Piyush's bid - Chapter II

My old thread can be found at http://www.librarything.com/topic/53452

My ticker for 2009 reads:




My Ratings:
0.5 - Don't know why did I bother finishing it!
1.0 - Very bad
1.5 - Bad
2.0 - Could have utilised my time better
2.5 - Neutral
3.0 - Good enough for a read, not worth discussing though.
3.5 - More than decent read
4.0 - Very good!
4.5 - Just lacked something (maybe my bias) to become a 5!
5.0 - Excellent!

Hiya! Nice to see you in the two-thread group. Gotcha starred again!

Thanks Catey!

I have too many threads to catch up with and books to list. My home net connection is giving me trouble for some reason and gets disconnected every few minutes.

23. Pinball, 1973 - Haruki Murakami

Pinball, 1973 is my first Murakami and though it had a clear enough plot, the story was vague.

The protagonist in the story works with a friend as a translator. The friend is very much ignored in the story and surprisingly knows little about the protagonist. The protagonist seems to be a loner and is perceived as much by the people who know him, but one fine day when a pair of twin girls, out of nowhere, comes to his house for an indefinite duration, he neither complains nor makes any enquiries and very much enjoys their company.

The charater of the twins is quite fascinating, more so than the protagonist himself and they appear quite other worldly. Nothing is known of their past or where they come from. They depart as mysteriously, taking leave of the protagonist but without telling him where they are going.

The protagonist in the mean time becomes obsessed with finding an old Pinball machine he used to play with in his university days with a friend of his, Rat. He finally manages to track down the machine with the help of a Pinball enthusiast and bids his farewell to the machine!

There is a parallel story of Rat, who is an introvert and after dropping out of university spends his time at a bar where he has a curious relationship with the bartender J and reads Russian Literature. He not content with his life decides to leave the town for an unknown destination and nothing more is known about him or his purpose.

There are a lot of little incidents throughout the book which are very well written and are quite interesting, the book in its entirety however lacks closure of any kind, and there are just too many loose ends hanging around.

3.5/5

Ah so you already have the new position! Well I hope these 3 weeks are refreshing and the kind that build great memories for the future :) Glad you're back! LOL it was only a few days, but I missed you :)

Got the Pride and Prejudice review posted! Enjoy your time off.

#3 Piyush, your welcome! Sorry to hear about your internet, hope it gets fixed soon. :)

Catey

Welcome back, Piyush! I hope you have a wonderful sojourn with your parents. Good luck with your new job as well!

Piyush

Have a wonderful "vacation" with your family and wishing you much success in your new job. Don't forget to let us know how you are doing!

And what you are reading! ;-)

Haruki Murakami can be a "puzzle" to read sometimes. I've read three of his so far and they've all been wildly different. Bur he is fascinating somehow. I loved your review.

Thanks Susan, I missed you too :)
I am reading one of your recommendations, Sheepfarmer's Daughter and I like what I have read so far.

Hey Mac,
Thanks for the wonderful review, left a note on your thread.

Catey, I still don't know what is wrong with my connection, after every 15-20 minutes, "Generic Host Process for Win32 Services" crashes and I have to restart the comp., before I can connect it again. The problem persists with both my laptop and the desktop at home.

Thank you Stasia for the warm wishes! Will try to be as regular as I can for the next couple of months before my life gets steadier.

Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for the wishes, will keep you posted of my progress :)

I maintain the log of my current reads on my profile, its slightly more than half a dozen books as of now!

I liked Harukami too and have Kafka on the Shore and Dance Dance lined up in my TBR pile.

Piyush - Glad to see you back, even if intermittently, and best of wishes in your new job and life in Mumbai (a city I would love to go to - have you read Maximum City?)

I've read Kafka on the Shore and liked it but not yet Dance, Dance, Dance. Isn't the latter a sort-of sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase? Looking forward to seeing your opinions of both.

Hi Liz,
Thanks a ton for the wishes, I have visited Mumbai a few times and interned there for a couple of months last year, the same time I joined LT and this group.

