The Dragon Reborn
by Robert Jordan
The third book in The Wheel of Time series, and I was just as involved as I was in the first two. In this volume, the characters are on separate journeys, and Jordan does a good job staying with each story long enough to keep the action moving, while still switching back and forth often enough to allow you to keep track of where everyone is and stay involved in all of the separate story lines.
What else is there to say, if you like epic fantasy, The Wheel of Time seems a great series to tackle, at least from my perspective four books in. I suppose it would be foolish to start if you don't think that you want to read the whole series, since the story makes no pretense of ending at the close of each volume, and if you start in the middle, I think you'll miss far too much. It almost seems silly to try to review books in the middle (unless one turns out somehow shocking bad). The epic continues, and continues well and interestingly, but this book was never intended to stand on it's own.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
TBR Challenge
Librarything is a dangerous place. There I can easily locate the blogs of other book obsessed people, who have come up with nifty reading related ideas.
Today's discovery: The TBR ("To Be Read") Challenge.
Basically, you make a list of 12 books that have been on your to-be-read list for more than 6 months, than you read them. It's supposed to be an annual challenge, but I am starting late, and I'm still going to do 12, because I am determined like that.
After some time spend staring at my bookshelf, I have chosen the following 12 books:
1) A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
2) Kim
by Rudyard Kipling
3) Nights at the Circus
by Angela Carter
4) Native Son
by Richard Wright
5) A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
6) American Psycho
by Easton Ellis
7) Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
8) One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9) Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad
10) The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
Read 7/12/08
11) Pale Fire
by Vladimir Nabokov
12) The Shipping News
by E. Annie Proulix
Now I promise not to edit this list, aside from linking the titles to the blog posts about those books once I actually read them and write about them. And we'll see how this goes.
Books are good. Decreasing the size of my to-be-read list is very good. Let's go!
Today's discovery: The TBR ("To Be Read") Challenge.
Basically, you make a list of 12 books that have been on your to-be-read list for more than 6 months, than you read them. It's supposed to be an annual challenge, but I am starting late, and I'm still going to do 12, because I am determined like that.
After some time spend staring at my bookshelf, I have chosen the following 12 books:
1) A Passage to India
by E.M. Forster
2) Kim
by Rudyard Kipling
3) Nights at the Circus
by Angela Carter
4) Native Son
by Richard Wright
5) A Farewell to Arms
by Ernest Hemingway
6) American Psycho
by Easton Ellis
7) Invisible Man
by Ralph Ellison
8) One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9) Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad
10) The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
Read 7/12/08
11) Pale Fire
by Vladimir Nabokov
12) The Shipping News
by E. Annie Proulix
Now I promise not to edit this list, aside from linking the titles to the blog posts about those books once I actually read them and write about them. And we'll see how this goes.
Books are good. Decreasing the size of my to-be-read list is very good. Let's go!
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Library Thing
So joining LibraryThing.com has got me thinking. I am sort of in love with the site, and with reading the posts and thoughts of people who seem to be readers of the same obsessive sort that I am. Still, I have to ask myself how I want to use all the tools that they have there.
First of all, do I want my LibraryThing account to reflect books that I have read, or instead, the physical collection of books that I own? Sure, there is considerable overlap between the two, but there are also a tremendous number of books that I have read and do not own, books that I own but have not read yet. Since it would be fundamentally impossible to remember and list all the books that I have ever read (and I think not a useful exercise), I have decided, at least for now, that I want the list to reflect the books that I actually have in my possession as opposed to any sort of exhaustive reading list.
But this made me think about what it means to have a collection of books, as opposed to just having books. I own many many books, and I suppose, when I really think about it, I do consider myself a collector. But I realized that there are many books that I truly love that I do not have a copy of in my possession at the moment, either because I didn't bring them with me on some move, or because I lent them out and never saw them again, or because I read copies borrowed from the library or a friend and never got my own. Now, it doesn't make sense to me, as a collector, to have so many books that I haven't read (or even that I have read but don't really adore) when I don't have some that I really love. And the idea of logging all these books into my LibraryThing account and rating them and writing reviews, and not owning some that really matter to me, I find that distressing.
