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[Dutchling]

Page-count doesn't seem really influence my reading speed. I read A Dance of Dragons in a week, and I read The Prince in a week, while the latter is ~12 times as short as the first.

[Caz]

Finished Valley of the Horses. Might even read 3rd book... but will have to stop myself then. The series just gets too repetitive and dull.

Spoiler:  10/100 (click to show/hide)

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins  (387 pages)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins (391 pages)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins (390 pages)
The Four Agreements - Miguel Ruiz (144 pages)
Grotesque - Natsuo Kirino (480 pages)
Mammoth - Stephen Baxter (277 pages)
Theodore Boone - John Grisham (272 pages)
A Prison Diary - Jeffrey Archer (272 pages)
The Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M Auel (512 pages)
The Valley of Horses – Jean M Auel (560 pages)

[fqllve]

--Week of Jan. 6th

Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe by Henri Pirenne, translation by I E Clegg [8.5/10]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fascinating and lucid, Pirenne charts the economic development of the Middle Ages and does much to dispel myths of its reliance on a barter economy. He shows that more accurately it was the feudal system that was wholly reliant on it and that commerce still existed in Western Europe during the early Middle Ages, though in greatly limited form. He also posits that it was not the fall of the Western Roman Empire that caused the "Dark Ages" so much as it was Muslim control of the Mediterranean which stifled maritime commerce in the West, he comes to this suggestion by way of the "barbarous" Scandinavians' continued participation in trade in the East of Europe. All in all an enlightening book with only a few things holding it back. Foremost is its absolute density of medieval geography, going beyond what is even necessary to comprehend the main points. I consider myself well-informed on the subject and yet there were lists of places that I hardly recognized. Second, and less a flaw of the book itself than a necessary evil, is that a strong grasp of medieval history is required to understand the topic, though this is to be expected. Finally, there are some peculiarities in terminology that I can only guess were the result of the translation. Most striking of these is the continued use of corn in place of the word cereal, which I suspect might be confusing to some people not familiar with the term's more general sense. But other than these minor flaws the book is excellent and should be required reading for anyone writing historical or historically influenced fiction, and certainly for any student of medieval history.

[Sheb]

Pirenne? Is that the famous Belgian historian?

[fqllve]

It is. This was my first encounter with his work, but based on it his fame is well-deserved. I'll probably be reading Medieval Cities and possibly Mohammed and Charlemagne by him this year as well.

[AnalysisFailed]

Finished the first three books, started reading War and Peace from Tolstoy a few days ago.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Book 1: Dread Empire 5 - All Darkness Met, Glen Cook
Book 2: Dread Empire 6 - Reap the East Wind, Glen Cook
Book 3: Dread Empire 7 - An Ill Fate Marshalling, Glen Cook

[Dutchling]

Isn't the NT like, 20 books or so?

[fqllve]

It's a little more than that, but if I recall none of them are really longer than 20k words and a lot of the epistles are way shorter than that. I think it'd be fair to count the Gospels as one book together, but I dunno how you'd divide it up after that.

[Flying Dice]

A Spell for Chameleon
Piers Anthony
15/1/13

I'm glad I started in on these. No sign of the usual complaints about his writing, perhaps because I've only read the first book. Next up is probably going to be either finishing the latter 2/3 of Otherland, finishing The Sword of Shannara, or starting Stephen Hero, depending on my mood.

[Dutchling]

The Silmarillion is a lot harder to read than I thought :/
I think I'll just read it between other books, so I can finish it in a month or two. Now I'll start with Frankenstein

edit: Getting Frankenstein would take at least two minutes. George Orwell's Animal Farm it is then...

[Muz]

One down

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be - Jack Canfield
2. Mastery - Robert Greene
3. This wall of text on sleep (I know it's technically not a book, but it's about 150k words, so it's long enough.
4. Man Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus - John Gray
5. The 50th law - 50 Cent/R. Greene
6. Android UI Fundamentals - Jason Ostrander
7-26: will figure it out later

[Cthulhu]

I'll join.  I'm working on The Octopus right now, which will be my first book of the year.  Probably done by the end of next week, unless I start really working on it (It's a surprisingly good book)

[Realmfighter]

Spoiler: 3/52 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.

I have a headache and my eyes hurt.

Think I'm done with fan fic for a while...

[Dutchling]

Finished Animal Farm, by George Orwell.

't Was a nice book.

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]

Finished a biography of MLK. A bit kitshy in the wrting but not bad. 3/104.