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I normally read about 4-5 books at once so I rarely finish one. The last I finished was a month ago,Gonzo. It was basically quotes from friends and colleagues of Hunter S. Thompson and it was a wonderful book. It gave you a lot of insight into the weirdness of the man as well as his other sides and really treated him as a human being instead of just a strange celebrity.
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Aug 17, 2008 17:07
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Just got finished rereading Civilization and its Discontents, which had been gathering dust on my shelf since about 1995. Whatever one's disagreements with Freud, it is still a fascinating and insightful work. For those less familiar, it deals with the effect on individuals of the tradeoffs (e.g., between fulfillment of immediate impulses and security) that civilisation inherently requires.
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Aug 17, 2008 18:59
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Ficciones by Borges. I can see why it's a brilliant series of stories but I would never recommend it to anyone who just likes to read for fun. Kind of surprised it's above Vonnegut on the TBB hall of fame. I wouldn't include it on the list at all.
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Aug 17, 2008 20:52
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Just finished Playing for Pizza by Grisham. Just happened to pick this one up while at Amazon, as a fictional story about an ex NFL player joining an Italian football(american) league seemed intriguing. It was a quick read and quite interesting. Turns out there actually is an American football league in Italy in which Italians play in just for the love of the game, not the money! Also just finished The Quest by Wilbur Smith. This wraps up his series of novels about Taita, a warlock in Ancient Egypt. I definitely recommend this to anyone that is a fan of historical novels, this along with River God and Warlock were great reads. Smith is from Africa and researches extensively on the material, and it shows in his writing.
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Aug 17, 2008 21:07
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MaC_DaDDy posted:Just finished Playing for Pizza by Grisham. Just happened to pick this one up while at Amazon, as a fictional story about an ex NFL player joining an Italian football(american) league seemed intriguing. It was a quick read and quite interesting. Turns out there actually is an American football league in Italy in which Italians play in just for the love of the game, not the money! I read this earlier in the summer. The best part about it was the descriptions of Italy. I would like to visit Italy now.
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Aug 17, 2008 22:51
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uggy posted:I read this earlier in the summer. The best part about it was the descriptions of Italy. I would like to visit Italy now. Tell me about it, I got hungry just hearing the descriptions of all the types of food they ate. Italian dishes are one of my favorite types, and I would love to go over there as well now. Egypt and Italy are definitely at the top of my places to visit after reading those books.
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Aug 17, 2008 23:00
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Albert Camus - The Plague An Algerian city is isolated from the outside world after an outbreak of the plague. A very good book. I didn't connect with a lot of the characters at the start, few of them seemed to have much of a distinctive character other than 'helpful' or 'hard working', but as it progressed I grew to really like the group of friends, and was quite upset when Tarrou dies, especially after that moving monologue at the terrace with Rioux. Lots of interesting observations about the peoples' behaviour during imprisonment and perpetual fear.
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Aug 18, 2008 00:40
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The Time Machine by H. G. Wells This is the first time I've ever read the whole thing (been exposed to bits and pieces in the past) and I really enjoyed it. I like the way he analyzes the things he sees in the future and tries to figure out how they came to pass, instead of just "oh my god things were so different, I couldn't imagine how this future could ever have come to be" or something like that. The only disappointment was that my copy did not contain the bits from Chapter 11 that are now known as The Grey Man. I picked up the 2005 Penguins Classic version, so I figured it would be there - considering the whole Penguins Classic mission statement is about presenting books in their most authentic form and everything. I guess they are making the distinction that the omission of The Grey Man was an artistic one by Wells, and not one by his editor based on the socio-political environment (as I had previously thought). With that in mind, does anyone know where to obtain a printed copy of The Grey Man? Wikipedia/Wikisource says it was later republished as a short story, but I can't find any current publications. I know it is available online, but I'd love to have it in a short story collection or a different edition of The Time Machine, if at all possible.
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Aug 18, 2008 03:20
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Neo_Reloaded posted:With that in mind, does anyone know where to obtain a printed copy of The Grey Man? http://tinyurl.com/6yyyev If that link doesn't work for some reason, just search for Wells / The Time Machine on bookfinder.com and the second result is a 2003 Barnes and Nobles Classics edition that includes it.