So, I'm going to try to think about this more, or at least, be more deliberate about choosing the books that I buy (as something distinct from the books that I read). For books that I just want to read, I have to remember that I have a wonderful library right around the corner from me, and I can get them there and save myself some money and space, if I am not sure that I will ever want to read a book again. Then I can focus on owning books that I love, or books from authors that I love, and having a collection that reflects my tastes and my personality more than the random whims that take me to the bookstore. I just need to keep track of all those books that I see and think "Oh! I want to read that!" and not allow that impulse to cause me to put out money. I need to learn how to separate wanting to read a book and wanting to own a book as distinct impulses. It might take some thinking, but I think that using LibraryThing in an act of cataloging might help me to do that.
So with deciding that I want to use it as a catalog for my collection, comes the question of choosing to pay for it. It's free to join, to use the message boards and communicate with other readers, and to list up to 200 books in your library. I have WELL over 200 books in my library, so I have to choose between having an incomplete catalog and paying a fee. ($10 a year or $25 for lifetime membership.) It seems to me that would be money well spent, but given my tendency towards fits of enthusiasm followed by an utter lack of attention, I think that I will spend a few weeks trying to get into a pattern of use, and answering the questions that the use brings up for me, before I put down the money for something and then just ignore it completely.
I’ve also got to ask myself questions about rating and commenting and reviewing, and how I want to go about blogging what I read and thinking about books that I really do want to own, but I have to let it be a process, or I’ll burn out too soon.
And with that, I’m going to stop writing for now.
First of all, do I want my LibraryThing account to reflect books that I have read, or instead, the physical collection of books that I own? Sure, there is considerable overlap between the two, but there are also a tremendous number of books that I have read and do not own, books that I own but have not read yet. Since it would be fundamentally impossible to remember and list all the books that I have ever read (and I think not a useful exercise), I have decided, at least for now, that I want the list to reflect the books that I actually have in my possession as opposed to any sort of exhaustive reading list.
But this made me think about what it means to have a collection of books, as opposed to just having books. I own many many books, and I suppose, when I really think about it, I do consider myself a collector. But I realized that there are many books that I truly love that I do not have a copy of in my possession at the moment, either because I didn't bring them with me on some move, or because I lent them out and never saw them again, or because I read copies borrowed from the library or a friend and never got my own. Now, it doesn't make sense to me, as a collector, to have so many books that I haven't read (or even that I have read but don't really adore) when I don't have some that I really love. And the idea of logging all these books into my LibraryThing account and rating them and writing reviews, and not owning some that really matter to me, I find that distressing.
So, I'm going to try to think about this more, or at least, be more deliberate about choosing the books that I buy (as something distinct from the books that I read). For books that I just want to read, I have to remember that I have a wonderful library right around the corner from me, and I can get them there and save myself some money and space, if I am not sure that I will ever want to read a book again. Then I can focus on owning books that I love, or books from authors that I love, and having a collection that reflects my tastes and my personality more than the random whims that take me to the bookstore. I just need to keep track of all those books that I see and think "Oh! I want to read that!" and not allow that impulse to cause me to put out money. I need to learn how to separate wanting to read a book and wanting to own a book as distinct impulses. It might take some thinking, but I think that using LibraryThing in an act of cataloging might help me to do that.
So with deciding that I want to use it as a catalog for my collection, comes the question of choosing to pay for it. It's free to join, to use the message boards and communicate with other readers, and to list up to 200 books in your library. I have WELL over 200 books in my library, so I have to choose between having an incomplete catalog and paying a fee. ($10 a year or $25 for lifetime membership.) It seems to me that would be money well spent, but given my tendency towards fits of enthusiasm followed by an utter lack of attention, I think that I will spend a few weeks trying to get into a pattern of use, and answering the questions that the use brings up for me, before I put down the money for something and then just ignore it completely.
I’ve also got to ask myself questions about rating and commenting and reviewing, and how I want to go about blogging what I read and thinking about books that I really do want to own, but I have to let it be a process, or I’ll burn out too soon.
