Reading & Books

[DanyEle]

Haven't found any topic talking about our favourite books or anything concerning reading, so I just thought I could start one!
Personally, i find it very relaxing to read a book in the night and I can never fall asleep without reading some pages of my favourite fantasy books. In the last few months, i've been reading all the "Songs of Ice and Fire" books, and found them waaaay better than the TV show. They could still make 3-4 sesons from all of them and I'm eagerly waiting for the new one by George Martin. In the meantime, i've told myself I must read  at least once in my life the Lord of the Rings saga, though i've seen all the movies at least three times . Just after 150 pages, I've found out while so many authors have been inspired by Tolkien's superb writing style.
 
Feel free to share your thoughts on the awesome paper-world. What are you reading and what would you suggest that others read? 

[Gizmo]

Currently reading "Works of Love" by Søren Kierkegaard, and I'm about to start reading "Wellington's mongrel regiment: a history of the Chasseurs Britanniques regiment 1801-1814" by Alistair Nichols. I mainly read about history or philosophy, the rest really bores me....

If anyone is interested in Existentialism and more particularly Christian Existentialism, I highly advise you to read Kierkegaard's works, either "Christian Discourses" or "The Sickness Unto Death" or even the one I'm currently reading!

[Riddlez]

Have read a lot of good shit past 3 years, can't even remember it all.

A song of Ice and Fire Series by George RR Martin (all five monsters)
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simson
I am going to read the Lucifer effect, although that is more informational.
I am going to read The Marathon by Stephen king.

Read all the Dan Brown books except the ones of which there are films...
Read Fight to Win by Chris Ryan
Read Hit list by Chris Ryan

Read the Divergent Series, because I was interested, weren't even that bad of books.
Now, kills incoming.

I read all the Twilight books (in backward order).
I am also going to read Sophie's World, for the philosophy and the story seems to be pretty good, actually, saw the series.

And a Dutch book of which I have forgotten the title, but it's about genocides and regimes why they are still possible in the western world.

In the last few months, i've been reading all the "Songs of Ice and Fire" books, and found them waaaay better than the TV show.

Nothing beats a page-long description of the details of someone being killed.
And the fact Martin uses a 20 pages long epilogue just to show in the last sentence of the epilogue that some character is actually alive....

[Nipplestockings]

I made a thread on the topic a while ago
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=16265.0
but it hasn't been posted in since June, so oh well no use in forcing old content.

Anyway, I've been interested a lot in the eastern front of ww2 lately, so at a friend's recommendation I picked up Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege by Antony Beevor. Fantastic book, I've sped through it and I'm almost done. On top of that can't leave out Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, which is essentially Stalingrad's fictional counterpart (Beevor includes a lot of Grossman's quotes in his book to help illustrate his points and narratives).

About ASOIAf - When I read them a year or two ago I was absolutely obsessed with them, and I'm still interested in the world itself and its lore, but going back and reading some of the books has made me realize that GRRM is... not really the best writer. Back when I was in full GRRM fanboy mode I would dismiss complaints of the books being too long and having too much filler in between the good parts as people not appreciating good dialogue rather than raw action, but really, they're right. The dialogue isn't even that good. It's just plain and average. George R.R. Martin's former job as a soap opera writer kind of shows through here, to be honest. Also, he's awful at planning his stories. His rambling and widespread style does add something to the scope and epicness of the story, but at the same time it just makes it dull and drag on at times. I wish he could have condensed his books into 600 pages or less, not because I want to read less, but because a decent portion of the books are hardly even worth reading. I am looking forward to Winds of Winter, though. I suppose I'll have to get around to re-reading the series before that comes out.

[Riddlez]

Spoiler

I made a thread on the topic a while ago
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=16265.0
but it hasn't been posted in since June, so oh well no use in forcing old content.

Anyway, I've been interested a lot in the eastern front of ww2 lately, so at a friend's recommendation I picked up Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege by Antony Beevor. Fantastic book, I've sped through it and I'm almost done. On top of that can't leave out Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, which is essentially Stalingrad's fictional counterpart (Beevor includes a lot of Grossman's quotes in his book to help illustrate his points and narratives).

