I've read the first two Anita Blake novels - in short, it was an entertaining read, but when, in a long running series, the hero delivers super powers within two books only, making her one of the top players of the continent in the respective book's reality, I find that worrying. It's more a loss than a gain for the story. I've also read The Flight of the Stork, by Jean-Christophe Grange (author of the better known "Purple Rivers") and was again somewhat dissapointed. The book started off as an intelligent read, reminding me of Martin Cruz Smith, but the author is in some parts of the books writing so stereotypically that even all the gore doesn't make it more original. I thought it was a little over the top - yet another twist, yet another twist, yet another twist... I've read Afterdark, by Haruki Murakami. It was one of these paradox reading experinces, where the book itself was a slight dissapointment, but you want to read more of the author. I knew many of his "fans" regarded this as one of his weaker novels, and I did find it a little too shallow for what I had expected. It seemed to call "will someone please make a so called cult film of this? Please?" all the time. Still, it made me curious for the other books, and it was still an entertaining read anyway. Some time ago I read The Naked Pioneer Girl by Mikhail Kononov, and it was, thankfully, in no way what the text on the cover or even the critics suggested. It was invredibly sad, and poetic, and one of my favourites in a long time. The critics suggested something more bizzarely humurous, and frivolous, of course, but it seems to be that many of these guys read only the first three chapters of the books before the write their reviews...
[quote:1f013dcf91="OmKranti"]I am not halfway through the Hunt of the Horn, the second Wheel Of Time book by Robert Jordan.[/quote:1f013dcf91] from what i have hear the series is amazing but its also tedious. my one mate is on book 9 or 11 i was't paying attention and she is...........well i wont say but you can guess
Hmm, not to cast a dampener but I've read all the wheel of time books to date and I've lost faith in the author, to my mind they just seem to become more meandering and repetative the further he goes(up to 11 so far...). At this stage I'm just reading them still to get to the end, hate leaving things unfinished. For fantasy lovers you really ought to try George R R Martin's [i:7764109d5f]Song of Fire and Ice[/i:7764109d5f] series or Steven Erikson's [i:7764109d5f]Malazan Book of the Fallen[/i:7764109d5f] set. Both excellant, very gripping and quite sad though. Just because a characters good, dont expect them to automatically survive :badgrin:
I'm reading a book my Dad lent to me, Clan of the cave bear, by Jean M Auel. It's not too bad, but slightly laborious due to the amount of archeological fact that gets packed into it... It's interesting stuff, and she certainly sounds like she knows what she's talking about, but sometimes it's a bit heavy... Can't wait to start Wintersmith.
When in doubt stick to what you know. With that in mind once I finished off reading all those non-fiction about the hundred years wars I've returned once again to fantasy and the Thomas Covenant Chronicles by Stephen Donaldson. Third time I'm reading it and about finished the first book, each time I pick them up I seem to have different perspectives and opinions of the characters as I first read them at 14 and now at 23. Excellant books and well worth taking the time to read for any fans of darker fantasy. Especially as he has now started releasing a third and final trilogy, 30 years after the first books came out, to complete the story.
I loved the Clan of the Cave bear series, they're certainly a bit too informative at times, but very well written, I thought anyways. WINTERSMITH! How do I love thee, let me count the ways. . . Although I can't actually tell objectively how good it is comparatively yet. As I am still in "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! NEW PRATCHETT NOVEL!!!!!!!EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!" mode.
I just finished an anthology of E.A. Poe short stories for English which was fantastic, I've always liked his work. I read Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre which, again, was fantastic and am now reading Blindness by José Saramago - which is brilliant so far. It's all about this epidemic of 'white blindness' where people can only see white fog and are very contagious. It's quite shocking at times.
I finished Steven kings The shining on monday night and now I'm reading the gunslinger, the first of his dark tower series. So far it doesn't seem to good, a friend has told be they're abysmal. So far I don't think he's far wrong.
Today I've been reading Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor. a couple of days ago I read Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett. I liked that one quite a lot. I am pretty much up to date on Pterry right now, Wintersmith did not disappoint me at all. Nor did the last Lorna Landvik novel I read, Oh My Stars. The day I finished it I called my sister and she had just started reading it, oh it was so hard that I couldn't discuss it with her then and there. I also can highly recommend the John Hassler novel, The New Woman. When my brother Sam read Where's my Cow to my great nephew, Connor pointed out the cow on the cover and he realized right away that the book pictured on the first page was the same book with the same cow. He was't too interested after the book started being about Anhk- Morpork,but he's not quite two yet.
