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ABOUT BOOKS AND READING
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What are U reading these days? (PART EIGHT (2012) (ONGOING THREAD for 2012)
Jackie wrote: "I'm doing a buddy-read with my Epic Fantasy pal, Christine: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. It's been on my shelves for years and I haven't managed to get any m..."I read Robert Jordan's author description at Goodreads. I always wonder where these authors find the time to write all these books. I see that Jordan was a nuclear engineer and began writing at the age of 29. Sorry to see that he has passed on. (He died at age 58.)
Wiki says: "His life was the subject of the feature length documentary The Wit of the Staircase: The Life and Works of Robert Jordan, scheduled for release in late 2011."
FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J...
The Wit of the Staircase: The Life and Work of Robert Jordan (2012)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1298655/
Netflix doesn't have it yet. Perhaps it hasn't been produced yet.
As far as keeping track of what I should read or watch, I try, but other titles keep popping up and bumping the others. That's true of my Netflix queues too. It's just impossible to keep up.
Margaret's read that series a couple of times. She usually throws book 6 down because an archer sticks his bow stave under a horse's girth for safe keeping & the horse doesn't mind or get sore.;-)
She picks it back up, though & has read all that are out. I think Sanderson has only 1 more book to finish up the series. I'm sure the Wikipedia page has all the facts. I've tried to read the series a couple of times, but it starts off slow & dry with lots of weird names, so I lost interest quickly. All the books are bricks & there will be 14 of them when all is said & done.
Jim wrote: "Margaret's read that series a couple of times. She usually throws book 6 down because an archer sticks his bow stave under a horse's girth for safe keeping & the horse doesn't mind or get sore. ;-..."Here's the Wiki link to the series, _The Wheel of Time_:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whee...
I have no knowledge of it but I'm posting the link for reference. Of course, the web page lists all the books in the series. I'm learning. :)
[NOTE TO MYSELF: _The Eye of the World_ is the first book in the series, published in 1990. There's also a prequel, [book:New Spring|187065], published in 2004.]
I don't think I'll read the series, from what I've heard from the fans it fizzles out into boredom midway in the series. I also read that Sanderson did a good job. Still, I don't need another 14 books series to read at the moment. I made a commitment to myself to thin out my shelves and only buy books to complete the series I have already. Getting rid of EotW will leave room for 2 or 3 books in it's place, lol
I think it does fizzle quite a bit for a few books & then picks back up. Maybe 6 - 9 or something.
EotW would have to be epic for me to get the rest of the series. So far it's not. Admittedly I'm not very far in, but nothing has happened. Yawn.
That was my reaction, Jackie. I've read some other pieces of his stuff & he never uses one word where he can stuff in 10. Not to my taste.
Jim wrote: "That was my reaction, Jackie. I've read some other pieces of his stuff & he never uses one word where he can stuff in 10. Not to my taste."Put it on a shelf named "wordy". :)
I put Middlemarch by George Eliot on that shelf. I never finished it.
My 'wordy' shelf is a subsection of 'could not finish'. We're alike in that respect.;-)
I just started listening to The Lone Star Ranger by Zane Grey. Ed Sala is the narrator & at first I didn't think I was going to like his voice. It's kind of scratchy & old, but it really fits the story.
I pretty much quit reading most formulaic westerns years ago. They were cliches run rampant with plots laid out in the first few paragraphs. Grey is the reason. He was one of the first authors to become a millionaire & molded many of the violent, romantic myths of the old west. His success launched a host of imitators, many of whom used his version of the west as their own. So, I wasn't expecting a fresh western from Grey. After all, he first published this novel in 1914. He's old school & the last time I tried reading one of his novels, I wasn't too thrilled.
What really surprises & delights me about this story is just how well the cliched young, quick-draw, gone-down-the-wrong-road-but-good-at-heart-anyway kid is drawn. After looking at the back end of those cliches all these years, seeing it from the front end is surprisingly refreshing. How can that be? I don't really know, just that it is. I think part of that comes from the laconic, gravelly drawl of Sala, but no reader can make a poorly written story into a delight. There's an economy & down-home fun to Grey's prose that just makes it fun to listen to.
Jim wrote: he never uses one word where he can stuff in 10. Not to my tasteNot to my liking either. I want to be captured by the story, when an author gets overly descriptive I get bored.
Jim, I have a question about the ending of, "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." I understood the beginning; the encounter with the Stranger(old Man) and then him going on alone and ending up living at first in a dream and then extended into years; his reaction to those very early times with his more recent time was interesting. I couldn't figure out the ending. Did he suddenly awake from his "dream." and what about the manuscript and the old man dying? Help. nina
He actually time traveled back by sleeping for 1300 years after Merlin put the spell on him at the end of the fight. He was the old man remembering, as the stranger fills in for us at the end.
