I started rereading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is one of my favorite books and I want to write about this book. I found writing service here to help me with that task. hope I'll finish my writing at the highest level.
gomeshelen, I'm afraid The Great Gatsby was ruined for me by one of my first Literary Criticism classes in college, when we read the book six times in the same semester, each time applying a different "critical lens" to the story. I was left unable to conclude whether Gatsby was just that rich a story, or whether a person could simply impose whatever meaning they wanted on a text by coming at it from the proper angle. I still enjoy reading Fitzgerald in general, but I haven't been able to pick up Gatsby for "fun" since.
Looking back on it, I lean more toward the "rich story" interpretation of my experience; good luck on your writing about the story, whatever angle you approach it from!
I am now currently reading Stephen King's Night Shift, an early short story collection of his. It's apparent that King's storytelling ability has positively evolved over the years (as I suppose it should), but even these early stories are good for some solid goosebumps...
'Wolf of the Steppes Vol. 1' by Harold Lamb.
Even though I am not prone to romanticise Cossacks myself, these are grand tales.
gomeshelen, I'm afraid The Great Gatsby was ruined for me by one of my first Literary Criticism classes in college, when we read the book six times in the same semester, each time applying a different "critical lens" to the story. I was left unable to conclude whether Gatsby was just that rich a story, or whether a person could simply impose whatever meaning they wanted on a text by coming at it from the proper angle. I still enjoy reading Fitzgerald in general, but I haven't been able to pick up Gatsby for "fun" since.
I also had to read it for a college class, but thankfully we only had to give it one treatment. Still, it was a required book, so never became a favorite.
During one of my Brit Lit survey courses, we read selections from The Faerie Queen, which our (young) professor had (fairly recently) written his PhD dissertation on. When we showed up to class for the first day of discussing it, he had a written a list on the chalkboard of about 20 different possible lenses through which it could be interpreted. He explained that the list was just to make a point about how wide-open literary criticism was, and that he was NOT going to bore us to death by discussing more than 3 or 4 of them in this class.
I am a student of philology. As you can imagine, I need to read many books and many of them have become my favorites. It is very difficult to choose one book. I also practice writing. I like this business very much and I even managed to make a lot of success in this industry.
I am a student of philology. As you can imagine, I need to read many books and many of them have become my favorites. It is very difficult to choose one book. I also practice writing. I like this business very much and I even managed to make a lot of success in this industry.
I want to supplement my comment with the fact that I also read a lot of literature on grammar, since I am a student and I need to write a lot of essays.I also use websites to help me improve my writing skills. I enjoy doing this very much.
'Amar Aiyaar: King of the Tricksters', some Indo-Persian folk tales retold (and translated) by Sulaiman Ahmad. Lots of neat stuff in there - I particularly liked the clan of sorcerers who, when killed, turned the sky black and had their soul fly out of their body in the form of a bird to announce their death to their king in a thunderous voice.
Now re-reading 'Religion and the Decline of Magic' by Keith Thomas, which is a classic.
I'm currently about halfway through a short-story collection by Arthur C. Clarke, Tales from Planet Earth. I think one story, "Parasite", would make for a bang-up sf/horror setting/game if one could put the right framework on it.
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I am now currently reading Stephen King's Night Shift, an early short story collection of his. It's apparent that King's storytelling ability has positively evolved over the years (as I suppose it should), but even these early stories are good for some solid goosebumps...
King's short stories always seemed to me to be better-written than his novels, but I admit to being partial to tight writing.
Well I mean I thoroughly enjoyed "Crouch End" and "The Man in the Black Suit"...
I'm currently reading Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Before that I read Tales of Ethshar by Lawrence Watt-Evans.
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I am now currently reading Stephen King's Night Shift, an early short story collection of his. It's apparent that King's storytelling ability has positively evolved over the years (as I suppose it should), but even these early stories are good for some solid goosebumps...King's short stories always seemed to me to be better-written than his novels, but I admit to being partial to tight writing.
