Finished One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Great book, definitely recommended.

Also, bought new hardcovers of The Children of Hurin and The Odyssey for $1 each.

Hidden because I didn’t want to ruin your experience with excessive hype. That’s happened to me way too many times.

If you want to avoid excessive hype about The Book Thief, you should probably stay away from this website. All the discussion I’ve ever seen about it here is pretty much the equivalent of SWQ’s comment.

Once I get back to school I have to read another book before the semester’s over. My English teacher has been trying to get me into literary fiction, so I’m sure it’ll be something I’ll get to bash later. Hopefully I’ll be able to borrow the latest Dresden Files book from a friend after I finish whatever my serious business book ends up being.

I’ve heard really good things from people I trust about the Skullduggery Pleasant series. Any thoughts?

Reading The Book Thief. Heard good stuff about this. Hope I enjoy it. I haven’t come across any good stuff lately.

OMGYES.

It’s one of the few books that is worth the hype.

For the first time ever, my bookshelf is now FULL. Let’s go over what’s been added to my personal collection in the course of a few short days: – Twain collection – The Three Musketeers – an Trollope book – Les Miserables – Sabriel – Lirael – From Dawn to Decadence (1500 to present)
Emma – Sorrow Floats – Thirteen Days – The Odyssey – The Children of Hurin

I think at this rate, I can begin getting rid of all the textbooks and boring things that I use to take up space. squee

^ I congratulate you. That’s just awesome.

Starting A Clockwork Orange today…kind of apprehensive.

@Rocky – so you read the Hobbit at last? What did you think?

EDIT: Also, has anyone posted this chart yet?

It’s kind of amusing to read through just in general, but it’s also kind of nice how it breaks down books by theme/type/format and so on. Also, I just love the option that goes “Enjoy stories about orphaned farm boys?” with the only box leading from it being “NO”. And then it says “Tough” and points you to some with orphaned farmboys anyway.

Ahhhh this is so great!

I am sad that Garth Nix is not on here, though I am heartened by the presence of much Gaiman, GRRM, and Perdido St. Station. Also, I may be blind, where the HELL is LotR?

I LOVE I AM THE MESSENGER!

Except the ending, but then, who liked the ending? I need to reread that book!

Very fun chart, although I’m surprised to not see The Hobbit, Narnia, but maybe although children’s stories were cut? (Only implied Harry Potter.)

Well, the list is from NPR, so the target audience has probably a) already read, b) a bit old for The Hobbit and the Narnia series

I’ve read surprisingly few books on that chart though.

Same here.

Anyway, finished Professor Moriarty, so now I can get to some of the books I got for Christmas.

I brought 10 books from a gigantic book sale today! Originally, the deal was 10 books for $30, but I got lucky and only paid $25. :D

Now, if only the dratted projects never existed in the first place…

NO SUCH THING: NEVER TOO OLD.

Hey, I didn’t say The Hobbit or the Narnia books weren’t good; I love those books too. I’m just saying that the target audience for those books is probably around age 10-14, as while the target audience for NPR is, well, not. If I ever have kids, I plan on either reading/having them read those books at some point.

Anyway, I started readin Alanna: the First Adventure last night. I’m getting into the second chapter, so I’m not quite ready to give a judgement on quality yet. I also realize that this is a YA fantasy book, so comparing it to, say ASoIaF, would be stupid. Still, when about half of the first two pages consists largely of an “As you know…” conversation, it kinda throws me off. Luckily, it’s gotten better.

That book taught me everything I know! Or at least it taught me a lot about how networks and security work, what TOR is, and so on.

Unfortunately, I’ve heard Doctorow’s other YA books aren’t nearly as good. :(

Took a break from An Accidental Adventure (yes, still reading that one) to start May Bird and the Ever After. It’s not quite as good as I remember, but still a fantastic book.

Good to know. We’re doing that this year and I’ve had enough bad reads. Also Possessing the Secret of Joy. Not really looking forward to it once I found out what it was about.

Tess was okay. Most of the characters need to be slapped across the face, though.

I’m still reading A Clash of Kings. I’m starting to get into it now. I just read Davos’s first chapter. Stannis seems kind of Snape-like, in that he was unloved and tormented so long that now he’s kind of a jerk. It’s not exactly the same, but that’s what he calls to mind.

I’m gonna have to go through that entire chart bit by bit so I can revel in my uber-geekiness. On first inspection, I’m much more at home in the SF half: I’ve read at least half of those. I very quickly get lost in the fantasy side though.

OH MY GOSH THEY HAVE A FIRE UPON THE DEEP

THE GREATEST BOOK EVER WHICH I PURCHASED FOR THIRTY CENTS READ IT ALL OF YOU

I’ve been trying to avoid Hardy for a long, long time…let me know how it goes!

Well, I liked Return of the Native, but there was so much purple prose that at times I wanted to toss the book at a wall.

In Tess, he gives an overly detailed description of cow milking, including how to rest one’s head on the cow. I think that’s the part I fell asleep reading (quite literally, woke up a couple hours later).

That sounds like Hardy. In Native, he gives several long, very very purple descriptions of the moors on which the characters live. Some of it was quite beautiful, but overall it was too much. If I hadn’t been listening to Alan Rickman narrate it, I might have given up.

Tonight I listened to Albert Camus’ The Stranger. and HATED it. Badly.

^Eschew surplusage. <3

I do adore that piece of writing. I actually have read Last of the Mohicans and found it to be a peculiar mix of incredibly boring writing talking about things that should be exciting and adventurous, which made Twain’s snide little remarks all the more entertaining.

Tonight I listened to Albert Camus’ The Stranger. and HATED it. Badly.

