The Reader’s Nook - The N&G Book Thread

kvetcha said:
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is kind of an odd duck, but I’ve also never quite read anything like it. Susanna Clarke hasn’t just thought up a story, she’s invented an entire magical history of England, with mythology and reference books and scholarly citations and rambling footnotes that sometimes end up being entire short stories in and of themselves. It’s an incredibly rich work of imagination and I think of it a lot even a decade later. It’s a book that feels like a TARDIS.
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This is something I've wanted to read for a long time. Love dense, almost overwrought shit like this. Should maybe bump it up the list.
 
ayayrawn said:
This is something I've wanted to read for a long time. Love dense, almost overwrought shit like this. Should maybe bump it up the list.
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It’s a slow book and it’s written in a sort of Austenian pastiche, but if you can wrap your head around that it just feels like she’s crafted this world that spills beyond the borders of the novel.
 
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LeVar Burton Says Read Banned Books Unisex T-Shirt

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Um… so Amazon has this series of shorts called Creature Features this year. Prominent (I guess) Horror writers wrote them. The first was The Pram by Joe Hill (who is probably the only writer I’ve read that is completely satisfying every time and therefore is my favorite). For personal reasons I don’t particularly want to get into, that story (for the first time since I was a kid and read Children of the Corn by Stephen King right before my family driving home through miles and miles of cornfields from my grandparents house) fucked with my head a bit.

I just got done reading the second- Ankle Snatcher by Grady Hendrix (who I’ve read before and did not even remotely consider scary) and it fucked with my head and now I don’t want to go to bed because well that’s an integral piece of the story SO IT WAS A BAD IDEA TO READ IT RIGHT BECORE BED.

Anyhow, all I’m saying is good stuff, well played and all that. I’m sure some of you will read them and call me a scaredy cat or something but I do read a good bit of horror.
 
Selaws said:
I watched The Expanse last year and really enjoyed it. I saw that its based on a book series by James S. A. Corey, has anyone read any of them? Are they worth digging into?
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Loved the series. 9 books in all plus several novellas that fit in between. The tv series only went up to the end of book 6 I think.
 
Selaws said:
I watched The Expanse last year and really enjoyed it. I saw that its based on a book series by James S. A. Corey, has anyone read any of them? Are they worth digging into?
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I've read them all but the last 2. They're a lot of fun. Not particularly challenging, but good entertainment. Worth it if you're a sci-fi fan.
 
ayayrawn said:
@Bull Shannon noticed you started Malazan Book of the Fallen! I finished book 1 earlier this week, and am curious of your thoughts when you finish. I enjoyed it enough to want to read a couple more. TBD if it'll be the other 9+ books, though.
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Bull Shannon said:
Yep! There was (is?) a humble bundle of all the books and a couple side novels for $18 so I went for it. I’m feeling a series void after finishing Wolfe’s Solar Cycle. We’ll see how far I get; despite being a big nerd I have a low tolerance for a lot of genre writing.

I’m only twenty pages into Gardens, but I’m liking it plenty. There’s enough immediacy and story over plot so far; in contrast I read the first third of Priory of the Orange Tree earlier this summer and all it was serving me was backstory and worldbuilding.

edit: the sale is still live for two days for those interested:
www.humblebundle.com

Humble Book Bundle: Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen by TOR Publishing Group

We’ve teamed up with TOR for our newest book bundle. Get all 10 volumes of Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson and more. Pay what you want & support Covenant House!
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And @ayayrawn only after lightly slamming Priory did I think to cross-reference what other books we have in common 😅
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ayayrawn said:
I saw this deal, and highly considered it, but I don't have an e-reader anymore, and find I read faster/have more fun reading when i have the paperback in my hand. I figure buying one paperback every 6 months over however many years it takes to finish this/if i ever finish will feel enough like a deal lol

And yea we seem to have a similar trajectory lol I enjoyed Priory fine, but it has a pacing problem for sure.
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Just an update, I'm stalled out about 40% into Gardens. A lot of reviews claim the book is confusing or dense, but the operative word I'd use is obfuscated. There's clearly a world, and some larger conflict, but what the individual characters, or even their larger factions, are doing remains vague. I put it down after a couple weeks, and in picking it up again I wasn't lost but I couldn't recall the significance of anything/anyone.

Furthermore, and I understand this gets better as the series goes on, but it's super clear that the author based this world/story on their DnD campaign. You can feel the novel shuddering under the weight of the Worldbuilding Bible, and it's really clear which character(s) were the author's player character during the campaign. I'll probably try to dive back in over winter break, but the further I get from a book I've set down the more the odds of revisiting dwindle.
 
found this fascinating:


I’ve basically felt the same about this, though I’ve always believed Feast and Dance represent GRRM trying to untangle plot threads and move characters he was going to otherwise time-jump into new circumstances; my opinion of whether the ending is worth it kinda hinges on Winds of Winter (if you really think that book will exist) restabilizing the narrative. Though i will argue Feast is interesting for its tone and stripped-down perspectives.

I’ve been wanting to reread the books but have been holding out for a Winds release date. I’ll probably do a reread if we don’t hear anything next year.
 
I finished reading all 5 Lockwood & Co books over the weekend.

I decided to read the entire book series after it became a Netflix series and was canceled after 1 season. I had to know what happened next. What was behind that door, what caused "the problem" 50 years ago to start and got all my answers.

Season 1 on Netflix covers the first 2 books in the series.
 
Anyone have any ideas on how to get ahold of Irvine Welsh or his agent? I want to see if I can get a copy of this signed

www.foliosociety.com

Trainspotting

Choose Trainspotting, the explosive debut of author Irvine Welsh, as Folio celebrates the 30th anniversary of this cult classic with the first illustrated edition ever published.
www.foliosociety.com www.foliosociety.com

And figure it's easier if I contact them first
 
bdm105 said:
Anyone have any ideas on how to get ahold of Irvine Welsh or his agent? I want to see if I can get a copy of this signed

www.foliosociety.com

Trainspotting

Choose Trainspotting, the explosive debut of author Irvine Welsh, as Folio celebrates the 30th anniversary of this cult classic with the first illustrated edition ever published.
www.foliosociety.com www.foliosociety.com

And figure it's easier if I contact them first
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Is he not relatively active on twitter?
 
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