Do you read?

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

 

I wonder if SmallHeathTalk have a "Can you read?" thread?

 

I think they'd do well with a "can you speak?" thread to be honest.

 

 

 

They are funny though, like when you see small heaths walking around outside there compound or if they manage to get to a shopping area unsupervised,  you can see them looking at all the shapes and colours and trying desperately to formulate this into some sort of environmental awareness.  They will be talking next i suppose,  early small heaths are trying to apply the concept that some sounds have a meaning attached to the them.

 

On a brighter note,  I hear the trial of their owner could be a re-trial.  Shame.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Amsterdam_Neil_D

[Eames]

 

Dunno. He might have much of the ground work already written.

A Dance With Dragons is much better than Crows was. Dany & Tyrion are actually in it again and you catch up with some of the stuff that has already been shown on TV.

I'm currently going through the Dunk & Egg tales which are some short stories set about 100 years before A Song of Ice & Fire. There is some overlap, you meet characters who are referenced a lot in ASoIaF and get an even greater sense of the world. Well worth getting into after Dragons.

 

Nice one, will check that out.  I can't imagine a life without being immersed in that world now.

 

Estimates for Winds of Winter was 3 years assuming 500 pages a year of completed manuscript. According to Wiki he as several chapters written already. 

[Wainy316]

 

 

Dunno. He might have much of the ground work already written.

A Dance With Dragons is much better than Crows was. Dany & Tyrion are actually in it again and you catch up with some of the stuff that has already been shown on TV.

I'm currently going through the Dunk & Egg tales which are some short stories set about 100 years before A Song of Ice & Fire. There is some overlap, you meet characters who are referenced a lot in ASoIaF and get an even greater sense of the world. Well worth getting into after Dragons.

 

Nice one, will check that out.  I can't imagine a life without being immersed in that world now.

 

Estimates for Winds of Winter was 3 years assuming 500 pages a year of completed manuscript. According to Wiki he as several chapters written already. 

 

 

It's still projected for a 2014 release as it stands.  As I've never had to wait for one of the books yet, how likely is that likely to be the case?

[Eames]

Not likely at all. Crows was 3 years later than planned....... he also doesn't commit himself totally to the series... he has loads of other side projects and interests which will slow the pace of writing down. 

 

There is no way a) he will deliever the novel for release in 2014 and the series will end with just 2 further novels. 

[mjmooney]

I tried to read GoT's, I really did. Not happenin' though. I find too many fantasy writers forgo decent writing for world building, which puts me off and ultimately bores me when I try to read them.

 

I'm currently reading this

 

 

Only on the second story, but his writing really is something else. Some sentences can run on for whole pages. The first story was hard work, although deliberately jargon-filled as it dealt with marketing, but the second has some sentences that I just have to stop to and re-read a few times because they are so **** good.

 

My love of supermassive novels means that I will eventually have to read "Infinite Jest". 

[Frobisher]

Dunno. He might have much of the ground work already written.

A Dance With Dragons is much better than Crows was. Dany & Tyrion are actually in it again and you catch up with some of the stuff that has already been shown on TV.

I'm currently going through the Dunk & Egg tales which are some short stories set about 100 years before A Song of Ice & Fire. There is some overlap, you meet characters who are referenced a lot in ASoIaF and get an even greater sense of the world. Well worth getting into after Dragons.

I found Dance with Dragons a bit tedious. All Tyrion does is sit around saying word removed and playing Cyvasse. Edited November 8, 2013 by stwefano

[The_Rev]

I agree on that one. Like Byrenne's road to nowhere in AFFC, Tyrion's boat trip don't half drag on. I love the Ramsey Snow stuff though, and all the events up at the wall.

[Dodgyknees]

Reading Bravo Two Zero and can't put it down.

 

Great book, there is also a book that looks at the true story, also a good read. This one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Real-Bravo-Two-Zero/dp/0304365548

Edited November 8, 2013 by dodgyknees

[AVFC_Hitz]

Has anyone read 'Oi Ref!'?

[coda]

Half way through Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood and it's so disappointing. This is a poor follow up to Oryx and Crake which was brilliant. I've been looking at reviews and I reckon a lot of people review the author instead of the book.

[mjmooney]

Half way through Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood and it's so disappointing. This is a poor follow up to Oryx and Crake which was brilliant. I've been looking at reviews and I reckon a lot of people review the author instead of the book.

 

Exactly what my missus said. She raved about 'Oryx' but said YotF was a let-down.

Edited November 10, 2013 by mjmooney

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

I liked 'The Handmaid's Tale', but not enough to want to read more of her stuff. Although I've heard 'Oryx and Crake' and 'The Blind Assassin'' are very good.

 

Anyway I'm going to re-read 'Austerlitz' by W.G. Sebald, because I was rather distracted by the very annoying layout (big font, absurd spacing, like, 25 sentences to a page), and couldn't really get into it, but I keep hearing that Sebald was brilliant, so I'll give it another shot.

