hh_clubs | Restricted Section: Term XXVI

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Restricted Section: Term XXVI - Read, Reading, To Read

Activity: Read, Reading, To Read
Points: 10 points for your initial comment, 2 points for every substantial response, max 30 points
Deadline: August 30 @ 11:59PM UTC (Timezone Converter)

Details: Since this will be my only activity of Term XXVI, I wanted to both do something relatively simple AND take the opportunity to get to know you guy, so we're going to have a discussion post about our recent reading habits. For your initial comment, write at least 150 words talking about books you've recently read, are currently reading, and/or what you plan to read next. You can talk about any aspect of the books you wish, but some ideas would be why you selected the books, what you liked/didn't like about them, whether you'd recommend them to others, etc. For your responses, you'll need to write at least 50 words. Make sure you're saying something more than, "I read that book and liked/hated it!" Try to open a dialogue about what was good or bad, or even why you chose NOT to read it. Anything goes, as long as there's substance to it.

If you have any questions, direct them to the appropriate thread. As always, don't forget to sign each comment with your name/house or a sigtag.

Also, do remember that I wiped the roster clean, so if you have bonus items, make sure you register them HERE as soon as possible to earn your extra points. I won't be giving grace periods, so please double-check that you're good to go!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I go on serious stints when I read. I'll go weeks without reading more than my monthly issue of Popular Science (I'm a subscriber), to reading book after book. I reread Ender's Game in preparation for the movie at the beginning of November. Now I'm trudging slowly through the rest of the Ender-verse, I like to reread Abarat every few months. I was also given the complete works of Sherlock Holmes a few months ago and I would love to make it through those too.

Ender's Game: Orson Scott Card. Despite my loathing of the author himself for his closed minded world views, this book is one of my favorites. Its space travel, its aliens, its war games, but its also more than that. Its about a super intelligent child forced to grow up too quickly because he must save the world.

Abarat: Clive Barker. This book is stunning visually. You only get the beauty of this book with the hard copy or a scanned edition. Its the first book of a Trilogy with plans for 5. Clive painted hundreds of pieces for each book. Its in a nutshell a young girl traveling from mundane to amazing by means of the Sea of Isabella. Very very worth rereading.

Sherlock Holmes is Sherlock Holmes. I've always liked Sherlock but never really had the motivation to read them until the BBC show. Its slow going, because of the vastness of the books but I will succeed eventually.

Popular Science I read because I like keeping up with science news, I love Scientific American but its not available on my nook. :(

Jaime/Lion/269

That sounds like a really awesome book! I may have to check it out next time I'm in the bookstore.

I read another dystopian novel that I liked, but never got around to reading the rest of the series. It was called Wither.

Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

What if you knew exactly when you’d die? The first book of The Chemical Garden Trilogy.
By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement; her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next; and Rhine has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive.

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Again it didn't have the BAMF!female character in it, but it was kind of interesting. One of those you pick up and say "Dear god don't let this happen in our lifetime!". Honestly I don't know if I'll ever meet a BAMF!female like Katniss from the Hunger Games. She kind of ruined all the strong type of women characters. Or at least the ones in young adult fiction. But I think you'll like Wither (or at least enjoy it). :)

Shawn//Hufflepuff

OOOO that looks fantastic I'll def look into it. Thank you!!

I did read Insurgent and I did like it better, especially the turn at the end. I still don't really like either Tris or Four so I think that is my biggest problem with it. I'm sure I'll read Allegiant, though probably not right away. But I can never leave a series unfinished

caitie. puff

Under the Never Sky I think leans more towards scifi and I read it during my scifi kick, which is my second favorite genre after YA fantasy but it's nit for everyone. I really connected and felt for the main character, which is an easy way for me to love even the worse books.

caitie. puff

jumping in not for points to say read Cold Magic by Kate Elliot for the bamfiest female characters you'll ever meet. I know it's new adult fantasy alternate history about an arranged marriage but the two female leads literally kick asses and take names and change the world and own their sexuality and care about each other

I haven't really had much time to sit down and read a book recently, which devastates me as a bookworm. I started The Casual Vacancy a few weeks ago, and thus far, I'm not impressed. I was told that it takes a bit to get into, and I wanted so bad to like it because it's a JK Rowling novel. I was also informed, through another activity on here, that Elie Weisel's Night is actually part of a trilogy series, so that has definitely made the list of books for me to read.