Maybe it's because I'm heavily grounded in SF/Fantasy literature, but I'm also enamored of short form writing. (Many of the classic authors in speculative fiction "proved" themselves in genre magazines/pulps before moving on to novels.) At its best, you get all of the punch of a writer's style and skill -- in a story that you can finish in a wait at the doctor's office.
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Maybe it's because I'm heavily grounded in SF/Fantasy literature, but I'm also enamored of short form writing. (Many of the classic authors in speculative fiction "proved" themselves in genre magazines/pulps before moving on to novels.) At its best, you get all of the punch of a writer's style and skill -- in a story that you can finish in a wait at the doctor's office.
IIRC, Nora Jemisin had a lot of good to say about the exercise of writing short fiction, and how much it improved her longer stories. Michael Swanwick and Neil Gaiman have some very good short stories out, as well.
Maybe it's because I'm heavily grounded in SF/Fantasy literature, but I'm also enamored of short form writing. (Many of the classic authors in speculative fiction "proved" themselves in genre magazines/pulps before moving on to novels.) At its best, you get all of the punch of a writer's style and skill -- in a story that you can finish in a wait at the doctor's office.I am now currently reading Stephen King's Night Shift, an early short story collection of his. It's apparent that King's storytelling ability has positively evolved over the years (as I suppose it should), but even these early stories are good for some solid goosebumps...King's short stories always seemed to me to be better-written than his novels, but I admit to being partial to tight writing.
That's right.
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Haven't been frequenting this board in a while, but I figure now's as good a time as any to return, starting with my 2020 reading summary. Yay!
Books read this year: 21
diversity: this year I've tried six authors that were new to me. I've read five science fiction books, three urban fantasy, four non fiction, and nine fantasy. Five in of the books were the next installment of a series I was already partway through, and the rest were either standalones or new to me.
1) The Dreaming Void, by Peter F. Hamilton - this might be the last book I read by this author. It's not that he's terrible - some of his ideas are mind bending and interesting, and I appreciate the overall experience of some stuff by him that I've read. However, these books are also... kinda boring. Characterization is weak, there's tons of bloat, and the recurring theme of focusing on high society sex escapades just doesn't grab me.
2) All Systems Red, by Martha Wells - I can see some potential in the concept, I actually like many of the characters and the writing is solid - but I find the book dreadfully unfunny, and I'm pretty sure that giggling at the PoV is a large part of the supposed appeal here. Without it, all that remains is a perfectly fine adventure story, but nothing to compel me to read onwards.
3) Every Heart A Doorway, by Seanen Mcguire - I like the idea of this book so much, but I actually literally hated the execution, and I *never* hate books. It was just so damned short that I felt compelled to finish the thing even though I knew by the halfway mark that this isn't for me. The plot of this book is utter nonsense, nobody acts remotely like a human being, the mystery at the heart of it was incredibly easy to see through for a seasoned reader, and to top everything off, the novella is way overprices for each page count on Amazon. This is the one book I actually regret reading this year.
Onwards to some positivity!
5) One Word Kill, by Mark Lawrence - what a delightful little package of prose, ideas and character. It isn't any sort of great literary achievement, just a very compact delivery of great story telling. One of the most fun reads of the year for sure, featuring intelligently-done time travel, and capturing the feeling of playing D&D as a kid perfectly.
4) The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie - while not quite as pitch perfect as Best Served Cold, this one is still very distinctly something that only Abercrombie could have pulled off. Best rendition of large scale battle I've ever seen in fantasy? absolutely. The chapter titled "casualties" should win some kind of literary award all on its own. This book is gritty and action packed, hilarious and shocking, amazing with characters, and splendidly written. However, it is more spread out across PoVs than any other Abercrombie book I've read - very methodologically and purposefully so, as it aims to show this gigantic event from as many angles as possible - but still, it comes at the expense of some of the tightbeam focus that previous Abercrombie main PoVs enjoyed.