I have not read Maximum City, though have heard good things about it, I must confess it is not even in my TBR list for this year, maybe some time later...

I didn't know about A Wild Sheep Chase being the prequel, will check that one too, it would anyways be more than a month (maybe two) before I read another Murakami...

I just checked the reviews of Dance, Dance, Dance, and A Wild Sheep Chase on LT. The one I read on DDD says it is a sequel to AWSC. There are several reviews on Wild Sheep but most of the ones that had high ratings weren't in English and the one I read that was in English said it was enjoyable but in the end he didn't really undertand what was going on!

Now I'm waiting to see what you think, Piyush! No rush, I won't be ready for quite a while to read my next Murakami and I recently bought Wind-up Bird Chronicle, so it will be that one.

Eventually I'd like to try them all--he is a fascinating writer who seems to hide behind his work. I find him intriguing and so far I've enjoyed what I've read.

Just dropping in to say hi....Hi!

Carolyn, it seems the vague endings is a trademark of Murakami's writing, irrespective of which his work is highly acclaimed.

I think I will read 2-3 Murakami's before the year end.

Waves to Lorraine

I agree the endings of Murakami's novels, and short stories, are always quite enigmatic. To me, his skill is in the way he forms sentences; there's something quirky and fresh about him that appeals to me.

I still have a few to go, but don't want to read them all and run out. Looking forward to comments from you guys when you get round to them. After Dark is a good short one if you're not in the mood for an epic read.

#16 I haven't read Maximum City all the way through and I plan to finish it this year. I can imagine, Piyush, that when you live in India and have been to Mumbai, it's maybe not quite as exotic and exciting as it is for me.

Yeah, having spent some time in Mumbai, a story about the city is no longer exotic, however, the city itself is quite different to anywhere else in India. Mumbai to me is a land of extremes, while Mumbai boasts of the largest slum in Asia, this link would portray another picture http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Mumbai-7th-largest-billionaire-city-ltig...

I will get to reading most of his work in the next 3-4 years, I am planning to read 3-4 Murakamis a year.

I've only read one Murakami (Kafka on the Shore) and found that interesting enough for me to look for more of his works. Thanks for the discussion on his writings, I had no idea that the "vague endings" were a Murakami trademark.

> 20 Also, I completely agree with jbeast on what makes Murakami special. This sentence expresses exactly how I felt about his writing too: "To me, his skill is in the way he forms sentences; there's something quirky and fresh about him that appeals to me. "

#21 Very interesting link, Piyush. I knew it was a rich place but didn't know it was that wealthy. You're very lucky to be working there. And it's interesting to hear that it's not like the rest of India. I had an Indian friend, from Bangalore and I think pretty wealthy, who said he hated Mumbai. Maybe it's a love it or hate it place. British people seem to feel like that about London. Me, I love it.

#22 Definitely an individual and original writer. I went mad on Murakami last year. Still think my favourite is Norwegian Wood, which is pretty much based in reality. I much prefer this to Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which is very much way out there. I would definitely recommend after the quake - there are some great storeies in there.

Thanks for saying that you agree with my comment about his writing style. I knew what I meant but found it hard to put into words.

I can't help wondering how much of the writing style is down to translation. However since the works I have read of his are by a couple of different translators, though not obviously so, i think his style comes across pretty much intact however it's interpreted by a third party.

I agree with jbeast, After Dark is a good place to start. It was my first Murakami and really "hooked" me. At first it seemed so strange and then it just "sucked me in!" I couldn't put it down. When I was finished I found it so satisfying -- but couldn't figure out why! A most unusual experience for me.

#24 mine too and I also loved it!

24. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl Is one of the writers I have discovered this year, being strongly recommended by Linda. While, this is shelved as a children’s book, there is just a hint of the twisted humor he is famous for which so very much separates him from someone like Wodehouse, whom also I read for the first time this year.
SPOILER: The way Charlie comes up with the golden wrapper, not from his Grandpa’s last reserves, but from money he finds on the road is brilliant!
I am sure I will be reading a lot more of him some time down the line, maybe just another one not so down the line.