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Aug 18, 2008 07:56
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Wow, I just read that last week and I had no idea. I wonder why Gutenberg doesn't reincorporate it into the text? Thanks for bringing it to my attention while the book was still fresh in my mind, so I don't have to reread the whole (short) thing.
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Aug 18, 2008 08:40
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Just finished The Stranger Excellent read, and very quick. It's hard to describe just what the book is about because the plot alone doesn't quite do it, but I would definitely recommend picking it up. I read the Ward translation, for what it's worth. Is that the best one out there, or should I pick up a different one for the next time I read it?
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Aug 18, 2008 08:49
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Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons - The setting is an exclusive Hawaiian resort near the slopes of Mauna Loa. The story follows the desperate attempt of the resort's owner to sell it to Japanese investors while a series of strange events plague the resort: guests disappear only to have various body parts discovered later, mysterious creatures from Hawaiian mythology are spotted and Mauna Loa is erupting and threatening to engulf the resort. Meanwhile, two of the resort guests are drawn into an ancient struggle between Hawaiian gods which parallels events chronicled in a journal written over 100 years ago when Mark Twain visited Hawaii with one of the guest's ancestors. All in all, it's a good read if a bit predictable towards the end. I liked how Simmons interspersed the 1800s journal entries with the present-day action and his use of Hawaiian mythology in the plot was interesting as well. The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte - I've been slowly working my way through his "intellectual thrillers" and this one was good for the most part. A hacker breaks into the Vatican's network and sends an urgent message begging the Pope to save a crumbling church in Seville from demolition where two deaths have already occurred under seemingly accidental circumstances. The investigating priest soon discovers that there's much more to the story than meets the eye and predictably struggles with his faith in the course of the investigation. MaC_DaDDy posted:Also just finished The Quest by Wilbur Smith. This wraps up his series of novels about Taita, a warlock in Ancient Egypt. I definitely recommend this to anyone that is a fan of historical novels, this along with River God and Warlock were great reads. Smith is from Africa and researches extensively on the material, and it shows in his writing. Thanks for mentioning this - I've been wanting to read a good historical novel or series set in ancient Egypt for a while so I've jotted this down. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Aug 25, 2008 |
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Aug 18, 2008 15:56
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Quentins by Maeve Binchy 3.5/5 Nights of Rain&Stars by Maeve Binchy 3.5/5 I read Nights on the plane which it was definitely suited for and had a rough time getting through Quentins. It was just so similar. She must have been cheated on or something. I likely will not read anymore of her books. King Leary by Paul Quarrington 5/5 I **adored** this book. It won the Canada reads contest and I must say that of the 3/5 books I've read (one that I had to put down for too long and was just completely uninterested in) from the competition, this is my pick so far. I am going to read the others eventually hopefully. But honestly, if you want something entertaining and heart warming, please read it. The ending was a little predictable, but was still really good. I think I sighed outloud when I finished it. Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella 5/5 SOOO good. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed this book. I read from 11pm to 4 am. Seriously, so good. I was in the mood for some chick lit and this delivered. Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella 4/5 Enjoyable, not as good as Can You Keep a Secret?, but still a good read! Another airplane read and it was definitely suited for it.
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Aug 18, 2008 18:46
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The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson - My only exposure to Thompson was the Fear and Loathing movie, which I don't find particularly enjoyable. Based on the reviews in here and on Amazon I got this one. I LOVED IT! It's a fast and a really amusing read. Even though the main character, Paul, a NY writer who takes a job at a dysfunctional San Juan newspaper, is a cynical prick I still found him to have a good heart. He seems to really want to find something redeemable about this world. I'm sure that this character is a mirror image of Hunter himself. I plan to get a few more of his books, but I'll probably skirt around Fear and Loathing for a while until I really feel like I have to read it. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck - Why God, why? I was looking for a re-introduction (probably read Of Mice and Men in school) to Steinbeck and choose this short little novel. I just couldn't care less about the characters of this particular small Californian town. It chronicles the daily life of a handful of characters, including a "doctor" who collects sea life, a Chinese grocery store owner who constantly gets the shaft, the inhabitants of a whorehouse, and most importantly a group of degenerate homeless guys who's good deeds always backfire. For me personally it was incredibly boring to read. Maybe if there was a main character and a plot I would have liked it more, but then it would be a different book I suppose. I'll try Grapes of Wrath next on my Steinbeck list. Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan - I only made it about 100 pages in after I realized that yeah, I agree with Carl and have heard all this stuff a million times over. If you don't know, the book is about using your reasoning skills to discount all the retarded explanations people come up for nature phenomena (i.e. aliens, ghosts, past lives, psychics, ect.) I could only recommend the book to people that believe in all that nonsense. On a positive note, I like Sagan as a person and he has a way of writing that makes you feel like he's one of us, only a gillion times smarter. I'm currently reading Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin and having a hard time getting into it. Hopefully it'll grab me.
