I see, Gtg.

I had wondered if your name was from that series, Rosenquartz! I really, really enjoyed reading them; they are very interesting. Although, my favourite out of them is Inkheart, too, because it's much more wholesome than the rest, IMO. Haha, I was always scared to read Inkheart aloud 'cause I thought Capricorn would come out.

Well, we went to the bookstore today and they told us Conspiracy of Kings hasn't arrived yet-- I'm considering my city being really slow in getting books. But a trip to the library consoled my scarred excited attitude, and I borrowed The Wizard of Oz and Hope's Crossing by Joan Elizabeth Goodman; I was in the mood for a historical fiction novel and this one proved good enough. I hope it's good! Some C.S.Lewis books accompanied those, too.

^and reading it worked- my essay ranked highest . But then again there was only one other nerd in the class, everyone else but he and me got a C .

Btw I got a hardcover edition of Inkheart at a thrift store today for only $3 .

Kate, I've actually just read The Eyre Affair, so I can't really comment on the rest of the series. Jasper Fforde's Jack Spratt books are really good though and in sort of a similar genre. I've not read any of those books you listed, but my lit professor mentioned Beloved. She loved it. Of course, she also likes William Faulkner, so I'm not sure how much I trust her taste.

I had wondered if your name was from that series, Rosenquartz! I really, really enjoyed reading them; they are very interesting. Although, my favourite out of them is Inkheart, too, because it's much more wholesome than the rest, IMO. Haha, I was always scared to read Inkheart aloud 'cause I thought Capricorn would come out.

yes, the name Rosenquartz is from the second book Inkspell! he's the little glass man that Fenoglio has to keep his pens! I just really liked the name.....
yeah I totally agree with you about the second two books of the Inkheart trilogy! I love the book Inkheart and own a copy of it! but Inkspell and Inkdeath are a bit weird. I read Inkspell twice but only read Inkdeath once. Inkdeath is as thick as a dictionary! I thought the weirdest bit in Inkdeath was

I didn't really like that one! but Inkheart is my favorite book and I have read it lots of times! I kinda wish I could read the characters out of the book.....that's why I read it aloud!

My mother was trying to read Inkdeath recently, but she ended up having to stop. She thought it was too dark and depressing.

GB

@sweetlilgurlie –I’ve read 'A Man for All Seasons' as well (have you seen the film adaptation, starring Paul Schoefield? It’s really good). We had to study the play during high school and it was really interesting –More’s life, his character, his habits and what he had to say about the King. And from an atheist’s perspective too –although I think the author suggested that it was More’s wilful naivete that got him into trouble? –but don’t quote me on that, I just remember discussing it in class. I hope you’re enjoying it.

I read Utopia for class last quarter. I thought it was very interesting. Not particularly enjoyable, perhaps, but it was very cool to read the original utopian book.

I ended up returning the book unfinished! *waits for the cries of oh, woe! to subside* I decided that it was a book that needed to be studied (for me, at least) not merely read straight through, to appreciate it fully. I need footnotes and accompanying essays to really get the most out of it –like Shakespeare. However I do plan on going back and studying it –maybe when I have less real classes to study for!

It's a fundamental human question to ask how we can form a perfect society and it's very interesting to read More's ideas about it.

So true. Some friends and I were discussing whether democracy was the ideal form of government, or if there was a better one –and I was of the opinion that an autocracy, with a loving and benevolent leader at the head, whose only thought was for the people, might serve best (and I know that’s not my own idea) . I was surprised when someone agreed with me! (and you've no idea how badly I've wanted to use that raised eyebrows smiley...yes!)

p.s. can someone instruct me on how to quote someone with their name in it?

Oh, congratulations, Gtg.

Rosenquartz, so again my guess was right at the character. Yeah, the series just start to grow. Although, one gets the most satisfying feeling reading such a thick thing and then finishing it, no? Mm, yeah, that part was really odd in Inkdeath but the part I didn't like in Inkspell and Inkdeath was

brought up in them, not only with the side characters but also with the main characters. But yes, Inkheart is really good. I never wanted any of the characters to come out, for fear something would happen. xD I'll admit that I really wanted Tinkerbell to come.

Gandalfs Beard, it sort of was. =/ Things lighten up for only about 25% of the book, if I remember correctly.

