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This is a good idea. I will shoot for 20 books, one of which is to be in Japanese. I just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, so 5% done.
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Jan 7, 2014 06:07
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:56 |
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#2: Cold Days by Jim Butcher. This was actually a book I read in the middle of book number three. I needed something light as a break, so I reread this since the next one is coming out soon. #3: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. drat this book is amazing. The prose is absurdly good. It's genuinely funny even while being viscerally distressing. I wish I knew more French and more general information about literature. I'm sure all kinds of allusions and puns soared over my head. Even only appreciating a small portion of what was there, it was breathtakingly good.
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Feb 4, 2014 10:36
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4. Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. I read Witches Abroad years ago and enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, I never followed up with reading more discworld novels. I really enjoyed Small Gods. It was funny and poignant. It also managed to highlight a lot of the ridiculous and awful things about religion without crossing the line into being hateful. It was nice. Also, the protagonist was just a believably good guy. That's not easy either. 5. Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. I didn't like it as much as Small Gods or Witches Abroad, but I thought it was still pretty good. Esk was hilarious. I'm still a little dubious about some of the handling of gender issues, but nothing was so bad it took me out of the story entirely, and I don't feel like thinking very seriously on it. The ending wasn't very strong. 6. Mort by Terry Pratchett. Again, pretty good. Again, the ending didn't feel very strong. It jumped over a lot of character development. I guess I had enough information to believe that Mort could go from disliking Death's daughter to marrying her, but the jump was very abrupt. Whatever. Death was hilarious. The mage guy was amusing. Mort pounding super alcohol was memorable. 7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I thought it was interesting that the savage, the character closest to the reader in terms of outlook and values, spends most of his screen time being a monstrously unlikable piece of poo poo. First he's super creepy to the girl. Then he physically abuses her. Then throws a huge pity party for himself. Then he beats her again, this time with a whip. It's not what I would have expected from the character whose cultural outlook is closest to the reader's, but I liked how it made you actually think. It was very effective at stopping the book from being didactic.
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Apr 2, 2014 07:12
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You could be right. I didn't consider Mond because he wasn't around too much. Maybe he does line up with the reader's culture. Mond is certainly the character that most directly gives reasons the reader would accept the world presented. Shakespeare Savage most directly gives the reasons the reader would reject. Let me put the meat of my reaction in another way. I was surprised that the character who most strongly rejects this dystopia is so unlikable. It was a choice I felt gave the book a lot more nuance in what it was saying about people and about society.
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Apr 2, 2014 08:05
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Xik posted:Well, this is the reading challenge thread. Listening to audio isn't reading, they are completely different mediums. If the Game of Thrones TV show was 100% faithful to the books, would that count? Yep. A recording of someone reading every word in a book is the same thing as an adaptation in a different medium. And blind people need not apply to this thread either. Braille means the words get transmitted to their brain via touch, not light. Completely different medium. 8. Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. I enjoyed it. I'm sure there were a lot of Shakespeare references that went over my head, but I liked the ones I did get. I felt like what it had to say about theater wasn't nearly as profound/interesting as what Witches Abroad had to say about stories or Small Gods had to say about religion and faith, but that might just be because I am not a theater person. It was funny enough that it doesn't really matter. 9. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I don't know if I've ever read anything a self help book before. I'm kind of suspicious of the genre, but I enjoyed this one. It was surprisingly cynical and pragmatic while remaining upbeat. I enjoyed the folksy style. Nothing in it was particularly ground-shaking, but it was organized well, thought provoking, and generally seemed to contain decently insightful advice that matched up with things I've experienced. It was worth reading. 10. Skin Game by Jim Butcher. Quite fun. It felt more like the early books in that it juggled a bunch of things in a flashy enough way that I could let myself get distracted and only figure out twists just before they happened. Very satisfying. Wittgen fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 10:06
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Since it's not on my kindle, I forgot 11. Worm by Wildbow. Worm is pretty good and extremely long. It has some significant problems on account of being a first draft and the prose has the unfortunate tendency to feel like exposition even when it's not, but it was still totally worth the time. Wildbow gives his characters great powers and then lets them be extraordinarily clever about using them. This removes two very common sources of conflict and challenge, but things are always so dire for pretty much everyone that characters are pulling through by the skin of their teeth at best. This hurts the pacing a little, but as a strategy for serial fiction, it's pretty effective. Wittgen fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Jun 7, 2014 00:23
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thespaceinvader posted:43: Stardust by Neil Gaiman. In a rare departure for me, I read the book WELL after watching the movie. I saw the movie first in the cinema when it came out... holy gently caress 7 years ago... and absolutely loved it. So, I had high expectations from the book, but I went into it knowing (spoilers OMG) that it was a very different, somewhat darker story - more Grimm, less Disney, on the fairy tale scale. And it really is a very, very different story. Almost nothing is the same, up to and including the protagonist's name. But nonetheless, I really, really enjoyed it. In the book, there's simply more room, to explore the magic a bit more, the history, to drop hints about Trist(r)an's heritage, which honestly isn't that well-telegraphed in the film, but conversely, the film develops its own areas - Captain Shakespeare, in particular, is a magnificent character entirely absent from the book. I was slightly disappointed by his absence, but not by much. The overall plot arc is a lot longer and deeper-feeling, with Tristran and Yvaine having a little more time together before falling madly in love, and generally having more space to explore the Faerie. I would second pretty much all of this. They're different, but they are both good. Stardust the film is a really good quirky Hollywood happy fantasy movie. Stardust the book is a really good bittersweet fairy tale. Both are worthwhile depending on the mood you're in. I think there are a lot of interesting parallels with The Princess Bride, but it's been a long time since I read the book. Wasn't it also a bit more bittersweet than the movie? Lastly, it's really good to know other people actually went and saw that movie. (Though holy poo poo, seven years? Really?) It deserved to do better.
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Jul 3, 2014 00:34
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 11:56 |
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12. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It was pretty good. Kids with cancer could have easily been so incredibly cheesy, but I think it managed to avoid this for the most part. Given how many drat similes and metaphors are packed in, I find this accomplishment doubly impressive. 13. Fragrant Days by Ekuni Kaori. This was the Japanese book I read this year. It started out strong. I really like Ekuni Kaori's books, and this one showcases a lot of her strengths. The prose is gentle but very evocative of the senses. Meanwhile, plot and character motivations are much more oblique. I really liked the first 80% of this book about kid's lives and young love, but then it goes creepy. Goddammit Japan. 14. The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan. YA popcorn fic, to be sure, but it was entertaining popcorn fic. 15. The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss. This was really excellent. There's no plot or dialog. Just honey sweet words carefully constructing a portrait of broken young woman's word. I enjoyed it a lot, but if you're thinking about picking it up, here's fair warning. Some people really hate it. Like, loathe it. I don't know how far the sample goes, but if you read the sample and don't like, it won't change at some point. It is what it is the whole way through.
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Dec 29, 2014 12:49
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