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[FearfulJesuit]

OK. I think, given the amount of effort to read short stories and poems in a language I'm learning, I can probably get away with overcounting the longer ones. The cantos of Caramuru, for example, are ninety eight-line stanzas long.

Spoiler: 6/52 (click to show/hide)

A Hora e Vez de Augusto Matraga by João Guimarães Rosa. Rosa is the man. I do not know if this has been translated into English. The petty and jerkish farmer Augusto Matraga nearly dies, then is rescued and fights to be redeemed. There's apparently a movie version.

Caramuru, book I. The Roman Gods are sent by Satan to send a ship of Portuguese sailors to the coast of Bahia, where a few are eaten by cannibals. Weird stuff.

Iracema by José de Alencar. Don't waste your time with de Alencar; he's the embodiment of everything people love to hate about 19th-century novelists. The book was short, but he's longwinded, the prose is so purple it's ultraviolet, everyone (Indians, women- hell, even the Portuguese men) is patronized and idealized to the point of saccharineness- eugh. I can see why the 19th century Brazilian reading public liked him, but I shall not be picking up more of his work.

Some short stories by Nelson Rodrigues (I think somewhere around twenty)? He's a lot of fun, and has appeared in translation.

Tender is the Night, which I found in English at a used book stall. It's...Fitzgerald. What do I say? It's enjoyable, sad, funny, unbelievably well-written.

[Sappho]

Spoiler: first 19 (click to show/hide)

Junky - William S. Burroughs
Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm - Nancy Farmer
American Gods (Author's Preferred Ed) - Neil Gaiman
Hell - Robert Olen Butler
Seven Emus - Xavier Herbert
Jamestown - Matthew Sharpe
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne
A Child Called 'It' - David Pelzer
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Diary - Chuck Palahniuk
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

I want to take a couple of minutes here to say a few things about the book I finished last night: The Lemurian Stone by Stephen F. Hickman.

I often stop into "Antikvariat" shops (second-hand bookstores) and look at the English books they have available. I've found some real gems there. But for two years, I saw this book, the Lemurian Stone, on the shelf, and now and then I'd flip through the first few pages and set it back down. It seemed like typical standard fantasy fare, and I've had enough of that really. Finally, a year ago, I desperately needed something for the 9-hour flight to the USA to visit my family, so I just bought it. I opened it when we were in the air and didn't close it until I had finished the book.

I was very wrong about this book. It's not "standard fantasy" at all, but something quite unique and original. And the imagery is amazing - turns out the book is not written by a writer at all, but by a painter. As you read it, it's clear that the author can see in great detail the incredible places and actions he's describing, and he has the ability to make you see it just as clearly. I sometimes dream about these places now.

The book is not perfect. There are some printing errors, and even the occasional spelling mistake or minor grammar error that makes you wonder if it was properly proofed before printing. Normally these things are a deal-breaker for me, but in this case I can forgive them.

This time around I really took my time with the book. It is very slow reading because the imagery is so dense. Action scenes take a particularly long time to get through because movements are described so precisely. But I got far more out of it this time than I did before. And I will read it again in the future.

Has anyone else read this one? I'm curious if other DF fans have the same reaction as me.

[varnish]

Read Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis. Fun, if ridiculous in some parts. It was interesting for me to read the parts set in the twin cities, because I live there now. You can't see farm fields from the hills around lake calhoun anymore, that's for sure.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Froissart's Chronicles
2. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
3. Patricia McKillip - In the Forests of Serre
4. The Song of Roland
5. Andrea Moore Kerr - Lucy Stone: Speaking out for Equality
6. Ursula Le Guin - The Eye of the Heron
7. Tove Jansson - The Summer Book
8. Patricia McKillip - Od Magic
9. Mary Antin - The Promised Land
10. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
11. Gifts - Ursula Le Guin
12. Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
13. Main Street - Sinclair Lewis

I don't care about the number of books! I'm just going to read at the pace I want to.

