Question about the series A Song of Fire and Ice. I was in the bookstore yesterday, and there were the boxed sets, and I was going to go ahead and pick one up. But then I noticed two different versions. One set had the third novel, A Storm of Swords, in a single volume. The other set had it in two parts, and each of the two parts looked every bit as thick as the single volume in the other set. They were all cellophaned up, and while a clerk would have been happy to open them for me to inspect the books, I thought I had better wait and do some research first.
Wikipedia tells me that in certain markets, that third novel, the longest in the series, was split into two parts – called Steal and Snow and Blood and Gold. (In France, they even split it up into four parts.) Is it a case of the print being just extra small in the single volume? Like I said, I was a bit wary about the two parts in the one set looking the same thick size as in the first. I just want to know if anyone can confirm the single volume of the one set contains the same text as the two volumes in the other.
Read a very powerful novel over the past week - Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. It’s post-apocalytic magical realism set in war-torn northwest Africa; the title character (Onyesonwu) is a mixed-race child born of rape and destined for greatness. The novel follows her life as she learns of her magical powers and heritage. The horrors of genocide loom large as she and a small group of friends strike out across the desert to try to defeat a great sorceror who is forming an army to finally conquer her people.
It’s a difficult read in some respects: rape, female genital mutilation and other horrors are described in detail, but not gratuitously so. The characters are richly written, the plot entrancing and heartbreaking, and the writing lyrical. It was a fascinating look into a cultural foreign to me, thru the lens of of a genre very familiar (science fiction/post apocalyptic fiction). It seems a bit odd to say I enjoyed a novel with so much violence and despair, but it did move me.
By Blood, Ellen Ullman: A disgraced professor on leave rents office space next to a therapist’s office. One of the therapist’s clients doesn’t like the white noise machine, so the professor hears all of the patient’s sessions. The professor has several mental issues of his own, which may or may not be the reason he becomes obsessed with this patient, even to the point of only coming to his office during her appointments. When the patient (neither she nor the professor have names) discovers that she was adopted and that her mother was a European Jew, the professor decides to help her find her birth mother which leads to an interesting discussion about what happened to the Jews after the Holocaust. It gets pretty weird.
My biggest complaint is that the time that the story takes place gets shoved down the reader’s throat a little too much. It’s set in San Francisco in 1975-76 and several times major events of the day are shoehorned in awkwardly. The only place it really works is when the professor worries that he might be having blackouts and thus be the real Zodiac Killer. This fear is never really resolved. :dubious: A Double Life: Newly Discovered Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott: These are five short stories rediscovered in the 1980s that Alcott had published anonymously. They’re actually really good. The last story (“Taming a Tartar”) gets into the whole Victorian “My love will cure you of your fatal wounding/illness” trope, but it was written in Victorian times after all. They’re not as dark as A Long, Fatal Love Chase or A Modern Mephistopheles, but they aren’t as perky as Little Women, although “Ariel” does get close to the latter (even to the heroine’s last name being March).
I’m currently about ten pages into ‘Who’s my Bottom?’, which is Christopher Gillett’s book about performing the role of ‘Flute’ in Benjamin Britten’s opera ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Loving it!
Hi everyone, I’ve had a lot of trouble with my eyes and have had trouble reading the last few years. However, I got a Nook a few weeks ago and could not be happier! I can adjust the font size and brightness so they’re comfortable, and I can read again!
I read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Alphabet Letters and The Girl Next Door, both by Elizabeth Noble. I also tried 50 Shades of Grey because of all the hype, but only lasted about 30 minutes. What a disappointment. Was it written by a teenage girl?
I do like well-written YA, so I’m glad to see at least one other person here likes it as well.
Moving on to Fannie Flagg, who has a sequel to a book I read years ago, Welcome To The World, Baby Girl. Will re-read that first, then move on the the sequel. I also have something about Philosophy downloaded, but can’t remember what.
I look forward to participating in Khadaji’s threads, and hope I can make some helpful contributions.
On the Kindle (free for Prime members), The Walk by Lee Goldberg. A network executive in LA is trekking across LA, trying to get home to his wife after an apocalyptic series of earthquakes. A bounty hunter named Buck has decided the exec needs protection, as well as some life lessons. It’s funny – inside jokes and pop culture references – and horrifying and very entertaining.
Recently finished a couple of good memoirs: Son of a Gun by Justin St. Germain, where the author tries to make sense of his mother’s murder, and The Distancers by Lee Sandlin, a Midwest family from the mid-1800’s through most of the 20th century. On the surface, it’s an ordinary family, which of course means that it’s not ordinary at all. No family is ordinary.
Also finished and didn’t much care for the 7th Temeraire book, Blood of Tyrants, but I’m looking forward to the final installment.
Thanks. I think I’ll probably go with the set that has A Storm of Swords in two parts, just on the theory that the font may be bigger. Otherwise from everything I can tell, the text is exactly the same regardless.
I am halfway through **Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer **by James L. Swanson. The book is wonderful. He really shines a light on a little known historical footnote. We all know Lincoln was brutally murdered. The details about the plot behind it as well as Booth’s attempt at escape and the immediate American governmental reaction to the shooting make for incredibly compelling storytelling.
I’ve heard good things about Swanson’s Manhunt from several friends, incl. one who’s an ardent Lincoln freak. Hope to get to it someday.
Just finished Joe Haldeman’s Starbound, second in a trilogy about humanity’s first permanent colony on Mars and first mission beyond the Solar System. Not Haldeman’s best, but a good read. I’ve now ordered Earthbound, the last book in the trilogy, from the library.
Still enjoying Roy Jenkins’s Churchill. He has many great turns of phrase and gives a very engaging, basically admiring but warts-and-all portrayal of the great British leader. Just finished Jenkins’s passage on the Abdication Crisis of 1936, in which Churchill’s romanticism and monarchism led him badly astray.
I am reading “Retreat From Gettysburg” by Kent Masterson Brown.
I’m a big US Civil War buff, and Gettysburg in particular. And even though I knew some sketchy details of the retreat, including when Lee started back, the date when he finally crossed the Potomac to get back to Virginia, and Meade’s lackluster pursuit which cost him his job as the General of the Army or the Potomac.
But this book is truly fascinating. It is a slow read, because it is so detailed with names and dates and locations of just about every part of Lees Army.
The logistics of getting back are just incredible. His supply train was at times up to 20 miles long, and the army was dragging back thousands of wounded and dying soldiers, 4000+ POW’s and countless cattle, pigs, sheep, horses, mules, and other animals the Confederates foraged from the Pennsylvania countryside. As they retreated, they continued to forage, they built breastworks, and set up a defensive line every night. I don’t know when these guys slept.
Its a truly fascinating read, and the amazing detail comes from the author’s 20 year quest to write this book properly.
I loved that book! I was so impressed by how exciting the author makes the story, I mean, everybody KNOWS what happened, but while reading, there’s something about it that still feels suspenseful.
Lincoln was deeply disappointed by the general’s post-battle performance, but Meade remained commander of the Army of the Potomac through the end of the war. U.S. Grant was appointed over him as lieutenant general and top uniformed officer of the entire U.S. Army; he traveled with the Army of the Potomac in 1864-65 but did not officially supplant Meade.
I liked how Swanson captured what a huge shock it was that someone would actually assassinate the POTUS. Nowadays it’s something that’s expected, but back then no one would have thought of taking a shot at the President…well, except for the conspirators and we all saw what happened to then. It’s a window into a different time.