A friend of mine lent me half his Dean Koontz collection. So far I've read: - "Life Expectancy": Very good, nice twists and a good dose of subtle humour. The characters are very well rounded. Read it in two days. Just couldn't put it down. - "By The Light Of the Moon": Good, maybe I shouldn't have read it straight away after the other book, but it was still very good, and hard to put down. Again, good storytelling, nice twists and 3D characters. And I'm halfway through "One Door Away From Heaven". So far so good. 2 different stories twisting into each other. I'm waiting for the two to meet. Good books to read while you are waiting for the new "Martherwork" comes out in paperback.
I just started reading Kafka for my literature course, I've gotten about half way through 'metamorphosis' and it's...well....interesting is one way of putting it. I'm enjoying it, though it is seriously disturbing. The idea of waking up and discovering your an instect isn't particularly appealing really, though it is increadible gripping, I'm going to end up having nightmares from reading it.
So I am reading [i:b6c46c74a2]House of Mirth[/i:b6c46c74a2] for english. I'm not really enjoying it. The protagonist is very unsympathetic, which is what killed it for me. I need a hero/anti-hero I can relate to. Even if they are "evil", they must have something that makes them compeling.
I've just finished reading 'The Mask of Fu Manchu', written by Sax Rohmer. It was written in 1932 and is one of several books he wrote covering the happenings surrounding a brilliant Chinaman, who is unfortunately a very good master criminal.. It has a great plot, although the style may be a little out of date for most people. which leaves you wondering what is eventually going to happen until almost the last page. It is intersting to see how popular this writer was in the 30's as the film was made in the same year the book was published. It starred Boris Karloff as the title character. Karloff was also famous, in many horror films of my childhood, as Frankenstein's Monster. I suppose the nearest modern equivalent would be Dr Evil from the Austin Powers films, only with a little more menace and less bad jokes. Job for tomorrow is to rummage around in my loft again and see what other literary jewels I have tucked away.
Finally got round to working my way through Garth Ennis' [i:4a7280d63e]Preacher [/i:4a7280d63e]comic books, something my other half has been nagging me to do for about 2 years. I love it, I wish I'd given in earlier. If there's anyone out there who couldn't love a Minister who says - 'But enough of Theology, I'm hankerin' to kick some motherf*ckers teeth in' - I don't want to meet them :snakeman:
I just started Stranger in a Strange Land. So far it’s pretty interesting, although I haven’t figured out what 'Grokking' is yet. Tephlon, I finished Lightning by Koontz less than a week ago. If you like his style, and your friend has it in his collection, I would highly recommend that one.
Somethingclever,its been probably 30 years since I first read Stranger in a Strange Land and if you figure out what grokking is maybe you could let me know. The last book I finished was Ghost by John Ringo. I don't recommend it for anyone who has a shred of innocence left and wants to keep it, but It is a pretty exciting, if very far fetched tale , or actually three tales. I think this is supposed to be the next James Bond/Rambo/Jack Ryan. There is a second book starring Mike Harmon(Ghost) coming out this winter, called Unto the Breach.
I'm reading the Hogfather I'm also about to start 'saturday' by Ian McEwan and just finished 'an angel at my table' by Janet Frame...she's from New zealand and its the second part of her autobiography...it's very well written and talks about her wish to become an author as well here time in mental institutes (though she was never actually insane).
Garner uses the verb 'grok' in ordinary conversation and I don't know what it means - perhaps you could ask him?! I gather from context that it's something like 'to understand', 'to empathise with', 'to get', 'to cotton on to' or 'to dig'.
i'm reading "going postal" at the moment, and actually finding it a bit hard going. i admit i haven't got very far in and i'm finding less and less time to read, but the style of writing in this book differs so much from most discworld books it's a bit of a shock to read and i'm still getting used to it. did anyone else have that problem when they read this book?
[quote:2f689c65fa="warning_i_have_a_blanket"]but the style of writing in this book differs so much from most discworld books it's a bit of a shock to read and i'm still getting used to it. [/quote:2f689c65fa] Which other books have you read? I thought GP was a return to form!