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Aug 18, 2008 19:30
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discore posted:http://tinyurl.com/6yyyev What makes you sure that version includes it? And can you give the ISBN so I'm sure I'm looking at the right version? I only ask because I went to B&N after work today and the current B&N Classics Edition version of it does not include it, and I want to be super sure before I buy something online sight-unseen.
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Aug 18, 2008 22:59
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Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen - As far as I'm concerned, this book deserves the attention it's been getting. It's that mix of funny and sad that's so appropriate for stories about people with severe psychological disorders and disintegrating marriages. It also comes with short chapters which are very pleasant for subway commuters. Ferdydurke by Wytold Gormbrowycz - I had heard this endorsed by a lot of people. I did not like it. Gorbrowycz is ridiculously repetitive. The book is a sort of paranoid fantasy about a 30 year old man forced to endure being treated like a child and observing various ways people demean each other. The narrator makes various impassioned and garbled speeches about how it is weird when people demean each other. Later, my friends decide that this is fun and insist on recommending this book to me. Nonetheless, it is thought of as one of the lesser appreciated Modern classics. It is thought of this way by liars. Five Novels by Daniel Pinkwater - This is my literary comfort food for the correction of any other problem in my life. These are the best books every made.
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Aug 19, 2008 06:13
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The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. I picked this up based on comments in this forum. I'm a bit disappointed. I expected something that would last with me - but it is forgettable. I expected something that would make me squirm - but it didn't. Oh well. It was worth a shot. Next up: Dune by Frank Herbert.
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Aug 19, 2008 07:29
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Ernst Junger's WWI memoir Storm of Steel, documenting his Prussian frustrations about not getting to kill enough people in close quarters thanks to the daily shelling tearing his men to pieces. Keeps it blunt and immediate which works for him, but it's almost comic how little he lets anyone else into the spotlight, even loyal subordinates; one of his men hauls him off when he's seriously wounded, but Junger even manages to complain when the guy's shot out from under him. Still, it's surprisingly compelling given I'm not a huge fan of war memoirs. Also Andrei Platonov's The Fierce and Beautiful World, which collects a few of his shorter works. I'd nominated his Foundation Pit novel in the depressing books thread, but this collection surpasses it (at least in that sense). If you enjoy well-meaning, sympathetic characters being crushed by the forces of history and social change then this is the book for you. Take, for example, the central novella, Dzhan, which involves one man's effort to help a tribe of nomads into the Soviet era, ultimately leading to a futile trek through the wastelands in which the majority of them die and the protagonist is reduced to fending off predatory birds as they literally tear at his flesh. Why read it then? Well, Platonov is a master of a kind of black folksy romanticism which is hard to resist once it takes hold. Foundation Pit is still the better book though. Finally just finished Gerstle Mack's bio of the French realist pioneer/epic manchild Gustave Courbet (see here for a brief overview of his life and work). The biography itself is fairly solid and even-handed, despite being able to sense Mack's irritation with his subject as he spiralled out of control later in life. To be honest, this book's all about the spiralling and less about the work, reinforced by the only pictures of his paintings being in low quality b&w and jammed in an appendix. Interesting read, but apply elsewhere if you just want the art (there's a good-quality collection put out by Taschen for less than $8).
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Aug 19, 2008 07:57
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The Devil in the White City was a fascinating look at gilded age Chicago from the top and bottom. Very little, except for geography and time links the two stories in this book, but each is compelling and interesting in its own way. Together, they do mark the beginnings of two of our modern world's great and terrible trends: amusement parks and serial killers, and it's enlightening to read about this turning point in American society. It's not a novel, but a history written as a novel, and I think this is what made it such a great read. By approaching this story with novelist stylings, Larson avoided the pitfall of becoming overtly dry or sentimental. Two characteristics that, even with my love of history, have often turned me off reading history books.
