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Which Book are you reading

Good call with Jane Eyre, it's something people have also been telling me to read. How is 'A Song of Ice and Fire'? I'm up to date on the show, any advice on whether I should start reading it?

I'm not sure what kind of books you're in to, I've recently taken a break from Tolkien, I just got two Dostoevsky books recently, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov.
Yeah, I've been meaning to read that one for a year now.

They're quite good. The universe thingy is somewhat inspired from Tolkien but no hobbit songs and not many mythical creatures, But you already knew that.

I'll definitely look into those, They sound promising. Have you read GWTW books?

Also, Have to reread Dahl's My Uncle Oswald!
 
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Yeah, I've been meaning to read that one for a year now.

They're quite good. The universe thingy is somewhat inspired from Tolkien but no hobbit songs and not many mythical creatures, But you already knew that.

I'll definitely look into those, They sound promising. Have you read GWTW books?

Also, Have to reread Dahl's My Uncle Oswald!

Yeah, I realise GRRM's universe took some inspiration from Tolkien but is one in its own right. It's on my list of things to read. And no, I've not read Gone With The Wind. I've read a plethora of Roald Dahl books as a child, haven't read that one yet. :-)
 
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Yeah, I realise GRRM's universe took some inspiration from Tolkien but is one in its own right. It's on my list of things to read. And no, I've not read Gone With The Wind. I've read a plethora of Roald Dahl books as a child, haven't read that one yet. :-)
Which one is your favorite? BTW My Uncle Oswald isn't children's literature. I presume you haven't read any of his adult fiction?

@Jungibaaz

You should definitely read GWTW. It is as good as any British classic.
 
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Which one is your favorite? BTW My Uncle Oswald isn't children's literature. I presume you haven't read any of his adult fiction?

@Jungibaaz

You should definitely read GWTW. It is as good as any British classic.

You're right, I am only fimiliar with his children's novels. My two favourites were Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach.
 
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Nizam din gujratia an epilogue of societal scruples :D ok jokes apart local n special laws by the hokoomte punjab
 
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Yeah, I've been meaning to read that one for a year now.

They're quite good. The universe thingy is somewhat inspired from Tolkien but no hobbit songs and not many mythical creatures, But you already knew that.

I'll definitely look into those, They sound promising. Have you read GWTW books?

Yeah, I realise GRRM's universe took some inspiration from Tolkien but is one in its own right. It's on my list of things to read. :-)

Ive read all except the latest edition of 'A Song of Ice and Fire', and have to say they are in many ways different to the LOTR trilogy. GRRM's novels are packed with characters (many of them with no obvious relation to the plotline), and this makes the books quite dragging at many points. Whilst interesting to read as they add depth to the world, for somebody who wants to find out whats happening in the main plotline, reading about these side characters can be quite tiring. Imagine a dozen or two Tom Bombadils in the LOTR plotline. Again whilst such characters colour the world thats being protrayed, this comes at the risk of detaching the reader from the main plotline (which revolves around two characters specifically, one in Essos and one in Westeros).
I would certainly recommend A Song of Ice and Fire but at the same time mention that the pace is quite different to the LOTR trilogy. Read them if you have a lot of spare time :)
 
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Ive read all except the latest edition of 'A Song of Ice and Fire', and have to say they are in many ways different to the LOTR trilogy. GRRM's novels are packed with characters (many of them with no obvious relation to the plotline), and this makes the books quite dragging at many points. Whilst interesting to read as they add depth to the world, for somebody who wants to find out whats happening in the main plotline, reading about these side characters can be quite tiring. Imagine a dozen or two Tom Bombadils in the LOTR plotline. Again whilst such characters colour the world thats being protrayed, this comes at the risk of detaching the reader from the main plotline (which revolves around two characters specifically, one in Essos and one in Westeros).
I would certainly recommend A Song of Ice and Fire but at the same time mention that the pace is quite different to the LOTR trilogy. Read them if you have a lot of spare time :)

Well, you've certainly informed me more about it than others have, thanks for that. I think I still have the stomach for that though, I will move on to GRRM very soon now. But my reading list is always growing longer, not shorter as I continue to read.

In fact, the more I read, the more books I end up adding, a strange phenomenon it is. :-)
 
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I was 60% into the book till last month when i stopped reading and started preparing for my exams.....Hayden
cannot wait to get done with exams and start reading again.......i already have books lined up to read......currently reading

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service
Book by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal

Once done with this, which will be a matter ofndays, i will start with

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
Book by Michael Hayden and Michael V. Hayden

Wish list is getting longer and longer and each of them will be an interesting read
 
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I was 60% into the book till last month when i stopped reading and started preparing for my exams.....Hayden
cannot wait to get done with exams and start reading again.......i already have books lined up to read......currently reading

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service
Book by Michael Bar-Zohar and Nissim Mishal

Once done with this, which will be a matter ofndays, i will start with

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror
Book by Michael Hayden and Michael V. Hayden

Wish list is getting longer and longer and each of them will be an interesting read
Happy reading! :D

Guys do post your reviews here after you finish reading a book.
 
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Yeah, I realise GRRM's universe took some inspiration from Tolkien but is one in its own right. It's on my list of things to read. And no, I've not read Gone With The Wind. I've read a plethora of Roald Dahl books as a child, haven't read that one yet. :-)


George Martin's work is so full of blood and gore, and huge dollops of sex almost ladled in that it makes difficult reading. It certainly is a gripping tale otherwise. I started reading it but stopped, for a peculiar reason. Reading the successive volumes of The Wheel of Time, there were moments towards the end when I wondered if the damn' thing would finish faster or I would. Now, having started this series and got to the little fellow being exiled, I've stopped reading it. Let all the volumes be printed first, and then we'll see.

