Amph What book are you reading right now?

Good luck. You'll need it. It's one heck of an experience. If you can survive it

 

Yes, unfortunately you'll be severely tested by the frequent unnecessary and verbose descriptions of food, which often completely a loveingly glazed honey ham, shimmering with juice under the light of the sun, steam sumptuously floating off it like a faerie's dance, adorned with a generous side of slow-roasted asparagus tips, their green stems browned ever so slightly by the cooking process wreck the pacing.

 

Yeah it could also be said that Game of Thrones in 200 pages of sex, war and treachery and 800 pages of feasting.

 

I last reread them before ADWD so I'm due for the refresher

 

I got to somewhere in AFCC around the time ADWD came out so I need to get back to it as well.

 

Reading Tarkin by James Luceno, liking it so far.

 

I like Martin's style but not his topics for Ice and Fire.

I just started The Good Companions.

 

1984
The Ancestor's Tale
A Universe from Nothing
Starlight Detectives
The Poems of Emily Dickinson
All-Star Superman

 

The Ancestor's Tale is pretty good. I enjoyed it.

 

Any good?

 

The Count of Monte Cristo. A relentlessly entertaining adventure. Dumas has a lot of style and manages to put together a pretty intricate plot of betrayal and revenge, with Monte Cristo at the center as a sort of prototype superhero, an omniscient and omnipotent avenger, the French Batman. Which makes it so satisfying when events he hasn't foreseen finally start complicating his plans toward the climax. The plot, with its welter of sideplots, is absorbing (though I was furious to find the version I bought was abridged only after it was too late (they hid it only on the title page), cutting out a few significant sideplots). Monte Cristo is a fascinating character, and Dumas creates a really interesting scenario in which he's a fairly vicious, cold manipulator convinced he's doing the will of God in punishing the wicked. Edmond Dantes was a warm character and we're really relying on our leftover sympathy from the early part of the book to keep us involved with such an off-puttingly cold, emotionless, and merciless wreaker of destruction. Which makes the book's structure notable; Dumas originally intended it to start after Dantes's escape, with Monte Cristo as a figure of mystery revealed through flashbacks. When that was changed, it made Dantes a much more sympathetic character because we get to see him as his happiness is ruined and get very invested in him before he starts avenging himself, but because Dumas didn't really revise the original opening, there's a lengthy awkward stretch where Monte Cristo is a mysterious figure even though the reader knows it's obviously Dantes and it waits and waits for a reveal that doesn't really mean much. The opening also makes us more invested in the romance with Mercedes, which makes it odd when the romance doesn't really get a happy ending, making the book feel very bittersweet. Dumas's decision to regard the romance as irretrievably damaged by Mercedes's "betrayal" has a really significant effect on the novel and makes it a lot darker, even though Dumas compensates by introducing a new, parallel pair of young lovers to whom Monte Cristo can grant the happiness he lost. Despite the unusual choices, the book remains a strong story, maybe even more interesting for the unexpected tack Dumas took, and engrossing throughout. A fantastic classic adventure.

 

I have been wanting to read that. I have seen and love the most recent film.

 

Oh the films are nothing -- NOTHING -- compared to the book. To fit Monte Cristo in a film you have to drop half the plot, three-quarters of the sub-plots and all of the sub-sub-plots. That book is incredibly rich without being ridiculously rocambolesque. Havac just read what must be my all-time favourite classic adventure novel, and now that I saw his review I just want to read it again

 

Oh I do recall the reviews saying that very thing. But I still loved it and can watch it any time.

Dumas wrote it based on a true story of some kind but I have never been able to find the details as it compares to the book.

 

I just saw in the Wikipedia entry some background about the real story, which I had no idea about. I remember that in the Chateau d'If there's an actual tunnel between two cells, but I'm not sure if it was dug by inmates trying to escape or if they added it as a tourist attraction (modifying a historical monument isn't like the French, but you never know). In any case, go ahead and read it. You're in for a real treat.

 

Finished reading Columbus: Four Voyages, which was so-so and started reading The Strangled Queen, which thus far is excellent.

 

That was interesting. I tried looking for that years ago and could not find it.

 

Home in preparation for Lila, both by Marilynne Robinson.

 

He was inspired by an old news story about a guy who poisoned a bunch of people for revenge, IIRC. I think over a romantic thing. So he took this sort of dark true crime story and adapted it into a revenge epic full of pulpy adventure.

 

Havac, I almost fell into the same trap you did and would have gotten an abridged version, but then at the last minute, Ramza recommended I get the Robin Buss version, which was absolutely fantastic. Time for a reread? (sort of)

Thank you, Ramza!

 

The Count of Monte Cristo is on my short list of books I really want to read, but seem a bit daunting and I'm just going to have to pick it up and do it one day. (Les Miserables is also on this list.)

I'm currently reading and almost finished with Not My Father's Son - Alan Cumming's Memoir
It's a fascinating look at his life, mostly about his childhood where he, his brother and mother where emotionally and physically abused by Alan's father and how he learned to act/read body language at a very young age because of this. It bounces back and forth between his childhood, 2010 -when things with his father kinda came to a head and the very recent present (though this isn't as often).

 

Oliver Twist by some guy named Dinkins? Apparently he was a good writer

 

The Thistle and the Rose by Allan Massie. It is kinda dry but it distracts me enough that I don't notice the train ride home, so it is still a win.

 

On to the last Otherland book. It's only 1066 pages.



The virtual worlds in this series are meh. The characters and overall story are outstanding.

 

Finished Scourge (I liked the plot twist), so I started reading Things That Matter by Charles Krauthammer. I like it so far (the way it is set up is unique), and it is an easy read. After that, I'll probably start reading Much Ado About Nothing by good old Bill Shakespeare for school and, for entertainment, The Alien Chronicles by Deborah Chester.