oh, you don't have to get them now. I'm just linking to these for future reference. Feel free to look elsewhere, as I believe you have less of a preference looking for newer copies of books than I do, but a used copy of either should be available for a good price.
Slightly off topic, I take it you haven't read any of the Poldark novels. I've seen a little bit of the BBC show when Mom watched a few episodes of PBS's Masterpiece, and it seemed alright, but I'm not exactly sure that I personally would want to read a novel sequence like that. Maybe it just seems too melodramatic for continued consumption. But I'm not against sequences - I'd love to read Forester's Horatio Hornblower, O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin, and Cornwell's Sharpe in their entirety. I guess it's something about war novels....
Anyway, back on track, how is Gormenghast going? I'm HOPING you like it, but I knew it was a risk pointing you towards them. Are they any good compared to other fantasy works? On their own merits? Do you have any opinions on Peake's writing style now?
Well, AGAIN, my reading has changed, but only slightly. While it's been some time since I picked it up (due to preoccupation with updating some of my lists on my computer), I'm still reading Dumas, and through him, I now have a serious taste for historical fiction - I'd love to discuss it some time. In the interim, I've picked up a couple more books, and, wouldn't you know it, they're both doorstoppers. One is Stephen King's The Stand, which has been sitting around my house for quite a while now, and I'm glad to finally be getting to it; the other, still riding the history kick, is James Clavell's 1975 bestseller Shōgun, the third published but chronologically first of his celebrated Asian Saga, which, if you don't know, is a fictionalization (complete with name changes) of the story of Protestant navigator William Adams of the Dutch East India Company, who became the first Englishman to reach Japan in 1600, eventually adopting the ways and customs of the nation, becoming a legitimate samurai and key advisor to legendary shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu - I'm only 45 pages into it as of this post, but I'm enjoying it quite highly. Interestingly, both of these books were made into miniseries in the 80's and 90's (Shōgun in particular, starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune, is held in high esteem).
Man, we've been dead here for a long time. What's going on with everybody? (Not a complaint, just curious.)
I can't say that my reading has CHANGED so much as it has STEADIED. By which I mean, I have put down Shōgun for the time being but have also given most of my energy to The Stand - as of this writing, I've cracked the first 400 pages, and I intend to finish it. However, I also want to take a small break to lighten the mood.
I still plan on finishing Dumas - I know where I left off, and I'll simply pick it up again at that point - but I want to try something shorter for a bit. Originally, I was going to try out Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds, but after flipping through it, I think it's a bit too complicated to juggle, so I'm going to wait until I have time to focus on it exclusively. I read the first chapter of Jack Finney's classic time travel fantasy Time and Again, which I really feel I want to pursue, but I've also tried out a book that I didn't feel that I would enjoy all that much - J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. I had gotten my own copy of it quite some time ago, and it was just sitting on my shelf, so I felt now would be as good a time as any. I've put the first five chapters behind me and been quite pleased with it, so I'm planning on focusing on it for some time. I'm thinking that Finney might wait.
So it's been quite a while. What's on everyone else's reading list?
I've not been doing well with reading for quite a while, now, but I'm trying to push again on getting my next book finished. The title is Those Who Dwell. I'm going to fail at getting it out this year but I hope to release it before Spring at any rate and move on to the Adventures Series, which is a set of books I started working on back in my teens.
I haven't felt up to any serious reading, lately, but I've started Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George for some light reading and so far I'm enjoying it. It's a fun kids fantasy book about a castle that is more or less sentient and constantly changing.
Doing the final read-through edits and checks for Those Who Dwell and hoping to get it out soon. In the meantime, I finally finished Tuesdays at the Castle. It was a very simple sort of story, but enjoyable and just the low-energy type of read that I could creep through during grad school. . . Because school is kicking my butt a little right now.
Looking forward to reading it when it comes out. Also, I'd love to hear your opinion on Peake's Gormenghast if you've gotten any farther on it.
Personally, this is probably the most juggling I've ever done with books. My mood changes so much and I've trying to find the right book. Granted, I intend to finish all those that I've started, but it can really feel overwhelming.
I've still got The Stand on hold, I'm about halfway through both George R. R. Martin's Fevre Dream and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, I've got a good few chapters down on The Catcher in the Rye, and I've just completed Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Rather than finish any of those left hanging, I've gone and started another book as well - A Fine and Private Place by Peter S. Beagle.
Again, I do intend to finish everything. But I've got to be in the right mood on some occasions. Otherwise, I just got to commit.
Well, it's taken a bit of juggling, but I've currently narrowed things down. I've still got half of Fevre Dream to go, but I've put down Beagle and Salinger and finished both Jackson and Patricia A. McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which I've already recommended. As my chief focus, I've picked up Dumas's Musketeers again (I'm now halfway through it), restarted Dickens's The Pickwick Papers and FINALLY made substantial headway on it (REALLY enjoying it), and started the big one, the mother lode - Victor Hugo's Les Misérables, complete and unabridged (I was worried, but I never knew I would enjoy it so much - currently got 167 pages behind me already).
