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Aah, so many good books in this thread already! (:
Just finished:
+ Show Spoiler +
A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Been waiting for a while to read this. Sort of. I read the first five books about eight years ago, then gave up because a friend kept spoiling the plot from the later books. In September 2012 I started from New Spring and read them all the way up to book 13 which I finished a bit after Christmas. Since then I've really been waiting for this last one. And when I got it, I couldn't put it down! I thought it was written very well and that it was a good last book to the series.
Currently reading:
+ Show Spoiler +
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb
Seems interesting so far.
What am I going to read:
Hopefully we'll get to read the second book to the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson, but I'm not sure he's going to have it ready for publication this year. I can't wait for it - the first book was amazing.
I'm also going to catch up on Trudi Canavan's magician series. I'll read the second and third books that have come out after The Rogue.
My goal for 2013 is to read 35 books (not counting books for uni). I know it's not a lot compared to some of those crazy-amazing people who set goals of like 100 books a year, but I reached 30 books in 2012 so I'll be happy if I get to 35 this year. (:
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Just finished my second read through of A Clash of Kings. Going to hold off re-reading Book 3 until after season 3 is complete to minimize comparisons between HBO's series and the source material. A Clash of Kings is in my opinion the least exciting of books, but still a pleasure to read.
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Currently reading The Wind Through The Keyhole, book 4.5 of The Dark Tower series that was released recently. I'm a bit over half way through and have been enjoying it. I am enchanted with the way characters in Mid-World talk, thankee sai.
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Also currently reading C++ Primer Plus to learn C++ programming. Only on chapter 4 so far, but this is the best programming book I've come across. It introduces topics in a clear and logical fashion and, unlike lesser books, explains when and why various features may be useful. The exercises at the end of each chapter have been sufficiently challenging but approachable. Great book!
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I plan to read The Night Circus next. I know nothing of this book, but received it as a Christmas gift from my sister so I'll give it a go.
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Reading this now as well as...
![[image loading]](http://knopfdoubleday.com/marketing/covers/1Q84_jacket.jpg)
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On January 16 2013 06:16 sam!zdat wrote:Yes, yes it does  All fantasy, Tolkien included, is essentially a reactionary ideological escape. Fantasy is quite literally fascist. But better that than actual fascists, I suppose. Martin is fun to read though.
I still don't really get the appeal of even Song of Ice and Fire myself, I've watched the HBO series mainly for the production values and because it comes in manageable doses, but I've only read a few pages of the series. It just seems so nihilistic or something, or like, life in nature is nasty, brutish and short, so we form society where it's also nasty, brutish and short, I just don't get the appeal of reading a million pages hammering that into my head, and from what I've briefly experienced and further heard, the overabundance of description and background just seems unnecessary, like it'll be very tedious to read and is basically self-indulgence by Martin.
What's fun about it?
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On January 16 2013 06:29 farvacola wrote:You know, it might not explicitly count as fantasy because of its roots, but Gregory Maguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is actually quite good, and I think it might challenge your declaration, Sam 
I liked the musical, but the book was really dry. It's the only thing I've ever read that made sex and cheating seem boring
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On January 16 2013 10:45 ZapRoffo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 06:16 sam!zdat wrote:Yes, yes it does All fantasy, Tolkien included, is essentially a reactionary ideological escape. Fantasy is quite literally fascist. But better that than actual fascists, I suppose. Martin is fun to read though. I still don't really get the appeal of even Song of Ice and Fire myself, I've watched the HBO series mainly for the production values and because it comes in manageable doses, but I've only read a few pages of the series. It just seems so nihilistic or something, or like, life in nature is nasty, brutish and short, so we form society where it's also nasty, brutish and short, I just don't get the appeal of reading a million pages hammering that into my head, and from what I've briefly experienced and further heard, the overabundance of description and background just seems unnecessary, like it'll be very tedious to read and is basically self-indulgence by Martin. What's fun about it?
Since I like defending it, the concept is the same as with The Walking Dead. It's a new world where your concept of norms is completely challenged, but in a logical kind of way. Instead of war (and the world) being a flowery kind of place where good things happen to good people, shitty things can happen and it can be all out of your control. Or words that you say can have the opposite effect. Or the way you think doesn't matter unless it shows. And characters change, adapt to survive. It's not this kind of perfect reality everyone wants to think about where you band together and defeat the villains and it's over. Maybe you're just as much a villain as they are.
And I prefer the more logical kind of way things work. Also, I love zombies. So yeah. XD
I'm reading the Physics of Star Trek, and some survival books.