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 18/52 completed (click to show/hide)

• Poké Wars: The Subsistence
  118,768 words
  Decent concept and interesting actions scenes, but the typos are fairly obvious even if you're not looking for them.
• Practical Ethics
  359 pages of content, 395 with notes and index
  Philosophy is fun, especially when you're a awkward introspective seventeen year old!
• Poké Wars: The Coalescence
  72,269 words
  It's definately readable, I'll give it that.
• The Last Dragon Slayer
  289 pages
  Jasper Fforde is one of my favorite authors, and this book is a good example why. Witty, fun and with amazing world building.
• The Emotion Machine
  346 pages, 387 with index
  While probably more relevant to my dream of working on AI, a lot less interesting than Practical Ethics. Good thing I just got Animal Liberation by Peter Singer from the library.
  
• Animal Liberation
  248 pages, 324 with everything else
  Animal Liberation is amazing, and will make you look at the world completely differently.
  
• The Saga of Tuck:Tuck Season
  ~250,000 words
  I read weird things on the internet. Sometimes I reread them.
• Flatland
  100 pages plus introductions
  Social Commentary on Victorian culture using a 2d world of shape-people.
• Blue Remembered Earth
  505 Pages
  I really needed some Sci-Fi to unfry my brain. Consider it uncooked.
• Catch-22
  561 Pages
  Just so good. Witty and painful at the same time.
• Rethinking Life and Death
  222 Pages
  Because books on ethics are fun to read.
• Interworld
  239 Pages
  Gotta read fast.
• Harry Potter and the Natural 20
  156,141 words
  Because Binge reading fan fic is the best possible way to spend a Sunday.
• Plato The Republic
  358 pages
  Because why not.
• The Sirens of Titan
  Kurt Vonnegut
  219 pages
  That was.... not the happiest book I've read.
• The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
  Robert A. Heinlein
  382 pages
  That was actually a really good book, although I wouldn't really classify it as Sci-Fi
• Abusing Science:The Case Against Creationism
  Philip Kitcher
  202 pages
  A good book arguing against Scientific creationist claims, instead of the more prolific "IF WE CAME FROM MONKEYS WHY ARE THERE STILL MONKEYS CHECKMATE ATHEISTS"
• YOU
  Austin Grossman
  383 pages
  A book on the game industry, and growing up.

Finished YOU, wasn't expecting such a melancholy ending.

[Dutchling]

Book #6 has been read.

Millennium by Tom Holland. Spoiler alert: It's about the millennium. Historic shizzle.

[i2amroy]

And another book finished! Sourcery, by Terry Pratchett, and an excellent read it was. Also I've just noticed that for some odd reason the discworld book list inside the cover is printed with the order going from bottom right to top left, meaning that I've actually been reading the books of the series in the reverse order that they were published.

Spoiler: Books Finished 21/52 (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
When Darkness Falls - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Lear's Daughters - Marjorie Kellogg with William Rossow
Rhapsody: Child of Blood - Elizabeth Haydon
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire
Late Eclipses - Seanan McGuire
The Redemption of Althalus - David and Leigh Eddings
Ghost Story - Jim Butcher
Cold Days - Jim Butcher
Prophecy: Child of Earth - Elizabeth Haydon
Destiny: Child of Sky - Elizabeth Hadon
Into the Storm - Taylor Anderson
Crusade - Taylor Anderson
Maelstrom - Taylor Anderson
Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
Sourcery - Terry Pratchett

Total Pages: 9947

And today marks the end of week 18, for those of you tracking!

And the next one goes down! Boy I just love summer! The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett comes in at 210 pages and quite a few laughs. I am highly looking forward to starting the immediate sequel sometime in the next few days.

Spoiler: Books Finished 22/52 (click to show/hide)

Valentine's Exile - E.E. Knight
Valentine's Resolve - E.E. Knight
Fall With Honor - E.E. Knight
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
When Darkness Falls - Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
Lear's Daughters - Marjorie Kellogg with William Rossow
Rhapsody: Child of Blood - Elizabeth Haydon
An Artificial Night - Seanan McGuire
Late Eclipses - Seanan McGuire
The Redemption of Althalus - David and Leigh Eddings
Ghost Story - Jim Butcher
Cold Days - Jim Butcher
Prophecy: Child of Earth - Elizabeth Haydon
Destiny: Child of Sky - Elizabeth Hadon
Into the Storm - Taylor Anderson
Crusade - Taylor Anderson
Maelstrom - Taylor Anderson
Small Gods - Terry Pratchett
Pyramids - Terry Pratchett
Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett
Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
The Color of Magic -Terry Pratchett

Total Pages: 10,157

[Dutchling]

Finished book #7: The call of Cthulhu and other weird tales, by Lovecraft. Definitely a good book, although none of the stories are even remotely scary. Plot twists aren't very common either.

