Return of the Book Thread

[Margalis]

My problem with Harry Potter is that while it is ostensibly a series for kids the adult readership is massive. Watching so many adults get so into it is a little sad. It's the reading equivalent of comfort food I guess.

[Triforcer]

I liked all the Potter series except the 7th, which for some reason flew completely off the fucking rails.  Its almost like it was written by a different author.  I think 2, 3, and 6 are the best ones.  1 was good but a bit ragged and simplistic, and 4 and 5 have too much emorage.   

[lamaros]

My problem with Harry Potter is that while it is ostensibly a series for kids the adult readership is massive. Watching so many adults get so into it is a little sad. It's the reading equivalent of comfort food I guess.

Despite not hating it I kind of feel the same way. The worst was having to listen to lectures about it at uni. 

[FatuousTwat]

My problem with Harry Potter is that while it is ostensibly a series for kids the adult readership is massive. Watching so many adults get so into it is a little sad. It's the reading equivalent of comfort food I guess.

This is what I was getting at, but much better put.

[Margalis]

I don't hate it and I don't resent it because it's popular I just think it's sad when books become pop phenomena - especially books for kids being read by adults. For me reading is a personal experience, I don't like the idea of books turning into "event movie" equivalents. I've never felt the least bit compelled to read something because it was the new hot thing that everyone is into or is subject to breathless hype or because I need to feel like I'm part of some greater movement.

An adult book becoming inadvertantly popular with kids seems a lot cooler than the reverse. I'm not sure what it says when the most popular books evar are juvenile fiction in every sense.
---
One of my pet peeves is when universities try to appear hip and relevant by pretending that pop culture is worthy of intense study. To me it always comes off as old people pathetically attempting to be with it or a sad marketing ploy to interest people in academics by dangling US Weekly in front of them. Every time I see a class called something like "The Politics of Hip Hop" or "From Barbarella to Britney Spears: Feminism in Popular Culture" I want to vomit a little.

[Reg]

I think the fact that adults can read it without going mad is part of its appeal. My cousin has two daughters and it's extremely rare that they can all read a book and talk about it afterwards. Harry Potter is very good for that.

[IainC]

The most popular stuff in any entertainment field is generally not very technically adept or artistically valuable. Why are we acting surprised that books aren't an exception to that rule? Is it suddenly a revelation that the 'No1 Bestsellers!' packing the shelves at airports around the world aren't actually very good?

[apocrypha]

You know Louise? Weird, it's a small world.

Yeah, I played DaoC with her briefly and knew her through the Barrysworld forums, awesome girl. Not spoken for a while though, and she'd know me as granny not apocrypha :p

It's the reading equivalent of comfort food I guess.

Spot on, well put :)

[Morat20]

My problem with Harry Potter is that while it is ostensibly a series for kids the adult readership is massive. Watching so many adults get so into it is a little sad. It's the reading equivalent of comfort food I guess.

Many adults got into it because it's something they can read and talk about to their kids, or their nephews and nieces. Even more got into it because OTHER adults were reading it -- once again, mostly because their kids were -- and it sort of spiraled from there.

It's not like they're heavy reading, in any case.

I read them because my son did and my wife had -- although she had read them before he was old enough to because she was an ELA teacher, and the kids she taught read them.

And fuck, they're better than those goddamn Twilight books, which are the shit they're reading now. I LIKE urban fantasy, but my wife even mentions the Twilight novels and my brain melts down into hatred and despair for all humanity.

Twilight Novels: Imagine you're a 14 year old girl. A 14 year old girl who grew up in a strict Mormon household. Now, imagine you -- deep, deep down -- want to be kinda Goth and more than a bit emo, and date a bad boy. Now remember you're a fucking Mormon, and you're a firm believer from a strict perspective, so it's not allowed and you really know nothing about sex, adult relationships, Goth subculture, or really anything because you've led a sheltered life.

Now write a series of vampire novels as an outlet for your rebellious needs. THAT's the Twilight books.

Although I lie -- they're actually kind of interesting in one sense. Ignore them as story, and ask what they say about strict religious upbringings and attitudes about sex. Of course, that only makes sense if you realize how the main character (female) ends up consumating her relationship with the main male character, and especially hear about the baby.

[kaid]

Hell in this day and age any book that can get somebody no matter their age to actually read something when they don't absolutely have to I find to be a good thing. Even if the harry potter stuff is aimed at young adults if they can make adults open them up and read them maybe those same adults will try to look for other books to read and enjoy.

As much as I may mock the old RA salvator Drizzt books those things were the gate way drug for so many people I know to get into actually reading for enjoyment. If it takes something simpler to lead folks into reading so be it.