StudyMate, to put someone's name in a quote you type[*quote="person's name"] text [*/quote] without the *'s, of course.

I'm currently reading the book The Annotated Alice (it's the original stories with lots of side notes cluing the reader into the life and times of Carroll). It was featured on LOST in the Season 6 episode, It's the first time I've tried reading the original versions. The Disney version was boring and I've never been a fan of the books (the endless nonsense frustrated me as a child), but I loved/love the surreal atmosphere to it all and how it influenced countless movies, books and TV series. Now, reading the books as an adult, it seems quite good.

Glad you're liking The Annotated Alice--reading that was the first time I read the Alice books and it explains so much that I never would have picked up on otherwise!

Whoa, I love that JS&MN cover, Kate.

Ditto on Inkheart being the best of the series! Inkspell and its characters drove me mad and I only read the first and last fifty pages of Inkdeath...no, Cornelia Funke, it is not good form to make your characters wander about for two hundred pages accomplishing nothing.

Has anyone read anything by Hilary McKay? I read her Casson family books over the last week or two and liked them a lot more than I was expecting. They're kind of Moffat/Melendy/Penderwick/daily-life-of-family-with-four-children type books, with some great wit and characterisation and dialogue. Vast apologies if you happen to get the ghoulish cartoon covers. They deserve better than that.

I've also been reading In His Image by Paul Brand--it's about the human body and analogies of that to Christianity, but it's also full of stories from his years as a doctor and his work with lepers in India. It's amazing.

Kate: woo hoo, Jasper Fforde! I've read all his books and I think The Eyre Affair is my favourite. But all of them are good! His Jack Spratt books, as mentioned by Booky, are quite similar to the Thursday Next ones. The world they're set in is very alike. However his latest book, Shades of Grey, is completely different. It still has Fforde's style, but the world is a sort of post-apocalyptic Britain, even more filled with Prefects and merit points than it was before.

Anyway, I'm not actually answering your question. The rest of the Thursday Next books (with another still to follow, I think) vary in quality a bit. I love all of them in different ways, but as I've said I don't think any of them are quite as good as the first. I think if you enjoyed the first one you should read them; they certainly broaden the world and the characters. Plus, they introduce so many more wonderful "in-jokes" of literature ... Something Rotten is a particular favourite of mine, just because Hamlet is so brilliant in it. So ... yes, read them! They're wacky but great.

Cornelia Funke's Inkheart ... nah! Inkdeath is my favourite. I have found, now I've re-read them all, that Inkheart is a very different kind of book. I love it very much but when it ends that particular sweep of Funke's writing ends, too. Inkspell and Inkdeath I find are very different, almost separate, and I prefer them. I think that because Funke herself didn't think there would be a sequel to Inkheart it's why they seem different. But then, Inkdeath isn't my favourite Funke book. The Thief Lord is.

My sister has those Hilary McKay books. All I've read of them is every other page of the first one, I think. We were on a plane and I couldn't be bothered to get my own book out, so I sat and read what I could see of my sister's. I always meant to read them properly, but I never have.

I just finished Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart, which was very odd. I've read My Sister's Keeper and really enjoyed it, but this had a completely different feel to it. Plus, a lot of the characters and a lot of what actually happened seemed very similar. There were also none of those "Wow!" moments which I love in books, the moments that make me turn to that page in the book rather than re-reading the whole thing.

After seeing Timeline (with Gerard Butler and Billy Connolly) on TV the other week I bought the book, hoping it would be better than the film, as the discussion boards on IMDb seemed to suggest. To my surprise, it wasn't - the plot didn't seem as well formed and the ending was irritating rather than exciting. Though the characters were much better developed I preferred the film characters a whole lot better, and not just because Marek and the Professor are Scottish in the film, rather than Polish or American. However, I've no idea what I would have thought if I'd read Michael Crichton's book first. I liked the book, however, so I think I might try and find a copy of Jurassic Park. I wonder if that's better than the film ...

I need to track down The Annotated Alice.

I've read several of the Casson family books. I'd actually completely forgotten about them until you mentioned them, Alyosha. I wonder if there's a new one out yet.