3.5/5

After Dark moves up my TBR pile after so many recommendations.

On an unrelated note, WOT series ends with another trilogy for its last part, A Memory of Light and to make matters worse, while the first part The Gathering Storm will be released in November the trilogy will be spanned over two years!

I haven't read the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson and have no idea what to expect from this series.

#27 Re: WOT - GAH!!! I NEED this series to end!!

Me too!
I liked this series, but it has been too long and the end is still not near!

Here's a link to an article talking about the book being split up --> http://www.dragonmount.com/News/?p=483

...and here's a link to Sanderson's blog where he talks about why this will happen --> http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/56/Splitting-AMOL

To his credit, he wants to do due diligence to the series... and don't worry... he's an excellent fantasy writer! :) I've only read Elantris myself, but a number of other people here in our group have been reading his Mistborn trilogy and have been very impressed with it.

Hopefully that's good news for WOT fans!!!

#30

Thanks dk--now I know WOT stands for Wheel of Time. And with a little hunting I discovered that the series was started by Robert Jordan who died in 2007 and evidently Brandon Sanderson has been selected to finish the series.

Whew! Am I the only fantasy "newbie" that has been totally bemused trying to figure out what y'all were talking about?
A few clues would help, guys. Check out the page you get when you click on A Memory of Light to see where the frustration started!

BTW As a newbie, is this a series I should consider? :-)

LOL, I am sorry Carolyn for posting the link for the title without opening it. Wheel Of Time is a big series with 11 books already published, A Memory of Light was supposed to be the last part before Robert Jordan died and Brandon Sanderson took over. It is an excellent series for those who like it (me included), but doesn't suit everyone. Many people who like the series stop after a few books because of the voluminous parts the series boasts of.

It is slightly on the darker side with loads of deaths, which again maybe a turn off for some people, but you can definitely try the first three parts, which aren't that dark, before deciding if you want to go further.

Faith, thanks a lot for the link to Sanderson's blog, it definitely makes sense the way they are doing it. I too was puzzled how are they going to tie so many ends in one book, I hope Sanderson does a good job with the book. In the meantime, I think it would be a good idea for me to read some of his other works to get acquainted with his writing style. It would be fun to guess which parts are his and which are Mr. Jordan's :)

25. The Time Paradox - Eoin Colfer

The sixth and the last published part of Artemis Fowl and I am beginning to get bored. The fun part is getting smaller and the geeky part which never was high quality to start with is increasing. All the sentimentality and relationship issues between Holly and Artemis don't interest me the least.

Spoiler Alert: I had hoped that Julius Root might still be alive, the new suit he tried that day might have saved him, but still no signs of him and there is no mention what happened to that girl Minerva, which is quite surprising!

2.5/5

The supposed BBC book list (though I couldn't find it on BBC web site)
I have read 24 titles, the ones in bold in the list below, as suggested by Liz:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Finish Paks yet? :) We have some serious Moon devotees here.

Yeah, almost done. I think I will be able to post about it tomorrow.

#31 Sorry MusicMom!

#32 I have a love/hate relationship with The Wheel of Time series - there are many things that I find irritating (not least the fact that I feel the arc should have finished by now) and I don't get on with Robert Jordan's writing style particularly - lots of mannerisms and he could definitely do with better editing, in my opinion (do we really need all the descriptions of clothing?!), however, it's a good story. I'm completely hooked. Despite spending a lot of time grumbling at the books when I read them (which must look strange to anyone watching me read), I badly need to know how everything is going to turn out. Which is why I need the series to end ASAP! ;)

How are things, my friend? Are you settling in to a new life yet? Work has kept me away from reading and LT for a couple of weeks but I am able to steal just a few minutes to check in on a few of you.

Piyush
Like blackdogbooks, I'm simply stopping by to check in and say hello and hope that life is good to you.

Piyush

You must be even more "swamped" with work than I am this month! I hope all is going well and the you are settling in. I'll be mainly lurking occasionally until after the first week in May. Maybe by then you will be back in circulation, also!

