What are you reading?

[The Shoemaker]

I'm currently reading A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons, the 4th and 5th Song of Ice and Fire books right now. Since the two stories take place during the same chronological time frame, reading them both congruently is actually possible. I found a list online that puts all the chapters from each book in rough chronological order.

It's surprising how natural it feels to read the two stories together. Feels like one big book again to have all the characters together. It's especially interesting with A Dance With Dragons, because it usually feels like it's been so long since you last met these characters after finishing A Feast For Crows, when really their stories pick up directly after A Storm of Swords, and a lot of their first chapters directly reference their last chapters from the 3rd book. Of course this method really only works for those who have read the two books already, because there are spoilers from late Feast that are shown early in Dance, and vice versa. Fun read though, should take me a while considering one of these books usually takes me a month minimum.

[Niahak]

Also reading A Dance With Dragons, rounding out my read-through of Ice and Fire this year. Finished Crows several weeks ago.

First time I've read past the end of Storm of Swords. I was worried my determination would falter, but so far it's been fine. Watching parts of the show and discussing the events of chapters as I read them has helped to cement my knowledge a little better (I often have problems with retention of books or movies on a single go-through).

It's interesting to think about where things might be going with some of the arcs. Others have ended very suddenly though, so I'm trying not to get too attached to any one character...

[The Shoemaker]

Also reading A Dance With Dragons, rounding out my read-through of Ice and Fire this year. Finished Crows several weeks ago.

First time I've read past the end of Storm of Swords. I was worried my determination would falter, but so far it's been fine. Watching parts of the show and discussing the events of chapters as I read them has helped to cement my knowledge a little better (I often have problems with retention of books or movies on a single go-through).

It's interesting to think about where things might be going with some of the arcs. Others have ended very suddenly though, so I'm trying not to get too attached to any one character...

When I first read the series after every big event I would watch the appropriate scene the show made. Doesn't really work as well for books 4 and 5 though :p They didn't do most of the big events from those books (yet), and the ones they did are mostly different from how the book scenes went. Still nice to view them for their differences.

That's another thing that I'm enjoying about reading books 4 and 5 together - I'm remembering more things from each book.

I think between books 4 and 5 there are around 16 point of view characters, so unfortunately a lot of them have only a few chapters, and in the case of Dance, a couple of them end their stories around half way through the book (not die, just end their stories). Good reads though!

Can't wait to finish these two books again and get a better opinion on them. The pacing of them is different from the first 3 books, but I really enjoyed them the first time around so we'll see if they still hold up. I really did miss A Feast For Crows though, I love the meloncholy feel of the book. I also love the relationship between

Spoiler

Jon and Stannis

and have been looking forward to having those two characters together again since I started this re-read.

[Niahak]

Yeah, watching the first season of the show was what got me re-reading! The wife and I watched through the end of Season 4, so I've been in "new territory" for awhile. Haven't watched Season 5 yet. I do enjoy the dynamic you mentioned - fascinating to see them grapple with each other.

spoilers for book 4:

Spoiler

The arc that I mentioned ending suddenly was Brienne's. Hers was interesting - she was perfectly honorable, never lost a fight, she learned about Jaime and revised her opinion of him, helped Podrick out - and in the end, she was unwilling to betray Jaime and failed to find either of those she was searching for. She was finding red herrings at every turn up until the very end. She did everything 'right' in the sense of the more classical fantasy protagonist, and ended up dead for it.

Granted, at that point the one who killed her was longer the person she had been, but yeah...

Some stuff I'm still hoping to get the answers to (spoilers probably leading up to halfway through Dance):

Spoiler

Who or what is Coldhands? As the first character we've met who seems to be both 'good' and clearly aligned with 'ice' in a sense, he's the only evidence of a mystical being that isn't either from R'hllor or of blood magic/the Qarth warlocks. Bran's chapters have been hinting that he might be with the Children of the Forest or the Old Gods, but as nobody has out and conjured up anything in the way Melisandre has, it's less clear what their powers are.

Catelyn's deal has been crazy and it seems obvious that she's no longer human. We had seen hints that was happening with the previous leader of the outlaws, but even Thoros of Myr seems to have lost faith that they are doing the right thing - she's a spirit of vengeance.

The series' theme is "ice and fire", and it's always seemed like Jon Snow and Daenerys epitomize those themes, being on virtually opposite sides of the world and what with their backgrounds and the situations they find themselves in. I'm looking forward to what happens with/to each of them.

Finally, it's pretty obvious a lot of crazy stuff is going to go down in Meereen. Looking forward to that. It was interesting to see what happened with Tyrion - he made a very straightforward recommendation to the prince, and then they ended up going separate ways - the prince where Tyrion suggested, and Tyrion where the prince was originally going.

[Sharecrow]

Okay, I've read a few things so I thought I'd do an update.