As far as what i usually read, I tend to enjoy YA novels. Having seen the movie adaptation, I really want to read the Beautiful Creatures book. Along the same lines, I really want to start reading The Mortal Instruments series'. Young adult fiction has always fascinated me, hence why I enjoy Harry Potter so much.

Megan // Gryff

I love the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes. I like picking it up every now and then and reading a story or two over coffee. Even though it's one of my favourite collections, I find it's best to tackle it little bit at a time. Like you said, it can be slow going (especially all at once), but it's worth going through at least one time.

Julia // Slytherin

Yeah, that'll be fine.

My plan for this summer (which failed miserably) was to read a bunch of classics of English literature, with maybe a couple of Russian novels thrown (I was thinking Dostoevskij) because admittedly I haven’t read many English classics, and practically zero Russian novels. I did download some free books from Project Gutenberg but I haven’t gotten around to reading them yet.

I’m currently reading Dicken’s Great Expectations, which I actually started in October but had to put aside once uni started to focus on other things.
A Tale of Two Cities was also on my to-read list after I listened to a great BBC radio adaptation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018gzm8#programme-broadcasts) of the novel (which I recommend if you’re into radio dramatizations) but I highly doubt I’ll manage to read it now.
As for novels I’ve recently read: I was really excited when John Irving’s In One Person and I finally bought it last month (I only read The Cider House Rules and I’ve been meaning to read more books by the same author). I have to say I was a bit disappointing. It wasn’t a horrible book but it left me a bit… meh. Shoddy characterization - writers writing about writers has been done to death, and I couldn’t bring myself to really care about any of the characters. So not as good as I was expecting.
My mother bought Mozart’s Last Aria by Matt Rees for me, thinking I would like it since I went through this Mozart-obsessed phase. I wanted to like it but I didn’t. I read it mostly because my mom would be disappointed if I didn’t. Maybe the Italian translation didn’t help, I don’t know (some sentences sounded a bit funny?) but the plot was slightly ridiculous at times.
I haven’t been reading only disappointing books, though! I claimed Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke in a book giveaway and I quite liked it. Have you read it? What did you think of it?

| # 01

Someone gave me Like the Flowing River by Coelho a few years ago, saying it was such a great book and I would certainly like it. I couldn’t even finish it, and it was during a phase in which I read pretty much everything and would finish a book even if I didn’t like it all that much! I can’t even remember why, it just… wasn’t doing it for me. I haven’t read anything else by Coelho since then. Maybe I would appreciate him a bit more now, I don’t know. He just seems a bit… pretentious? It’s a feeling I can’t quite shake off.

(Totally off topic, but have you been resorted? I thought you were in Gryffindor? But I do get confused at times, if you've Always been a snake just ignore me!)

Giulia | Ravenclaw | #02

I’ve read a few Sherlock Holmes stories after seeing the BBC mini-series. I wouldn’t say I’m such a fan of the ACD’s books, since there are stories I didn’t even bother to read, but there were quite a few I enjoyed (it would be great if they could work The Adventure of the Dying Detective into a Sherlock episode XD or even into Elementary since I’m a fan of both shows).

Last summer I read The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer, which was a perfect light summer read and I which I really enjoyed. I think it’s the only book I’ve ever re-read from cover to cover (it’s quite short) - I usually re-read single chapters or parts of a book, but never the whole thing!

Can anyone rec good Sherlock Holmes pastiches? The House of Silk sounded good, though as usual there are mixed reviews on Goodreads.

Giulia | Ravenclaw | #03

I’m not sure I’m even going to try reading The Casual Vacancy. Not that I think it isn’t good, it’s just that it doesn’t sound like the kind of book I would like? I don’t want to read it just because it was written by JKR, no matter how good of a writer I think she is. Liking HP doesn’t mean I would like her new novel since they are completely different. Maybe someday, should I ever feel like it, but not now. One of my best friend (and fellow HP fan) read it and said it was actually really good. I don’t know, we actually tend to read/like many different things, so I might not like it that much after all.

