October 2010 - What are you reading?

[Myshkin]

Finished The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and really enjoyed it. Don't be daunted by the 1000 page length, the book really flies.

Now about half way through Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, and absolutely loving it.

[mashiara]

I finished my reread of The Gathering Storm a few days ago and I enjoyed it. It was a totally different experience, reading the book at a normal pace as opposed to breakneck speed -it took me less than a day last time, I was so eager to see what was happening. I'm ready for ToM now. Yes, Sanderson is not Jordan and that's a good and a bad thing, but mostly I just want to see how this story ends.

I also read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's in all the bookstores here so when I saw it in the library I figured I should give it a go, even though I had a hunch it would be one of those books that I don't like. I don't know what the big deal is about this book. The first part was lovely, I wondered why my experience in Rome wasn't as marvelous as hers and where was all this delicious food when I was there. The second and third parts.. meh. I realize it was supposed to be a journey of self-discovery and awareness and empowerment but I just thought she was whining about her life through the whole book. Not my cup of tea.

Last but not least, Personality by Andrew O Hagan. Normally I would call this a mediocre book about a young girl who gets famous because of her superb singing talent and the results all this publicity and media exposure have on her, but there were really well written scenes in there that are enough to make me call it a good book. The scenes where he portrays her fight with anorexia were disturbingly true (I should know, my sister has suffered from this for over a decade). I also liked the subtle ways in which he showed the relationship and interactions between three generations of women. Not the best book around but certainly a decent read.

I'm now reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I'm almost halfway. It started off slowly and I wasn't sure I liked it at all but it is a lot more interesting now.

[Bellis]

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, unabridged English translation. I had put this off for a long time, as I pretty much already know the musical by heart and read an abridged French version many years ago. Hugo really enjoys his digressions - on everything from Waterloo to convents to dialect to 50+ pages on sewers. This is really a morality play and polemic more than a novel.

[Martin Silenus]

Finished The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, and really enjoyed it. Don't be daunted by the 1000 page length, the book really flies.

Now about half way through Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, and absolutely loving it.

Plus, Windup Girls are way hot.

[Errant Bard]

Just finished Acacia, by David Anthony Durham. I liked ideas behind the worldbuilding, it's original, far from the usual faux-medieval England, and how if the author tells you (for example) one guy is going to kill another at the end of chapter, by the next the other will be dead, with no asspull plottwist. In the end, though, the world didn't come alive for me, the characters are somewhat bland, there were way too many convenient coincidental meetings, and everyone seems to be teleporting around, devaluating any sense of breadth the world could have had. Disappointing.

Les Rois Maudits by Druon, on the other hand, make the Tudors look like pussies. I'm on the second volume (they are slim, 300 pages each, maybe) of this historical fiction (though the author tried to be the less fictional possible) about the tribulations of the European (French and English mostly) royal families from Philippe le Bel/Edward 2 until the hundred years war. Murders, betrayal, love, hate and politics, it's all there. A fun dive into history, if you don't mind not liking any character.

I got last week my Kearney Monarchies of God omnibuses (omnibii?), and though I've only read a third of Hawkwood and Kings so far, I'm blown away. This is one the best fantasy book I've read. You feel the scope of the world, the characters are great, the political landscape is complex and interesting, and though you can feel the heavy similarities with real-world history ((inverted)crusades, holy cities, popes, fragmented kingdoms, new world colonization, musquets...) it only manages to make the whole more appealing.

[Lordwalker]

Errant Bard:

I really liked Acacia and was pumped to pick up the sequal The Other Lands. However, I really didn't care for the directions the story went in this volume. I wish now I would have stopped with the first and just let my imagination fill end the rest of the story.

I stopped Listening to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I didn't get it. Huge amounts of hype for it and the series, lots of glowing reviews. Terrible, uniteresting story. At the halfway mark of the recording I finally decided I really didn't care how it ended and went on to The Fall, which has bee a pretty good follow up from last year's The Strain.

Currently Reading:

The Collector -- Jonathan Fowles

A Shadow in Summer -- Daniel Abrahams

[Myshkin]

Plus, Windup Girls are way hot.

Indeed. Some might even say they are too too hot. But so so smooth.

[Cantabile]

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, unabridged English translation. I had put this off for a long time, as I pretty much already know the musical by heart and read an abridged French version many years ago. Hugo really enjoys his digressions - on everything from Waterloo to convents to dialect to 50+ pages on sewers. This is really a morality play and polemic more than a novel.

What did you feel was polemic about it? It's been many decades since I read Les Misérables, so I can't really remember the details.

[Bellis]

What did you feel was polemic about it? It's been many decades since I read Les Misérables, so I can't really remember the details.

Well maybe not polemical in the angry sense, but it did outline Hugos thoughts on a wide array of random, non-plot-related subjects.

[WhiteHaven]

Jeha. I was able to read two books in a month, again.

Whatever, I finished "The Great Hunt" by Robert Jordan today. I will start "The Dragon Reborn" (also by RJ) tomrrow.

[Myshkin]

Finished Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, and it was amazing. Highly recommended.

Now reading Watcher of the Dead by JV Jones.

[Martin Silenus]

Finished Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, and it was amazing. Highly recommended.

Doubly recommended. Trebly recommended. I haven't read anything new that was this excellent in a long time. The characters metamorphose before your eyes. Interesting questions about nature and artifice. I was lucky enough to borrow this from the library, but it's going into my collection post haste, in hardcover. I look forward to more from Paolo Scrabblescore.

I'm still woring through David Brin's Uplift 2 trilogy. Nearing the end of Infinity's Shore, with Heaven's Reach left to finish this semi-comic space opera. Then on to Helliconia in Summer.

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I'm just about finished Child of Flame by Kate Elliott. I struggled a bit as I did not like Alain's character arc in this one. Before I dive into the next book in the series, The Gathering Storm, I'm going to read Irish Ghost Stories by Padriac O'Farrell. It seems appropriate at this time of the year!