It's strange you should be comparing it with Tolkien. Tolkien (I first read LOTR in 1968, the year of revolution all over the world) is so poetic, and his writing so marvellously precise. His intimacy with English as she is spoke is remarkable, and he reaches right into the heart of the language, into its Middle and Old English vocabularies, for his priceless words.

I have always been reminded by Tolkien of the writings of John Buchan in the Richard Hannay series, in that the transition from a perfectly normal, almost boring and comfort-filled life to a thrilling series of adventures takes place in about 30 pages in both. We start celebrating a birthday party, and take stock of a series of eccentric characters in LOTR, and through an almost imperceptible change of pace, find ourselves holding our breath not to attract the attention of the horse of one of the Black Riders, or galloping madly for sanctuary in an elvish stronghold. In Buchan, we move from plus-fours and the difficulties of a particular stalk of a fine stag to high adventure, where the fates of clashing armies depend on the success or failure of an almost impossible mission.

Reader Alert: Hannay has his purple passages where mad mullahs whip an intensely religious population into a frenzy, and reflects the fear of contemporary colonial administrators fairly accurately. From the point of view of a south Asian reader, fairly annoyingly as well.
 
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Would people be interested in reading the classic that some say got Tolkien going? It's got swords and sorcery, derring do, high lords speaking an archaic Modern English, heroes straight out of Norse mythology with names like the Lords Juss, Spitfire and Goldry Bluszco and their cousin Brandoch Daha, villains like King Gorice XI.....but the villain dies in a wrestling match with Goldry Bluszco for the supremacy of the world.

The Worm Ouroboros is often compared with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (which it predates by 32 years). Tolkien read The Worm Ouroboros, and praised it in print. C. S. Lewis wrote a short preface to an anthology of Eddison's works, including The Worm Ouroboros, concluding that "No writer can be said to remind us of Eddison."

In contrast to The Lord of the Rings, to which mythopoeia is central, Eddison makes few references either to actual mythology or to an invented mythology after the fashion of the Silmarillion. One example of this is Eddison's ad hoc names for people and places versus Tolkien's invention of entire languages.

Also, while The Lord of the Rings is written mostly in modern English, Eddison wrote The Worm Ouroboroslargely in sixteenth-century English, making use of his experience translating Norse sagas and reading medievaland Renaissance poetry; a nearly unique approach among popular fantasy novels. Eddison incorporates a number of actual early modern poems into the story, including Shakespeare's 18th sonnet, all meticulously credited in an appendix.

The tale's morality has also been described as uncommon in modern fantasy; in particular, it differs sharply from Tolkien's heroism of the common man in a fight against evil and C. S. Lewis's Christian allegory. The Demon lords hold to the Old Norse warrior ethic of loyalty and glory. The leaders of Witchland are regarded as noble and worthy opponents; in the final chapter, Goldry Bluszco compares them very favorably with the "uncivil races" of Impland.
 
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George Martin's work is so full of blood and gore, and huge dollops of sex almost ladled in that it makes difficult reading. It certainly is a gripping tale otherwise. I started reading it but stopped, for a peculiar reason. Reading the successive volumes of The Wheel of Time, there were moments towards the end when I wondered if the damn' thing would finish faster or I would. Now, having started this series and got to the little fellow being exiled, I've stopped reading it. Let all the volumes be printed first, and then we'll see.

It's strange you should be comparing it with Tolkien. Tolkien (I first read LOTR in 1968, the year of revolution all over the world) is so poetic, and his writing so marvellously precise. His intimacy with English as she is spoke is remarkable, and he reaches right into the heart of the language, into its Middle and Old English vocabularies, for his priceless words.

I have always been reminded by Tolkien of the writings of John Buchan in the Richard Hannay series, in that the transition from a perfectly normal, almost boring and comfort-filled life to a thrilling series of adventures takes place in about 30 pages in both. We start celebrating a birthday party, and take stock of a series of eccentric characters in LOTR, and through an almost imperceptible change of pace, find ourselves holding our breath not to attract the attention of the horse of one of the Black Riders, or galloping madly for sanctuary in an elvish stronghold. In Buchan, we move from plus-fours and the difficulties of a particular stalk of a fine stag to high adventure, where the fates of clashing armies depend on the success or failure of an almost impossible mission.

Reader Alert: Hannay has his purple passages where mad mullahs whip an intensely religious population into a frenzy, and reflects the fear of contemporary colonial administrators fairly accurately. From the point of view of a south Asian reader, fairly annoyingly as well.

Your eloquent description of Tolkien's work and LOTR in particularly, really cast my mind back to first reading it, and now I would like to find the time to read it again.

I've delved so much into Tolkien's mythology that I've even began reading the Histories of Middle Earth, I'm currently on part II and I find myself in much the same position you described, I too find it quite difficult to read the histories, which aren't written like stories, more like books commentating written history and non-fiction works. It would be nigh unbearable had Christopher Tolkien not have given the illusion of the story being told to the reader by the account of a third character.

And these works date some of them way back to Tolkien's time in the trenches of WWII, whence he created the entire mythology beginning with a single character and a story, namely 'the Voyage of Earendil' the mariner. So it as an earlier account of the same mythology found in the Silmarillion, and more detailed, which is counter-intuitive to the fact that it is the earlier.

Would people be interested in reading the classic that some say got Tolkien going?

Absolutely, I wonder if we'll go as far back as Beowulf in the original old English. :D
 
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