3) Changes (Dresden #12) by Jim Butcher - hoo boy. Talk about shaking the status quo. Very clearly a pivot point for the series, and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. Like the best Dresden books it took me through the full range of emotional responses, from fist pumping adrenaline and out loud laughter to the verge of tears. Seriously, the emotional gut punch this one drew out of me with the line "Oh, hoss" is quite difficult to believe. Obviously I'm intensely curious to find out what happens next.
2) The Sword of Kaigen, by M.L Wang - I've made a gigantic rambling exploration of why this book is so special to me over at r/fantasy, and I have not the intention of capacity of repeating it here, hence the link. But yeah, this book is amazing.
1) The Big Picture by Sean Caroll - this non fiction is topping my list this year for doing the rarest, greatest thing that a non fiction book can aspire to: it changed how I view and understand the world. A philosophy book written by a physicist, it had just the right state of mind to discuss a fundamental understanding of the universe for me. It promotes the philosophy of the "poetic naturalist", who understands reality through layers of models that are all equally "true" in their applicable domains, and finds beauty and meaning in nature as it is without the need to pile up extra stories of the supernatural. If you want to read a book that convinces you free will is a superficial construct and that you absloutly have it and that's a good thing - this is the book for you. The author is quite possibly the best educational personality I know and in a proper world would have risen to major superstar status. In our world he has an amazing podcast (Mindscape) and a possibly even better Youtube channel.
I recently started The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury. I've read several of his books over the years but somehow this one escaped me until now. I hadn't known it was a collection of short stories before cracking it open, but was pleasantly surprised once I did.
'King of Sartar', by Greg Stafford. It was interesting, but probably only really makes much sense if you're already well up on your 'Runequest' lore, which I most certainly am not.
Also re-reading 'The Mad God's Amulet by Michael Moorcock, and my other half got me a biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture as a present, so I'll make a start on that shortly, too.
I recently read The Silmarillion, which I've tried to read twice before and couldn't finish. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I got through it this time, but I'm unlikely to ever reread it again.
Judging from where the bookmark was left the last time I tried, I gave up just before the good parts started. If my last attempt hadn't been before Peter Jackson's LOTR movies, there's no way I would have stopped just as I got to "Beren and Luthien."
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I recently read The Silmarillion, which I've tried to read twice before and couldn't finish.
This book is on my desert island list, because then I would actually be forced able to finish it.
I started off this year not feeling up to reading anything particularly challenging, and then things actually got bad. While I'm lucky to have been able to work from home, something about being stuck in my house annihilated my desire to curl up with a book vs. other media. Because this list is so short and I found all of the entries unremarkable, I'm not going to mimic Lord Snow's best and worst lists this year either.
Books Read in 2020
1. Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons (Chorus of Dragons Book 1)
2. Pirate’s Honor by Chris A. Jackson (A Pathfinder Tales Novel)
3. Pirate’s Promise by Chris A. Jackson (A Pathfinder Tales Novel)
4. Pirate’s Prophecy by Chris A. Jackson (A Pathfinder Tales Novel)
5. Liar’s Island by Tim Pratt (A Pathfinder Tales Novel)
6. Liar’s Bargain by Tim Pratt (A Pathfinder Tales Novel)
7. The Redemption Engine by James L. Sutter (A Pathfinder Tales Novel)
Started but did not finish due to life disruption:
1. The Wolf and the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky
I also re-read parts of the two short fiction anthologies of stories for Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved:
Selected Short Stories
1. Children of the Rune
2. The Dragons’ Return
Here's hoping next year is better in every way.
I'm reading "Neuromancer" by William Gibson.
Now reading the first book in Barbara Hambly's Darwath trilogy, The Time of the Dark. I never could resist 80's Del Rey paperbacks at my local used bookstore *grin*.
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Now reading the first book in Barbara Hambly's Darwath trilogy, The Time of the Dark. I never could resist 80's Del Rey paperbacks at my local used bookstore *grin*.