At least try to give us a *wave* to say "Hi" and let us know you are fine!

>38 flissp: Flissp your description of your feelings about WOT crack me up. I've re-read the first 8 or so I feel I could recite them from memory LOL

ETA which reminds me that a friend of mine said "I see you" for the longest time instead of hello ;->

;)

flissp

I perfectly empathize with your feeling of impatience regarding knowing the ending of the book :)

Mac, Linda, Carolyn

waves
I have started working and things are really hectic for me, will try to come online for at least 10 min everyday.

Welcome back! Glad all is going well. Starting Monday I will be attempting to assume a more "normal" life so I will be watching to see what you are doing. :-)

Hope you are doing OK, Piyush, and that you are loving your new job!

Piyush, glad you stopped in to let us know you are still alive and well! Now, go show them at the new job!

Carolyn
Now my life has settled into a rhythm as normal as I can expect it to be for the next 2-3 months. I will also try to drop by as often as I can.

Stasia
Oh yes, the job is great, within the first week of my joining, I have been made co-ordinator for 4 departments, the responsibility is tremendous. The flip side is that for now I have to work Saturdays and my reading has taken a serious hit.

Ronincats
Thanks for dropping by, and as I mentioned earlier, I will try to drop by more often. This is my first job and I have already clocked more than 60 hours, the first week and the only LT person I am in contact with for the last week is Susan on FB.

It is so good to see a post from you! Thanks ever so much for keeping us in the loop regarding your new job.

Welcome Back! You are missed.

Hi Piyush, glad to see you back. Your new job sounds excellent, and I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Thanks Linda :)

Hi Liz, I hope so too and thanks for the wishes.

26. Sheepfarmer's Daughter – Elizabeth Moon
The first book in the series The Deed of Paksenarrion, the book is well written with an unsually high importance to the main character of Paks, one of the few drawbacks I found in an otherwise good plot. The book also gave little in terms of the future of the series, something which while is quite common in long series, is not generally observed in the shorter ones. Having mentioned these annoyances, there was little else I could complain about, the plot is fresh, the magical world doesn’t seem borrowed from any of the past series which raises the expectations from the subsequent parts.

3/5

Hey, Piyush, glad to hear from you again!

Glad you've found time to read again Piyush. How's the job going now you've had time to settle in?

Hi Stasia, liz,

Thanks for the wishes, it sure feels good to be back.

The work is still hectic with me clocking more than 60 hours a week, the responsibilities are huge and setting up a currency derivatives exchange from scratch is definitely not an easy task.

I have realized though, that a 15 min break to visit LT isn't really going to hurt the cause.

Glad to see you back, Piyush!

Nice review of the book. I'm exploring fantasy fiction this year and this looks like it would be a good one--I'm not familiar with this author. Another one for the TBR pile! Thanks--I think. ;-)

Glad you liked the book Piyush despite what annoyed you :)

Carolyn! Elizabeth Moon is fab! While more fiction set slightly in the future than SF, I think you might like Moon's The Speed of Dark, no doubt partially inspired by her experiences with her autistic son. Very good.

Carolyn: Thanks for the wishes, Moon is a good writer, and like Susan, I think you will like her too.
PS: Moon was recommended to me by Susan only and when it comes to Fantasy/SF, I trust her recommendations

Susan: yeah, despite the minor annoyances, I liked the book and at the end of the day (book in this case), thats what counts I would think.

Hi, Piyush! :) I'm glad to see you liked Sheepfarmer's Daughter! In my opinion, the first was the weakest so far in the series. The other two were really good!

Hey Ruth, glad to see you drop by.
I remember picking up this book from your thread only, where Susan put a strong recommendation for me to read it, and I am more than happy to hear that this one was the worst of the three, looking forward to some good reading. Will catch up on your thread again one of these days, I have lots of catching up to do :)

And you may be interested to know that a fourth book is in galleys at the moment at the publisher's. Moon has a blog specifically about this new book and the Paks world--I read her on LiveJournal but haven't had time to go check out the maps they are working on at the blog, but you might want to google it, any of you Moon fans, and check it out. I will have to reread the series (haven't done that for at least 10 years now, although I've read it at least twice through) just before the new one comes out to refresh my memory.