I'm reading The Stand by Stephen King at the moment, I've almost finished it though. Good job christmas is a couple of days away, i have nothing else to read :?
i've roughly started at the beginning and read my way through. it could just be because i've not had much time to read it
All the presents for tomorrow have suddenly appeared under the tree. My partner Judi, has had to go out to our friendly butcher to pick up the goose. It's only a matter of seconds to strategically position three drawing pins through a piece of card and blame the cats for playing around... I think I've just started on Wintersmith... well at least I saw the title I suppose my conscience will give me nightmares about being stretched naked over a large turtle... well, it's better than some I've had.
I started reading Moving Pictures again, but I'm getting some Xanth novels tomorrow (I am being specific for obvious reasons), so hopefully I can find myself in a new fantasy series.
I got Wintersmith, Johnny and the Dead, and The Art of Discword for Christmas. Should be a good time. I just finished Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey, the first three books were very good but I thought this one was a bit of a disappointment. Now I'm reading Phantom by Terry Goodkind, I used to love these books but now the writing seems a bit mediocre. I liked the Xanth novels a lot, but not enough to go out and get any besides the two my library has
The only Pratchett book i got was Jingo, Unfortunately I already have it I'm currently reading "why don't penguines feet freeze" a collecton of silly questions with some pretty cool answers taken from the last word colum of a science magazine. So far theres been some pretty cool stuff in there.
Amusing typo ahoy! Thank you for your offering to the Great Goddess Garner. The Art of Discworld is really good. Garner got it for me last year, I think.
From Whatis Grok To grok (pronounced GRAHK) something is to understand something so well that it is fully absorbed into oneself. In Robert Heinlein's science-fiction novel of 1961, Stranger in a Strange Land, the word is Martian and literally means "to drink" but metaphorically means "to take it all in," to understand fully, or to "be at one with." Today, grok sometimes is used to include acceptance as well as comprehension - to "dig" or appreciate as well as to know. As one character from Heinlein's novel says: 'Grok' means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed - to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science - and it means as little to us (because we are from Earth) as color means to a blind man. In common usage, "Do you grok?" seems close in meaning to "Do you get it?"
Just read 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind* I enjoyed it...the only problem was i found myself sniffing (not as though you have a cold but more that you could actualy smell something) a lot as I read it...which isn't so bad if your on your own, but i looked a little stange sitting sniffing and reading in an airoplane. *there should be two dots about the 'u' but I've never figured out how to do it on my computer without a lot of bother...
I just finished Gideon DeFoe's The Pirates! On an adventure with Communists Insanely random, pretty funny, but a bit short. For some reason I ended up imagining most of the pirate characters (they never get names beyond Pirate in Red etc) as looking like Chris's Tripod character.
I have received the books I ordered with my amazon voucher, I now have almost all the discworld books, apart from a few that I have but that have gone missing... Daaaad ? I also ordered a book called Cautionary tales for grown-ups by Chris Addison, which contains some hilarious poems about modern life, with titles such as "Matthew, who only texted", or "Ella, who dieted herself to a shocking end" or my favourite so far "The residents of Taunton Street who covered their houses with christmas decorations"... I recommend it to all those who love to laugh
I have finished "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith recently, and it hit home for so many people I am living with... She's a great, great writer - judging from the two of her three books I have read so far. I hope I can talk my husband into reading this. I've also finished "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson. It amazes me how short many of these novels were, and how much they left to imagination, after having seen so many -countless- interpretations of these stories. Currently, I am reading [wiki]Janusz Korczak[/wiki]. If you in some way deal with children in your everyday life, you find so much out about yourself by reading those books (from 1929, in this case!). I recommend his works!
Janusz Korczak... That brings back some memories, specifically from the museum dedicated to him In the Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz, part of their larger Ghetto Fighters' Museum. As for myself, I am currently reading books and stories by Saul Bellow. I have so far read The Dangling Man, The Victim, and I am currently about halfway through The Adventures of Augie March. Not sure if this is a style of book that I truly like, but Bellow is a good author. He's good at giving his readers more than just a glance as to what his characters feel.
I'm ggettin depressed because I haven't really had time to read any books for my own pleasure for a long time. I've been reading a bunch of novels for uni, and while good books (except for Union Street) they're not the kind of books I'd read. But one of my new favorite authors, Karen Chance, has just finished writing a new book and I should be able to get my hands on it come Apil.