I think the most significant thing to come out of this selection is that I really enjoy the process of reading - I'm completely entranced with my choices, and none of the three are fantasy related.
I've been reading a lot lately.
I read two historical memoirs of the pacific front in WWII, A Helmet for My Pillow and With the Old Breed On Pelelieu and Okinawa. Those were interesting, to say the least. I read recently the second book of the Locke Lamora series and I just finished the second book in the Six of Crows duology. I'm going to probably start the third and final book in the Locke Lamora series. Both these series are similar -- heist and con stories in a fantasy world. I will say I feel the Locke Lamora series is better written, but both are enjoyable and a different experience of fantasy worlds. I am finding I have less and less interest in the epic scope of grand high fantasy books and I am more interested in character driven fantasy such as the above and novels like the Kingkiller Chronicles.
I've gotten a bunch of used books lately so I've got a lot to keep me reading for a while.
I can go both ways with fantasy. I still love epic grand adventures, having been raised on Zelda games, but smaller, character-driven fantasies can be quite magnificent as well. For me, a good story is a good story, regardless of genre. As long as I'm quite entertained, I'm satisfied.
As for my own reading, I'm juggling a bit more. I'm still reading Dickens, Dumas and Hugo, and I intend to finish them, but I've also tried shifting some of my focus to Pulitzer-winning works. I'm making headway on two in particular - John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (1980), regarded as one of the funniest books ever written, at least in the English language, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's 1938 classic The Yearling, which is an INCREDIBLE book - I wish I read it when I was younger.
Normally, I would say that I've been setting aside what I've mentioned in the last post and juggled a few more books...but while that's technically true, I have to admit that it's been taken to new extremes. I've spent the past few months picking up and starting SO MANY books that I've had to make a list for it, to the point that it's pretty much a moot point to say what I'm currently reading at this moment. It's probably more than any normal person would take on.
While I partially regret that, on the other hand, I've been sampling some pretty good works, and when I'm not surfing the Internet, I'm loving diving into my books. My mood is particularly mercurial right now, but I actually HAVE been able to stick with and complete a few of them, and I've enjoyed every one so far. Still, it bugs me that I've still got what I've mentioned before on hold. It's not that I don't like them, far from it, but when the mood strikes, I have this urge to pick up another book.
I've been on a horror kick recently, among other things. So far, I've completed:
-The Incredible Shrinking Man (1956) by Richard Matheson
-Rosemary's Baby (1967) by Ira Levin
-Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
-A Stir of Echoes (1958) by Richard Matheson
If you really want to know, I've started and made considerable progress on:
-Blood Sport (1974) by Robert F. Jones
-The Exorcist (1971) by William Peter Blatty
-The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953) by Isaac Asimov
-Ghost Story (1979) by Peter Straub
-The Puppet Masters (1951) by Robert A. Heinlein
There are several others that I've picked up, but I've only put a few pages behind on them. What I've listed already is what I've gotten the most into at this moment. I'll tell you what the others are in the future when I've read more of them.
It's been a long time since I've posted in this topic. Part of the reason for that is because, ever since I've started reading more than one book at a time, it's a gamble whether I can finish it or not in a reasonable amount of time. All the the books that I said I made considerable progress on in the last post have been set aside for quite some time now; I think I may have to restart a couple of them or at least read a synopsis or brush over what I've read before to refresh my memory. And there are others that I've read that I've run into the same problem with. The cynical part of me wonders whether tis topic is even worth continuing.
But it's not that I've found I don't like the books. It's just that my mood changes rather quickly and it's a toss-up just how long the peak is going to last. I have every intention of finishing everything I've started at some point.
If there's any good thing to come from this, it's that I've been able to branch out into other genres. I've acquired a taste for crime fiction some months ago, and just recently, for what I feel is the first time in my life, I've been significantly enraptured with science fiction. I think I'm going to make a post or two about those genres in a while, because I want to share my enthusiasm with everybody.
Regarding those genres, as of this post, I've subsequently gotten halfway through Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest and, I believe, about a third or so of the way through Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, as well as a quarter - 64 pages, at least - into Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama (and yet I made that a monthly recommendation). Finally, I just put the first complete third of Frank Herbert's Dune behind me (and absolutely loved it); I've been juggling that book for years, and yet now it looks like I might be able to finish it at last.
So that's where I'm at. Is anyone else doing any reading, or are things a bit too busy right now to be occupied with leisure?
Well, I have been reading, but it has been historical fiction of a rather pulp nature -- the Richard Sharpe series. They follow a fictional soldier whose career in the British army coincides with the career of the Duke of Wellington. There are a lot of them, they are quick reads, I certainly wouldn't call them high literature by any extent -- the main character is kind of this invincible man's man who is really attractive to women, and that's kind of ridiculous sometimes -- but as far as easy-to-read stories set in an interesting historical period, they are fun.
I read another book by Naomi Novik, A Deadly Education, and she has not let me down again. It is the third book of hers I have read and yet again an excellent read.
Other than that, I'm writing. Somewhat unplanned, I have started on a new novel. The character kind of began to take shape in my mind and I've enjoyed writing the story so far.