[Lectorog]

Lovecraft is not a good writer, but his descriptions are interesting. That's about all his short stories are good for.

[Lectorog]

Let me put it another way:
Lovecraft's strong point is his description. He uses language to paint vivid images of truly strange entities and situations. He knows when language is not as powerful as the human imagination and leaves the appropriate blanks to be filled in.

Lovecraft does not create good plots. His characters are simple and go through a very limited set of developments. His settings are more bland than is intended. He does not do a good job of telling a story - language and flow are not engaging. His stories have little lasting effect.

I'm not pointing out Lovecraft's one strength. I'm saying his stories could have been a lot better.

I'll hold my tongue on the matter if anyone offers a rebuttal or counterargument to keep the thread on track, but I'm a bit miffed and this is what I think.

Isn't this thread for discussing books? Just reporting what one reads would make for a boring thread.
If it isn't for discussion, I'll have to apologize.

[Ancre]

I wouldn't mind seeing this thread become a discussion about books. We might end up with a very long thread filled with pages of discussion though.

I finished another book - a history book, simply called "the french revolution" (La révolution française to be more exact). I don't have much to say, it wasn't well written, and it was mostly about political discussions and less about all the other stuff (the wars, the economy, the Terreur could have been more detailed) but it was interesting to see how things quickly evolved.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Jean Giraudoux - La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu (the Trojan war will not happen)
Jean Giraudoux - Electre
Jean Giraudoux - Ondine

Ciaran Carson - Belfast Confetti

"Gustave Doré, un peintre né"

Jean Racine - Britannicus
Jean Racine - Athalie
Jean Racine - Andromaque

"Greek literature from Homer to Aristotle" que sais-je editions

Stefan Zweig - The world of Yesterday (le monde d'hier, french edition)

"The French revolution" que sais-je editions

Now let's find something else to read in the subway !

[Dutchling]

I you want more history I can recommend Millennium by Tom Holland. It is very well written, for a history book.

[Sappho]

Spoiler: first 20 (click to show/hide)

Junky - William S. Burroughs
Sourcery - Terry Pratchett
The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm - Nancy Farmer
American Gods (Author's Preferred Ed) - Neil Gaiman
Hell - Robert Olen Butler
Seven Emus - Xavier Herbert
Jamestown - Matthew Sharpe
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne
A Child Called 'It' - David Pelzer
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Diary - Chuck Palahniuk
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
The Lemurian Stone - Stephen F. Hickman

Number 21: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre

I recommend this book. There was a lot of humor and a great deal of insight. Mostly it exposes just how effed-up the culture of the USA really is, how twisted and perverted it has become, especially in certain sub-cultures, and the kind of situations that can (and do) result. Large portions of the book were actually difficult to read - having been away from America for a few years I often forget just how strange and backwards it is - but it was worth it. I plan to lend it to some of my Czech friends as a way of helping them understand why I don't want to live over there anymore.

I actually found the book by accident at a Czech bookstore in a bargain bin just outside the front door. It's rare to find English-language books in a bargain bin in this country, particularly new ones, and it looked interesting so I grabbed it. I find a lot of good books that way.

Total Pages: 6076

[Pnx]

So I'm planning on picking up some books either tomorrow or the day after. I've got a few in mind, but I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for books they liked or felt were must reads.

This thread felt like a decent place to ask about it.

[Tiruin]

Oh wow, half of the year gone and I hear this challenge...

PTW for the moment. Hopefully getting things done along with this.

[Lectorog]

recommendations for books they liked or felt were must reads

House of Leaves
It's, like, $50 though, if you're purchasing it.