Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[varnish]

Just finished In the Forests of Serre, by Patricia McKillip. All sorts of folktales and myths tangled together in one book. A lot of her books are about storytelling, I think, in different forms.

Books:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Froissart's Chronicles
2. Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
3. Patricia McKillip - In the Forests of Serre

[Frumple]

Eesh. Took me nearly a week to get around to finishing book(ish thing) two, and then less than a day (more like... four or five hours.) to finish the third. Despite them being the same size, more or less, in terms of wordage. Good readin's good readin'. But I really should have been sleeping. Though that was, at least, much better done than book(thing) two.

[Sappho]

I enjoyed the Iliad. I couldn't really get immersed in the Bible though. I guess the Silmarillion is really more like the Old Testament than a classic Epic. : )

I wish I could get into it, though. I'm a massive fan of Tolkien and I feel like I'm missing something for never having gotten through this book.

Say, shouldn't I be reading now? My next book has to be a a non-fiction analysis of learning and education in 3-6-year-old children by Maria Montessori, translated in English and lent to me by my boss. It's interesting reading but BONE dry and hard to get through quickly. I might have to do this one in installments, with a different novel between each chapter...

Afterthought: actually, the novel I started writing, nearly finished but never quite got there, based on my QAGS game with a group of B12ers about 5 years ago was written in a half-tribute, half-mocking epic/genesis style. I should finish that effing thing and publish it already! It was something like 35,000 words and still only 3/4 done!

Hey Sappho! Urvad Talinlikot here from the QAGS session. I just remembered it a few days ago and came to read some of the logs. Thanks again for a fine game! If you get that novel published, I'll buy it if I remember to.

Ha! I wasn't sure if any of you guys were still around. I will finish it eventually, I hope sooner rather than later. It's not even that it takes me that long to write, it's just sitting down and actually *doing* it when I have things like books to read and Dredmor to play...

[Sappho]

Book 3 is finished! Current list:

1. Junky (William S. Burroughs)
2. Sourcery (Terry Pratchet)
3. The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm (Nancy Farmer) - I've had this book since I was 9 years old and I've re-read it many times. It is definitely one of my favorites of all time. I suppose I could always relate to the hypersensitivity of the detectives Ear, Eye, and Arm (I am severely hypersensitive thanks to asperger syndrome) and although it's clear that they suffer for it, it also enables them to do amazing things. It gave me strength during some tough years and still touches me today. Nevermind the "young adult" label, it's a sophisticated, enlightening, thought-provoking, and excellent all-around book. Highly recommended.

The last time I was in the USA visiting my family, I found a copy of this book at Ocean State Job Lot (a discount store) for $1. I couldn't believe it was being sold so cheap, even if it is nearly 20 years old, and I grabbed it as a backup, since my current copy is really showing its age. It makes me happy seeing the two copies on the shelf together.

EDIT: Can we add a rule that if a book is over 500 (or 600) pages it counts as two? The last "52 books challenge" I saw had that rule and it seems fair. I think I'll read American Gods next but it's so long (635 pages) I'm sure it will take me more than a week to get through it.

[vagel7]

What do the people say on the 500+ page issue?

[Frumple]

I think the discussion there largely came down as "one book is one book". One long book is still one book

Me, I'd recommend doing what I'm doing -- keep a second tally of words (/pages) and consider yourself "done enough" when you hit either (or both) limit(s). I'm currently at 3/52, .36m/5.2m, but book four's going to outright double my word count tally

I think part of the whole point is to encourage folks to read (and perhaps track what they read for a year) more than adherence to a strict ruleset. So, if you feel like counting 500+ page books as two... go ahead. S'not exactly a competition, the only person you can "cheat" (for lack of a better word) is yourself.

[Trif]

I finished If On A Winter's Night A Traveler (by Italo Calvino) a few days ago. I'm not really sure what to say about it, but I enjoyed it massively. It touches on themes like reading and writing, truth and falsehood. Very experimental, but personal at the same time. I'm sure I'll find many things that I didn't notice when I reread it.
So, all in all, it's my favorite meta-novel.

Spoiler: List of books (click to show/hide)

• If On A Winter's Night A Traveler (Italo Calvino)

Regarding the 500+ pages... Well, since this thread is supposed to be more about appreciation of literature, and less about a book or page count, I'd say everyone should handle it however it is convenient for them. We can trust the common sense of Bay12ers, I think.

I'm on the "a long book is one book" side, but I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from reading long books if the time limit is tight for them. It just seems ugly to me to think of everything from 250 pages onward as a second book. I would consider making a split if the book is divided into long, separate sections.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, no real hard-and-fast rules. Do whatever you want, as long as you're reading. Personally, I'm counting a long volume as multiple books if it was originally published/written as such (in other words, fat trilogy-containers and the like).

[Caz]

Yeah, no real hard-and-fast rules. Do whatever you want, as long as you're reading. Personally, I'm counting a long volume as multiple books if it was originally published/written as such (in other words, fat trilogy-containers and the like).

Yeah, I can deal with omnibuses being considered as more than one book.

[varnish]

I think it's fine to keep the rules a little bit loose. Length isn't always a measure about how challenging or interesting a book is.

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 2/52 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!

Practical Ethics was fun, especially reading Peter Singers commentary on the German response to his views. It has taught me that even in the real world debates devolve into stupidity and sick disses.

[vagel7]

I agree with keeping it at your own discretion, though I myself am on the side that a long book is still 1 book, unless it is an omnibus of novels.

Spoiler: 1/52 (click to show/hide)

1. A Dance With Dragons - George R.R. Martin - 959 pages

Finally finished A Dance With Dragons. It is much better than AFfC, I grant you that, though it seems that certain characters are growing dumber by the book.

[Sappho]

Alright well I'll feel silly if I count a very long book as more than one book while everyone else only counts it as one. Part of the point of joining in on this for me is to feel some external pressure to read rather than just leaving it up to my constantly fatigued and poorly motivated self. American Gods is divided into three "parts" each of which is long enough to be a novel in itself, but they are not separate novels and were never published separately. I guess I'll see how I feel as I get further in.

On the other hand, I also want to finish reading a novel I started before the new year and I've been putting it off because I want to read things that will count towards my challenge. Maybe I'll read American Gods and finish this other book (Hell by Robert Olen Butler) and count them together as two books since the extra pages in American Gods ought to make up for the pages I already read in Hell. Then I'll feel nice and balanced and not like I'm cheating. : ) Anyway the original version of American Gods was 13,000 words shorter than this "definitive" edition I'm reading. That's almost a whole extra novel right there.

[Dutchling]

Finished The Prince, by Machiavelli.

Spoiler: Books! (click to show/hide)

Books.

• The Prince - Machiavelli
• Inferno - Dante
• Purgatorio - Dante
• Paradiso - Dante
• The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien
• Pale Blue Dot - C. Sagan
• Peter the Great - Robert K. Masie
• The Tale of Cthulhu and other Weird Tales - H.P. Lovecraft
• The Discovery of Heaven - Harry Mulisch
• The Dark Room of Damocles - W.F. Herman
• Moord op Huilwater- Karin Brynard
• The Forgotten Soldier - Guy Sajer
• Dune - Frank Herbert
• Frankenstein's Monster - Mary Shelley
• Dracula - Bram Stoker
• Animal Farm - George Orwell
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke

[Sheb]

I think I'm going to add a page count. I wouldn't want my reading to be influenced by the number of page in a book.