Giulia | Ravenclaw | #04

Did you read the Hunger Games? One of my best friend read the series and he made me watch the movie, which I unexpectedly liked (I admit I was a bit skeptic at first, but it turned out to be quite an interesting dystopian world and fascinating premise). I thought I might give the books a try but I'm not really sure I would like them.
I glanced at the first pages of the second novel in a bookstore and I saw PRESENT TENSE. Which might work perfectly well in English but actually sounds pretty awful in Italian, so no thanks. (No seriously, it sounds stupid and it's distracting, I just can't).

Giulia | Ravenclaw | #05

I’ve seen many people rec The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I might have to give it a try someday! I usually like science fiction though I haven’t read much sci-fi novels; comic science fiction sounds like an interesting sub-genre. And though I never read the book, the answer to “the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” never fails to make me laugh. I’ve heard the 2005 film adaptation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLdiWe_HJv4) is pretty good as well, maybe I’ll check it out one day.

Giulia | Ravenclaw | #06

I'll definitely keep that in mind about Coehlo. Hopefully it was just the one book because this one sounds interesting.

And yep, my appeal went through last week. You aren't imagining things, lol.

I feel the same about The Casual Vacancy. In fact, both of the novels she has published since Harry. I have read blurbs of the books and they just don't strike me as books that I would like at all. Plus, I think the fact that she wrote them has pushed their prices up, especially The Casual Vacancy and that annoys me. Often people judge me for having not read it cause I loved Harry so much but Hogwarts and Dragons are very far apart from TCV for sure!

Sam/Ravenclaw/1

Given the books that you like, I'd recommend you look up Empty World by John Christopher. It is an older book about a plague wiping out most of the population and a teenager trying to cope. It is YA and I did it at school years ago but the tale is very gripping on the emotions I think.

Brave New World is on my to-read list but looking up the other books you've got listed I think some of them need to join it!

Sam/Claw/2

I love Ender's Game but am so on and off with the rest of the Saga. One of my favorites is Xenocide, which apparently is the most hated for the entire series? In the Shadow part of the saga, I kept getting so confused because there was so. much. politics and so many characters that I couldn't keep up with it all. I finally read Ender in Exile last year and was so disappointed that if there are any more Ender books, I'll probably stay away from them.

caitie / puff

tbh i don't eve know what steampunk is? the setting is definitely a major factor as is the cold magic that its named after! it feels like i read the first book so long ago so i can't actually remember what happens in that one rather than the sequel but it's really adventurey

caitie / puff

For a long time I didn't really read fictional books and would devour non-fiction tombs like chocolate bars but for health reasons I haven't been able to do that so much in the past year and started poking around fiction again, which was a bit strange. I like mysteries, fantasy, sci-fi, and recently I've been trying to read some older classics because I feel like it is something I should do but I think that is going to go out of the window because I'm really not enjoying them at all.

Fictionally, a few of my latest reads have been.

Dracula by Bram Stoker ~ It was ok but I think it was spoiled in many ways by me having grown up hearing about Dracula, seeing many different adaptations and so on. The mystery and excitement that I'm sure would have been there when it was published was taken away by me knowing what was coming a lot of the time. I spent a lot of the chapters going 'Can't you see it is a vampire?!'. I'm also not big on diary entries and first person point of view which is how Dracula is written so that would get at my nerves too but I'm still glad that I read it.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly ~ I enjoyed this a little more because what I thought I knew turned out to be very wrong. The original story is very different from versions I've seen growing up. I don't want to spoil it but the monster itself is far more sophisticated than I expected. The writing style of the time is not one I'm overly fond of but I still enjoyed this book a lot.

