You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion
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Chit Chat About Books
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What are you reading and why? Jul-Dec 2014
Unfortunately I have to throw in my vote towards that not being a Cherie type book at all
You don't think we could convert her? LOL! Just teasing, Cherie.
That gas mask man was a pretty disturbing character. And those freaky kids calling on phone and the 2 kids right at the very end
Travis of NNY wrote: "That gas mask man was a pretty disturbing character. And those freaky kids calling on phone and the 2 kids right at the very end"seee?? You are already scaring me! I will listen to the sample. I can still buy it for my daughter. She likes that stuff. ☺
I am not doing well on the reading side. too busy andI have my term exam next week for my chinese class so guess what I am doing this weekend? I finished The Slow Regard of Silent Things and The Paris Architect. (fianlly!!)
In paper, I am stilll reading my november challenge and Ready Player One finally made it way to me.
in audio, I started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fotr the monthly challenge.
Esther wrote: "I am no doing well on the reading side. too busy andI have my term exam next week for my chinese class so guess what I am doing this weekend? I finished [book:The Slow Regard of Silent Things|215..."
Good luck with your exam Esther! :)
Esther wrote: "in audio, I started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fotr the monthly challenge. "That's 5 words. The challenge for December is to read a book with 6 or more words.
I just finished Heir of Novron and with that the whole Riyria Revelations. I loved it! Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...I think I won't be reading anything else tonight, I have to stay with Riyria for a bit. Tomorrow I'll start my challenge book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
I always read this thread and forget to ever actually tell what I'm reading. Today it is Lock In. Enjoying it as usual with Scalzi and a Wil Wheaton narration. This book was released with both him and another read by a woman because the lead character Chris was never given a definite gender. I have both versions since it was a buy one get the other free deal. Anyway I find myself constantly searching and listening for any type of gender on Chris. Personally I thibk it was intended to be a male just from a couple things said in a kind of vulgar way more common to hear from a man. I'm considering now listning to both versions to see if the atory changes at all if the character is a woman vs a man. Eiher way it is interesting to have a character with a kind of unisex name and try to picture it as either gender.
Peggy wrote: "I just finished Heir of Novron and with that the whole Riyria Revelations. I loved it! Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...I think I won..."
I've put that series on my list, sounds good!
Interesting about the book, Travis. How hard it must have been to intentionally write a character without any gender clues. You have me curious enough to read one of his books now, just to see. :)
Travis of NNY wrote: "I always read this thread and forget to ever actually tell what I'm reading. Today it is Lock In. Enjoying it as usual with Scalzi and a Wil Wheaton narration. This book was releas..."The female narrator is Tara from Buffy (Willow's girlfriend) if anyone is interested.
Travis of NNY wrote: "I always read this thread and forget to ever actually tell what I'm reading. Today it is Lock In. Enjoying it as usual with Scalzi and a Wil Wheaton narration. This book was releas..."I'd be interested to hear what you think Travis if you do listen to both.
That certainly would be interesting to listen to both Travis. Scalzi must be a pretty good author to be able to pull that off successfully. I might have to read this asap. Two great narrators were chosen for the reading.
Peggy wrote: "I just finished Heir of Novron and with that the whole Riyria Revelations. I loved it!"Thanks Peggy! I'm glad you enjoyed your time in Elan with Royce and Hadrian. Always love seeing posts like yours.
Travis of NNY wrote: "his book was released with both him and another read by a woman because the lead character Chris was never given a definite gender. I have both versions since it was a buy one get the other free deal."Yeah I took note of this when it came out - a brilliant move on the part of Audible. I love that they spent the extra money with two different narrators...and gave one for free. Good stuff!
Cherie wrote: "Interesting about the book, Travis. How hard it must have been to intentionally write a character without any gender clues. You have me curious enough to read one of his books now, just to see. :)"I had to do something similar, because I wrote a science fiction book where there were no genders (and everyone was a clone based on the same pattern). So no he, she, his, her - It took a lot of proof reading to make sure all the pronouns were gone. The "neutral gender" aspect is a point of contention in our house, as my wife is stedfast in her believe that Pax is more "a man" while my daughter is convinced of just the opposite. That kind of feedback makes me think I walked the line pretty well.