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Just finished - ![[image loading]](http://unteachingprejudice.wikispaces.com/file/view/native-son.jpg/306615680/native-son.jpg)
Reading now - ![[image loading]](http://img1.imagesbn.com/p/9781250035950_p0_v2_s260x420.JPG)
AND
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That's it for now. Year is still young.
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On January 16 2013 10:45 ZapRoffo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 16 2013 06:16 sam!zdat wrote:Yes, yes it does All fantasy, Tolkien included, is essentially a reactionary ideological escape. Fantasy is quite literally fascist. But better that than actual fascists, I suppose. Martin is fun to read though. I still don't really get the appeal of even Song of Ice and Fire myself, I've watched the HBO series mainly for the production values and because it comes in manageable doses, but I've only read a few pages of the series. It just seems so nihilistic or something, or like, life in nature is nasty, brutish and short, so we form society where it's also nasty, brutish and short, I just don't get the appeal of reading a million pages hammering that into my head, and from what I've briefly experienced and further heard, the overabundance of description and background just seems unnecessary, like it'll be very tedious to read and is basically self-indulgence by Martin. What's fun about it?
The "nasty" world of Ice and Fire does not get stale at all, in my opinion. I've read them all twice (besides the 4th which is a real stinker). I find typical fantasy and it's generic good vs evil plot lines the tedious ones, almost unreadable. The fact that shit never (usually) goes to plan for anyone in Ice and Fire is what I always found appealing. It seems more like real life, where consequences for stuff don't follow script, and outside factors come into play. People aren't so black and white with their motives and ambitions. It's about how you play the "game", what decisions you make when struggling in the muck! I can see how someone could think that that could become gimmicky and he'd do nothing but try to shock you, always having the opposite of what you think will happen or something, but it's really not the case. It's not like everything is horrible or everyone dies either, which is what people for some reason always love claiming about Ice and Fire. If I didn't read the series I'd think every character you ever knew was dead by the end of book 2 by the way some people describe it...
Edit: Oops didn't see Blisse's post a couple up. Same train of thought.
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if you're gonna read trash, got is the cream of the trash
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I just finished up reading
It was really good, it was touching and moving. As a 12-13 year old girl trying to get from Russia to America and having to stay behind while all of her family goes to America while she has to stay in like Belgium because of a certain something that's holding her back.. wow. (Set time WW1)
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@Kimaker: have you read much LeGuin before?
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I've been meaning to read some LeGuin after having read "The ones who walk away from Omelas" a few months ago. This was a very good sci-fi story. This was a good reminder. I'll start looking up some of her work over the weekend.
I am currently reading "The Thirteen Gun Salute" by Patrick O'Brian. This is book 13 in the Aubrey-Maturin series of novels (there are 20 complete novels, with the 21st incomplete at the time of the writer's death). This is my second time through the series. The first time I read them, I churned through all 20 books in the space of about 6-7 weeks where I read little else, as I wanted simply to see what happened next. This second time around, I am reading it slower and enjoying it as much as the first time. The whole series is really best considered one long novel. It is one of the finest and most fun series of books I have read. If people are keen to read these novels, it's best to go right to the beginning and start with "Master and Commander".
Edit/ Short description follows: the novels describe the mostly naval adventures of Jack Aubrey (an Officer in the Royal Navy) and Stephen Maturin (a Physician and Spy) at the time of Napoleanic Wars. Many plots are taken from real Naval incidents and battles of that time. The centre of the story is the friendship of Aubrey and Maturin over the life time of the story. Two very different men, but O'Brian makes it work. The only other example in fiction of a similar friendship that I can recall is that of Kirk and Spock. The writing style is naturalistic and O'Brian really puts you back into that era and on board ship. Give it a go.
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Canada11350 Posts
On January 16 2013 06:16 sam!zdat wrote:Yes, yes it does All fantasy, Tolkien included, is essentially a reactionary ideological escape. Fantasy is quite literally fascist. But better that than actual fascists, I suppose. Martin is fun to read though.
I don't see why you would say that of all fantasy. I don't necessarily think that the Shire was Tolkien's ideal as the Hobbits shelteredness and inward focus is arguably among their greater flaws, but their society is hardly fascist. Certainly there are monarchs and long lines of high elf kings, but Tolkien's own views seemed to have gotten almost anarchist by the end. Certainly it was a very 'hands-off' sort of government that he preferred.
I disagree that it is essentially trash even if cream of the trash.
