Books

[Gryphon]

Right before this site had a billing error, it was TOGR, TOGR, TOGR, and nothing else. I'm glad to see more topics back in.

Second hand book shops? I haven't seen _any_. Ever. I guess I have to poke around more. I just have a few chain bookstores around and my... library.

I found my Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore book in Physics class. Then the bell rang. Ugh. I won't be able to get it until Monday.

I read The Year of the Griffin, liked it, and now I'm reading the Dark Lord of Derkholm. Funny; it's better after reading the second.

[Kathy Li]

Alla: Took a look at the fantasy section in the website, and they've apparently got tons of Pratchett, Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, Garth Nix, Philip Pullman, etc.

I'd recommend Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (which you would probably only like if you like English Lit/History as well as fantasy), and George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series (the first book is Game of Thrones), which is fantasy along historical-fiction lines with lots of court intrigue. But that's my personal taste, and might not be yours.

Was there some specific flavor of book you're in the mood for, right now?

Gryphon: I've always liked how The Year of the Griffin sort of shows what the college analog to Hogwarts would be like.

[vegan_chick]

Omg, I finished reading The Giver, It is so awesome! But my friend says she didn't like it because it was fluid and didn't seem to conclude.

It did conclude, she's just so intellectually challenged that she can't interpret the ending correctly.

*pouts*

Okay I'm done.

[Kathy Li]

So, I finally finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and boy, did I love it, but it was a very different book at the end from the one it was at the beginning. It got all Neil Gaimanish and very dark fantasy there around page 600. Prior to that it'd been taking a more leisurely pace and a more period way of doing things. Loved both, though. And also loved the way that magic was done sort of around the edges and all relying on books. Very britlit and evocative. A definite fantasy novel for those who like English novels of the early 19th century.

I also got through the play version of His Dark Materials, as well as the transcribed platforms and the making-of book, and all I can say is damn, I wanna see those two plays! It sounds like an amazing distillation down to its barest essentials of storytelling. Wow.

On to London: The Biography.

[Chani]

Cool, Kli... I am in the middle of Jonathan Srange and Mr. Norrell a the moment. And I have to say that it is very interesting.


Also, I found a great website for HDM. http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org/

You guys that like Phillip Pullman should really check it out.

[Wilf]

I was looking at Mugglenet's section on post-Harry Potter reading (The "book trolley"), and out of interest, looked up what they thought of DD in general and YW in particular. I was pleasently surprised to read the following:
I could not recommend a series more highly than this. If you are ready to move on to the next thing after Harry Potter, this may be it.

His Dark Materials... I've read the first, but haven't yet been sufficiently motiovated to read the second and third... I really should. I really shoudl read them before the I lose the chance to see the stage version.

[Kathy Li]

BTW, I know I've posted it before, but I've lost track, so here's the link for clips and photos and stuff from the HDM stage version (although the current run at the National has been completely recast, from what I can tell).

http://www.stagework.org.uk/

If your bandwidth is small, however, you might wanna go to the National's webpage instead:

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=6158

So, between HDM and DW, I'm beginning to wonder when Harry Potter's going to do a version of Paradise Lost...

[Rysade]

Are these the same topics in chatter? When I left, there was a Books, a Movies, A TV topic... They're still the same ones!?

Are they, like, STICKY topics?

Speaking of TOPICS, I was reading BOOKS a while ago. Books like Neil Stephenson's The Confusion

[Gryphon]

RYSADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahahaha

I've found Rysade.

((We've been missing you & others in the TOGR ... and that's over 300 pages now))

[Kathy Li]

Rysade: it's an art I practice--keeping topic threads alive. You bump them every now and then, feed them articles in a timely manner, and voila! It's like watering your plants. They thrive.

Reminds me, I probably should bump the comics thread at some point.

So, what's Stephenson like? I'm between fantasy novels, right now, as I'm ploughing my way through Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography (which, btw, really is written as if it were a biography of the city, giving a sort of all-layers-at-once view of a specific aspect of the city), but woman cannot live by non-fiction alone!

(speaking of which, where the heck did I shelve John McPhee's Assembling California...?)

[db_pr]

Hey Rysade!

OK People, let's do something...write THREE favorite books of yours. ONLY THREE. If it's a trilogy/series, write the name of the trilogy/series, and 2 more book/trilogy/series.

Mine:

1. Lord of The Rings Trilogy
2. Lincoln Rhyme's Books by...ARGH I forgot!
3. Hmm...mmm...uh...heheheeheh...THE YOUNG WIZARDS SERIES!

[Sunstar]

Hey, all of mine are series.

1. Young Wizards (what else)
2. Lord of the Rings (also big surprise)
3. The Bourne Trilogy (Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum) by Robert Ludlum

Number three is probably more well known for the movies but the books are good too.

Its so hard to pick three out of so many, don't do this again .

[alla]

Three!!! thats not fair, not when i've read soo many that i have liked

hmmmmmmm...

1. YW (of course)
2. Tamora Pierce's Tortall books (hehehehehe there i got fourteen books into one "series" )
3. Discworld Series (and another multiple amount of books into one... although I haven't read all of these... ... ... ... yet.

To go on... (and just being stubborn)
4. The Old Kingdom Trilogy - Garth Nix
5. Obernewtyn Chronicles - Isobel Carmody
6. Green Rider books - Kristen Britain
7. Axis Trilogy - Sara Douglass
8. Any Anne McCaffery books that I have read
9. The Riddle of the Treesong - Alison Croggon (dunno if any of you guys will have read this yet... I know it isn't out in the states for another month or so - one of the wonders of an Aussie author)
10. Belgariad and Mallorean - David Eddings
11. Mission Top Secret series (novels) - Maureen McCarthy (ok, so they're kids books, but i love them )
12. Chronicles of Narnia
13. Mystery Club novels (*mumbles about out-of-printness)
14. Secret of the Unicorn Queen (another out of print one... grrrrr....)
15. The Deed of Paksenarrion

There... fifteen of them rather than three... and i can keep going

Alla

[Ardub]

I'll toss out the name of a (new) sci-fi/fantasyish book I just read, not because it's unusually good, but because, well, because I think the author painted himself into an ethical corner, so to speak, and I wonder if anyone here has read it and feels the same...

The book is "A Crack in the Line" by Michael Lawrence. It deals with the "many universes" stuff, not quite in the YW way, but in the sense that decisions split into "did" and "did not" worlds. Anyone see how this can demolish a reader's interest in the characters of a book? :-)

[Zgirl]

Everytime I appear in this topic I feel weird because I read way different books than you guys...but I'll try anyways...series, hmmmm...

1.Young Wizards
2.Princess Diaries (yes that means you gryph and m)
3.Shiva's Fire (book)

This kid who sits next to me is writing a novel in Home Ec, (Don't ask.) Maybe it'll have a big impressive name and I'll put it on here...