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Aug 20, 2008 01:00
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The Golden Compass book 3. Goddamit, I read the first two books in a couple of days, but the third one was a bitch to get through. It took me 3 months, no joke. It goes from, "ooh, cool book for teens look at the cute little kids trying to kill God," to, "what the gently caress is this poo poo!"
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Aug 20, 2008 06:27
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My Sister's Hand In Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles I adored In the Summer House when I first read it two years ago for a class in American drama and was fortunate enough to have found this volume of Bowles' novella and short stories for sale at the indiefest in Providence last month. The 1966 edition has a short foreword by Truman Capote alongside some contemporary praise by Tennessee Williams and John Ashberry. Jane Bowles' career, much like her life, was tragic and far too short, yet it's easy to see how forward-thinking and influential she was to authors in the 50s and 60s. I'd recommend Bowles to anyone interesed in uncovering some of the themes expounded by Williams and Capote through a more feminine lens (ironic I know -- especially since Jane Bowles was a lesbian herself). Her prose is refreshingly modern and concise.
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Aug 20, 2008 12:57
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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie First Christie book I read, and it was OK but nothing amazing. I just wanted to check her out and knock over a book quickly. I picked the end, but it was cool how it was brought together in the end.
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Aug 20, 2008 13:58
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Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell This is an amazing book, analyzing pride, envy, greed, giving, good, evil, satisfaction, and happiness in destitution and poverty. I seriously could not put it down. Also, if you've ever worked in a kitchen, you're doing yourself a disservice not to read it. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky It's odd I haven't read this sooner. I've read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, and Notes from the Underground, but I never bothered to read this. Myshkin is a very sympathetic character, and nothing can sum it up better than the description on the back that stated "...the only place for a saint is an asylum." This may be my favorite of Dostoevsky, but I can't say it hands-down beats the Bros. K. big trivia FAIL fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Aug 21, 2008 |
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Aug 21, 2008 03:16
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The Vivisector by Patrick White. It's his longest book, and probably too long, but intense, beautiful and character-driven like all his work. This one focuses on the life and death of an artist, and is very Schopenhauerian in its treatment of art...um...art as a penetrating divine will, which subverts human destiny, and destroys or "vivisects" both the artist and his subjects. More concerned with transcendence than immanence. Overall very grotesque and disturbing, though in subtle ways. Dry humour throughout. The bits dealing with the protagonist's childhood and old age are the best. Recommended, though not as good as the other White I've read.
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Aug 21, 2008 06:15
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Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk Chuck always keeps the story going at such a pace that it's near impossible to lose interest, and there is of course the regular stream of witty little insights into our often ridiculous society, but this on the whole felt less authentic than his better works like Fight Club and Choke. I don't know how much research into cult activity he actually did, but the whole narrator being the last member of a suicide cult thing never particularly felt real. The root of the problem is that the narrator in this felt identical to the narrator in Fight Club felt identical to the narrator in Choke felt identical to the narrator in just about every other work of his I've read so far. The narrators in other novels at least come from the same type of background - they're just normal jaded everymen who success and fulfillment have somehow eluded. But transplanting that same character into something very unrelatable really accentuates this sameness. When you're basically writing stream of consciousness stuff the way Chuck does, I'm sure it's very hard to change your narrator, whereas with other types of writing, this would just be the author's "style." Not to say I didn't enjoy it - I flew threw it in two days. But it really felt like a guilty pleasure, and there was none of the lasting impression that a few of his better works have made.
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Aug 21, 2008 12:37
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Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin I read this book in two sittings because it was incredibly addictive. I could not put it down and I loved how it just gradually built up until the climax just loving barrels into you and thye whole story sort of comes together and you remember everything in the book that initially seemed to be nothing at all. I look forward to watching the movie, as the good reviews of it were what led me to look at the book.
