To be honest, I read this often and in such quantity because I had to. And I had to learn how to. I don't know what they are like in the US, but undergraduate degrees are very intense here. One semester we were reading three novels a week, for 4 months. I'm not sure I could do that again, and do the extra reading needed at advanced level. But, it got reading anywhere I could. I even would walk everywhere on Skyrim and while my character was on the move I would be reading. Or reading when walking, which is a useful skill for me. If you ever need help, just me a PM or something. Literature is my profession, as well as my passion.
To be fair, I'm only in my second year, and I'm still working through some requisite courses that aren't related to English, but I'm suspecting that the US might be softer. Or, at least, Texas might be. Each state has their different blend of courses/standards/what-have-you. For instance, I had a World Literature course (roughly 4 months) and we only read 5 works. I think America is telling my to be a better American and pull my literary self up by my own bootstraps. <insert emoticon> Thanks, yo. PS: Nice multi-tasking. I require sincere concentration to read mildly complicated works. As example, for Camus' essays, I read that shit like a turtle.
Here's the thing. To me, that is a very odd system. You also have degrees that allow you to do other subjects, right? Here degrees are specialized. If you do an English degree, only modules within the English spectrum are available to you, so stuff like Drama, Creative Writing, Poetry, Philosophy, little bit of history, Linguistics and Literature are the only things you'll be doing. Madness. I'll send you a PM about this. I actually really like reading philosophy while out hiking, because - I don't know why, being out in the open air and moving my legs really helps me concentrate and work through more complex ideas. It might be a good idea to learn how to walk and read just for this, but I've always been good at multi-tasking. I don't know why.
It certainly is, but you really have to be able to get past your expectations of what you think Rowling book is going to be. There is no magic, no big bad and no war, yet still is still wrought by conflict. The reason I think it's great is because the characters are all incredibly well written, distinct, interesting and realistic (in a way that makes me stop up every page or so to admire the awesomeness of it all at the same time (and partly to try to decipher all her digressions, but in a good way)), and the same goes for the setting, story, plot and writing. I highly recommend everyone to try it out and to not dismiss it before you've at least properly wrapped your head around it (granted, that'll probably take much longer than you'd think).
Is it just me, or is it doing Rowling an injustice to assume she will always write something like Harry Potter? I know it's hard to help it, but still.
Well, that wasn't what I meant and nor did I ever assume she'd do that. All I was getting at is that Harry Potter is her only previous work and that, considering it's such a bestselling series and consists of seven books over the course of a decade, it's a reasonable expectation to have that it's going to vaguely be somewhere in the Harry Potter ballpark. This also goes far deeper than you'd think, and only people who have read the book will know what I'm getting at when it comes to how fundamental the difference between them actually is. I agree I might have hyped this up a bit too much, but only a fool would go to the extreme and make no generalisations based on creators' previous works, and since this is not a fools' forum, I decided to mention that they are starkly different so that people can enjoy it for what it is and so that people who merely want to read more Harry Potter-ish stuff get the message and try their luck somewhere they can actually find what they're looking for.
Currently reading Robert W. Chambers' "The King in Yellow." Quite a trip finding out what the late 1880s thinks 1920 might look like (i.e. horse-drawn lawn mowers, a separate Black state, the ban of foreign Jews into the country).
I'm reading World Without End by Ken Follett, the sequel to Pillars of the Earth. I'm in awe of any author who can write such long novels and keep all the storylines on track.
Just finished reading the manga "All You Need is Kill" - that's the story the Hollywood film "Edge of Tomorrow" with Tom Cruise is based on. Seriously, the manga was SO MUCH BETTER! The art was amazing, and the story and character depth was beautiful. Stupid Hollywood screwed it all up. Thank goodness I watched the film first, cus otherwise I'd have been going WTF throughout. And now I'm reading another manga called Bakuman, apparently about some kid who wants to be the greatest manga artist lol. Author and artist of Death Note teamed up to write a romantic comedy I think. Should be interesting Reading all this in Chinese for practice, but at some point I think I need to go back to English. My mind feels a little slushy...... Pretty sure there're a number of English books I also wanted to read but I honestly don't remember right now... lol
Getting into Don DeLillo now. I've just started 'Libra' but want to get out and pick up 'Underworld' since it's supposed to be his best. I also love Hemingway lately, (helps to simplify my own writing), so I'm going to start 'For Whom the Bell Tolls.'
Just ordered Sycamore Row by John Grisham and probably have my hopes set too high with A Time To Kill being one of my faves, but I can hardly wait for it to arrive! (yup, snail mail...I can't get into ebooks no matter how convenient)
I'm returning to the world of Inspector Pekkala by Same Eastland with The Beast in the Red Forest. Since I have the previous four Pekkala books on my Kindle (complete with hilarious notes courtesy of me), I felt like I needed to do it.
Just finished Richard Marsh's The Beetle: A Mystery. What an odd little story! Imagine Dickens if he limited himself to 200 pages and had just sat through a load of psychological horror films. Also, the last part is so tongue-in-cheek Holmes parody it's at times even rather funny. If that description interests you, I recommend you check it out! It's certainly an interesting book, I'm glad it's been rediscovered, even if I'm not quite sure I like it.
Just finished reading The Miseducation of Cameron Post. It's been years since I read fiction regularly, so I'm glad to see that I can still do it pretty quickly.
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Poor Axel. xD I'm at the beginning where Liedenbrock is forcing Axel to work on the Icelandic translations and pretty much threatening him with harm by saying, "...And by St. Michael if you deceive me..." Poor Axel. It must suck having an interesting, eccentric uncle, doesn't it?
I somehow managed to read both my Most Hated Book of 2014 (So Far) and The Worst Book of 2014 (Very Likely To Remain Unsurpassed) in quick succession. I detested Zia Haider Rahman's In The Light Of What We Know. Without some of its disturbing misogyny I might have just found myself rolling my eyes out and appreciated the glimmers of great writing lost among its very plain core: two middle-aged bores have a 500-page conversation about the great ideas upon which dude friendships are founded. Unfortunately, the novel is extremely misogynistic, as opposed to a commentary on the phenomenon, so it shot straight to the top of my most disliked books. The Truth About The Harry Québert has absolutely no redeeming qualities, unlike Rahman's opus. I felt myself getting progressively stupider as I was slogging through this mess. Do yourselves a favor: just... don't. If you think the prestigious French awards piled up on this dross mean it can't be that bad, here's NPR's review to convince you that yes, it totally can.
I'm sad to read this, as I had, on a whim, picked this one up at Costco, after seeing it highly touted on amazon. Oh well.
I have to confess I got my entertainment where I could, which just so happened to be in 1 star reviews in both French and English. My favorite: "OMG IT'S SO BAD!"
Lost Nation - Jeffery Lent. Shamefully little-known but thus far outstanding. Man, this guy can write.