Thanks, didn't he have a tremendous imagination? I think Huck Finn was one of my very favorite books. How could they think of banning it? It really is historical and a great story. I have read lot of his stories and glad you got me onto the Yankee.
Speaking of Western novels, what do you think of Louis L'Amour? I once listened to a story of his on audio while riding in the car. It was OK but I wasn't tempted to hear or read more of his work. I know he was very popular.
Jackie, "overly descriptive" is a good way to put it. I like a plot to move along and not get bogged down in description.
I forgot to mention one of the things I loved in the beginning of Mark Twain's "Conneticut Yankee..." was it started at Warwick Castle where I have been and also I toured his home in Hartford. Brought it all back.
Joy, Louis L'Amour is my wife's favorite author (of course, she's an avid Western fan), though she mostly only reads his Westerns. (He used quite a few other settings in his fiction, though he's best known for the Westerns.) I've read and liked one of his books and a couple of his short stories, and want to read more of his work. He researched his Western history very well; and unlike Grey, he didn't write his dialouge in thick Western dialect (which makes Grey harder for some modern readers to understand).
Werner, I don't enjoy reading dialect. In fact, that's one of the reasons I didn't finish reading Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Besides, I found it depressing.
An excellent book about the West is Angle of Repose (1971) by Wallace Stegner. It's not a "Western" in the usual sense. It centers around the mining industry. The title refers to "the maximum angle to the horizontal at which rocks, soil, etc, will remain without sliding".At LibraryThing I found the following awards for the book:
Pulitzer Prize (Fiction, 1972)
The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels: The Board's List (82)
New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 1971)
San Francisco Chronicle list of The 20th Century's 100 Best Fiction of the American West (1999)
Esquire's 75 Books Every Man Should Read
I read it as part of an online book group in the late 1990s. I'm so glad I had the experience of reading it. I recommend it. I've never forgotten how good it was. Stegner was a wonderful writer. I just now discovered that Goodreads' description of him says: "Some call him 'The Dean of Western Writers'."
Joy H. wrote: "Speaking of Western novels, what do you think of Louis L'Amour? I once listened to a story of his on audio while riding in the car. It was OK but I wasn't tempted to hear or read more ..."L'Amour is one of the few western authors I'll read. Most of them parody Zane Grey poorly, but L'Amour has more than that to his. The Sackett series is interesting, but Bendigo Shafter & The Lonesome Gods are two of my favorites.
Right now I'm listening to an audio book of The Lone Star Ranger. Grey pretty well set the mark for westerns - one of the first writers ever to become a millionaire. So, while his writing is often cliche, it's still good because he actually started the cliche. That makes a difference.
Jim wrote: "... [Zane] Grey pretty well set the mark for westerns - one of the first writers ever to become a millionaire. So, while his writing is often cliche, it's still good because he actually started the cliche. That makes a difference."Interesting comment about cliches, Jim.
My thoughts about cliches have always centered around the idea that a novice doesn't realize that he has encountered a cliche. So it's not a cliche to a novice.
Thanks for the info too.
Hi, everyone! I happen to be reading a Western--Fear Town.. I seldom read Westerns but it is not bad. Very busy the first few weeks of January. so not much read. Hoping to get more done next week.
I forgot to ask my question! When someone clicks on a book, there is a review next to the book, uncredited. Possibly from the book jacket or catalog.This appears before any of my friends' reviews. Does this always show up? The reason I ask is if everyone can read that summary, then I need not cover it in my review.
Thank you for your help!
Hi Mary JL,Do you mean a synopsis, for example on Fear Town I see this: Tired of the wandering life, Martin Mossman comes to Vega, Colorado, to visit his brother, Ray, and becomes caught up in the battle to rid the frontier town of a corrupt group with a penchant for rigging elections and murdering opponents. Original.
Then below that it says Mary JL is currently reading.
If I had any friends who reviewed this book, it would be in that section also.
Yes, Jackie. In other words, anyone checking out the book gets the synopsis as you saw it so I need not repeat that info. Thank you!
Mary JL, you're right. You need not give a synopsis of the book in your review. What you might write is what you thought of the book, i.e., what you liked about it and/or what you didn't like.Actually, I write my reviews as much for myself as for others. Since I usually forget many of my impressions, I like to record them while they're fresh in my mind, if I have time. Sometimes I like to include a synopsis for my own benefit, to remind myself in the future what the book was about.
It's your business what you write in your review. Don't worry about what others might think about what you include or don't include in your review. As I say, your review is there for you, just as much as it is there for others.
I looked up the meaning of "book review" and among the definitions, I found the following: "a critical description, evaluation, or analysis of a book".