And with that, I’m going to stop writing for now.
The Great Hunt
The Great Hunt
by Robert Jordan
The problem with the way I read is this: once I get started with a book (or series of books) that I find particularly interesting, it becomes all consuming. An epic fantasy series with 11 existing volumes all over 700 pages long might be a great summer project for me, but I also have to make sure that other things get done, like sleeping, which has suffered since I started reading The Wheel of Time. Such is life.
Anyway, this is the second book in the Wheel of Time series, an epic fantasy tale with all the usual features: a battle between good and evil for the fate of the world, magic, monsters and interesting creatures, a reluctant hero with a number of lovable sidekicks, and a tremendous number of strange names for people and places that will make you truly glad for the glossary at the end of each book (at least, if you are in any way like me, challenged in the remembering of these things). It's a very good book, good enough to suck me in and truly distract me, with a divinely detailed world that holds together and has a tangible realness to it providing the background for an adventure tale that makes 700 pages fly by. It is not The Lord of the Rings, but I can see where the comparison is made, and it is saying a bit that I don't think that Tolkien would roll in his grave at the thought.
But there's no point in recommending it unless you have already read The Eye of the World, and unless you believe that you are going to have the time to read at least The Dragon Reborn (the third book in the series). Jordan seems to make no accomodations for readers that decide to enter the series midstream, so I think that a reader would gain more confusion than enjoyment out of starting here. These are not so much separate books as volumes of one long story, there are no neat endings to make you feel like you completed something when you turn the last page. To be honest, I am grateful for that, I loathe spending my time reading catchup put in for people who didn't read the first book. So yes, I haven't read the whole series yet, so I can't promise that every book is as good as the first two, but I am going to dive right into volume 3, probably tonight, even though it's already 2:00am and I really (really, really) should be sleeping.
So if you have time for 11 volumes this summer (with a 12th forthcoming, and being finished by another author, since Robert Jordan passed away last year) dive right in and join me, if not, I should be getting to something that I could actually recommend to you in about a month.
Right. Obsessed.
by Robert Jordan
The problem with the way I read is this: once I get started with a book (or series of books) that I find particularly interesting, it becomes all consuming. An epic fantasy series with 11 existing volumes all over 700 pages long might be a great summer project for me, but I also have to make sure that other things get done, like sleeping, which has suffered since I started reading The Wheel of Time. Such is life.
Anyway, this is the second book in the Wheel of Time series, an epic fantasy tale with all the usual features: a battle between good and evil for the fate of the world, magic, monsters and interesting creatures, a reluctant hero with a number of lovable sidekicks, and a tremendous number of strange names for people and places that will make you truly glad for the glossary at the end of each book (at least, if you are in any way like me, challenged in the remembering of these things). It's a very good book, good enough to suck me in and truly distract me, with a divinely detailed world that holds together and has a tangible realness to it providing the background for an adventure tale that makes 700 pages fly by. It is not The Lord of the Rings, but I can see where the comparison is made, and it is saying a bit that I don't think that Tolkien would roll in his grave at the thought.
But there's no point in recommending it unless you have already read The Eye of the World, and unless you believe that you are going to have the time to read at least The Dragon Reborn (the third book in the series). Jordan seems to make no accomodations for readers that decide to enter the series midstream, so I think that a reader would gain more confusion than enjoyment out of starting here. These are not so much separate books as volumes of one long story, there are no neat endings to make you feel like you completed something when you turn the last page. To be honest, I am grateful for that, I loathe spending my time reading catchup put in for people who didn't read the first book. So yes, I haven't read the whole series yet, so I can't promise that every book is as good as the first two, but I am going to dive right into volume 3, probably tonight, even though it's already 2:00am and I really (really, really) should be sleeping.
So if you have time for 11 volumes this summer (with a 12th forthcoming, and being finished by another author, since Robert Jordan passed away last year) dive right in and join me, if not, I should be getting to something that I could actually recommend to you in about a month.
Right. Obsessed.
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