Those were fun. She's a decent author, even if she's gotten away from F&SF lately.
She also wrote two of my favorite Trek novels (though bear in mind that I've only read six of them, including the decidedly non-canon Spock Must Die!).
Back in the 1980s, I read The Call of the Wild by Jack London. In 2020, I read White Fang and Before Adam by the same author. I wrote about the latter in this post, feeling regret that I didn't say anything about White Fang at the time.
Last month, I happened to pick up White Fang by Jack London. I could go on and on about what I thought of it... but I've already finished White Fang. This thread is titled "What books are you CURRENTLY reading?" and I've already gone on for too long about books I read in the PAST.
But now, for the first time since the 80s, I'm reading The Call of the Wild, so I have the perfect excuse to describe White Fang as well.
You see, Jack London wrote The Call of the Wild about a dog, Buck, who starts out as a fully domesticated, civilized, spoiled pet...
Uh, you know, I didn't think about this at first, but my post is VERY spoiler-heavy. I should spoilerize the rest of it.
It's funny - almost embarrassing - but when I got my first exposure to that story, I was still very young, not so far removed from my childhood, full of its stories with fairy-tale endings, like Disney movies and such. And as I thought of The Call of the Wild, I imagined an ending like those. What if Buck's original owner - who was rich, after all - moved heaven and earth to trace Buck and bring him back, before Buck completely surrendered to his primitive instincts? Some of the wildness would remain in Buck's character, of course, but Buck could then appreciate the comforts of civilization more. Of course, that's not how the book went; such an ending would be ridiculous and completely destroy the message of the book.
And yet, I now wonder if Jack London wasn't thinking along somewhat similar lines. After the success of The Call of the Wild, London wrote to his publisher, George Brett, that he was working on a book that did the opposite:
I'm going to reverse the process. Instead of the devolution or decivilization of a dog, I'm going to give the evolution, the civilization of a dog...
And so he wrote White Fang about a dog (who was actually three quarters wolf) starting out in the wild and gradually moving closer to civilization. After writing one book with a theme that we hear a call of the wild, feeling a desire to leave the civilized life, London wrote another book that seems to continue that sentence with "...but civilization has its advantages too."
Anyway, I mostly read these books out of a desire for a story from a nonhuman perspective. I don't mean anthropomorphized animals who carry on sophisticated conversations like in Kipling (although I recently read a lot of Kipling stories as well). I mean animals that act the way animals actually do. It seems hard to find a book told from a nonhuman point of view. So London, though certainly not the most brilliant writer of his time, managed to make his distinctive mark.
'Conan the Mercenary' by Andrew Offutt.
It wasn't very good.
Currently reading The Toll by Cherie Priest. While she has written a well-known steampunk series, Clockwork Century, she also puts her hand in at southern gothic horror, which I also enjoy (and what The Toll falls under).
I like to alternate fiction and non-fiction books. Currently I'm reading The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang. It's a bit depressing, but has a very important message that we'd best heed.
Since completing The Silmarillion, my only non-gaming reading has been my monthly issue of Smithsonian.
OTOH, being stuck at home all the time means I'm finally making progress on reading some hefty 3PP D&D 5E books I acquired just before the pandemic hit last winter: I've finished reading Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (a gift), I'm currently working through Odyssey of the Dragonlords (I backed the KS), and every so often I read a few more entries from Tome of Beasts (another gift).
'Black Leopard, Red Wolf' by Marlon James.
It's a solid gold smasher.
I recently started Nightglass by Liane Merciel.
...my first (and still treasured) copy of the Ballantine 4 book box set.
I also still own a copy of the Ballantine box set (not the box iteself, alas, but the well-loved books themselves). I had set a goal long ago to re-read them on a yearly basis, but slipped out of that around the time that the Peter Jackson movies were released. On my most recent re-reading, I was surprised that in several places, I was beginning to conflate parts of the movies with the books. I'm back to semi-annual re-reads now.