Tolkien for instance may be escapism, but that is not necessarily a bad thing unless we mean 'desertion of responsibility'
From Corey Olsen's lectures
“Tolkien argues further that fantasy doesn’t undermine our relationship with the natural world; to the contrary, the glimpses that it provides cleanse and heals that relationship. He suggests that this may become necessary, that our understanding of reality may become diseased without it. Fantasy doesn’t distort the world, it helps us regain a clear view of the world.”
GRMM is great and all and he is certainly trying for something different. But I don't hold that this makes GRRM 'more realistic' because it is more brutal.
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Finished this one at the end of 2012 - really been loving the series so far ! :D
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Edit: just saw this post:
On January 17 2013 17:01 aZealot wrote:
I am currently reading "The Thirteen Gun Salute" by Patrick O'Brian. This is book 13 in the Aubrey-Maturin series of novels (there are 20 complete novels, with the 21st incomplete at the time of the writer's death). This is my second time through the series. The first time I read them, I churned through all 20 books in the space of about 6-7 weeks where I read little else, as I wanted simply to see what happened next. This second time around, I am reading it slower and enjoying it as much as the first time. The whole series is really best considered one long novel. It is one of the finest and most fun series of books I have read. If people are keen to read these novels, it's best to go right to the beginning and start with "Master and Commander".
Cool to see other Master and Commander fans! I've got one question tho: I've read the first 2 books and want to read another one in the series, but the next book I've got available (bought a couple together at a 2nd hand store) is The Mauritius Command (the 4th one). Do you reckon I should wait until I can get my hands on the 3rd book (HMS Surprise, which I suspect I would really enjoy, as I think it closely follows the movie), or do you think the 4th book won't spoil too much if I read that one first?
Part of my new year's resolution is to start reading more of this book again:
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I'm currently going through all the New Testament letters, but after that I'm thinking of reading some of the Old Testament books - not sure which ones tho, will probably start with Proverbs or Psalms.
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Yeah, Post-Captain is a great read, Hoender. The next one though introduces you to the HMS Surprise, that thoroughbred among frigates, and the ship in which a good many of the later stories are set. Get onto it as soon as you can. It's another great read. It begins with a battle and ends with a battle, and the middle is largely taken with the first of those long voyages into endless blue seas and new horizons which mark a good many of the later books.
@ Falling: yes, I agree. I don't see how Tolkien can be regarded as Fascist. You might say he was Conservative, and by that I mean the older late 18th/early 20th Century use of the term, rather than the modern bastardization, which was a reaction to Modernity. But the books are really not political in that sense. IMO, the religion themes (the tension between the Norse paganism that informed his scholarship and the Roman Catholicism that informed his belief) and the theme of friendship (partly arising from his WW1 experiences) have greater primacy.
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No joke, it is sooo good.
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@Falling - sorry, I shouldn't speak so flippantly. sometimes I have a context problem. I mean it as a sort of affectionate invective.
What I mean by fascist is that fantasy in its traditional mode is a sort of return to a happy simpler days when there was a pre-industrial "organic" society based on clear ethnic distinctions (hobbits are safe and pleasant an nice, orcs are nasty and brutish), rooted in the soil and geographical region. This is a major part of fascist ideology, which can maybe be understood as an attempt to incorporate the industrial revolution without accepting modern atomized society.
I understand that there are variations on a theme.
edit: part of what's hard to see from our end of things is that fascism wasn't Fascism until it was Fascism, if you see what i mean.
edit: this is not supposed to be accusing anybody of anything in any way, just to be clear
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On January 17 2013 17:32 Hoender wrote:
Old Testament books - not sure which ones tho, will probably start with Proverbs or Psalms.
You MUST read Genesis and Exodus, although you can skim the bit about the Tabernacle
(edit: and you can skim the "begats", but make sure you catch the bit about Enoch.
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On January 17 2013 17:43 aZealot wrote:
But the books are really not political in that sense. IMO, the religion themes (the tension between the Norse paganism that informed his scholarship and the Roman Catholicism that informed his belief) and the theme of friendship (partly arising from his WW1 experiences) have greater primacy.
All books are political. The most interesting political content in narrative is not what is put in there by the author, it's what remains unsaid and the assumptions in the narrative, what things are desired, why is this an attractive narrative to this person...
For example: why do people like stories about zombies now?
These things exist along with the kind of surface themes you are mentioning. This talk of "primacy" is a little naive.
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On January 17 2013 18:44 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2013 17:32 Hoender wrote:
Old Testament books - not sure which ones tho, will probably start with Proverbs or Psalms. You MUST read Genesis and Exodus, although you can skim the bit about the Tabernacle
I'm starting on the other side of wall, reading Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolutions.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SZsOdoCdL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg){kind=icon}
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