[mjmooney]

I preferred "The Rings of Saturn", although TBH all the Sebald books are much the same.

[coda]

 

Half way through Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood and it's so disappointing. This is a poor follow up to Oryx and Crake which was brilliant. I've been looking at reviews and I reckon a lot of people review the author instead of the book.

 

Exactly what my missus said. She raved about 'Oryx' but said YotF was a let-down.

 

 

Have either of you read the third one, MaddAddam? Not sure whether to bother with it.

 

I liked 'The Handmaid's Tale', but not enough to want to read more of her stuff.

 

I found that one chilling. It's a great novel just not all that enjoyable with all the interior monologue from a woman stuck in a room.

[mjmooney]

I haven't read Oryx, but Mrs M has the same dilemma - she's not sure whether to bother with the third book. 

[MakemineVanilla]

I preferred "The Rings of Saturn", although TBH all the Sebald books are much the same.

 

There is no reason to read The Rings of Saturn.

 

All you have to do is travel to Norfolk on a still day and look east for a few hours, contemplating the three thousand miles of flat featureless land between yourself and the Urals.

 

Internalise that melancholy.

 

Come home again.

 

Job done.

[mjmooney]

 

 

All you have to do is travel to Norfolk

 

That's good enough reason to read The Rings of Saturn. 

[Ginko]

Not likely at all. Crows was 3 years later than planned....... he also doesn't commit himself totally to the series... he has loads of other side projects and interests which will slow the pace of writing down. 

 

There is no way a) he will deliever the novel for release in 2014 and the series will end with just 2 further novels. 

 

Yeah, I've heard he wants to finish it in seven books as it seems to be quite a significant number in the story lore. Seven gods, etc. I also heard that he knows how he wants to end things, it's just the bits in between he hasn't fully fleshed out yet, but he's told the two producers of the TV show how it ends just in case he doesn't live to finish the books, which would be a massive shame but considering his age and how fat he is, it's a distinct possibility.

I caught up just in time for Dance for Dragons to be released and blew through it pretty quick. It is annoying have to wait for so long. There's one or two chapters from Winds of Winter up online somewhere. He's done readings of new material from the book at conventions and stuff. The one I read concerns Arianne but really doesn't give too much away.

[MakemineVanilla]

 

 

 

All you have to do is travel to Norfolk

 

That's good enough reason to read The Rings of Saturn. 

 

 

What you might call a great chill-out book.

 

Sebald really creates a great atmosphere of Zen-like stillness and wonder.

 

I think it captures what Freud meant by 'oceanic feeling'.

 

Very memorable but not for everyone.

[BOF]

The 100 greatest novels, as of 1898

1. Don Quixote - 1604 - Miguel de Cervantes

2. The Holy War - 1682 - John Bunyan

3. Gil Blas - 1715 - Alain René le Sage

4. Robinson Crusoe - 1719 - Daniel Defoe

5. Gulliver's Travels - 1726 - Jonathan Swift

6. Roderick Random - 1748 - Tobias Smollett

7. Clarissa - 1749 - Samuel Richardson

8. Tom Jones - 1749 - Henry Fielding

9. Candide - 1756 - Françoise de Voltaire

10. Rasselas - 1759 - Samuel Johnson

11. The Castle of Otranto - 1764 - Horace Walpole

12. The Vicar of Wakefield - 1766 - Oliver Goldsmith

13. The Old English Baron - 1777 - Clara Reeve

14. Evelina - 1778 - Fanny Burney

15. Vathek - 1787 - William Beckford

16. The Mysteries of Udolpho - 1794 - Ann Radcliffe

17. Caleb Williams - 1794 - William Godwin

18. The Wild Irish Girl - 1806 - Lady Morgan

19. Corinne - 1810 - Madame de Stael

20. The Scottish Chiefs - 1810 - Jane Porter

21. The Absentee - 1812 - Maria Edgeworth

22. Pride and Prejudice - 1813 - Jane Austen

23. Headlong Hall - 1816 - Thomas Love Peacock

24. Frankenstein - 1818 - Mary Shelley

25. Marriage - 1818 - Susan Ferrier

26. The Ayrshire Legatees - 1820 - John Galt

27. Valerius - 1821 - John Gibson Lockhart

28. Wilhelm Meister - 1821 - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

29. Kenilworth - 1821 - Sir Walter Scott

30. Bracebridge Hall - 1822 - Washington Irving

31. The Epicurean - 1822 - Thomas Moore

32. The Adventures of Hajji Baba - 1824 - James Morier ("usually reckoned his best")

33. The Betrothed - 1825 - Alessandro Manzoni

34. Lichtenstein - 1826 - Wilhelm Hauff

35. The Last of the Mohicans - 1826 - Fenimore Cooper

36. The Collegians - 1828 - Gerald Griffin

37. The Autobiography of Mansie Wauch - 1828 - David M. Moir

38. Richelieu - 1829 - G. P. R. James (the "first and best" novel by the "doyen of historical novelists")

39. Tom Cringle's Log - 1833 - Michael Scott

40. Mr. Midshipman Easy - 1834 - Frederick Marryat

41. Le Père Goriot - 1835 - Honoré de Balzac

42. Rory O'More - 1836 - Samuel Lover (another first novel, inspired by one of the author's own ballads)

43. Jack Brag - 1837 - Theodore Hook

44. Fardorougha the Miser - 1839 - William Carleton ("a grim study of avarice and Catholic family life. Critics consider it the author's finest achievement")