I finished last night and people are right there isn't one slip to give a gender anywhere. I'll wait a bit and then listen to the other. I want to see just how much a narrator influences my oerspective. The character felt like it should have been a man but I'm curious to see if I'm listening to a woman if tje character is instantly going to change in my mind as needing to be a woman. As for the rest of the characters he has them all jumbled up. There are a number of woman characters, has some gay characters and at no point is there any discrimination to anyone except the infected. I'm thinking if I wait a bit to get Wil Wheaton out of my head Chris will easily be believed as female and change nothing in the book.I picked up Hollow World the other day so I'll be sure to do the same thing. Let my brain try to figure if one gender fits better than the other.
Anna wrote: "Esther wrote: "in audio, I started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fotr the monthly challenge. "That's 5 words. The challenge for December is to read a book with 6 or more words."
S
Drat. You are right. It's 6... I have the attention span of a Hamster lately...
Esther wrote: "Anna wrote: "Esther wrote: "in audio, I started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fotr the monthly challenge. "That's 5 words. The challenge for December is to read a book with 6 or more words...."
Are you at least enjoying the book even if it doesn't fit the challenge?
Travis of NNY wrote: "Esther wrote: "Anna wrote: "Esther wrote: "in audio, I started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close fotr the monthly challenge. "That's 5 words. The challenge for December is to read a book with 6..."
Not sure... I think my expectations were too high.
Travis of NNY wrote: "I picked up Hollow World the other day so I'll be sure to do the same thing. Let my brain try to figure if one gender fits better than the other."Hey that's great - thanks! From the feedback I've gotten so far people definitely come to a conclusion as to what gender they think of Pax as. It comes out when they do reviews when they use a particular gender pronoun. Late in the editing I did fine a stray "he" which I knew was added by my copy editors because for whatever reason I lean toward a "she" for Pax. Hopefully that was the only mistake, and since it got edited out you'll not come across any others.
My "go to book" for long titles is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: A novel which is exceptional by the way. I highly recommend it.
Michael wrote: "Travis of NNY wrote: "I picked up Hollow World the other day so I'll be sure to do the same thing. Let my brain try to figure if one gender fits better than the other."Hey that's great - thanks! ..."
That's interesting. I have picked up the audiobook as well, so will be more conscious of what gender I interpret Pax to be.
Someone needs to do a study - what impact does the gender of the narrator have towards the assumption of the character's gender? Do female readers tend to assign "female" to the character? What gender do male readers assign to it?
I recall reading a few years back about a family (seems to me they were in eastern Canada), where they did not reveal the gender of their last child. They completely erased all gender stereotyping and allowed the child to wear whatever clothes he/she wanted to wear, play with whatever toys he/she wanted to play with.
Janice wrote: "Someone needs to do a study - what impact does the gender of the narrator have towards the assumption of the character's gender? Do female readers tend to assign "female" to the character? What gender do male readers assign to it?"I can't say I've done a comprehensive study, but I certainly have seen that many books with female protagonists have female narrators and vice-versa for male protagonists. With so many gender-neutral books coming out it is interesting to see how it is being handled.
"I recall reading a few years back about a family (seems to me they were in eastern Canada), where they did not reveal the gender of their last child. They completely erased all gender stereotyping and allowed the child to wear whatever clothes he/she wanted to wear, play with whatever toys he/she wanted to play with."
I think there have been a few of those - and interesting results when analyzed. In my own household none of the "women" (wife and 2 daughters) have ever worn makeup or dressed very femininely (jeans always preferred to dresses/skirts). My middle daughter tends to gravitate toward men's ware (vests, ties, bowler hat). She and my wife watch Project Runway and are always remaking there are a lot more "gender neutral" designers coming about these days as well.
When Sarah was young - she played with Disney "princess dolls" a lot (Aerial, Belle, etc), but nowadays she is much more into what most would classify as male-oriented.
Michael wrote: "I can't say I've done a comprehensive study, but I certainly have seen that many books with female protagonists have female narrators and vice-versa for male protagonists. With so many gender-neutral books coming out it is interesting to see how it is being handled.."I commented a couple of days ago about the narrator fitting the book and saying something to the effect that a gruff male voice likely wouldn't fit a young female protagonist.
