Kevin's Watch

Uh oh Ali! The Bella character from the Twilight saga... her favorite book is Jane Eyre.

Orlion wrote:The main thing, Shuram, about those... other books is that they get better as you read more of them. So if you can't get into one that everyone praises (*cough*Tolstoy*cough*), set it aside and read some other books before coming back to it.

Well, Anna Karenina will eventually be up again.

Avatar wrote:Also, sometimes you can't get into those ones everybody praises because they're not actually very good.

The Catcher in the Rye

Avatar wrote:

Shuram Gudatetris wrote:Unfortunately...I am reading the Earth's Children saga by Jean Auel.

*sigh* I have a love/hate relationship with these books. (The first is probably the best btw, although the 2nd is probably my favourite.)

I first read Book 1 when I was 14. But by book 3 she was slipping already, and book 4 made me want to kill myself.

However, having dedicated so many years to waiting for them and reading them, I will shortly be reading book 6.

^what Av said^

My personal favorite of the Earth's Children series is also The Valley of Horses, but The Clan of the Cave Bear is probably the best written and edited, and the idea of the story is awesome, especially for when it was released.

I haven't read The Land of Painted Caves yet either, but will definitely be finishing the series at some point.

Avatar wrote:*sigh* I have a love/hate relationship with these books. (The first is probably the best btw, although the 2nd is probably my favourite.)

I first read Book 1 when I was 14. But by book 3 she was slipping already, and book 4 made me want to kill myself.

However, having dedicated so many years to waiting for them and reading them, I will shortly be reading book 6.

Menolly wrote:My personal favorite of the Earth's Children series is also The Valley of Horses, but The Clan of the Cave Bear is probably the best written and edited, and the idea of the story is awesome, especially for when it was released.

I haven't read The Land of Painted Caves yet either, but will definitely be finishing the series at some point.

The Valley of Horses is not only my favorite of the series, I think of it as one of my favorite books in general. I read it at a time when I was very lonely, far away from all my friends and family, no job, just stuck at home with no money all the time with my dogs. So I related to Ayla in a very unique way, and it was a special read for me. But I haven't read The Clan of the Cave Bear yet, just started two days ago.

I have read books 2 through 5 over the last few years. 4 was really tough to get through, but I liked 5 ok and it made me want to read 6.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:Uh oh Ali! The Bella character from the Twilight saga... her favorite book is Jane Eyre.

That's the most encouraging thing I've ever heard about that series.

Shuram Gudatetris wrote:...I liked 5 ok and it made me want to read 6.

Yeah, I have 6 already...just finishing a couple other books, then I'll re-read 5, and read 6.

--A

if i get my foot surgery i will have a couple of monthjs with nothing else to do but read. i have thought about holding off the Harry Potter series for such as thus.

right now i am reading a lot of graphic novels. going through a run of Thor right now.

and meh. i realize now why i never really read Thor. bunch of stuff with Odin... all of seemingly going nowhere. and the villains are subpar. i held out hope for the Tomorrow Man - but he has remained in the background.

Re-reading Stones of Shelter. Struck again by how OK it is. Quite enjoying it if I skim all the descriptions of the landscape and the sex.

Will be on book 6 by tomorrow.

--A

I am guessing you mean Auel's Shelters of Stone?

While gearing up for writing the next novel, I skimmed some sections in a couple of books this weekend: Mesoamerican Mythology and An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya.

Menolly wrote:I am guessing you mean Auel's Shelters of Stone?

Yep. We were talking about it above.

Anyway, onto Land of Painted Caves now.

--A

I finished Clan of the Cave Bear last night. About 2/3 of the way through it I thought it might beat out The Valley of Horses as my favorite in the series, but by the end, I think Valley is still at the top. However, I am re-reading that one now, so I will soon know for sure. Maybe. I am tempted to just skip to the last book.

If you skip, read 5 first, since 6 carries directly on from it. After just rereading it, I came to the conclusion that it's only 4 that really needs to be skipped. Nearly half way through 6 myself.

--A

Definitely not looking forward to 4 again. I just finished 5 a few months ago, so it is still fairly fresh, which is why a skip is tempting. Really, it all boils down to the fact that I was planning a re-read of the Gap Cycle for early 2012, and I am sort of a slow reader and don't really have the time dedicated for reading, so EC will push the Gap back to probably late 2012, since I don't think I want to go from one long series to another. Just one of those things where planning on reading the last EC book turned into a re-read of the whole series.

I know this sounds very, very lame, and I am sure I shouldn't even admit this out loud to anyone, but I really want to re-read the story of Jondalar's wedding shirt. Don't ask me why, but that part of the story stands out for me.

If you've just read 5, then by all means skip that too. 5 has a good reprise of the wedding shirt story, since that's when he first sees it. You really don't need to read 4 at all though.

--A

Well, I'm rereading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, because it was handy and I don't know what I feel like reading.

Finished The Land Of Painted Caves.

Spoiler

Luckily I didn't have high expectations. It wasn't as bad as 4, but it was...sorta pointless really. Nothing much happened, and there was so much repetition I thought I'd go crazy.

I don't need to be reminded every 20 pages that she had a funny accent, or that Jondalar had a thing with Zolena, or that the wolf killed Attora or any one of a thousand things she keeps reminding me about even though I read it 5 times already in this book, not to mention however many times it was mentioned in earlier books.

Also, it didn't seem to have any pace or build-up or climax...even when something happened, it felt...flat.

Other than that, it was survivable...if you can get through book 4, you're alright. The last two are better. Just.

--A

Really starting to get into McCarthy's The Crossing. Was NOT in the mood at all for his style and took me 2 weeks to get to page 17...but all of a sudden it hooked me and when I found out we were in New Mexico, well... Odd though, All the Pretty Horses had me from the first word, so many moons ago.

I just read House of Sand and Fog. It resonated because we have friends from Iran (I even know how to cook obgoosht and tadiq) but it was so stinkin' tragic, unsparingly, no redemption for any character. So while I really really enjoyed the voice and characterizations and descriptions of scenes (one of those reads-like-a-movie books) the ending left me kind of frustrated. Like I was supposed to cheer for the woman because she was brave enough to ask another jailbird for a cigarette, but never took responsibility for any of the destruction of life she had been part of?

Tough book to get through--I did enjoy most of it. The movie, I think, did it more justice-probably because Shohreh Aghdashloo played SUCH a convincing Nadi.

And after a brief detour to visit the Malazan empire again, onto the 2nd Millennium book.

--A