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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Huntn
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That looks oddly entertaining
I've just started reading. I literally just started, so I cannot comment on it. Its basically a harmonized/merged compilation of the 4 Gospels. Taking Matthew as the base text, John MacArthur merges the other three for a timeline of Jesus' life and ministry
That looks oddly entertaining
I've just started reading. I literally just started, so I cannot comment on it. Its basically a harmonized/merged compilation of the 4 Gospels. Taking Matthew as the base text, John MacArthur merges the other three for a timeline of Jesus' life and ministry
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Looks like a fascinating read.
Looks like a fascinating read.
If you ever get your hands on a copy, I recommend it
Just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Wow! Loved it! Excellently paced. The characters, as usual, are amazing and perfectly written. This is a much darker and more mature book. It had moments of intense drama and I would also say a bit of comedy. I was left wondering the entire time who the Half-Blood Prince is?! I never would have guessed! That said, it's not the best in the series, but it's very, very good in its own right. So far, I like The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire best. But still, The Half-Blood Prince is a terrific book and the rest are excellent. I'm not going to read the finale next, I don't want the series to end just yet. They've been insanely entertaining and enchanting reads.
I found his non-stop sarcasm a bit annoying. But this did not prevent me from enjoying the book.
Ah. Actually, I have to say that I almost envy you, actually, being in a position where you will re-read 'Sabriel' (which is excellent) and get to sit down and read 'Lirael' and 'Abhorsen' for the first time.
Give yourself some extended time with these books - they are the sort of books you will lose yourself in. As you know, I thought them superlative, first rate story-telling, great characters, (and character development), world-building, and a terrific narrative. That juxtaposition of a slightly seedy early 1920s alternative Britain (Ancelstierre: 'Sabriel' is set somewhat earlier in a sort of pre First World War Ancelstierre) with the Old Kingdom is fantastic.
I read what you wrote earlier on 'The Half Blood Prince', and agree with you to a certain extent. When I first read that book in 2005 (which was when it was published initially), I was a bit underwhelmed, coming as it did on the back of three excellent books (Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and The Order of The Phoenix).
Actually, originally, I was pretty disappointed; the death - or removal from the plot of the character of the Guide/Mentor - was inevitable, (as the Hero always faces his ultimate destiny more or less alone, stripped of supporters and guides for whatever form the final confrontation is supposed to take) and and my only question from the time of PoA onwards had been when this would happen. Moreover, I found the all the whingy needy, adolescent romance tedious and strung out for too long. However, I have to admit that the material on Voldemort's backstory was fascinating.
That begged the question as to what the last book in the series would cover, if it was not to be an anti-climax and if it was to bring the whole thing home in some style. Indeed, I have long been struck by the fact that the weakest book in some series was the last, when the story somehow stuttered to a conclusion. I never liked the final battle in TLOTR, for example, although I think the bleak bitter sweet Epilogue compensates for that to a certain extent.
Actually, J K Rowling herself was on record suggesting that HBP be viewed as 'the first half of a two part finale' and - having read the seventh book (which in my opinion, is the best of the lot - she did manage to bring the whole thing together in a formidable and compelling conclusion), I would agree with her. Moreover, a second reading of HBP, several years later, leads me to revise my opinion (upwards) of the book; while it is still not as good as PoA, GoF, OotP (or Deathly Hallowes for that matter, which is a tour-de-force), it is a lot better than I had originally thought.
I think it is meant to be viewed as a metaphor. In any case, I read it as a teenager - my mother had it on her shelves along with a number of his rather unsettling short stories - and found it horrifying, gripping, haunting and deeply disturbing all at once.
Yesterday's post brought a nice fat hardback called "'Brilliant' - The Evolution of Artificial Light" by Jane Brox which I am looking forward to settling into.
I've just devoured Christian Cameron's The Ill-Made Knight and The Long Sword.
Both are very good historical fiction novels set in the fourteenth century and written by someone with good practical knowledge of medieval life and warfare and who can tell a damned good tale, too.
Having been a medieval re-enactor and with a PhD in medieval warfare (mainly fifteenth-century European) errors can be enough to stop me reading a novel. I had to do that with both Philippa Gregory and Conn Iggulden when they wrote about the Wars of the Roses and made some howlers early on.
Before both of the Cameron novels I also read The Religion by Tim Willocks which features a fairly morally ambivalent mercenary in the Siege of Malta who keeps a foot in both camps. This was also an excellent read.
Both are very good historical fiction novels set in the fourteenth century and written by someone with good practical knowledge of medieval life and warfare and who can tell a damned good tale, too.
Having been a medieval re-enactor and with a PhD in medieval warfare (mainly fifteenth-century European) errors can be enough to stop me reading a novel. I had to do that with both Philippa Gregory and Conn Iggulden when they wrote about the Wars of the Roses and made some howlers early on.
Before both of the Cameron novels I also read The Religion by Tim Willocks which features a fairly morally ambivalent mercenary in the Siege of Malta who keeps a foot in both camps. This was also an excellent read.
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Slowly getting through Inherent Vice. I really like the cop character, Bigfoot Bjornsen (and so I will probably be rooting for Josh Brolin whenever I finally see the movie.)
I just finished The Cathedral and the Bazaar and will probably finish A History of Modern Computing tomorrow sometime.
The front end of the bookshelf for me this year is Africa, Africa, Africa: fiction, nonfiction, poetry. And a little overlap with works about China, specifically regarding China's contemporary adventures in Africa.
In the very beginning of his book The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski wrote that Africa is "too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."
So I decided to let Kapuscinski and a bunch of other writers prove that to me. I've recently finished reading The Translator (Leila Aboulela), The Orchard of Lost Souls (Nadifa Mohamed) Every Day is for the Thief (Teju Cole). All works of fiction, respectively about the Sudan (or rather more about what it's like to be from the Sudan and working as a translator in Scotland), about Somalia in the 1980s, and about Nigeria of the quite recent past.
Aside from finishing the collection of pieces in The Shadow of the Sun, I have waiting for me Martin Meredith's The Fate of Africa, a couple of books by Peter Godwin about Zimbabwe (and its longtime ruler Robert Mugabe), and some more nonfiction including Howard W. Frenchs Chinas Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa.
Anyway that pile of books should scotch any binge-watching of TV series, etc., for awhile, at least I have indulged in the new release of The Jewel of the Crown later this month.
In the very beginning of his book The Shadow of the Sun, Ryszard Kapuscinski wrote that Africa is "too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."
So I decided to let Kapuscinski and a bunch of other writers prove that to me. I've recently finished reading The Translator (Leila Aboulela), The Orchard of Lost Souls (Nadifa Mohamed) Every Day is for the Thief (Teju Cole). All works of fiction, respectively about the Sudan (or rather more about what it's like to be from the Sudan and working as a translator in Scotland), about Somalia in the 1980s, and about Nigeria of the quite recent past.
Aside from finishing the collection of pieces in The Shadow of the Sun, I have waiting for me Martin Meredith's The Fate of Africa, a couple of books by Peter Godwin about Zimbabwe (and its longtime ruler Robert Mugabe), and some more nonfiction including Howard W. Frenchs Chinas Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa.
Anyway that pile of books should scotch any binge-watching of TV series, etc., for awhile, at least I have indulged in the new release of The Jewel of the Crown later this month.
yeah but what do you think?
i was about 75 pages in when i started the martian and then i started mr penumbra's 24 hour bookstore.
i'm about 50 pages from the end. then i will go back to the westing game.
o just that. just seeing how far along you are and what not.
i really like it but the other two i mentioned kinda took on a life of their own.