[Quinton]

As I said, finished The Book Thief finally. Took me ages because I found it pretty traumatic and ended up reading about 8 other books in between chapters. It's the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany, narrated by Death - although not the Terry Pratchett Death by any stretch of the imagination but a far more human and less dispassionate creature. It's hard to say much about the story without spoilering it all but the prose is astonishingly good and it's an amazing view from the inside of something that we're usually only seen the outside of. Can't recommend it highly enough, but be prepared to be very upset by it.

I saw your post and was intrigued and grabbed a copy. 

Finished it this morning.

It was both wonderful and horrible, if that makes any sense.  Fantastic book.

Thank you.

[apocrypha]

Awesome, glad you liked it :)

[Morat20]

Hell in this day and age any book that can get somebody no matter their age to actually read something when they don't absolutely have to I find to be a good thing. Even if the harry potter stuff is aimed at young adults if they can make adults open them up and read them maybe those same adults will try to look for other books to read and enjoy.

As much as I may mock the old RA salvator Drizzt books those things were the gate way drug for so many people I know to get into actually reading for enjoyment. If it takes something simpler to lead folks into reading so be it.

I still have a soft spot in my heart for those, for exactly that reason. "Here, read about the bad-ass dude with TWO SWORDS and his magic panther. Your brain may remain in idle the entire time.".

[FatuousTwat]

Same here, although I haven't read any DragonLance for years or Forgotten Realms since Wizards released DnD4.

I don't know, Harry Potter seems so lame compared to the books I grew up reading... I haven't actually read it, so maybe it's better than how it is portrayed.

[Quinton]

I don't know, Harry Potter seems so lame compared to the books I grew up reading... I haven't actually read it, so maybe it's better than how it is portrayed.

I've read it all.  It's pretty fluffy and Rowling is not exactly a brilliant storyteller, but I enjoyed it anyway -- partially out of thinking how much fun this would have been to read when I was a kid.  I think I read LOTR in 5th or 6th grade, and consumed vast quantities of sci-fi and fantasy fare, as well as virtually anything else I could get my hands on.  The library was a 15 minute drive when I was in gradeschool and we would only go every week or two -- I remember having to get my mother to explain to a librarian that *yes* I really was going to read that stack of 10-15 books I was checking out.

I kind of miss libraries.  I should check out the local one near here.

Did anyone else ever have a library card that was a cardboard card with a metal band threaded through it with your patron number on it?  Then they drop your library card and the card from the pocket in the book into the machine that stamps the card with your number and the due date?

Surely the Woodstock Public Library (IL) was not the only library in the world to use such a system?

EDIT: they looked like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkonig/279512192/

[FatuousTwat]

Ours have been the same pure black with gold lion on the front with a barcode on the back since at least the early 90's.

[Mosesandstick]

Awesome, glad you liked it :)

Has anyone read any of Zusak's other books? It's pretty funny, there are a lot of people here who read the Book Thief after recommendations from other people in the thread (I bought it after Haem and Ab's recommendation I think).

[Hindenburg]

Should give Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant a shot, remember it being quite a good read. For a different kind of  hilarity, The Slum ranks high amidst the best books in existence. Can't vouch for how well they were translated, though.

[apocrypha]

Has anyone read any of Zusak's other books? It's pretty funny, there are a lot of people here who read the Book Thief after recommendations from other people in the thread (I bought it after Haem and Ab's recommendation I think).

I haven't, but I'm planning on an Amazon book splurge soon, I'll add to the list :)

[Johny Cee]

Alright, finished Bakker's The Judging Eye.  It starts a bit slow, and a couple of the POV characters are kind of meh.  Ooooo, what a nice action setpiece in the last couple hundred pages!  Not to spoil it,  but it's a riff on a popular fantasy trope whose origin is quite obvious,  but basically the book shifts from epic/military fantasy storytelling to horror storytelling for that POV section.

Starts a bit slow, but the payoff is well worth it.

The Somnambulist was decent as well.  It busts through a bunch of different genres, starting with Victorian detective and moving through until you get surreal magical realism.


Reread Stover's Caine Black Knife.  Great action/entertainment read by a guy most famous for hammering out Star Wars novels. 

[Paelos]

I'm reading Toll the Hounds by Erikson atm, and I'm getting really really tired of his style at this point. The first books were very engaging with plots that were constantly moving forward in a believable direction. The last two books of his that I've read seem to drone on and on about nothing for extended periods of time.

Also, he's getting WAY too preachy in Toll the Hounds. We get it, civilization is inherently fucked, and it constantly repeats itself. Nobody learns from it. Great. Now shut up and tell me an actual story. He just seems to be beating the point to death. I know he was an archeologist of some type, so I get where he's coming from in that regard, but you don't have to pummel your readers with your philosophies every 10 pages.

