What are you reading?

May do that. I'd like to get through the other first, as I mentioned, just to get a grasp of where it "fits" the history, though (and longer-view of what led up to it, etc.)

Loved that. And the Silmarillion itself.
I actually picked that up to read when I went to join the rest of my family to see my dad before he died. Yeah, I know, but if you're going for something that's goign to be a bit rough otherwise, Pratchett is a good counter.

Death gets to be a bit of a badass in his own way, too, in Hogfather. (He's amusing through a good chunk of it - then you see him take care of business.)

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And next up will be: Ash by Malinda Lo. Which is a retelling of the Cinderella story, with Ash, the main character, having to choose between her prince charming and a huntress (yes, female!) she falls in love with.

I consider Valente to be uneven, at best. I had to stop reading her recent volume on Prester John partway through because I found it too trippy, despite its inclusion of a number of interesting ideas (including one I haven't seen anywhere else, a theory on why the apostle Thomas is referred to as "Didymus").

However, I enjoyed her treatment of one of my favorite folklore characters, Koschei the Deathless, in Deathless. Actually, I didn't much care for the treatment of Koschei himself, the characterization of the heroine, the sometimes slipstreamy construction, or the pervading notion (as in most recent treatments of fairy tales) that the source material is wicked and oppressive. However, the linguistic and structural allusions to Afanasev's collections and other Russian fairy tales were so good that they made up for all that. The structure of the opening, in particular, perfectly captures the feel of one of those stories, as does the line, "I took a drink, but it all ran into my moustache and none into my mouth."

I read samples of both of these on the kindle and they both looked pretty good. Agree, they didn't jump out as must-haves, but put 'em on my 'want' list, anyway.

I finally read it after reading an article where Neil Gaiman liked it, or it mentioned he was friends with Diana Wynn Jones, which made me wonder what she wrote... or something like that. Definitely wish I had read it sooner.

Reading reviews and seeing the trailer of Miyasake's Howl's Moving Castle made me not want to see it, either. It sounded like it was hard to follow (which the book isn't), and did some odd things with parts of the story and the visuals. Not sure why Miyasake (or however it's spelled, sorry) chose to have the castle walk on legs, either... floating seems altogether more cool, so I don't even know why chose to do that.

I really like Children of Hurin, though. Having it separated out, and because it's more developed than the myths in The Silmarillion, means it's closer to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, at least in terms of how well it reads. It has focused themes and a focused voice, fairly strong characters, etc. I appreciated Turin's story much more after having it separated out, I think. Much more focused, and got me thinking more about interconnection between the curse, and how independent characters' choices are in the whole book.

That's not to say The Silmarillion isn't fun, but that one really does read more like a history or mythology (or huge outline, which is what it actually grew out of), while Children is closer to a fantasy novel.

As for Pratchett, I'm reading in the order he published the books, which is nice. You can see how he is developing the world by doing so. I just wish he would stop emphasizing that light moves slowly on Discworld. After the 30th time of a paragraph on the subject, it's no longer funny or interesting. Quick references would be great when the sun rises or something, but he tends to point it out specifically in several sentences.

But overall, I love the humor (often verbal: I especially get a kick out of how he uses Death's way of speaking to have different text... it really works well in Mort) and his ideas. Pretty interesting, even if I disagree that "we get whatever we expect when we die." Death is still fun, and clearly had an impact on the Death in Good Omens.

I've wanted to read Shelby Foote's works ever since he was featured on Ken Burn's The Civil War. He seemed like he'd be a good storyteller, and not just a dry historian.


By any chance has anyone read Mark Twain's autobiography that was first published last year, according to his wishes (100 years after his death)? I can't imagine Twain writing a bad book, but I'd be interested in hearing what the experience was like.

Foote's Civil War narrative (I think he always contended that he was not a historian, and he mostly just talks you through what happened with many anecdotes drawn from letters and memoirs and his own description) is three novels, and I'm only... 2/3 of the way through the first (the first is 800 pages). So if you're just casually interested in the American Civil War, it might not be worth it.

I'm a history buff and interested in the Civil War, so it's a great read for me. It's missing the charm of Shelby Foote's drawl (which I think is part of his interest in the documentary), but it's interesting even without it. He really does talk you through EVERYTHING that happens, describing the thoughts and actions of the various parts that made up the Civil War (what led up to it, mostly through the lens of Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, then what caused the leaders to do what they did around and during the battles). And he makes it all vivid through stories, quotes from memoirs and letters, and his own strong descriptions--he apparently camped out on some of the battlefields at the time of year the battle occurred, so he could get a feel for what it was like.

This makes it long, but it really made me appreciate what happened. I thought I knew the Civil War well before, but there are many notes that I had no idea about. My impressions of the main characters has generally been "Lee was always great before Gettysburg, McLellan was always an idiot," etc. Broad strokes like that, gleaned from history class, shorter books, and the like. But you realize that there is a good chunk at the start of the war where Lee is not in command, and even once he is in command of the main eastern army, he's not perfect. He assaults extremely strong Union positions on hills or ridges (just like at Gettysburg, only not as bad), but he's still not questioned too much. You generally get the impression from most glosses of the Civil War that Stonewall Jackson was quirky but amazing, but the real truth is that he could be a terrible leader at times. He was unsympathetic to exhausted or wounded soldiers, and he could be lazy, sometimes leaving his men out of a much needed fight while he was taking a nap! Crazy... makes me wonder at times why Lee trusted him so much, even though he could be brilliant as well.

So if all that detail sounds good to you, invest the time. I will be working on the other two volumes as well, though it will probably take me a good couple months to get through them, since I read other stuff at the same time, besides working on my own writing.

I'm curious about Twain's autobiography as well. He's always thrown me as a writer, as I sometimes really like his stuff (Mark Twain, Huck Finn, and Life on the Mississippi were all great), but he can sometimes be caustically bitter. If he could be witty and interesting, but not too depressing, the autobiography could be pretty good.

Originally Posted by Frosty_Femme I said "ur" which is not a word. It's a sound dumb people make when you ask them to spell out "you are".

I'm enjoying them for the first time. I've read three and am working on the fourth, which is the second book, Fool Moon. Anyway, I fully plan on reading them all and maybe checking out some of the Graphic Novels that they have done.