What Book Are You Reading XV - The Pile Keeps Growing!

[Takhisis]

Probably I read a lot of Punch 45 years ago.

IIRC it was the one which detailed when it was acceptable to have a cup of tea.

One could almost make a musical of that.

They tried once, but it wasn't up to the original. It suffered too much from the Hollywood rule that stories had to be peppy-uppy-dippy.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

They tried once, but it wasn't up to the original. It suffered too much from the Hollywood rule that stories had to be peppy-uppy-dippy.

I'm talking about Fiddler on the Roof, which did not have a particularly happy ending. What are you talking about?

 

[Grendeldef]

My own set of Tarzan books is newer than that. But I did manage to get them all (and have read most of them).

There was just one small problem with the set I had... Tarzan is one of the barbarian adventure series my grandparents approved of, and when my grandmother happened on a book at the farmers' market that had a similar style of artwork on the front cover, she bought it for me - not paying attention to the title but assuming it was another Tarzan book.

Most of my Tarzans are paperbacks from 70s & 80s so not necessarily in great shape hence I have also bought books I already had. Same goes with other books as well - hard covers are just better for usage. Thanks to childhood nearby library I've at least read them all.

 

[Takhisis]

I'm talking about Fiddler on the Roof, which did not have a particularly happy ending. What are you talking about?

I'm talking about the actual book. I actually have watched The Fiddler on the Roof, as I've discussed in the film thread.

The book has some plotlines never featured in the film.

 

[Snerk]

Recently started Capital and Ideology. I do love Thomas Piketty even though I don't always follow everything.

 

[Kyriakos]

Re-reading this, after so many years.
Sadly, he wasn't a very good writer. So many short stories by De Maupassant would tower over this novella.

 

[Synobun]

June 2022

Blood of Empire by Brian McClellan (4/5)

Spoiler :

Ending a trilogy is always difficult. As far as Gods of Blood and Powder goes, the ending to this one was acceptable. That seems like faint praise, but for me, that's pretty decent.

This was an enjoyable read, though I felt it had less intensity compared to the previous books. The stakes were never higher, but it didn't feel that way. I am not fully sure why. Maybe too much deus ex machina. There were many convenient happenings that made everything end up okay, and it made it clear that none of the main characters were ever in real danger. The effect of "they aren't dead unless you see their body" in TV shows three seasons past their expiry date applies here as well.

All in all, this third book is weaker than the previous two, but it was still good and not at all a read I regret. I started with this universe with this series, so now I will move on to the first trilogy that started it all.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (2/5)

Spoiler :

I finally, FINALLY, after two years, managed to finish reading this. I am upgrading to two stars, but it was an absolute chore to get through. I'll read the next book and hope it gets better.

ORIGINAL REVIEW
I love Mistborn and I love Elantris. I have been told that it all ties into Stormlight, and so I waited the 8+ months for this book to become available from my library. And then another 4 months for it to become available again since it took me three weeks to read 300 pages the first time.

And my final verdict is that this book is so bad I can't finish it. Pointless lore, pointless interactions. I made it about a third through (1000/3000) before giving up. You're given no reason to care about anything, and instead you are regaled with mountains of lore on every page. None of this lore is explained. You are just force-fed Capitalized Term after Capitalized Term and expected to be blown away by it. Radiants, -sprens, parshmen, my, oh my! Meaningless.

A character from Mistborn ends up in this series, apparently, but I can't possibly suffer through the writing of this first book to get to the second, and I hear that they're all of similar length too, so I shan't bother. No sunk-cost fallacy to be found here.

 

[Birdjaguar]

for powder mages!

 

[Snerk]

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson (2/5)

Spoiler :

I finally, FINALLY, after two years, managed to finish reading this. I am upgrading to two stars, but it was an absolute chore to get through. I'll read the next book and hope it gets better.

ORIGINAL REVIEW
I love Mistborn and I love Elantris. I have been told that it all ties into Stormlight, and so I waited the 8+ months for this book to become available from my library. And then another 4 months for it to become available again since it took me three weeks to read 300 pages the first time.

And my final verdict is that this book is so bad I can't finish it. Pointless lore, pointless interactions. I made it about a third through (1000/3000) before giving up. You're given no reason to care about anything, and instead you are regaled with mountains of lore on every page. None of this lore is explained. You are just force-fed Capitalized Term after Capitalized Term and expected to be blown away by it. Radiants, -sprens, parshmen, my, oh my! Meaningless.

A character from Mistborn ends up in this series, apparently, but I can't possibly suffer through the writing of this first book to get to the second, and I hear that they're all of similar length too, so I shan't bother. No sunk-cost fallacy to be found here.

If you didn't like the first you're probably not going to like the rest of the series. The Way of Kings and Rythm of War are my favourites in The Stormlight Archives. I 100% agree that the lore has a way too steep learning curve. Took a long time before I started to get a grasp om that the hell they were going on about in many places. But once the pieces starts to fall into place it gets more enjoyable. Though I guess some of the pieces aren't meant to fall into place until later books. There's several good YT vids that helps explain some things.

Overall I like the series, it has excellent world building which I enjoy. It's one of very few fantasy book series I deem worthy of my time. Doesn't come close to A Song of Ice and Fire though. Gimme Winds of Winter now!!!