FROM: http://dictionary.reference.com/brows...
That gives us plenty of latitude. Feel free put down your own thoughts about the book, in your own way.
Sometimes I find myself unable to put into words the way I feel about a book. At times like that, I sometimes write nothing. Other times, I look for what others have said and, if I find those words valuable and/or they resonate with me, I copy and paste them into my review, giving the attribution or source of those words.
As far as I'm concerned, anything goes when it comes to our own reviews. If you look around at other member reviews, you will see that to be true. :)
Joy H. wrote: "Mary JL,... Don't worry about what others might think about what you include or don't include in your review. As I say, your review is there for you, just as much as it is there for others...."If someone, especially a friend, writes a good review & you like it, you should click the 'like' button, though. That helps some of us out. I get free books to read sometimes because I'm listed as one of the popular reviewers due to the number of 'likes'. I don't do reviews for that reason, but it's a nice perk.
I was surprised when a friend of mine pointed out that I was one of the most popular reviewers on GR. She had found out that she made the top 100 & said I rated higher, so I asked the next time I was offered a book to read & found out that was the reason. The number shows up a little ways under your picture on your profile page. I'd never noticed it before, but I rarely look at my profile.
;-)
I have liked several reviews and try to remember to click on them, Jim.Some books are easier to review because I did not like them much! If a book was only okay, my review is usally shorter.
But by knowing that everyne sees the synopsis that GR has, I can spend more space on my review--and less summarizing the plot.
Btw, I do the reviews mainly for myself--though i do like to suggest goodies to my friends. It is nice if I get a like--but not essential. It is mainly for my own memory that I do my reviews so I can recall which book was which. Very handy if you read a lot of series.
Of course, some books are so good, we always remember them. We all have a few of those books!
I don't review that many books, what can I say that hasn't already been said, and better than I could say it? If a book is excellent, or if it's truly awful, then I'll write a short review. I won't waste time reviewing mediocre books, it's bad enough I wasted my time read them.
I agree with you. With all the books out there I guess we are bound to hook up with some forgettable ones; neither good nor bad. Two of the best 2011 reads for me were, "Gone With the Wind," and "The Forgotten Garden."Not great but good was, "The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet." Also, "The Hedgehog," was a favorite for last year's read. I am now reading, "The Habit," about an 85 year old lady who becomes a nun.
But it's what tickles or turns off my friends about a book that guides me to reading the very best. That's why I try to write decent reviews for each one. Our tastes all vary, but there are some places where I know I'm in perfect agreement with my friends here on GR. It's what makes the site, IMO.
I am trying to think of my favorite western now; I think the title was "The Last Cattle Drive," and the author's last name was Day. It must have been good as I still remember from reading it years ago how much I liked it.
Jim, do you know the diff between 'best reviewers' and 'top reviewers'?
I think 'best' have the most likes while 'top' means the person has a larger number of reviews.It's kind of interesting to look at some of those numbers. One friend of mine, Stephen, seems to publish a couple daily & regularly gets 50 likes per review, but I don't think he's the top reviewer.
Thanks for the info. I was just curious. I read Stephen's, as well as your's, whenever they come up.
finished my Western. Now starting a mystery, No Second Chance, by Harland Coben. He is a new author for me.
Mary JL wrote: "finished my Western. Now starting a mystery, No Second Chance, by Harland Coben. He is a new author for me."I've heard the name Harlan Coben but know nothing about him. I looked at the GR description to learn more. It says that he's "International bestselling author". It also says:
===============================================
"Since 1995, Harlan Coben has won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award, and the Anthony Award Ð the first writer to win all three. In 2004 he was shortlisted for the Author of the Year Award for the British Book Awards, dubbed "The Oscars of the Book Trade." He was the first American to make the list.
FROM: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...
================================================
PS-Harlan Coben is famous for the bestseller, Tell No One (2000) and the film adaptation "Tell No One" (2006). (Language: French) (Genre: Thriller, Crime Fiction)http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362225/
http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Tell_...
"Eight years ago, pediatrician Alexandre Beck was the prime suspect in his wife's murder. He's put all that behind him, but now that two dead bodies have been found near his home, he's suspected of wrongdoing once again."
The film won a good number of awards, including the British Independent Film Award.
A Netflix member review says of the film: "Some people may find this frustrating, and if you like straight narrative films where you're never confused, I definitely wouldn't recommend this film to you. If you sometimes like a twisty-turny tale that keeps you thinking, even in a foreign film, I would recommend Tell No One for viewing."
FROM: http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Tell_...
Mary JL wrote: "finished my Western. Now starting a mystery, No Second Chance, by Harland Coben. He is a new author for me."Mary JL, please let us know how you liked the book and if it was hard to follow.