Cool, I’m not the only one.

I’d like to read a Virginia Woolf novel- which would you experts recommend?

Anyway, I started readin Alanna: the First Adventure last night. I’m getting into the second chapter, so I’m not quite ready to give a judgement on quality yet. I also realize that this is a YA fantasy book, so comparing it to, say ASoIaF, would be stupid. Still, when about half of the first two pages consists largely of an “As you know…” conversation, it kinda throws me off. Luckily, it’s gotten better.

HIGH PITCHED SCREAM

Okay, that one is not the best book, or even best series, but it is the first. I’d say the best series is Protector of the Small. The Immortals is more fun, but technically weaker.

Oh, yes, the POTS is the best series. I love how it starts of as a classic girl-in-chainmail-stomps-in-social-norm-fantasy-adventure, and then in the final book turns into a kind of sci-fi steampunk race against time. Those machines are pretty cool.

Oh, yes, the POTS is the best series. I love how it starts of as a classic girl-in- chain mail-stomps-in-social-norm-fantasy-adventure, and then in the final book turns into a kind of sci-fi steampunk race against time. Those machines are pretty cool.

Don’t do that again. >:-|

I really want to read the Leviathan books! Haven’t yet, but I’ve heard good things.

I’ll admit, half the fun of Leviathan came from how much of it is real history.

In other news, I finished Alanna. It’s wasn’t especially bad, but it also wasn’t spectacularly good either, though a good chunk of that can probably be chalked up to being the first in a series. Maybe I’ll write a full review and post it to my livejournal account (and finally get around to using the dang thing for something). I’ll post a link here if/when that happens.

I’ll probably try finishing the series, just for completeness sake. But not right now – I still have a pretty hefty pile of books that need reading.

I reread the Bartimaeus Trilogy last week and read The Ring of Solomon for the first time. I forgot just how much I loved those books. Bartimaeus is hilarious!

The Ring of Solomon was good, but it was very different than the original three, obviously. For starters, Bartimaeus is even more of a jerk than in the later books, because he hadn’t met Ptolemy yet.

Yes on the footnotes, yes on another narrator. It’s a prequel (obviously, because he hasn’t met Ptolemy yet!) but has a few familiar characters… well, at least two. Faquarl shows up again, is what I’m trying to say here, and he and Bartimaeus have this completely awesome sort-of-friends-sort-of-want-to-kill-each-other relationship—more friendly that the trilogy, at least, because they loathe one another vaguely less.

I just started Inkheart. A book about books. Mmmmm…..........

I’m reading How Fiction Works for my workshop class. Not enjoying it. The guy is pretentious and drones on and on about every point he makes. Plus the margins are huge, which is annoying.

That’s the trouble with those books. Whenever you have a tiny vacation from reading them, all the complicated politics and storylines just drop out of your mind.

You’re reading that too, Spanman? I sadly don’t have much time to read fun books because school is back, but I was really liking it.

That’s the trouble with those books. Whenever you have a tiny vacation from reading them, all the complicated politics and storylines just drop out of your mind.

Yeah. When I started Clash of Kings, I had forgotten a bunch of stuff from Game of Thrones.

Yeah, that’s why I’m waiting for the mythic point where GRRM will eventually finish these books so I can read them consecutively.

And I’m reading Habibi now. Very interesting ideas and art combined with uneven storytelling.

I’m surprised you didn’t get it mailed to you as soon as you realized you didn’t have it.

Well, the story wasn’t exactly riveting at the time, and I had other books to enjoy in the meantime, so I’ll probably wait until I go home in two weeks to pick it up again.

I just finished rereading that, to go along with my recent reread of The Lord of the Rings. It was one of the first books that I remember loving.
I’m still in the middle of Inkheart. It’s pretty good so far. The concept is kind of cool and scary at the same time—the idea of being cornered by the villains of a book I wrote really scares me.
Another recent read was Lloyd Alexander’s last book, The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, which was published after he died. It’s a fantasy version of the Silk Road, and it was fairly good. It’s the only book I’ve read of his that uses first person, but it worked well.
And when I go home for spring break, I’m planning to reread all The Hunger Games books to prepare for the movie.

Reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

McMurphy is freaking awesome.

So my sister just got addicted to The Hunger Games, despite her usually loathing anything even remotely approaching dystopian sci-fi, and she lent me the first two books. I’m not going to get anything done now. T_T

Turn of the Screw was SO AWESOME! Highly recommended.

My AP books are plotted out as follows- – Bertoldt Brecht (plays undecided) – Equus by Peter Schaffer – Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky – Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

I also picked up To the Lighthouse for a bit of personal reading, which has fallen off lately. I know that Sly fanboy-ed over it on the podcast, but a lot of my friends despise Woolf’s writing, so I’m curious to read it for myself.

Equus by Peter Schaffer

I don’t think I can not associate this with naked Harry Potter.

Anyway… I really need to get back to A Clash of Kings. I have been neglecting due to homework.

I’ve started Inkspell, and am also reading The Red Pyramid. Rereads include the Percy Jackson books and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman.
The Red Pyramid isn’t quite as good as Percy Jackson was, but it’s still interesting. I didn’t actually know a whole lot about Egyptian mythology, so that was really cool.
Oh and I’m also reading The Bloudy Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience by Roger Williams.

I always found the Hobbit to be the easiest one to read. It’s much more episodic, funny, and entertaining than the full series. Not that LoTR isn’t entertaining, it’s just grim epic saga and requires a lot from the reader.

I went to a thrift store and bought an O Henry short story collection, Crime and Punishment, and She by H. Rider Haggard.

:win: