I've managed to get through more than half of "Eye of the World." It's entertaining enough, however the story is mainly about bad guys just chasing the good guys, and it's getting tedious.

It's been a long time since I read The Eye of the World but believe me, the pacing picks up as you move through the books. Remember Jordan is setting up a huge world and a huge story. I encourage you to see it through to the end, if only to get the bit of resolution the story receives at the finale of this volume. I'm reading Towers of Midnight right now (it's the 13th book) and one of the major plotlines in this one is something that goes all the way back to EotW. Besides, if you don't make it past this book, you'll never find out about...well, never mind.

Great! It's a really good book. But really different from the movie...

My favorite character is Inigo.
The version I have also has a chapter of the "sequel" (which is still unreleased). That first chapter seemed very... unusual...
~Riella

I haven't seen the movie yet. I think I'll read the book before, cause you know your never supposed to judge a book by its movie. So I don't watch the movie before I read the book if I can help it.

I've read it. And I love Inigo too! Also Fezzik, who's so sweet. And any scene with Miracle Max is hilarious!

Hmm-- I wouldn't say that The Princess Bride by William Goldman is very different from the movie. Since the screenplay and the novel were written by the same person, they both have the same integral themes. I love both of them.

Interesting trivia fact about the book: The whole thing at the beginning about Goldman's wife is made-up. He is happily married and has two daughters. There is also no S. Morgenstern that wrote the original story.

I've been reading some of Mary Robert Rinehart's books. She wrote some mysteries, and all her books are funny. Especially all the Tish one's.
Tish (Letitia Carberry) and her two friends, Lizzie and Aggie, are middle-aged, eccentric women who have hilarious adventures.

But I'm really starting to realize that I enjoy mysteries, which I didn't know before. I especially love love Agatha Christie.

Just want to drop by briefly and thank wisewoman and Destined-To-Reign for recommending The Riddle-Master Trilogy to me. It was a fantastic book and I had been craving a new good fantasy for a while now.

The Negatives

The Positives

*toddles in*

I shouldn't leave right after I start a lovely conversation. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on Charles Dickens, everyone, waaaay back there! I found it very interesting! I didn't really like him all that much, either, until I started reading the books for the prose, and to intentionally enjoy The Glacial Pace.

[quote="Mel on Bleak House":1pw3wmqw]I loved the prose which marched along slowly and layered its way to magnificence.

Superb!! I haven't read Bleak House for about three years, but I remember that I liked it very, very much.

I also love Our Mutual Friend. Though indeed, like all of his, its rather sad, its still delightful and make's everything all right in the end.

I actually didn't like Our Mutual Friend that much. I really, really liked the first half. When everything was sad.

Have you read Manalive?

Yes! It is indeed! I have not, is it as good as Thursday?

It's even better! *lovelovelove*

I also did a re-read of Persuasion. . . .I found. . . Anne a wearing protagonist. I know that idea is not one held by many here, but she's such a vacant character. I don't feel that I knew her mind at all.

I find this fascinating. I think I liked it best of Austen's work, but I'm okay with your not liking it much. The reason I liked it so much was because I could empathize with Anne so well. I felt like she was thinking the same way I do. I felt like we had the same mind! I'm also amused to think of myself as vacant.

I haven't done a whole lot of reading this Nov. yet. G. A. Henty's Orange and Green and a couple volumes of Tintin.

Hurrah for Tintin!!! I haven't read any for a long time. My brother took his volume with him to school. When we were little, we made three of the adventures into radio dramas. I was Snowy and all of the women and minor male parts.

I'm also re-reading The Two Towers for the second time this year.

I'm not rereading it, but I *am* reading it for the first time right now! Except, writing a book has sort of replaced reading books, so I am progressing at a very slow pace.

I recently finished Dante's Purgatorio. I read John Ciardi's translation, because that was one of the copies we had sitting around, and I liked it better than the newer one my brother had for his college class. I only compared small portions with other translations, but I think I really liked this one. (On the one little bit, he and Dorothy Sayers were about equal, I think.) We have Sayers' translation of Paradiso, which I am anxious to read.