On Inkheart etc:

I haven't read Inkdeath yet, although I sort of skimmed the ending briefly enough to find out that

I'm not dying to read it
When I was thirteen I read Inkspell and LOVED it but I think that was mostly because of the romancey stuff which I thought was pretty cool I'm not a big fan of it now though. Whoever it was up the page who said Corneila Funke's writing style changed from Inkheart to the other two was right. There's just something more magical for me about the first book, which I do REALLYREALLY love. The Thief Lord is pretty awesome, but Inkheart takes the cake for me. There's just something wonderful and "book-ish" feeling about it that I adore. (off topic slightly: the recent movie adaption was pretty great too--I definetly think it captured the "feeling" of the book!)
Warrior: I actually liked that just when you think the book is over...bam! There's another 200 so pages to go Although I could see that might be annoying to some.

Right now I'm reading the Hollow Kingdom Trilogy by Clare Dunkle. Really great. I hadn't reread them for AGES and I've forgotten how much I absolutly loved them You should all go check them out

@StudyMate: I'm reading it for highschool too. I've seen part of the movie version, but I got bored. Weird thing: Paul Schofield is the narrator for the CoN Audio Dramas for Focus on the Family! Weird, huh?

I don't think that the author really suggested that. I read the foreword, and the way that Robert Bolt went into the story was thinking that a man's self is the most integral part in him, and what would a man be without his self? He explored that with the character of Richard Rich.

The other bit he explored was that More was not willing to let go of his self, and his very self was obeying God and the Church. He had a point that he could go up to, but after that he was not willing to compromise. He stood firm too. I would say that More is most definitely depicted as a hero in A Man for All Seasons, but not a misguided one.

I thought I might mention what books I've read over this semester (assuming I remember them all).

For Honors Colloquium this semester we had a topic of Utopia/Dystopia, and had to read the following works.
- Plato's Republic (several books)
- More's Utopia
- William Morris's News from Nowhere
- Yevgeny Zamyatin's We
- Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451

Plato was fascinating; More was interesting (I think discussing specifics will be unnecessary considering their popularity). William Morris is not well-known today, but he was a great Victorian-era Romantic writer and craftsman, as well as a utopian socialist. His book is the story of an idealized future in which the socialist revolution has taken place, private property is abolished (as well as all government and law), and everyone lives in harmony. It's absurd, of course, in its assumption that humans are basically good, and the narrator is a rather insipid character who spends a lot of his time commenting on how beautiful all the women are in utopia, but it's an interesting read.

The latter two works are less overtly didactic. Zamyatin is relatively unknown; he was a victim of Stalinism, and his works were suppressed by the Soviet government. His We is the predecessor to such dystopian novels as Brave New World and 1984. It took me two reads to convince myself of its worth, but now I regard it as an excellent piece of fiction and social commentary. It's about a future of dystopian absolutism, and manages to blend a fascinating (though often confusing) storyline with a horrific vision of the day when humans become "soulless." It has remarkably Christian undertones that grow deeper with each reading.

Finally, Bradbury was enjoyable. His vision of the future sounds terribly close to the direction the world is going.

As for pleasure books, I haven't read a whole lot. The one I especially remember is The Black Flower. It is a published Civil War novel written by my Creative Writing instructor here at university, Howard Bahr. It received excellent reviews and made New York Times Notable, and since then Bahr has released two or three other novels. Mr. Bahr is a great man and a brilliant author, and I enjoyed The Black Flower. Some of his imagery and language is beautiful; one reviewer referred to it as borrowing style from all the great southern authors while remaining unique. A word of warning for anyone who tries to pick up one of Bahr's books, though: the tone is dark, and there is some very harsh language in them that puts a lot of people off his books. He has told me personally that he employs it for realism (he served in the military many years back), but for most of the people on this thread, I think they would find it excessive. That said, I still consider it to be of high quality.

Has anyone read anything by Hilary McKay? I read her Casson family books over the last week or two and liked them a lot more than I was expecting. They're kind of Moffat/Melendy/Penderwick/daily-life-of-family-with-four-children type books, with some great wit and characterisation and dialogue. Vast apologies if you happen to get the ghoulish cartoon covers. They deserve better than that.

yes!!!!! I have read the Casson family books too! I love those! I have read Indigo's Star 15 times and the others many times too! I am addicted to those! I have not read any other Hilary Mckay books, but I will soon!