The Books/Reading Thread

[The Ozzman]

That Star Trek book is excellent.

My soon to be ex brother in law lent me that trilogy and I couldn't put it down. I'm trying to find the other two. They are on Amazon, but combing through a bookstore is more fun

First one, at least. I will admit, the beginning of the first book feels quite classic.

I was really unimpressed with that series. Felt very juvenile compared to ASOIAF, Malazan, Second Apocalypse, etc.

Last 200 pages of The Wheel of Time are bonkers. I bought the prequel and the second book but haven't cracked them open yet.

 

[Dak]

I was really unimpressed with that series. .

I'll second that sentiment, but more forcefully. I was actively dis-impressed with each book. The first book feels like the beginning of something epic, but instead is the beginning of a bunch of meandering meh. I have no idea how it all "ended" since I didn't buy the books published after his death.

 

[Einherjar86]

Last 200 pages of The Wheel of Time are bonkers. I bought the prequel and the second book but haven't cracked them open yet.

In a good or bad way? Or too difficult to tell?

My impression is that the only way to conclude a series is like that is either very abstractly, i.e. in a way that tries to express some broad sense of resolution on a grand scale (e.g. a third-person perspective that delivers some kind of cosmic speech about reality) or very concretely (e.g. some quaint scene taking place far away from events that shape the world and featuring characters who ponder how things will be different).

But honestly, I have little idea how one goes about practically wrapping up a narrative of that scale.

 

[The Ozzman]

In a good or bad way? Or too difficult to tell?

I'm talking about the first book of the series and that's meant as a good thing.

Sorry, I should have put The Eye of the World. For some reason I forgot the title of the first book as I haven't read it in a few years.

 

[Einherjar86]

Gotcha. I do remember the first book being good, if somewhat lackluster compared to other series (in my opinion).

 

[Vegard Pompey]

I have an odd feeling about The Wheel of Time series. I read the first three books in my teens and I thought they were pretty bad. But even though it's bad I'm paradoxically also attracted to the colossal scope of it. Just the idea of watching this huge battle between good and evil play out over a billion pages, and seeing these teenage boys from a small village slowly develop into legendary heroes in their own right, is so appealing to me. Some of the later developments I've heard about (like Mat becoming the leader of a mercenary company) make me wish I hadn't dropped it. And for as much as people shit on the last few books that Jordan wrote, the consensus opinion seems to be that the series really picked up after Sanderson took over.

I recently picked up one of the books in a German translation, thinking that combining it with my studies may give me a way to actually justify reading this bloated garbage.

 

[EspaDa]

I am supposed to read The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne for next week. What is that actually?

 

[Einherjar86]

A kind of root vegetable.

 

[EspaDa]

Has anyone read it in here and would like to share his thoughts with me?

 

[Einherjar86]

It's a classic work of American fiction. It's frequently taught in high school and undergraduate courses, usually to students' dismay. Most young readers think it's boring, and teachers don't always do the best job of foreclosing that impression.

It's not my favorite Hawthorne novel (I think The House of the Seven Gables is better); but it's significant for its suspicion toward puritan moralistic and social values, quite liberal for its time. Superficially, it's about adultery; but I'd say that it's more so about how we construct narratives. Hawthorne famously opens the novel with a purportedly biographical account of a document he discovered while working in the customs house. It sets an ambiguous tone from the very beginning.

 

[EspaDa]

I think I won't enjoy this. Thanks for introducing the gist of the novel. It doesn't sound as fun a Poe.

 

[Einherjar86]

It's not as fun as Poe (but not much is). It is a good book though. I wouldn't say that I "enjoy" it per se, but it's interesting.

If you like Poe, you might check out Hawthorne's short stories sometime ("Young Goodman Brown," "Roger Malvin's Burial," "The Birth-Mark," etc.). Poe and Hawthorne are sometimes referred to as the "dark romantics."

 

[Master_Yoda77]

First one, at least. I will admit, the beginning of the first book feels quite classic.

I was really unimpressed with that series. Felt very juvenile compared to ASOIAF, Malazan, Second Apocalypse, etc.

On a second thought, I was at the bookstore today and picked up the complete Chronicles of Amber series so I'm going to go through some of that instead.

 

[The Ozzman]

Wimp

 

[Einherjar86]

New Peter Watts coming out later this year. Just finished my advance copy to review for Foundation. It's a good one...

https://tachyonpublications.com/product/freeze-frame-revolution/

 

[TageRyche]

I have an odd feeling about The Wheel of Time series. I read the first three books in my teens and I thought they were pretty bad. But even though it's bad I'm paradoxically also attracted to the colossal scope of it. Just the idea of watching this huge battle between good and evil play out over a billion pages, and seeing these teenage boys from a small village slowly develop into legendary heroes in their own right, is so appealing to me. Some of the later developments I've heard about (like Mat becoming the leader of a mercenary company) make me wish I hadn't dropped it. And for as much as people shit on the last few books that Jordan wrote, the consensus opinion seems to be that the series really picked up after Sanderson took over.

I recently picked up one of the books in a German translation, thinking that combining it with my studies may give me a way to actually justify reading this bloated garbage.

I loved The Wheel of Time up until the 7th book. I was 3 or 4 hundred pages into the book and absolutely nothing had happened. I gave up at that point and sold off the books. I don't know how it all wrapped up. Robert Jordan's Conan books and his trilogy set during the time of the Revolutionary War (written as Reagan O'Neill) were much better in terms of telling a story and actually finishing it.

 

[TageRyche]

I finished a couple of mystery novels over the last 2 days.

Carlene O'Connor's Murder At A Irish Wedding.

Maddie Day's Flipped For Murder

 

[TageRyche]

My review of the Dennis Palumbo thriller Head Wounds was printed in the latest issue of Mystery Scene magazine. You can check it out HERE!

 

[Einherjar86]

Reading Laurent Binet's The Seventh Function of Language (translated by Sam Taylor). Despite its title, this is not an academic book, but fiction (although it deals heavily with French literary/cultural theory of the '70s and '80s). It reimagines Roland Barthes's death (in which he was struck, rather trivially and quaintly, by a laundry van) as a conspiracy involving French politics of the 1980s and something called "The Logos Club" (I'm only 140 pages in or so, so I'm not sure of all the details yet).

It's a hilarious and addictive novel, and pokes a good amount of fun at academic theory. I'd describe the book as Umberto Eco by way of French structuralism.

 

[Dak]

Finished these two novels and well into Caplan's newest book.