ETA here's the link

http://www.paksworld.com/blog/

and also, welcome back, Piyush. It's good to have you with us again.

Hey Roni, am glad to be back too.

Thanks for the link to the blog, I don't enough about Paks world to make full use of it though, in the first book, she hasn't even got converted to Gird then.

Hi Piyush

I'm simply stopping by to say hello.

Hi Linda *waves*

27. PS, I Love You – Cecelia Ahern

This book made me realize that watching a chick flick and reading one is NOT the same thing. While I don’t mind watching one once in a while, going through this book was a torture. The story was quite stale, the narration bad and the central character, quite annoying to say the least.

1.5/5

Ha ha, I'm not at all surprised you didn't like this. Not that I've read it - and there's a good reason I haven't! Some chick lit is ok - I enjoy Marian Keyes - but generally it's not my thing. Clearly you feel the same now, Piyush.

Hope you have better luck with your next book...

Yeah, I had Devil Wears Prada in my TBR (I have seen the movie), but now I am skeptical. I don't know who Marian Keyes is, but she would definitely better than what I just read!

The next book is definitely better, should be able to post about it in a day or two.

#71 PC, I can't speak for myself as I haven't read it, but I've heard a lot of people I really didn't expect to say that they very much enjoyed The Devil Wears Prada (the book), so don't be entirely put off!

I don't want to, but I would need a first degree recommendation before I proceed to that one!

Even Bridget Jones's Diary, one of the best chick flicks EVER (and I don't even particularly like the genre), was a mediocre book. So you can skip that one, anyway.

Erin, I guess I wouldn't bother with that one then, I hope my next step (a cautious one) in this genre doesn't prove as big a disaster as the first one was!

Not funny!
http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1989-08-21/

>76 PiyushC: but I laughed anyway :)

>76 PiyushC: Oh, yes, sigh...

Sounds like exciting times with your first big job there Piyush. You are right that a little balance in the books (pun intended, of course) will help you. Keeping the creative side of your mind plugged in helps you work through all sorts of problems and keep you focused.

Glad to see you about again.

I did have a great vacation and hope to write something on my thread about our trip.

Susan, roni

One cannot help but laugh even when he had his fun for the last few months over us poor MBAs. Did any of you read his book, God's Debris?

Mac

Yeah, the job is great and am trying really hard to find some time for my reading, but with the French Open on, it becomes slightly more difficult.

>80 PiyushC: not me. sorry.

28. The Secret Sharer - Joseph Conrad

A short story by Joseph Conrad, one which unlike Heart of Darkness,wasn't a part of my TBR, a book, I just came across and read it at one go. It was my first encounter with Joseph Conrad and I didn't know what to expect.

The book is about a young captain, who doesn't share the best of the chemistry with his crew, as he comes across a man who had killed a crew mate. The captain sees his own reflection in the man and goes out of his way, and endangers the life of his crew to ensure the man's escape.

The story is beautifully written and the feelings and thought process of the narrator comes across quite vividly.

3.5/5

hm...I've only read Heart of Darkness by Conrad and, to be honest, it hasn't inspired me to read another book by him. I think I'll skip this one. (but glad you enjoyed it!)

Eliza: I haven't read Heart of Darkness yet, so unable to comment on that, The Secret Sharer is a short story, a 2-3 hour read at the most, with a good satisfaction/time spent ratio :P

haha. Fair enough - I will keep that ratio in mind if it ever crosses my path :)

I can't remember which of the Conrad's I've read. It was high school and I've slept since then. I think it was Lord Jim.

Eliza: I am frightfully behind on my reading schedule, high ratio therefore makes much more sense to me :)

Mac: How did you like Conrad in general and Lord Jim in particular?