The other books which I have started, and put on the shelf until NaNoWriMo is over (or some other wonderful chance of having time to read!), are Pride & Prejudice (for a second time), and An English English Woman's Love Letters, which Destined gave to me for my birthday.

Other books I am saving to read, anxiously waiting, are:
The Wind in the Willows
The Bronze Bow
Paradiso
How Green Was My Valley
Rebecca
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
War Within and Without
A great deal of Shakespeare
And a pretty old book that a friend lent to me.... the name escapes me right now. It's about cards and masquerades and stuff like that.

Somehow, I'm hoping if I think about them a lot, I'll be able to read more.

The writing is serviceable, the characters likeable, the cliches are occasionally turned on their heads, and we've found the series to be a good family read-aloud.

Thanks. That was basically what I was looking for.

Betsie wrote
Also, I couldn't get over disliking Eugene Wrayburn, simply for the fact that he was named Eugene and had too large of whiskers.

I imagine characters in books however I want them - so he really doesn't have any whiskers. He's young looking, clean shaven, and wonderful.

Wow, I think this is my first time posting in this thread! I'm not going to try to play catch-up, obviously, although here is a snapshot of what I've been reading this semester....
[list=1]

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (loved it!)[/*38gn2evc][*]Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (those folks need counseling)[/*38gn2evc][*]Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone by Sophocles (assigned reading; enjoyed these, especially Antigone)[/*38gn2evc][*]Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (painfully overrated, especially on these forums)[/*38gn2evc][*]Arabella by Georgette Heyer (a charming heroine)[/*38gn2evc][*]Invitation to Camelot edited by Parke Godwin (a marvelous collection of Arthurian short stories)[/*38gn2evc][*]A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (assigned reading; fun, and an old favorite, but no longer my favorite from the Bard)[/*38gn2evc][*]Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren ("assigned" by wisewoman; great YA fiction)[/*38gn2evc][*]Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim (assigned reading; prefer watching the musical to reading it )[/*38gn2evc][*]Fences by August Wilson (a powerful 20th century play)[/*38gn2evc][/list38gn2evc]

Now I'm in the middle of Dracula, and am not sure if I want to finish it. Stoker's writing is colorless, and his characters seem all to be carbon copies of each other. I did really like the opening chapters set in Transylvania, and to tell the truth I was incredibly creeped out by the sections dealing with Lucy, but now it's just gotten dull. Not one of the best of its style or era, as far as I'm concerned.

So glad you liked Riddle-Master, fantasia! It's one of my favorites.

I just finished reading "Point Blank", the second book in the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz! I love it! it's so epic!

I haven't done a whole lot of reading this Nov. yet. G. A. Henty's Orange and Green and a couple volumes of Tintin.

How are you liking the Henty? I haven't read that one. Have you
read St. Bartholomew's Eve?
Tintin is good fun.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (those folks need counseling)

I did finish CoK a while back, but I never got around to commenting on it here. I didn't really find the lack of Gen to be a big deal. The action was great. I think my favorite scene is when Sophos

Spoiler

wouldn't end up with Eddis; it wasn't a very believable romance (to untutored me), and again the groom is younger than the bride. Yuck. But I can see why they needed to happen.

So yesterday I stayed up till three fifteen am to finish The Hunger Games for the first time. In the words of my brother, who has the book now, "It's weird but it pulls you in." I enjoyed it a lot up until

I finished The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents today. It was great!
I also began Lloyd Alexander's The Arkadians yesterday.

Enjoy The Arkadians, Lady Haleth! I read it years ago and remember it as one of Alexander's funniest, if not, perhaps, one of his best.

I must just be really thickheaded, Adeona (hello, by the way! -- I'm not sure we've met?), but somehow I missed all the hints in the earlier Attolian books about

Be warned that The Hunger Games is by far the best installment in Collins' trilogy. It's all downhill from there.

Hi, Lysander! pleased to meet you, I'm sure! You're right about

And thanks for the warning about Collins' work. Sorry to hear it.