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Aug 21, 2008 14:25
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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - While I enjoyed The Kite Runner a lot, I'd have to say this (his second novel) improves on it a little. His prose isn't mindblowingly impressive here either but it feels a little more polished at points. However, it does suffer a bit from the predictable cliche feeling that KR did - Rasheed the abusive husband, Tariq is the father of Aziza, etc. It's still a great read and if anyone liked The Kite Runner, they shouldn't have much trouble getting into this one either. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Aug 21, 2008 |
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Aug 21, 2008 16:40
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Neo_Reloaded posted:Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk I like Palhniuk enough to overlook many of his flaws as a writer, but this one always ends up bothering me and tainting my enjoyment of his books.
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Aug 21, 2008 22:25
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Blindness by Jose Saramago - I really didn't care for this book. A lot of this was the writing (translation?) style... I came very, very close to putting the book down when the internees began "masticating". (I can only remember putting down 2-3 books in the last four years or so.) The whole "nobody has names" gimmick annoyed me too... one character was "the woman in the dark glasses" the whole book, although I'm pretty sure she only had the glasses on for one brief scene at the beginning of the book.
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Aug 24, 2008 08:14
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The Things they Carried I read this short book by Vietnam veteran Tim O'brien just the other day. Looking back I'm not sure yet what to make out of it. Overall I rather enjoyed it. O'brien's retelling of other soldiers' war stories was on occasion rather humorous yet disturbing because of the matter of fact descriptions of gruesome sights. In some ways I felt like I was reading something by Hemingway because of how emotions and events are told; they just are.
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Aug 24, 2008 20:53
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1776 by David McCullough Don't think I need to give much of an explanation of what this book is about. It was a great read and I found it extremely intriguing about how close we were to losing the revolutionary war in the first year(don't remember a ton from my American History classes and this was a great refresher). My only disappointment was that it didn't go into the later years of the war, but I digress as it obviously was called 1776 and not The Revolutionary War. To anyone interested, HBO is also planning on adapting this book into a miniseries just like it did with John Adams, with possibly Tom Hanks playing George Washington.
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Aug 25, 2008 00:33
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Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva I really enjoyed this book, though the ending was a bit lackluster but that would probably be because I haven't read the previous books in the series so I didn't really sympathize with the main protagonist I wanted to know more about what happened to Kharkov's wife and kids. It's a pretty interesting spy-thriller novel with a bit of art mixed in. It's also interesting to note that the title of the book is taken from the rules of engagement the CIA made for operatives in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
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Aug 25, 2008 00:53
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Patriot Games by Tom Clancy I can't really decide whether I liked this book or not. After having read The Hunt for Red October, I enjoyed the beginning of the book where Jack Ryan is in the middle of a random terrorist attack and such. However, the ending was just...a little too far-fetched for me. I was really hooked onto it, but after it was over all I could help thinking was, "Yeeaaaaah right"
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Aug 25, 2008 01:59
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Blindness by Jose Saramago - I really didn't care for this book. A lot of this was the writing (translation?) style... I came very, very close to putting the book down when the internees began "masticating". (I can only remember putting down 2-3 books in the last four years or so.) The whole "nobody has names" gimmick annoyed me too... one character was "the woman in the dark glasses" the whole book, although I'm pretty sure she only had the glasses on for one brief scene at the beginning of the book. I'm not done the book, but I do believe that's the point, beyond a simple gimmick. It's the effect of the blindness - no one has ever seen the girl NOT wear glasses, so why not refer to her as such? Similarly, every character worth mentioning is often defined by their eyes. The boy with the squint, the girl with the dark glasses, the old man with the eye patch, etc. I don't fully understand the point of this small bit of irony, myself, though. As for the other characters, there's no point in names. And there is no point in defining physical characteristics, since no one can see any defining physical characteristics. The narrator specifically mentions how a bunch of other people are there... but what of them? It's impossible to really know them, given the situation.
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Aug 25, 2008 02:00
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Just finished Underworld by Don DeLillo. He explores a lot of the themes he's covered elsewhere as well as looking at how events, ideas and objects connect people - everything from a legendary baseball game played in 1951 to the Cold War. It's definitely some of the best stuff I've read from DeLillo after Libra, despite the fact that it could have been shorter and tightened up a bit. There's some brilliant stuff in here nonetheless and definitely worth reading.