I have since remembered that it was Victory that I read and I remember enjoying it very much, even though I couldn't remember the title. But it's the only one I've read so far. It was a little dark but I enjoy the dark stuff.

I read Lord Jim in high school and had some difficulty with it (don't know if that would be the case now), but I read Victory a couple of years ago and liked it very much. Enough to purchase The Secret Agent which is waiting patiently on my shelf for me to read.

Will add Victory to my TBR, strangely enough, I hadn't heard about it earlier.

29. The Clash of Kings - George R. R. Martin

The second book in the series Song of Ice and Fire was almost as entertaining as the first one. The uncertainties reduced substantially and the new characters added to the already substantial list, and many more mysteries hinted at. This volume seems to be an ideal preparation for the remainder of the series with multiple plots hatching all over "the world". George R. R. Martin again surprised me with very unique fantasy elements and while there is something Tolkienish about him, he hasn't really borrowed from The Lord of The Rings. A very interesting read set up in a dark world where nothing is as it seems, looking forward to the rest of the series

3.5/5

>92 PiyushC: Me too but it's not done!!!!!!

Piyush,

You've been gone a while. But if you're still checking in, here ya go!

As promised, Tales of Mystery and Horror Halloween Thread. So, come give me a little input about the order of reading, if you want. The list is posted on the first message.

Everyone is welcome. If you know someone else who is interested, pass along the link.

Looking forward to this.

BDB

PiyushChourasia

Wow! You must still be working hard. I've missed you and am glad to get a chance to say "hi!" Hope all iss well with you.

Since everyone else is dropping in on you, Piyush, I thought I would too. Hope you are enjoying your new job!

Had the same thought... I've been absentee from LT, but you haven't been absent from my thoughts! Hope all is going well!

Thank you all for your kind thoughts, I have been very busy with work for the past few months and my reading has taken a hit as well. Bad news is that I expext an equally hectic schedule for the next months, but I would try to drop by more often.

30. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - 3.5/5
31. The Reluctant Swordsman - Dave Duncan - 2/5
32. The Coming of Wisdom - Dave Duncan - 1.5/5
33. Man And Superman - George Bernard Shaw - 4/5
34. Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb - 3.5/5
35. Royal Assassin - Robin Hobb - 3.5/5
36. Assassin's Quest - Robin Hobb - 3.5/5
37. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe - 4/5
38. The Tale Of The Body Thief - Anne Rice - 3/5
39. Memnoch The Devil - Anne Rice - 2/5
40. Dracula - Bram Stoker - 4/5

Great to see you here. Looks like you enjoyed the DeFoe and the Stoker books. Robinson Crusoe was one of my first adult novels. I just read Dracula.

Piyush! Glad to see you around. Do drop by more often, even if you have no books to post.

Piyush--so nice to see you back!

Things Fall Apart, Man and Superman, Robinson Crusoe and Dracula are all long time favorites of mine! Glad they pleased you, too. I haven't tried Robin Hobb--I'm still a newbie to fantasy--but she looks like an author I should check out.

Glad to see that even with your heavy work load you are finding some time to read. I find that form me in stressful times reading can be a "life saver" -- or at least a "sanity saver!" :-D

Just dropping by to say hi, Piyush. I've been 'awol' for a while, too, so it's nice to re-connect.

Just to say hi!
I have been absent for a while too, but catched up my reading on LT the last weeks.

Anita

@Mac
I remembered Dracula being on of the first books in your Halloween list, which we planned to do, and the book deserves all the attention it received!

@Stasia
Thank you for dropping by, I would try to visit more often, new books or not :)

@Carolyn
When things get frustrating at work, reading really helps! I am no expert in fantasy itself, have been trying to sample different writers, though Robin Hobb seems like a good writer.

@Lorraine & Anita
I know the feeling, it feels great to come back, hopefully, all of us will be able to spend more time on LT and reading.

41. The Island of Dr. Moreau - H. G. Wells

3.5/5

#106: Everybody seems to be reading that one these days!

Glad to see you back twice in the same month :) I hope work allows you at least a little bit of leisure time.

