What 📔book are you reading right now?

I am reading The lost years of Merlin by T.A Barron. Has anyone read the book?

Beleg said:

That's certainly a big downside of the narrative structure employed by Martin in aSoIaF. More of Arya and less of that god-forsaken Catelyn would have awesome. Though, as the story pans out and you get better acquainted with the world and the characters themselves, many of these POV's supplement each other very well - often throwing away witty quips or tidbits of interesting information impossible to depict with a single prespective.

They also help a great deal in character building, adding layers of depth rarely achieveable with the stereotypical third-person narration. The character of Imp is a good example of that. Looking at Tyrion from the POV of, say, Ned Stark will reveal a man very different from what his own POV shows us.

The fact that Martin is able to juggle such a huge cast of characters as to give every single one of them a distinguishable identity of their own whilst maintaing coherent storylines is one of the fundamental tenants of what makes him, arguably, the best epic fantasy writer ever.

But than again, I am a rabid Martin fan. I finished AGoT in a single sitting, not even pausing for a meal.

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I have noticed that, and I really respect Martin's ability to flesh out such a huge cast and keep the story together (and moving forward, unlike Robert Jordan--Wheel of Time = most disappointing fantasy series ever; it can't be a good thing when the entire plot comes grinding to a halt somewhere in book seven and still wasn't moving in book ten, when I gave up on the series)--I'm not dissing Martin's ability at all. But as a reader, he really doesn't suit my style of reading--I'm very character oriented, and I like to see the story primarily through the eyes of one (or even two or three) characters, rather than ten. Ideally I like to bond with one character and get emotionally caught up in them, so that I'm really invested in what happens to them. Martin has the ability to do that--I became invested in certain characters, like Arya and Jon Snow, right away--but then deprives me of my bonded characters for thirty or sixty pages. Even if the cast were limited to, say, five POV characters, I think it would suit me better, but that's obviously not Martin's style. The jumpiness just keeps me from being completely enveloped in the world.

I stay well away from comics in general but I wish I could get my hands on the 'Sandman' series.

Oh, how much I wish! Sometimes, it almost becomes a physical annoyance.

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You haven't been able to find any of the volumes anywhere? It's apparently difficult to get specific volumes in stores (I haven't been able to find volume two, Doll's House, except at a Forbidden Planet in London, and then only in hardback), but a lot of bookstores (especially those with well-stocked manga and graphic novel sections) will have at least a handful of volumes. Amazon certainly has them. The spin-off volumes are harder to find--Endless Nights, which I just read from the library, has a story about each of the Endless (Destiny, Dream, Death, Desire, Despair, Delight/Delirium, and Destruction), and there are two volumes focusing on Death herself (Death: High Cost of Living and Death: Time of Your Life), but Amazon has those as well.

But speaking of, I just finished Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman et al, and I'm not far from the end of Good Omens. After that I probably start Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

Is it sad that recently I've been reading more graphic novels than books? After I finished Good Omens (excellent book, though I thought the first half was better than the second half--maybe because I've seen Gaiman cover essentially the same material before), I read all of the Hellboy my brother had lying around (a couple of collections-- Hellboy: Right Hand of Doom and Hellboy: The Chained Coffin and others. I like Hellboy a lot, especially because so much real folklore goes into it), and then he got Sandman vol. 4, Seasons of Mist, and the graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's short story 'Murder Mysteries' (v. good work from P. Craig Russell, and one of my favorite short stories from Smoke and Mirrors), and now he wants me to read something called Bone.

I've also started Neil Gaiman's Stardust--so far I like it the least out of all of his novels (and I think I've read all of them except for Coraline), but it's growing on me. I've also been re-listening to Stephen King's The Gunslinger on tape in my car, since it's a twenty minute drive to work for me.

I haven't picked up any more George R.R. Martin. I just don't think I have the dedication for it Sorry, Beleg! I would happily read individual novels about several of the characters, but the whole crew jumbled together is too much for me.

I'm now reading A Dance Called America: The Scottish Highlands, the United States and Canada by James Hunter. It's a book about people that emmigrated to North America from the Highlands and what affect they had upon the New World. It's had all sorts of good reviews, and although I'm only a chapter in, I think I'm going to enjoy it more than most non-fiction books I read (indeed, I might actually finish it...).

Currently re-reading Guards! Guards! by the one and only Terry Prattchett.

I just splashed out on a really sweet collector's edition of the Chronicles of Narnia, including all seven books plus full colour original illustrations throughout by Pauline Baynes. I'm doing them chronologically and I'm now on The Horse And His Boy. Great read.

Currently, half way through Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. It's an excellent book so far, and it even dumbs down the physics side of the story. Now, if I teacher had taught physics to us that way, I would have got an A.

I finished Stardust today--I'm kind of ambivalent about it. It's probably my least favorite Gaiman, which is unusual, because it's exactly the kind of book that I normally read by people who aren't Neil Gaiman. It's been nominated as a discussion book for the YA Reading Group at Readerville.com, and I hope it wins so I can discuss it. I can't decide whether I didn't like it because it wasn't what I'm used to from Gaiman (it's not at all like his other books, I think), or because I never became attached to the main character, or...it wasn't particularly clever or exciting or funny. It just kind of went on until it ran out of pages.