But perhaps I need to amend that to say that it really depends on the narrator's ability to convey the character. Tim Gerard Reynolds was fabulous in the Riyria Revelations. His female voices for Arista, Mercy, and Thrace did not detract from their characters. But then, it was never intended that there be ambiguity about their gender.
So, yes, interesting to see gender neutral characters coming out and how they are being handled by authors, narrators, and readers.
I'm chuckling about you mentioning that the women in your family wearing jeans in favour of dresses or skirts because a friend of mine asked me last summer, "Do you ever wear dresses?"
Travis of NNY wrote: "I always read this thread and forget to ever actually tell what I'm reading. Today it is Lock In. Enjoying it as usual with Scalzi and a Wil Wheaton narration. This book was releas..."Really interesting, Travis. I'll take a look.
Michael wrote: "My "go to book" for long titles is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: A novel which is exceptional by the way. I highly recommend it."I agree Michael, it's really excepcional. A 5* reading.
Janice wrote: "Michael wrote: "Travis of NNY wrote: "I picked up Hollow World the other day so I'll be sure to do the same thing. Let my brain try to figure if one gender fits better than the other."Hey that's ..."
I remember reading about this family in the newspaper. I still remember the child name is Storm.
Michael wrote: "Cherie wrote: "Interesting about the book, Travis. How hard it must have been to intentionally write a character without any gender clues. You have me curious enough to read one of his books now,..."You made me think how this neutral genre would work in Spanish (my native language) since all the nouns are feminine or masculine (like French and Italian). If you want to say that someone is tired, you need to use the feminine or the masculine "tired" (cansada or cansado). I can only think in saying someone is "feeling tiredness" (siente cansancio) to avoid the problem. :)
I'll need to check if something like this is being done in Spanish!
That's a really interesting point Sandra. I'd be interested to know if any such books like that have been translated in to Spanish too and how they have got around that or whether they have assumed a gender and gone with that.
Never rea the books yet so doesn't matter to me but to those who have jk Rowling is releasing a harry potter story everyday for 12 days the 12 hp days of christmas i guess. Starts on the 12-12 I hink on pottermore site
Travis of NNY wrote: "I always read this thread and forget to ever actually tell what I'm reading. Today it is Lock In. Enjoying it as usual with Scalzi and a Wil Wheaton narration. This book was releas..."I've seen that book show up on some lists and such, but I've never even read the synopsis until just now. Your description of the gender neutral main character sounded interesting and the synopsis even more so. Definitely adding this one to my TBR!
My hubby sent me info on the Harry Potter series on pottermore!! I'm so excited to read the new stories!!
Travis of NNY wrote: "Never rea the books yet so doesn't matter to me but to those who have jk Rowling is releasing a harry potter story everyday for 12 days the 12 hp days of christmas i guess. Starts on the 12-12 I h..."Ooh, that is exciting! I'm a new HP convert as of this year and I now love everything Harry Potter. I'll for sure be checking these short stories! :)
I love books with dogs in them! Was it a good read?
I finished The Haunted. The ending was original for a horror story. But, I enjoyed the ride.Next up is Code Name Verity.
Thanks for the HP tip, Travis.
Janice wrote: "I finished The Haunted. The ending was original for a horror story. But, I enjoyed the ride.Next up is Code Name Verity."
I have this one marked to read, but I am not sure it is my kind of story. ☺
Cherie wrote: "I have this one marked to read, but I am not sure it is my kind of story. ☺ ..."Me either. I got it on sale at Audible. It may not be the best book for me to be reading right now. But then, I'm willing to give it a good try.
I finished The Quiet Girl today. It was just an okay read/listen. I had a lot of trouble with the narrator, I didn't know which character was speaking a lot of the time.
I'm reading my final chunkster: All the light we cannot see. Really enjoying it so far.
I'm reading (still) The Illustrated Man and Wuthering Heights. I put those on a bit of a pause since the latest James Patterson women's murder club book, Unlucky 13, FINALLY arrived at the library for me :) I am loving that book of course but am not sure about the other two:)
Peggy wrote: "I'm reading my final chunkster: All the light we cannot see. Really enjoying it so far."Great story, Peggie! Really touching.
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You'll love this one...!! A book club & more
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She was brilliant and enhanced the story so much. I'm really glad I listened to the book rather than read it.