Just finished Sacrifice by S.J. Bolton and my opinions of it has not changed. It's not good, but I can't in all consciousness call it bad, but it's not really worth reading for anything other than if you want to read something light and brainless. Now reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. May as well give this a read.
I've recently downloaded the entire works of Charles Dickens for Kindle, and have just began Oliver Twist. I'm fascinated by the Victorian/Dickensian era.
Just finished Van Gogh- The Life by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. It was a long read and I felt that they did not fully appreciate Van Gogh as a human, but it gave me plenty of facts about his life that I was unaware of. Also finished Screenplay by Syd Fields. Meh. I don't think I want to write screenplays in the Hollywood sense anymore. Started The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck. Looking interesting so far, have to see what comes up next. 85 pages in.
Finished Save the Cat by Blake Snyder-- another screenwriting book. He was a hack. Anyone that mentions Miss Congeniality as an example of anything to do with a good script and then says Memento sucks shouldn't be, in my opinion, involved in "the biz." Started Makers of Modern Strategy-- from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, a book of essays about military strategy and history itself. It's eight hundred and seventy-one pages of essays. I'm in for the long haul. Page seventeen!
Half-way finished with Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Despite it being a summer reading assignment for my AP Literature class, I'm finding it to be one of the better books I've read (And I should also mention that I am easily impressed, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.) To me it's simply a well written tale of a time well passed but which still echoes in my life. The characterization is meticulous and well revealed, but feels so natural in its state that you want to simply keep reading to find out more about their pasts and futures. The setting is a turbulent time where the modern age is looming in the distant future while the ways of old are still present, which creates this sort of world that you can almost drop yourself into. If you haven't read this book (And even though I have not finished yet, I will do this to you-) pick it up and read. It'll be well worth your time.
Like always, I’m reading multiple novels, unable to read just one. I’m currently reading Simon R. Green “The Man with the Golden Torc”, the first in his James Bond-style novels, but including the supernatural. Charles Bukowski “Women”. Richelle Mead’s “Thorn Queen.” And Blood and Bullets by James R. Tuck.
Taking a break from John Gardner's opus Mickelsson's Ghosts in order to read a lightweight suspense thriller, in this case Alistair MacLean's When Eight Bells Toll. I have to say there's more sheer STUFF in ten pages of Gardner's book than in all of MacLean's.
Finished Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. It's a shame he couldn't get around to finishing it. I was reading the correspondence that comes with the book, in the appendix, and I agree with his thoughts that he "had something going", no matter how rough or unshapely it was. It could've been really great if he would've had time to finish it. Started The Complete Works of O. Henry-- Volume One. I don't know what to think. I'm only six stories in and haven't found anything particularly memorable, and I've even read through one of the more renowned stories by him, "The Gift of the Magi". I know it's not a complete waste of time, as you always learn something new with every book that you read, but this could be a tough one that takes me a VERY long time to complete. Ugh.
I'm attempting to read Richard Jeffries' "After London" again. I wonder if I will actually manage to get through it this time.
Just finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Excellent book, very funny. A little reliant on the same basic joke maybe, but the ending was amazingly well written, and reading it you can see the influence it had on Thomas Pynchon's work. It's written so well too! The writing is very tight. Currently reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I've always wanted to read this and for some reason always put it off. I guess I'm scared I might not enjoy it despite all my friends saying I definitely will. I'm taking the plunge now. Wish me luck everyone.
I loved Catch-22. Thought it was funny as hell, too. Crime and Punishment, ehhhhhh. I liked the first half but then it kind of dragged on for me. Picked up It by Stephen King, another one of the books lying on my bookshelf. My plan is to read everything I have before I start something new as a test of endurance and perseverance. I'm 71 pages in of 1183.
Im reading Fredrick Forsyth's Fist Of God. I can find so many similarities with his 'Afghan'. But a good read so far.
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. I was loving it, but it's really petered out for me in the last 80 or so pages. I'm itching to finish it and start Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (if I start another book now I'll never finish this one) but I just keep putting it down, annoying.
I want to read The Iron Dream sometime. I'm currently reading Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hey, all three of these sentences rhyme!
^I always thought 'Hyde' was supposed to be pronounced much like 'Hide'. I know Stevenson wanted 'Jekyll' to be pronounced 'Jeyk-ill', not 'Jek-ill' as is common.
That's how I pronounce it as well; I just realized the second sentence doesn't really rhyme due to the lack of the "ime" noise. I guess you could call it assonance, except that applies to a single sentence...
Recycled The Complete Short Stories of O. Henry Vol 1. I'm not reading another 720 pages of THAT. Cracked open The Odssey by Homer instead.
What's the difference between Jeyk-ill and Jek-ill? What do the syllables rhyme with? Which syllable is accented? BTW, how do you pronounce "Lemex"? I asked you this once before, and I think your answer had to do with the difference between Le-mex and Lem-ex, and those sound the same to me.
One can be phonetically rendered as 'Gh-eek-hall', the common pronunciation is 'J-heck-hall' With Lemex I always pronounce it 'Lem-ex' (think of the first syllable of Lemmings, and 'ex' as in 'ex-parrot') I've heard some people say it as 'Le-mex' (as in the french masculine word for 'the' and 'Mex' as in Mexico).