#106 Piyush

Wow! Twice in one month! I hope that means you are a little less "pushed" at work.

I notice that you almost always give a book 1/2 star less than I do. I can't decide if you don't like it quite as well as I do or if I'm a little more generous in the stars I give. :-) Probably I'm too generous. I'm glad you enjoyed Dr. Moreau--it seems to have created quite a stir on LT this month--a lot of people read it for the Halloween Read.

Stasia
Thank you, am trying to visit at least once a week. Hopefully, will be able to increase the frequency and visit other threads on the forum.

Carolyn
A very interesting observation indeed! Your statistics show that you rate 4.24 on an average, while my mean rating is 3.24! I guess that explains that 0.5 rating difference you talked about :)
I had been planning to read The Island of Dr. Moreau for a few months, but Mac(blackdogbooks) convinced me to postpone it till Halloween, when we were discussing the Halloween Stack for the year and Wells continues to amaze me with his creativity and imagination.

42. Elantris - Brandon Sanderson

Now that Brandon Sanderson is going to conclude the Wheel of Time Series, I decided to acquaint myself with his writing style and I started with this book. While the story was good, I found the characters a little lacking. The writing style, the main reason I chose the book impressed me and the Mistborn Series is next in line for me.

3/5

#110: I have that one lying around somewhere to read and one of these days, I actually might :)

Stasia, while I liked Elantris, I am liking the Mistborn Series better, will share my views on the same once I finish reading the trilogy.

Piyush

I will be looking for your review of The Final Empire. I have been considering trying to find it and if you give it 3 1/2 stars I'll know I have to get it! :-)

I think next year I will try to come up with a "gauge" to use for the star ratings so I can be more consistent than I have been. Since I've been on LT I just seem to be reading much better literature on a regular basis so I've not been as critical as I should be in my ratings.

That's an old Dave Duncan series you were reading, but they are my favorite of his! Even though they do show their age now.

Carolyn
I have finished reading Final Empire, but waiting to finish the entire trilogy before posting, maybe tomorrow :)

Roni
I am sorry, but I didn't like the two I read, found them too focussed on explicit things and found it lacking when it came to logical consistency, one of the main parameters for me when it comes to fantasy reads. I am not too good at leaving a series incomplete, so despite my initial dislike, I am likely to give it another try some time in the future.

Piyush, it's been 20 years since I read them, and I'd probably have the same issues with them today that you do. I just have fond memories. Fantasy was in a different place back then, and we didn't have some of the expectations we do these days.

#112: I will probably get to Sanderson's Mistborn series one of these centuries.

The Mistborn Series

43. The Final Empire - Brandon Sanderson - 4/5
44. The Well Of Ascention - Brandon Sanderson - 3.5/5
45. Hero Of Ages - Brandon Sanderson - 3.5/5

A very well written series which doesn't lose pace or interest throughout the entire series. The characters were well crafted and were quite realistic, something I found lacking in Elantris. The story line was terrific, different, yet not too alien. While, Sanderson isn't in the league of the Tolkien or Jordan when it comes to world building, a point reflected by the fact that there wasn't much travelling involved in the entire series, he did a reasonably good job. He seems to be a more action oriented writer which was a welcome change and I believe he will do justice to the Wheel of Time Series for the same reason.

>114 ronincats: & 115: I liked, but was not enamoured of "The Seventh Sword" series. It seemed a bit rough around the edges.

I found the first four "A Man of His Word" series to be my favorites of Duncan's work. The sequels (I think they were grouped as "A Handful of Men"?) didn't quite live up to them...but that's relatively common in fantasy as an author tries to cash in.

Other than that, I gave up halfway through the first trilogy of "Tales of the King's Blades".

He's an author I want to like more than I do but the books just don't hold my attention.

Tad, we seem to have identical reactions to Duncan. I also read the "a Man of His Word" series and then found I didn't like his more recent writings and gave up on him. Whatever it was that I liked in The Seventh Sword series, rough as it was, didn't seem to be carrying forward into his more "mature" writing.

