I’m late- but GRRM is an amazing writer, and I absolutely love his books, it’s just that every single woman seems to have no rights. I know, it’s pseudo-medieval, but it’s still infuriating.
SNQ- Great Expectations- that’s on my to read list as well. Also, I’ve only ever read the adapted version of Oliver Twist.

I never cared for Dickinson myself. His prose is too heavy—though, I avoid books from that period in general.

The Catcher in the Rye is one of my favorite books, simply because nothing happens at all and it still manages to be pretty interesting. Also, I cried at the end. I’m told that Pride and Prejudice is very good, and I have every intention of reading Emma one day, and other books from that woman who I presently can’t remember the name of…

I asked my parents if either of them had ever read A Clockwork Orange, and both of them were like, you cannot read that book oh no no, and I was all, oh, okay.

I’m late- but GRRM is an amazing writer, and I absolutely love his books, it’s just that every single woman seems to have no rights. I know, it’s pseudo-medieval, but it’s still infuriating.

It isn’t the exact same as “rights,” but Cersei, Catelyn and Dany certainly have power.

If he’s a sympathetic character then so are people like Joachim Peiper and Otto Skorzeny.

Have you read all the books? Jaime may not be a “good guy” (Whatever that means…), but he’s still a sympathetic character.

Personally, I found Brienne pretty bland and boring. I just don’t find anything about her interesting, myself.

Reminds me of Wuthering Heights, another book in which nobody is particularly sympathetic. But Wuthering Heights only stretches on for one book, not several.

Oh dear. I kinda completely hated A Game of Thrones. But I did read it, so that’s not for this thread.

You know what I haven’t read? Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Fine, I don’t know that everyone has read it, but most of my friends/reviewers I follow have, and I even manged to get an ebook from the library and still. Didn’t. Read. It.

Oh and the link to the spork of the Hunger Games. (sorry I’m so late in this).

steam punk

Isn’t Perdido St. Station kind of steampunkish? Even if it isn’t, it’s a damn good book.

Perdido St Station is amazing, yes. Warning for some graphic inky moth sex, though. Don’t read it on a train ;)

I’ve heard really good reviews about that.

I vill, then.

I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my brother’s girlfriend – the first half of Fellowship is an endurance test. It’s long and boring and almost nothing of any substance happens (at least until they reach Bree). BUT if you can make it past that, it picks up pretty quickly.

A good friend of mine is exactly the same as you, Ebelean—she tried reading them but couldn’t get past the Old Wood because, in her words, “They’re just walking through the woods! For pages and pages!”

You really do have to power on through the first half of Fellowship to get to the awesome parts. Once you get to Bree, things start to get more interesting, but then it hits the Council of Elrond and gets slow again until they actually get on their way. Then it picks up again pretty permanently.

Not to start a movie vs. books argument here, but honestly, cutting out most of the early stuff in Fellowship may have been one of the best things Peter Jackson did when adapting LotR. It works in the book (or at least I can look back after having read it several times and it doesn’t bug me), but it would’ve just been taking up time and space in the movie. So I forgive him for cutting Tom Bombadil/the Old Wood and severely shortening the parts when they traveled in the Shire (and cutting out Fatty Bolger).

While I love Tom Bombadil, he didn’t really add much to the overall plot of the trilogy, let alone Fellowship.

Agreed. To be honest, I don’t think there would have been a way to portray him in the movie that wouldn’t have made people like my mom think that all of us fans are just experiencing some sort of collective bad trip.