 

[Kyriakos]

Finished re-reading the Stranger.
It's not particularly notable, despite being so famous a novella. The religious parts, imo, were farcical (particularly the discussion at the police station, but also in the final chapter). In regards to literary techniques, this is almost entirely a sentimental narration, since the story itself is relegated to a background and the protagonist's lack of any depth in planning (for a number of reasons, including the positive relative ease in moving through life) is extreme enough to border dissociation.
Regarding the reasons for his crime, I recall that Camus published the novella along with a treatise (where he used Sisyphus as a metaphor), but I haven't read that in equally as many years and going by the story alone I got the impression that

Spoiler :

Mersault killed the arab out of reasons he couldn't realize, since he'd lived the rest of his life like that too. It looks like the "main" point is that life has no meaning, and if one actually lives in the world of the senses (like Mersault) they are bound to fall prey to what they falsely identify as "luck"/"bad luck".

Meh. While giving him the nobel wasn't near being the worst decision of the academy (recall, for example, the brain-dead selection of that songwriter a few years back), it was underwhelming and trivial imo.

 

[Synobun]

If you didn't like the first you're probably not going to like the rest of the series. The Way of Kings and Rythm of War are my favourites in The Stormlight Archives. I 100% agree that the lore has a way too steep learning curve. Took a long time before I started to get a grasp om that the hell they were going on about in many places. But once the pieces starts to fall into place it gets more enjoyable. Though I guess some of the pieces aren't meant to fall into place until later books. There's several good YT vids that helps explain some things.

Overall I like the series, it has excellent world building which I enjoy. It's one of very few fantasy book series I deem worthy of my time. Doesn't come close to A Song of Ice and Fire though. Gimme Winds of Winter now!!!

I guess I'll find out in, *checks library wait times*, four months.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

View attachment 632850

Re-reading this, after so many years.
Sadly, he wasn't a very good writer. So many short stories by De Maupassant would tower over this novella.

It looks similar to the email I got from my aunt when my mother died nearly 8 years ago.

"Dear ______. We expected this. Your mother died yesterday. Love, Auntie _____"

Nobody had even bothered to tell me her cancer had come back.


I finished Uranus. It didn't turn out too bad, though it's annoying how the actual science part of the science fiction doesn't seem to matter. It's like all those Star Trek episodes where a really cool idea or bit of knowledge comes along and is promptly forgotten by the next episode, as though it never happened.

I've started on Neptune, and so far it's eye-rollingly ridiculous. Apparently Baroness Ilona Magyr's father has been stranded on the bottom of Neptune's ocean for an unspecified number of years so she's hired a guy to take her and an astronomer out there to retrieve him (she thinks that of course he would have put himself into cryonic freeze, though so far it hasn't been addressed that everyone else in this series who goes that route always ends up with amnesia and requiring retraining in the basics, like a young child would need). She never doubts she'll find him and her major problem is how to play the hired captain and the astronomer guy off against each other to see which one she can get cozy with.

I guess it's good that this novel is considerably shorter than Uranus, because so far there is not one single likeable character in it.

But they have discovered that Neptune's ocean has giant amoeba-like squid creatures in it that tried to eat their submersible and spat it out, deeming it unfit for consumption.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Last week I finished reading a second hand book:

CrashCourse

by the Scottish Author

Wilhelmina Baird

copyright 1993.

It is a sci-fi book set in a future earth and solar system
where people are divided into Aris, Techs and Umps.

The theme is that films then are like reality TV, but with a high
death total among the cast; and three desperate poor people
(male prostitute, male sculptor & girl burglar) join as likely victims.

In this story, both the villain and the heroine were ladies.

It was well written and very enjoyable.

 

[Kyriakos]

Last week I finished reading a second hand book:


The theme is that films then are like reality TV, but with a high
death total among the cast

In early elementary school, that is what I thought was happening in movies; people were paid an awful lot, to die.
Part of my false impression that tv had to be important/present only truth to be studied, so as to exist...

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Since I am now as down as I ever will be, and that means I am done playing the fool, I would like to take the opportunity to seriously recommend the Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

To imagine trees as talking individuals who have families and even tribes of their own may seem childish and silly. It is not. And to recognizing that, would down the road also produce higher yields, while also being more joyful for plant, man and animal, as well as a ton more healthy.
Yet... the opposite happens. In a world of utter madness and ignorance.

Same goes for farming.

edit: And while I am done pushing my stuff in the music thread, I would also like to take this opportunity to make another very serious and relevant point: I do not speak of humans or men and women in this post but of man or also mankind for a simple reason, which is perfectly captured by this albeit silly and a bit tasteless song - because mother nature, or God, is best captured as a woman, Gaia, and man as the pole, Gaia is allowed to dance around. See.. it all matters. The devil is in the detail. But this world got no structure or order. Just the darkness of ignorance and confusion, making a fool out of us all. Causing a ton of unnecessary suffering. I am.. just the messenger.

Spoiler :

 

[EnglishEdward]

Nice Track!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

To imagine trees as talking individuals who have families and even tribes of their own may seem childish and silly.

I don't think it's childish and silly. I read that they communicate by emitting chemicals, to warn each other of dangers.

Back when I still lived in the family house, our back yard had several fruit trees. In the fall I'd go around to them, pat them on their trunks, and thank them for the fruit that year, and for providing a home for the squirrel family that lived there (in the crabapple tree). I don't know if it helped, but a little appreciation never hurts.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

This just was one of the best things I heard since my bio mother released me from the only non-false paradise. Way to go.

 

[Josu]

View attachment 632850

Re-reading this, after so many years.
Sadly, he wasn't a very good writer. So many short stories by De Maupassant would tower over this novella.

I have read this book more than ten times.
One of my favourite books of all times. Helped me a lot in several phases of my life

 

[Kyriakos]

I have read this book more than ten times.
One of my favourite books of all times. Helped me a lot in several phases of my life

It is a nice and pleasant life for Meursault, until the arab. But things were being led there all the time - who in their right mind would befriend Reymond?
I do like how he was so focused on the senses, like children in summer vacations.