45. Valentine Vox - 1840 - Henry Cockton (yet another first novel)

46. Old St. Paul's - 1841 - Harrison Ainsworth

47. Ten Thousand a Year - 1841 - Samuel Warren ("immensely successful")

48. Susan Hopley - 1841 - Catherine Crowe ("the story of a resourceful servant who solves a mysterious crime")

49. Charles O'Malley - 1841 - Charles Lever

50. The Last of the Barons - 1843 - Bulwer Lytton

51. Consuelo - 1844 - George Sand

52. Amy Herbert - 1844 - Elizabeth Sewell

53. Adventures of Mr. Ledbury - 1844 - Elizabeth Sewell

54. Sybil - 1845 - Lord Beaconsfield (a. k. a. Benjamin Disraeli)

55. The Three Musketeers - 1845 - Alexandre Dumas

56. The Wandering Jew - 1845 - Eugène Sue

57. Emilia Wyndham - 1846 - Anne Marsh

58. The Romance of War - 1846 - James Grant ("the narrative of the 92nd Highlanders' contribution from the Peninsular campaign to Waterloo")

59. Vanity Fair - 1847 - W. M. Thackeray

60. Jane Eyre - 1847 - Charlotte Brontë

61. Wuthering Heights - 1847 - Emily Brontë

62. The Vale of Cedars - 1848 - Grace Aguilar

63. David Copperfield - 1849 - Charles Dickens

64. The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell - 1850 - Anne Manning ("written in a pastiche seventeenth-century style and printed with the old-fashioned typography and page layout for which there was a vogue at the period . . .")

65. The Scarlet Letter - 1850 - Nathaniel Hawthorne

66. Frank Fairleigh - 1850 - Francis Smedley ("Smedley specialised in fiction that is hearty and active, with a strong line in boisterous college escapades and adventurous esquestrian exploits")

67. Uncle Tom's Cabin - 1851 - H. B. Stowe

68. The Wide Wide World - 1851 - Susan Warner (Elizabeth Wetherell)

69. Nathalie - 1851 - Julia Kavanagh

70. Ruth - 1853 - Elizabeth Gaskell

71. The Lamplighter - 1854 - Maria Susanna Cummins

72. Dr. Antonio - 1855 - Giovanni Ruffini

73. Westward Ho! - 1855 - Charles Kingsley

74. Debit and Credit (Soll und Haben) - 1855 - Gustav Freytag

75. Tom Brown's School-Days - 1856 - Thomas Hughes

76. Barchester Towers - 1857 - Anthony Trollope

77. John Halifax, Gentleman - 1857 - Dinah Mulock (a. k. a. Dinah Craik; "the best-known Victorian fable of Smilesian self-improvement")

78. Ekkehard - 1857 - Viktor von Scheffel

79. Elsie Venner - 1859 - O. W. Holmes

80. The Woman in White - 1860 - Wilkie Collins

81. The Cloister and the Hearth - 1861 - Charles Reade

82. Ravenshoe - 1861 - Henry Kingsley ("There is much confusion in the plot to do with changelings and frustrated inheritance" in this successful novel by Charles Kingsley's younger brother, the "black sheep" of a "highly respectable" family)

83. Fathers and Sons - 1861 - Ivan Turgenieff

84. Silas Marner - 1861 - George Eliot

85. Les Misérables - 1862 - Victor Hugo

86. Salammbô - 1862 - Gustave Flaubert

87. Salem Chapel - 1862 - Margaret Oliphant

88. The Channings - 1862 - Ellen Wood (a. k. a. Mrs Henry Wood)

89. Lost and Saved - 1863 - The Hon. Mrs. Norton

90. The Schönberg-Cotta Family - 1863 - Elizabeth Charles

91. Uncle Silas - 1864 - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

92. Barbara's History - 1864 - Amelia B. Edwards ("Confusingly for bibliographers, she was related to Matilda Betham-Edwards and possibly to Annie Edward(e)s . . .")

93. Sweet Anne Page - 1868 - Mortimer Collins

94. Crime and Punishment - 1868 - Feodor Dostoieffsky

95. Fromont Junior - 1874 - Alphonse Daudet

96. Marmorne - 1877 - P. G. Hamerton ("written under the pseudonym Adolphus Segrave")

97. Black but Comely - 1879 - G. J. Whyte-Melville

98. The Master of Ballantrae - 1889 - R. L. Stevenson

99. Reuben Sachs - 1889 - Amy Levy

100. News from Nowhere - 1891 - William Morris