@Narnian78, are you planning to read the rest of the books in the Anne of Green Gables series after you finish the first one?

@Arin, glad you were able to come to a satisfactory stopping point on the Murderbot books. I hope you're able to break out of the reading rut sometime soon - I tend to fall into them for a few different reasons, but not having a lot of free time to make good progress on a book is definitely one of them. 😐

Congrats on getting the Ashtown reread finished, @SnowAngel, and making it through The Silent Bells! Interesting about the ending being too fast - that would be disappointing. Your comment has me thinking, though, and I'm trying to remember if any of his endings actually were satisfactory to me. I know the series end of 100 Cupboards wasn't and I can't remember enough about the endings of his standalone books I've read to figure out if there's a pattern.
Too bad that you might not make all your reading goals for this year, but glad to hear you've knocked at least some of them off!

October hasn't been the best month for reading, but I've made it through some books at least. I read Green for Danger by Christianna Brand last week; I'd seen the movie of it a number of years ago and enjoyed it, but I found the book rather depressing. I know there were changes between the movie and the book, of course, but I can't remember if the murderer's identity was one of them or not, or if things ended any more happily for certain characters or not. I may have to track down a copy of the movie now and see how it stands up after the book.

@valiantarcher 

I borrowed Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea (both are written by L. M. Montgomery) from my church library, and I plan to read them soon. I have found the author to be quite enjoyable.  There are other books in the Anne series that look pretty inviting and maybe sometime I can read them too. The second book in the series, Anne of Avonlea, was changed considerably when it was adapted for television in its plot and some of the characters were altered.  But I think the creators of the 1980’s series did quite a good job especially with casting Megan Follows as Anne. That is why the series is so much loved even forty years later.  🙂

So I finished the Harry Potter books. 

It's weird but I think I liked the earlier books that were more for younger readers better than the more mature later books even though I'm not really a "younger reader." I just felt like they were more consistently engaging. I admire the mystery aspects of each book but towards the end of the series, I was reading more because I wanted to learn the solutions to the mysteries and be done with them than because I was enjoying the reading experience. (Also, I was a little miffed that the solution to the mystery of The Half Blood Prince had really nothing to do with the business of the story. It added some nice irony, I guess, but otherwise it could have been completely cut.) Much of the final book, I found slow going but the writing quality really picked up as it reached the climax, redeeming the whole thing for me. (I still think you could compress the plots of the last two books into one with only minor losses.) 

On the whole, I enjoyed the Harry Potter series, but I prefer the Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander. I just think they're structured better. And I didn't get into either series when I was a kid, so I don't think nostalgia is affecting my judgement.

Anyway, my favorite characters were Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood and maybe Percy. 

Recently, for my blog about adaptations, I did a list of which books that have served as source material for the adaptations the blog has covered over the years, I recommend the most. So if anyone is looking for reading material, they can always check it out for inspiration. The Adaptation Station’s Recommended Reading List | The Adaptation Station.com 

@col-klink I wanted to learn the solutions to the mysteries and be done with them than because I was enjoying the reading experience. (Also, I was a little miffed that the solution to the mystery of The Half Blood Prince had really nothing to do with the business of the story.

Do you mean, who was exactly the

Wasn't he the owner of the old potions workbook, Harry had found in the Room of Requirements? The thing about the titles of Rowling's septet is that generally she deals in "metonymy", when I can't remember the exact term we used on Leaky Cauldron, that I was looking for. The best example of what I mean is the Goblet of Fire, itself, when it wasn't the trophy being sought. Or the Silver Chair, itself, in the Narnian novel of that name? Or do you mean the mystery of Draco's task, involving his own many visits to the Room of Requirement?

The bit I found most tiresome about that particular book was the no-speaks between Ron & Hermione, when Ron & Lavender were an "item". As you have said, romance isn't really J.K. Rowling's thing, even when she is writing rather gruesome murder mystery novels under the name of Robert Galbraith, which also explains why Voldemort is also a much more gruesome villain than even the White Witch. 

As for the Deathly Hallows, yes, I agree that part of it dragged, & I don't understand why they made two films out of that book, alone. 

Anyway, my favorite characters were Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood and maybe Percy.

Not sure I'd agree about Percy, when I thought he was too perfect, a real, proper, "Goodie Two-shoes". I'm afraid to say that I was more intrigued by Severus Snape, ably played by the late Alan Rickman. JK said she based him on a rather caustic former teacher she had as a child, but who was nevertheless a thoroughly good teacher. I see more of a resemblance between Severus Snape and a "Buccaneer of exquisite mind", who visited Western Australia twice, in 1688 & 1690, called William Dampier. 

I haven't read the Prydain books though I think I may have seen them in our rather slim stock of novels where I worked more than a decade ago. 

 

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

Not sure I'd agree about Percy, when I thought he was too perfect, a real, proper, "Goodie Two-shoes"

I guess he might be one of my favorite characters because I found the subplot of his estrangement from his family interesting. Also, I could tell the author really wanted me to like Fred and George better but in real life, I find people like them much more annoying than people like Percy, so my mind rebelled against the author's intent. It does that sometimes.  

I see more of a resemblance between Severus Snape and a "Buccaneer of exquisite mind", who visited Western Australia twice, in 1688 & 1690, called William Dampier. 

I haven't read the Prydain books though I think I may have seen them in our rather slim stock of novels where I worked more than a decade ago. 

I heartily recommend Prydain. I couldn't get past the first few pages of the first Harry Potter book but I finished all of the first Prydain book.

Was this Dampier the same one Dampier Land, in Western Australia, is named after?

  @cobalt-jade Was this Dampier the same one Dampier Land, in Western Australia, is named after?

Yes, William Dampier has to be one of the major names in world exploration. But, though discussion of his exploits in circumnavigating the world three times, 1st visiting Western Australia (1688) a full century before Sydney's foundation on 26th January in 1788, might belong better in our history thread, in writing his own autobiographical A new voyage around the world, published in 1697, he also became a literary figure in his own right. As a character, he was sometimes a regular captain of the British Navy but also a buccaneer, much like the earlier Sir Francis Drake, famous for "singeing the beard of the King of Spain", & for the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada. However, like the later Captain James Cook, in 1770, who also circumnavigated the world in three expeditions, failing to return on the last, he was also responsible for many useful scientific observations that inspired Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, plus the discovery of longitude as a navigational aid. 

In 2009 we (eldest daughter & myself) visited the National Maritime Museum at Fremantle, where I bought Diana & Michael Preston's A pirate of exquisite mind: the life of William Dampier, along with an account of the 1629 Batavia shipwreck in the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, which I donated to the college library where I worked. We had a general Australian History collection, though the vast majority of the book stock was needed for student study in the subjects taught there. We also had a limited number of novels, music CD's & even some DVD's available for student relaxation . I'm not sure that the Prydain book I might have seen was the first of that particular series, & I never got around to reading it, being occupied otherwise. 

Dampier was involved with either the marooning or the rescue four years later, or even both, of Alexander Selkirk, an argumentative privateer, in the Juan Fernández Islands, west of South America. Daniel Defoe used this incident to write his Robinson Crusoe, which remains a classic story. Along with Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, a scathing satire of British society at the time of the Glorious Revolution & subsequently, despite Jack Black's cinematic version, which as far as I know, only dealt with Gulliver's Lilliputian adventure, & not the other bits about Brobdingnag etc, in sections 2,3 & 4 of that novel. Alan Rickman's portrayal of Severus Snape in the Warner Brothers' Harry Potter movies, did look a bit like William Dampier, as seen in his portrait (below, left) with a portrait of Alan Rickman in his role of Severus Snape on the right.