[Soln]

i just finished a biography of Orwell (Orwell: The Life by  D. J. Taylor).  Worth it if you're interested in him and his essays.   Now re-reading 1984.

[Johny Cee]

Picked up a complete collection of Poe's stories, and I mostly blame Sky.  Ever since reading Drood, also had the desire to read some Dickens.

[Endie]

I'm reading Thoreau's Walden right now, and what I thought would be a pain (I was reading it because it was a book I really felt I should have read) is in fact a delight.

You Americans, many of whom doubtless have to read it at some point in your education, may chuckle knowingly but it's new to me, and I'm loving it.

[Johny Cee]

I'm reading Thoreau's Walden right now, and what I thought would be a pain (I was reading it because it was a book I really felt I should have read) is in fact a delight.

You Americans, many of whom doubtless have to read it at some point in your education, may chuckle knowingly but it's new to me, and I'm loving it.

Funny.  I actually stopped and looked at Walden while looking through the "classics" shelf to find either Poe or Dickens.  Never actually had to read it,  mostly because I stuck to the social sciences in college.

[HaemishM]

Walden is a fantastic book. It was a big part of my life in high school. Of course, most Americans think its "stupid literature" because we as a culture have been mating with vegetables for a while now.

[Ironwood]

 

[lamaros]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWCYDaZHl6Q&feature=channel_page

[FatuousTwat]

Finished the first book of The Sin War, then went to see about ordering the next book in the series from the library and found out it is the only Diablo book they have in their entire system.

Anyway, it was decent for what it is. It was written by Knaak (who IMO is one of the better writers for Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms).

[Sheepherder]

Just read A Game of Thrones.  I'm not sure I like it.  On one hand, he's ruthless with killing off or characters or wrecking their shit when the plot demands it.  The setup and aftermath with that guy who lost his head is a nice touch, and it was well threaded into the storyline so that it didn't look like he was just killing off characters for shock effect either.  On the other hand, the sex scenes are pretty fucking thick throughout the book, and they scream of cheap literature schtick.  On the third hand, the foul-mouthed and lascivious vengeful midget who's really just a nice guy is just fucking awesome.

[bhodi]

Finished listening to World War Z after some comments here. Totally right. Great book, great cast, highly recommend it.

[Johny Cee]

Just read A Game of Thrones.  I'm not sure I like it.  On one hand, he's ruthless with killing off or characters or wrecking their shit when the plot demands it.  The setup and aftermath with that guy who lost his head is a nice touch, and it was well threaded into the storyline so that it didn't look like he was just killing off characters for shock effect either.  On the other hand, the sex scenes are pretty fucking thick throughout the book, and they scream of cheap literature schtick.  On the third hand, the foul-mouthed and lascivious vengeful midget who's really just a nice guy is just fucking awesome.

I enjoyed the Martin books, but had mixed feelings about them.  I wouldn't put them on the pedestal that many have.  It's fairly indicative for me, at least, in that I've never felt the desire to reread them,  and I obsessively reread books I really enjoy.

Large parts of them just felt uneven.  Some of the characterization was brilliant (Tyrion), but then many of the bad guys came off as completely one dimensional mustache twirlers.

The length that the wars have been dragged out just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  Felt a little like Martin responded to his sales by dragging out the middle portion rather than advancing the overall story.

[Ard]

On the non-fantasy side of things, I read this biography at someone else's recommendation last fall:

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War
amazon link

It's a really interesting delve into the history of a guy who was one of the best US fighter pilots, and also had a major hand in reshaping the face of air warfare and our more modern form of the blitzkrieg.  The author did a good job of showing up relatively unstable the guy was, he clearly had a mental disorder of some sort on top of being a tactical genius, and how the Air Force treated people who tended to buck authority.  It's a fairly good read of anyone interested in somewhat modern military history.

edit: fixed the table breaking link

[Ard]

edit:  I just don't learn, quote is not modify

[Johny Cee]

The new Jim Butcher "Harry Dresden" hardcover, Turn Coat, comes out the 6th or 7th, for all those following the series.  The first 5 chapters of the book are up on www.jim-butcher.com for perusal.  Just reread Small Favor to get myself in the proper mood for the new one.

Rereading "The Prince of Nothing" books by Bakker now, after my appetite was whetted by The Judging Eye and reading a bunch of threads on the Westeros website.  First reread, and it's wonderful....  Later revelations about certain characters open up completely new ways to read those characters in the early books.

Reading a couple Poe short stories a night, as well.