46. The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan & Branden Sanderson

Finally! After such a long wait and unfortunate events, the series lives! As I suspected, having read a few of the works of Sanderson recently, he indeed was a very good choice to conclude the series. And the first part of the final trilogy convinced me of the need to break it into three parts, the least it did was give us something to read without waiting for the entire tome to be written, so I guess I have little reason to complain. Now about the book - It was really refreshing to read a story and plot by Jordan written in Sanderson's style. Unlike the previous volumes, the action was distributed uniformly over the entire book, I was actually a little fed up of the build of story in an entire volume and a battle squeezed in the last fourth of the book to take the storyline forward.

There were still quite a few abrupt breaks, but with a storyline as vast as the one Wheel of Time boasts of, I suspect, they couldn't have been helped, though maybe managed a little better.

SPOILER ALERT:

It was quite interesting to see the first forsaken slain in the first one third and the second one sometime in the middle of the book, and none at the end! Though, out of the three, Perrin's story seems to be the dullest one, a little more exposure in this book would have helped. Mat's part, though larger than Perrin's, still left a lot to be desired. While Verin managed to get back to the White Tower, she would have dropped Mat with Elayne on her way! But we find absolutely no mention of the same in the book except Rand's one-liner viewing.

Rating: 4/5

Hey, Piyush! Glad to see you back again so soon.

So, is it safe for me to read the Wheel of Time series now? I am gathering that is what you meant when you said 'Finally!'

Hey Stasia! The series isn't over yet, the first installment of the last book is out. There will be two more of those before the series gets concluded. Robert Jordan planned to write this last big tome, but unfortunately he died before that. After estimating the number of loose ends to be tied and the story to be finished, Robert Jordan's wife and editor and Brandon Sanderson decided to split the final volume into three parts, the first of which has finally been delivered. Sanderson claims that the second part is half over but hasn't estimated a timeline for the same yet. I believe it will be another couple of years before it would be safe for you to start, a lesson I learnt after reading Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin

I am so sorry to be out of touch with you.

I hope all is well!

#124: OK, no Robert Jordan or George R.R. Martin for me for a while yet. Thanks for the heads up, Piyush.

Dear Linda, so good to see you. You don't need to apologise, it was me who was out of touch with everyone for a few months due to some hectic work schedule. Everything is fine at my end, hope you are well too :)

#126 You are welcome, I have made it a habit these days to check if the series I am going to start has already been completed or not.

#121 Good to know it went down well! I'm still going to wait for the next two, given the long break I've had since reading the others (I'll probably convince myself into rereading the whole lot...).

Tell me there are fewer descriptions of what everyone's wearing and that Elayne gets less irritating? ;)

#129 I did scan through a few of the earlier ones to get the reference of the events happening, but didn't have the time to re-read the series. Lol, the description of clothes still exists, but it isn't as bad.

SPOILER ALERT

Elayne doesn't at all feature in this book :)

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;)

#131 rofl!

47. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A nice read, a very nice read indeed! I had little idea what I am getting into when I picked up this book, and had my eyes popping out of my head when I finished the book in under an hour. This short story is quite ideal for a bedside reading if you get my drift and while I know I am not giving anything in this write-up about the book, well, I don't really intend to ;)

5/5

#133: I liked it when I read it earlier this year, too. Glad to see you enjoyed it as well, Piyush.

I must say I am getting spoiled with you showing up on LT so often these days :) I am happy to see that you are able to get some reading done!

I read The Yellow Wallpaper in college. It is one of my very favorite short stories. I am glad that you enjoyed it.

#134 I am trying my best to stay in touch, and not to give up on reading. The support of all you people goes a long way in helping me do so :)

#135 It truly is a masterpiece!

48. White Tiger - Aravind Adiga - 3/5
49. A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett - 4/5
50. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller - 5/5
51. Twilight - Stephenie Meyer - 2.5/5

Hey, Piyush! Glad to see you here!

You are joining us for the 2010 challenge, aren't you? The group is up and running!

Come on over, Piyush. Everybody's doing it!!!!