Haven't read Stranger in a Strange Land, but I always imagine "grok" to mean something like "to know" in a vaguely Biblical sense (no sniggering!) Mostly because of a sermon I remember from ages ago describing how "knowing" could mean making something/someone totally part of you, and so completely understanding it/him/her because of it. I should read the book and see if it makes sense, shouldn't I?
I just read The Bellgariad series by David Eddings and I just got the first two of The Mallorean from the library. I haven't started them get though because I'm reading The Cat Who books by Lilian Jackson Braun like The Cat Who Saw Stars and The Cat Who Went Into The Closet. They are a series of easy reading mystery books about clue finding siamese cats. Okay that description sounds kind of cheesy and cartoony, but they're not. The author spent many years in Michigan and even though everything is fictional many people think that is where the books are set.
At this moment in time I'm reading 'until I find you' by john Irving I just finished reading 'the unbearable lightness of being' by milan kundera which, if your feeling philosophical, I would thoroughly recommend.
i just read this absoultely brilliant book by Douglas Adams...Last Chance to See..u absolutely must read this book
Indeed. The term was used in some versions of the bible as a polite way of saying that someone had sex. "And that night, so-and-so knew his wife."
I think the best (and most bizarre) euphemism in the Authorized (King James) version is when King Saul goes into a cave to empty his bladder. The KJV has "to cover his feet" - which suggests he had very bad aim! :shock: Anyway, I've just finished 'Going Postal', and am now on Lynne Truss, 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' - very funny if slightly worrying book on modern punctuation usage. Also a rather dull but useful book by David Dean, 'Museum Exhibition: Theory and Practice' - but that's for uni, not for pleasure you'll be pleased to know!
Mithras, you know the seraphim in the book of Isaiah, who have six wings each to cover their faces, hands and feet? Yeah, that's not their feet either. Fahd, thanks for the recommendation - I think lots of people here are Douglas Adams fans! Could I ask that you use full words instead of abbreviations like 'u'? We try to all use our best English on this site as many users are dyslexic or non-native speakers, and also out of respect as this is a site devoted to literature. Thanks!
Currently reading a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson, a few friends have read it and spoken highly of it, of the few pages i've read as of yet i can see why. i've never appreciated being alive as much as i did when i read the introduction
Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. I got so excited when I suddenly realised, as I was reading it, that two of the characters were ones from his first books, the Fionavar Tapestry. I hadn't realised before that there was any direct connection.
I am currently reading "Motorcycle Yoga: Meditative Rides Through India" - by Miles Davis. I actually know this guy, he is an old friend from San Francisco. Great book.
I reread Pride & Prejudice recently. Great stuff. I stayed up till 4.30am to see if Lizzy would get with Darcy again. :wink:
Currently reading The Truth. I tried to go in order best I could based on what was listed in the beginning and sometimes the end of the books. But, I didn't discover this site until I have nearly completed them all. I would have loved to see the numbered list you all have around here somewhere about 2 years ago. I have Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal and Thud! waiting in the wings.
You can't get a better feel good love story. Every time this book gets mentioned around the male english teachers at my school it causes an uproar - it's hilarious. They all clame the book is setting standards for them way to high...
Currently Reading a Rather Creepy Mystery Called "Would it Kill You to Smile" about a Dead Ventriloquist., and "Wintersmith", and occasionally Between Snippets of "The Truth" and "Thud".
My recommendations for today... I have recently read An interpretation of murder by Jed Rubenfeld which is featured in the Richard and Judy book club (The book club being part of a British Daytime TV show) I enjoyed this book and particularly like the characterisation of Freud and Jung. At the moment I am currently reading the Harry Dresden files by Jim Butcher. This series seems to have a real ‘page turning quality’ and I would recommend it highly! I sort of got interested in them because I seen a few ads for the TV series which I believe is on either the Sci-Fi channel or Sky one but I never got around to actually watching any of them. I thought I'd Google the author and his site has a couple of sample chapters which got my interest. So much so, that I’ve ended up buying the books two at a time so that I can move straight on to the next one as soon as the one I’m reading has finished. Any other fans of these books about?
I've been reading Kingsley Amis's The King's English. The man is a fatuous twit and full of absolute bollocks. However, it does provide an interesting insight into English as spoken by upper class old men. And, yes, I do read English usage books for fun. Shut up.