Matthew’s Comments (group member since Mar 08, 2015)

Matthew’s comments from the Reading List Completists group.

TheLongWait wrote: "THE RECOGNITIONS! Cmon folks! it's a masterpiece and brilliant and challenging and I'm 75% done with it, but would love to start over as a group read!!!"

Yes - I like this sort of campaigning!

Greetings,

This poll is to determine which large book we will be reading the last three months this year. Feel free to vote even if you do not plan to join us.

NOTE: Any books not receiving votes within the first 24 hours will be removed from contention.

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The politics doesn't bother me too much. I guess I figure with post-apocalyptic/dystopian (two of my favorite genres) you are bound to get a little bit of politics.

What I don't like is if there is a viewpoint shoved into a story and it makes absolutely no sense to the plot so it stands out like a sore thumb. Everyone is allowed to have their viewpoint, but ruining a story with it by forcing it in is annoying.

I did a Google search after you posted this and most of the responses I see are "How dare you ask, why don't you man up and just deal with it!"

Sigh . . . not sure why we can't just have it both ways without people getting mean about it.

So . . . in summary . . . I couldn't get a good answer other than maybe there is some questionable content because people were willing to say it is no worse that what kids say to each other in school - and they say some pretty bad stuff . . . so that probably doesn't help either!

I am going to listen to it, but I will probably not start until next week. I can tell you what I encounter after I do if no one else responds by then.

Starting to get into the community planning in Boulder. This is where I remember it slowing down a lot in the abridged version . . .

I read the abridged several years ago and I am really starting to think the editing in it made it a better flowing story overall.

Looks like I am about to meet The Kid. I have heard that he is one of the main - and most disturbing - additions to the extended version of The Stand.

Discuss American Gods by Neil Gaiman here.

The winner was American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Voting ends tomorrow - still pretty close between American Gods and Middlesex!

Daniel - I did continue and I am almost done. Some of it I am enjoying, but still a lot of filler that I think might be reflective of literature of that time period and genre.

Hmmmm - it appears I may have finished what is actually Little Women and it might explain the difference in unabridged length I encountered. I finished Part 1, which Wikipedia says is the original Little Women. I am in Part 2, which is often referred to as book 2 of the series called Good Wives. Wikipedia also mentions that frequently audio versions (which is what I am doing) combine the first two books into one.

Anyone have thoughts on this? Did I finish Little Women?

For September 2016 we will be reading one of 8 selections from the Modern Must-Read Poll. All of these books is from one of our lists and has been release in or since 2000.

Please vote - even if you do not plan to join us, it is interesting to see what the group is interested in!

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Okay - people are starting to meet up . . . westward ho!

Just ran into a rather large patch of content that does not seem to advance the story . . . a bit of a drag . . .

Daniel wrote: "I've seen the Winona Ryder movie version many times, so it's been helpful already knowing the characters' names and having a picture of each in my head going in. Jo is my favorite. Beth is too cute..."

It took a little while for me to get everyone organized in my head - I have never seen a movie version and I don't know anything about the story.

Chapters are getting loooooooooong and there are some characters I have not seen for a long time. For me, this section is where the unabridged is really sticking out.

Would you believe, even with right around 700 or so pages left I am wondering how he is going to fit in everything I know is left.

This is pretty good so far. I like all the little anecdotes.

Valerie wrote: "I think sometimes they get mislabeled as unabridged on library sites sometimes. I noticed that LOTR Fellowship shows unabridged on Hoopla, but it says it is 3 hours and 30 minutes. I suspect it is a dramatization. "

Or, maybe the guy from those old Micro Machines commercials reads it?

I started the audio today on the way to work.

One interesting thing I noticed is that Overdrive has an unabridged version that says it is 9 hours. Hoopla has one that is 19 hours. How can they be that much different and both be unabridged!?!?!