Christopher Paolini's Inheritance saga. I read the final two novels in this within a 2 week span. I wish I had read it when I was younger as now looking back a lot of the grammar feels like Paolini is trying to sound grown up and it can get clumpy in places but in others it can read very prettily. I loved the world that he built. A lot of it has similar aspects to other novels and I found in places I was like 'you got that from X, you got that from Y' but it is very hard to be original these days with dwarves, elves, dragons and new magical races. I think he did pretty well with his world building and I couldn't predict the plot which is always good. I'd recommend them to anyone that likes that sort of genre but it is important to remember that he was a teenager and in some places that shows in his writing.

Sam/Claw /448

I just finished Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bernett and it was just really really good. It's a fantasy novel with steampunk elements. You got steel dragons that are fueled by magic and their riders protect the country from whoever threatens it (mostly the neighbours because there has been a war with them for centuries). The 4 characters who get their POV represented in the book get linked together in different ways and of course end up saving everybody. The beginning is a bit slow when it comes to things actually happening, but you quickly get the feeling that something is cooking which kept me reading because I really really wanted to know what was going on. I found all characters relateable on a certain level, though obviously some are more my favourites then others. The jumps between POVs is definitly a plus and gives the reader 4 very different sides of the things happening, but you don't get too confused like you might with all the POVs in Game of Thrones^^

Right now I'm reading Mortimer and Arabel from Joan Aiken for nostalig reasons. I have a whole bunch of those books from when I was younger and they are really cute. I got this one for my birthday I think because my parents know I'm still a child and read them and this is one I definitly don't have yet.

After that I'll start Madita from Astrid Lindgren (on the children's book trip a bit I knowxD) because I didn't read it when I was in the target group but know the stories from the movie and really like them. I just ordered the follow up books to Havemercy so I'm pretty sure they'll be next before I tackle the stack of unread books I have in my bookshelf.

When I read, I’m always looking more for graceful manipulation of language than anything else. While plot and character development are important to me, if a book/poem has amazing grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, I’m sold. Some of my favorite books, therefore, include Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson, Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy, and pretty much anything ever written by David Leviathan. My favorite book in the last few months is This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz—both because it takes place in my home state and it is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. I love reading a book and feeling like the author took every single word into account as (s)he wrote it down.

I just finished a historical nonfiction book entitled Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland by Frances Finnegan. I’m working on a story about a “child” and a nun in this environment, so this book was solely for research purposes. The next book on my list is The Golden Oriole by Raleigh Trevelyan, another historical nonfiction book about an English family in India. I’m getting ready to enter grad school in the field of British Imperialist History, thus the recent book list.

I’m a huge fan of LGBT*QIA literature, and some of my favorites are Rat Bohemia by Sarah Schulman, The Empress of the World by Sara Ryan, and Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden. For the most part, however, I tend to stick to poetry. Some of my favorite poets, old and new, include Sappho, Jinji Moon, Richard Siken, Byron, Margaret Atwood, Jeffrey McDaniel, and Charles Bukowski.

Nicole//Ravenclaw//Initial Post

Edited 2013-08-21 18:24 (UTC)

The Hitchhiker’s “Trilogy” is absolutely fantastic, and I would even recommend Eoin Colfer, which is the sixth and final installment, written after Adams’ death. While the plot can be a bit of a bender for anyone, the wit and philosophy of these books is more than enough to keep you laughing the entire time, and then crying once you finish the book and realize what it is Adams was trying to say. I think my favorite quote of all time is, “Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss,” which is kind of funny, until you recognize the futility in trying to fly. Also, there’s a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias that are both more introspective than 90% of the people I know. Douglas Adams was truly a giant of great writing.

Nicole//Ravenclaw//Comment 2

I feel that pressure about classics too! I feel as though because they're classics, I have to read them, as they're classics for a reason (which is ridiculous really, but we can't help how we feel!). Few of them really catch my eye; To Kill A Mockingbird is the only one I want to read right now, and I've read 1984, Of Mice and Men and Animal Farm, which were all good, and Jane Eyre a long time ago, but all those Pride and Prejudice, Little Women and so on just don't really capture me.

I'm not really into Dracula or Frankenstein, but I'm glad you liked/enjoyed those books :) I've never heard of Inheritance saga though...

Fairy//Hufflepuff

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Restricted Section: Term XXVI - Read, Reading, To Read

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