My dentist likes Harlan Coben. He gave me the first book he wrote, Play Dead, with the warning that it wasn't his best. I certainly hope not. My review is here:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Hopefully mine will be better--it is his 9th book. so far, okay, but I've only read a little.
Jim wrote: "My dentist likes Harlan Coben. He gave me the first book he wrote, Play Dead, with the warning that it wasn't his best. I certainly hope not. My review is here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/... " Jim, that was an interesting review. My first thought is that, because of your vast reading background, some films may be more predictable to you than they might be to someone like me who has had less reading experience over the years. There were many years in which I didn't have time or energy to give to reading. So I'm not familiar with many of the plot formulas which you may be familiar with.
Another thought is how important it is to our enjoyment of a story for us to feel connected to the characters or to be interested in them or to like them.
And a third thought is that it's important for a book to be OUR kind of material. We all have certain preferences. For example, I'm not drawn to mysteries or thrillers. So I turn off at the mention of them. (That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed certain ones in the past. It's just that they are few and far between.)
I enjoyed your review because you got to the "meat" of your reaction to the book.
No Second Chance is Coben's fifth book; not his ninth. My error.So far, I am on page 202 and am finding it very promising. Perhaps he is one oof those author who do improve with each book.
A couple of confusing plot twists---hopefully to be made clear and the grand finale---but so far reasonably easy to read. If he does not drop the ball with a weak ending, I am probably going to rate it a strong 3 stars.
Hope to finish by Friday and will post as soon as I finish.
Thanks, Joy. Actually, the plot was pretty predictable from most TV shows.Mary JL, from what my dentist has said, I think you'll be happy & stay that way with him.
No, this isn't really my sort of book. I do read one occasionally, but prefer grittier, shorter mysteries. I just listened to my first one by Elmore Leonard, Killshot & was quite impressed - simple, fast, & powerful.
Mary JL wrote: "No Second Chance is Coben's fifth book; not his ninth. My error. ... A couple of confusing plot twists---hopefully to be made clear and the grand finale---but so far reasonably easy to read. If he does not drop the ball with a weak ending, I am probably going to rate it a strong 3 stars. "
Those "confusing plot twists" always get me down. :)
Jim wrote: "... I just listened to my first one by Elmore Leonard, Killshot & was quite impressed - simple, fast, & powerful. "FROM WIKI:
=============================================
"Commended by critics for his gritty realism and strong dialogue ... Elmore Leonard has been called "the Dickens of Detroit" because of his intimate portraits of people from that city... His ear for dialogue has been praised by writers such as Saul Bellow, Martin Amis, and Stephen King. "Your prose makes Raymond Chandler look clumsy," Amis told Leonard at a Writers Guild event in Beverly Hills in 1998."
FROM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmore_L...
===============================================
Although I'm familiar with Elmore Leonard's name (I don't know how), I haven't read anything by him. The only "Leonard" on my GR shelves is: Leonard Maltin's 2000 Movie and Video Guide. :) (Actually, I also own the 2011 edition, which I received as a gift.)
No one has commented on the Oscar Nominations or if they have I haven't received the message. I don't seem to have a Jan 24 or 25th.
Nina wrote: "No one has commented on the Oscar Nominations or if they have I haven't received the message. I don't seem to have a Jan 24 or 25th."Nina, there are so many award shows going on that I can't keep up with them. I missed the Golden Globes but managed to watch some highlights on YouTube.
Here's a link listing the future schedule for the many 2012 Award ceremonies. (They won't all be on TV.): http://theenvelope.latimes.com/factsh...
SOME OF THE DATES:
1/28 - DIRECTOR'S GUILD
1/29 - SAG AWARDS [TV: TNT & TBS]
2/12 - BAFTA
2/12 - GRAMMIES
2/25 - INDEPENDENT SPIRIT
2/25 - RAZZIES
2/26 - OSCARS
Nina wrote: "No one has commented on the Oscar Nominations or if they have I haven't received the message. I don't seem to have a Jan 24 or 25th."I never watch any actor awards. I try to pay no attention to actors except in their job capacity - acting in a particular show. I don't care how many wives they have or drunk they get. They're actors - paid to pretend to be something they're not in a world that only exists on screen. I don't care what my mail man does in his personal life either, so long as he gets my mail to me on time every day. It's none of my business.
If that sounds grumpy, it is. I'm tired of people saying they're going to boycott a film because an actor got drunk & said something stupid, especially when they have a known drinking problem. Like that actor is the only person relying on income from the film. Did the other actors have anything to say about who they were working with? Of course not. Has anyone else ever gotten drunk & said stupid stuff? Happens all the time, so folks just need to get over it & MYOB.
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