Encryptic fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Aug 25, 2008 |
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Aug 25, 2008 05:56
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Encryptic posted:Just finished Underworld by Don DeLillo. He explores a lot of the themes he's covered elsewhere as well as looking at how events, ideas and objects connect people - everything from a legendary baseball game played in 1951 to the Cold War. It's definitely some of the best stuff I've read from DeLillo after Libra, despite the fact that it could have been shorter and tightened up a bit. There's some brilliant stuff in here nonetheless and definitely worth reading. Finished this a few months ago myself and I agree. I thought it was worth reading but it really needed to be tightened up in some places. Plus some of the more interesting yarns like the interstate killer were never fleshed out and I was more interested in those than others. Just finished Blood Meridian and found it the most enjoyable of all of Cormac McCarthy's books. The story is sparse but the scenery and descriptions in the book were outstanding. I like it more than the more minimal style of The Road or No Country. Plus he has created another memorable enigmatic antagonist. I personally found this to be my favorite of his books, but judging from other reviews in this thread it's a pretty mixed bag for what people think.
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Aug 25, 2008 15:45
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The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. It's very much a story of layers, with an old woman in the 1990s talking about her life with her sister in the early parts of the 20th century. Interspersed with her tale are snippets of the book her sister wrote (called "The Blind Assassin") that seem to fit in with the story she's telling, somehow... it's a very good book, very well-written, but it does take a little while to get started. Worth the effort, though, I think.
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Aug 25, 2008 17:06
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Yes Man by Danny Wallace, which follows him through a series of events where he decided to say yes for 6 straight months in the attempt to start living his life to the fullest potential. I had read Join Me, a story where he decides to start his own collective where people join without even knowing why. I enjoy his writing style immensely and I find myself laughing out loud a lot. Especially in public. The new movie with Jim Carrey will not be as good as the book, but that's an unfair comparison to begin with because the movie will just be based off of the book not the book in movie format.
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Aug 25, 2008 20:01
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Waters That Pass Away by Nannie B. Winston. Another one of my "1899" books. It's the story of a young woman married to a painter who lost his arms in a railroad accident and the evil that befalls her when she decides to enter the workplace. She's also got two--count 'em two--creepy stalkerly admirers, one of whom (unfortunately) owns the newspaper where she just got hired. Finally I've been bludgeoned to a pulp a book that perfectly matches the 19th century lit stereotype. The prose in this godawful melodrama is so deep purple, it might as well be navy blue. The protagonists characters are such glistening paragons of perfection that they might as well all be named Mary Sue; even their mistakes are perfect, and we're reminded on every page how utterly awesome they are. And for all you "show, don't tell" fans, at several key points you're given setups and consequences for events that the author never bothers to show us...at one point she even tells us that it would be "useless and degrading" to write the scene she just set up. When the woman is finally strongarmed into an affair with the creepy, controlling publisher, the publisher himself (who is driving the plot at this point) inexplicably vanishes from the narrative after the affair, which goes on for the entire second half of the book, is blown off in a single paragraph at the top of Book 2, Chapter 1. He only shows up again when it's time to his ultimate defeat, and not a second sooner. This blithe dismissal of dramatic possibilities is made all the more infuriating because Ms. Winston burns off chapters and sections on digressions...and not funny Tristram Shandy digressions. Oh no, we can't get that lucky. We get position statements on modern art (Extreme impressionism! Consternation!), Americanism, and integrity of the press, over and over and over. For the first time since I started this project, I wished I had a hard-copy version of the book so I could throw it across the room. And again, I was ridiculous and anal enough to do a play-by-play as I went.
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Aug 25, 2008 20:35
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Iron Council by China Mieville: It's most definitely not the easiest book to get into, nor is the western-fantasy setting for everyone, but it's a goddamn fantastic book about control and fighting against it and what that means to the people involved. I think, for me personally, it's one of those books that hauls off and makes you consider language and books differently than most other ones that you have read before. To be dismissive of it because 'it's just fantasy' is lame. Very few books have done this to me, and it's not for a lack of wanting them to. That said, I'm tempted to start a general thread for books with elements of the fantastic in them, from something as strange and sensational as this, to something more grounded instead. TBB seems to have huge threads for Martin and other traditional fantasists, but there's far more ground to cover outside high fantasy. [img][/img]
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Aug 26, 2008 02:44
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