First, I re-read Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I enjoyed the heck out of it though it was far from being a perfect book. It was pretty good. I am not sure why it bored me a little the first time except, perhaps, just due to my being younger. Anyway, it's been almost 25 years since then and this time I really enjoyed it. Shortly after watching it, we watched one of the film adaptations on Netflix. Good times.

I also read Terry Brooks' The Indomitable - a novella that is a sequel to my favorite Shannara book, The Wishsong of Shannara. I prioritized reading this one over some of the other novellas he has released recently mostly due to my getting a signed copy of it. It was really good and certainly met my expectations. It gave me more of what I was looking for and it was fun.

Finally, I finished a freebie book I got on my Kindle in Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path, which is book one of a five book series called The Dagger and the Coin. I was pleasantly surprised to really, really enjoy it. I had expected lukewarm feelings. And though it wasn't without its occassional clumsiness and tropes, it works really well overall and, in a few ways, is actually pretty well-written. The story, too, is fun and engaging and I adore several of the characters. My main complaint, really, is that I feel like I don't quite get the world that's been built for this fantasy story yet as it is complicated and my glimpse of it hasn't quite taken on a completely well-formed view. That may be okay and I'll be tickled pink if, by the end of it, the author pulls that off because that can make a good book really great when the world holds together and is fleshed out. In this case, the book was too brief to allow for that, but am also not sure the author has any intention of doing that at all. I shall see. The next four got readily added to my wish list.

[VictorViper]

Share - in case you're unaware, a Shannara series is coming to TV.

[The Shoemaker]

Didn't mention this in the Christmas thread but I got A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms this year as well. It's a collection of novella's by George RR Martin set within the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. It has a ton of gorgeous illustrations by Gary Gianni as well so I'm excited to start working my way through it.

[Sharecrow]

I've gotten a few other books under my belt so here it goes:

I finished my first Stephen King book, The Stand. I was pleasantly surprised how well written it was. It only had some mild pacing issues which is really tough to avoid in a work of that size. I've definitely got some catching up to do with his works.

I also re-read Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and really enjoyed it. Not my favorite of his but it's quite good and the copy I had was gorgeous.

I also read Leon Uris' Battle Cry. This book was an outstanding portrayal of the Marines in training and in the Pacific theater of WWII. Uris had, himself, served and the respect he has for the Corps and for its members shows but isn't heavy-handed. Great war novel.

[The Shoemaker]

Didn't mention this in the Christmas thread but I got A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms this year as well. It's a collection of novella's by George RR Martin set within the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. It has a ton of gorgeous illustrations by Gary Gianni as well so I'm excited to start working my way through it.

Read through the first two stories in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms a while back. They were good reads. Both stories start a little slow and then pick up. Lots of well created characters within the stories, good world building too.

I also finished my read of A Feast For Crows and A Dance With Dragons yesterday. AFFC I finished about a week before as it's a shorter story. Overall I enjoyed reading them at the same time. It helped to keep more details in my head as previously I found that by the time I got to the Feast characters in Dance, I had forgotten a lot of the little details from their stories. Both books I enjoyed a lot more this time around, though I'm not sure if that's because I read them together or because I've been enjoying all the books better the second time around. It did feel a little more like the old books in that I was constantly reading about all the characters, not half of them at a time. I definitely recommend trying out the combined read if anyone is going through the series again.

Overall I'm just craving The Winds of Winter even more now. I like the ending of Dance, but it's definitely more of a set up than a conclusion.

[Sharecrow]

Okay here's a few more I finished. The first I'd finished before but forgot to mention here.

I read Jean Rhys' Good Morning, Midnight. This was an exceptionally depressing book recommended to me by our own Kong Wen. It was really well-written, though, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It follows a lady who had had some rough times in her past and who also had difficulty in the present - both socially and regular life. It was tough for me to tell, and I don't think I'm expected to try to, whether her depression was caused by the bad things she went through or if it was exacerbated by them. I suspect the latter. Anyway, I was glad to put it away once I finished it because it gave me a heavy heart.

I also re-read Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Guignol's Band. This book was, once again, wonderful and even had some passages marked from when I last read it more than a dozen years ago. It's characteristically biting and angry, but, once you get closer to the end of the book, and it is revealed what the context is and what drove the author there, it becomes quite sad. This book is set around WWII in Europe and the author is basically running around the underground, surrounded by pimps, prostitutes, and all sorts of other criminals. I picked this up again mostly because most of my books are packed and it was among the more appealing ones at the time that weren't.

Also, I finally finished my collection of The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Fortunately I got through it before the book got stolen from my car. It was in there for months. Anyway, it was occasionally interesting but quite dry as you'd expect. I couldn't help but wonder what the guy was like to hang out with. Anyway, am glad to have read it but also am glad to be through with it.

I'm continuing to work on Tau Zero on my Kindle and I also got a snoozefest from Charles Darwin in the mail (Origin of the Species) that I'll be re-reading for my second and, I expect, last time. I don't get why that was included in a 'Best Books' subscription. I'll give it that it's influential and perhaps even well executed for what it is, but not much more than that. Anyway, those two are being worked through right now.