I've been reading more comics--B.P.R.D. Plague of Frogs (Hellboy universe, though Hellboy doesn't appear), and volume 2 of Top 10 by Alan Moore (famous for Watchmen and V for Vendetta and From Hell), which I really enjoyed. It's about the police force of a city entirely populated by superheroes--if you've read Kingdom Come, imagine an episode of Law & Order set in that universe. My brother also has me reading Bone, which is kind of cute, but not really holding my attention. I'm more interested in Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic series--I'd read volume 3 already, and I read the first two last night. V. good stuff.

Finished re-reading Watchmen--I had forgotten how it ended. I hope the move project doesn't happen, it would just destroy the story. And the graphic novel is structurally just amazing--the overlapping stories and elements, the style of art, the layout of panels, the complexity of it all--it's fantastic. No wonder Alan Moore is famous for having incredibly detailed scripts, everything meshes incredibly well. It's a fantastic piece of work--now I remember why my first reading of it happened in one sitting.

I'm also working, slowly, on Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary by Pamela Dean, a novel based on a Scottish ballad (one of the Childe ballads, if you know what those are) of the same name. I probably wouldn't have picked the book up if I weren't familiar with the song, which is about three sisters, and which was read to me (and my two sisters) when I was little, and which I still have memorized, though the version I know is an 'Englitized' version, not in the original dialect, and is about 'Jennifer, Gentle, and Rosemary'. I'm not very far into it, but the beginning is slow and I think I've just gotten to the actual plot. We'll see how it is from there.

I've been putting myself to bed with chapters of Great Tales from English History by Robert Lacey, which is Not A Children's Book--it's a history book that looks at many famous figures and anecdotes from English history (like Lady Godiva, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and so on), looks at them in a historical context, and examines how much truth is likely to be in the story as we have it now. It doesn't go into vast amounts of detail--it's concise and accessibly written, and I'm enjoying it a lot (Lady Godiva probably did not ride through coventry naked, in case you were wondering, though she was a real person and is mentioned a couple of times in the Domesday Book).

I've decided I need to start doing more reading again, so I've started Rebel by Bernard Cornwell. It follows the adventures of a Northerner, Nathaniel Starbuck who ends up fighting for the South in the American Civil War. It's quite an appropriate read because I begin a course in American history between 1800 and 1900 next week Cornwell provides a fairly accurate depiction of historical events, so his books help improve my memory on certain events, in this case, the American Civil War.

And I'm also still reading the aforementioned A Dance Called America.

I've yet to finish a Bernard Cornwell. I'm reading The Hobbit again at present, and also HotLotR book 4 "The End of the Third Age". As a writer, it gives great insights into Tolkien's story development.

the Silver Chair by C S Lewis

Eledhwen said:

I've yet to finish a Bernard Cornwell.

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Why ever not?

Just finished reading American Pastoral by Philip Roth. He won the Pulitzer for this very book. My evaluation would be: interesting on the whole but rife with too much needless information that bogs down your reading. The book would benefit from a 1/3 length clipping in my opinion.

I'm still reading Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary--100 pages later, I think that now I've finally gotten to the plot.

I've also been reading more comics--the first two volumes of the excellent, excellent Astro City, and the first six volumes of the wonderful Usagi Yojimbo (I also now have an Usagi Yojimbo wall calendar--yes, this does make me cooler than you). I was reading Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming by Roger Zelazny and some other guy, but got distracted from it easily. I'm about to start reading I, Coriander for Readerville.com's YA Reading Group discussion next month.

Hrm.

I'm currently reading my way through my most anticipated book in quite a while, The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson, loving it!

I finally finished Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary. I never did get to the plot until about ten pages from the end, and I'm still annoyed, because the plot was brilliant, and Pamela Dean spent 280 pages killing it.

I've been kind-of re-reading Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks. I started Fevre Dream by George RR Martin but lost interest. I had to take I, Coriander back to the library. I've been kind of re-reading Sabriel by Garth Nix. I started reading The Thin Pink Line by Lauren Baratz-Logsted for my spring break fluffy read. I'm reading volume two of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, 'Doll's House'. I haven't been able to settle down to anything.

Currently reading Close Range - Wyoming Stories by E. Annie Proulx, part of which is also a short story of some notoriety - Brokeback Mountain. Shrewd writing.

I'm rereading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I want to compare it to the A&E miniseries I just watched. Then I'll rent the movie to watch. I wonder what changes the director will make to the story. Sometimes those movie directors just make the dumbest changes (cough, cough, Faramir, cough, cough).

Ithrynluin said:

Currently reading Close Range - Wyoming Stories by E. Annie Proulx, part of which is also a short story of some notoriety - Brokeback Mountain. Shrewd writing.

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She wrote The Shipping News, didn't she? I didn't care for that one. Shrewd is a good word for her writing, but I was left cold. My reaction to pretty much everything was 'so what? Why do I care?'