About ASOIAf - When I read them a year or two ago I was absolutely obsessed with them, and I'm still interested in the world itself and its lore, but going back and reading some of the books has made me realize that GRRM is... not really the best writer. Back when I was in full GRRM fanboy mode I would dismiss complaints of the books being too long and having too much filler in between the good parts as people not appreciating good dialogue rather than raw action, but really, they're right. The dialogue isn't even that good. It's just plain and average. George R.R. Martin's former job as a soap opera writer kind of shows through here, to be honest. Also, he's awful at planning his stories. His rambling and widespread style does add something to the scope and epicness of the story, but at the same time it just makes it dull and drags on at times. I wish he could have condensed his books into 600 pages or less, not because I want to read less, but because a decent portion of the books are hardly even worth reading. I am looking forward to Winds of Winter, though. I suppose I'll have to get around to re-reading the series before that comes out.

[close]

I would agree on that it drags on sometimes, but his dialogue truly improved after the third book. It is a bit late, but it is three nonethless.
The fact I personally love about ASoIaF is that you actually get to appreciate the characters, I mean, the affection to the character if you like the books is so much more stronger than in other books I have read...
Still, WoW is taking way too long. It's probably going to be early 2016...

[Nipplestockings]

Spoiler

I made a thread on the topic a while ago
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=16265.0
but it hasn't been posted in since June, so oh well no use in forcing old content.

Anyway, I've been interested a lot in the eastern front of ww2 lately, so at a friend's recommendation I picked up Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege by Antony Beevor. Fantastic book, I've sped through it and I'm almost done. On top of that can't leave out Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, which is essentially Stalingrad's fictional counterpart (Beevor includes a lot of Grossman's quotes in his book to help illustrate his points and narratives).

About ASOIAf - When I read them a year or two ago I was absolutely obsessed with them, and I'm still interested in the world itself and its lore, but going back and reading some of the books has made me realize that GRRM is... not really the best writer. Back when I was in full GRRM fanboy mode I would dismiss complaints of the books being too long and having too much filler in between the good parts as people not appreciating good dialogue rather than raw action, but really, they're right. The dialogue isn't even that good. It's just plain and average. George R.R. Martin's former job as a soap opera writer kind of shows through here, to be honest. Also, he's awful at planning his stories. His rambling and widespread style does add something to the scope and epicness of the story, but at the same time it just makes it dull and drags on at times. I wish he could have condensed his books into 600 pages or less, not because I want to read less, but because a decent portion of the books are hardly even worth reading. I am looking forward to Winds of Winter, though. I suppose I'll have to get around to re-reading the series before that comes out.

[close]

I would agree on that it drags on sometimes, but his dialogue truly improved after the third book. It is a bit late, but it is three nonethless.
The fact I personally love about ASoIaF is that you actually get to appreciate the characters, I mean, the affection to the character if you like the books is so much more stronger than in other books I have read...
Still, WoW is taking way too long. It's probably going to be early 2016...

That's true, but I actually think GOT is where his writing stood out the most. There he had his story set in a very concise and well thought out manner, and his rambling was kept to a (relative) minimum. After ACOK he sort of went down hill in that respect. On the flip side of this, however, I've always been confused with people saying that AFFC is the worst book in the series. True, it doesn't have many huge epic events or massive plot twists, but I think its purpose is more of a subtle plot development device, rather than a grand scale story advancer like some of the others were. It actually gets the dialogue right, which I think ASOS wasn't as strong on at times, and the character development was on point. I can see why people don't like it as much, but I really think it's just different - not really any worse.

And no, I think the book probably will be released in mid to late 2015. GRRM is nearly done from what I've heard, for all we know he might be moving on to the final proofreading and editing process, and the next step will be the publishing desk (albeit a process that takes a few months at the least). Hopefully we'll see TWOW before 2016, but I do think there's a fairly significant chance of us getting it earlier.

[Reaper]

Spoiler

I made a thread on the topic a while ago
https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/index.php?topic=16265.0
but it hasn't been posted in since June, so oh well no use in forcing old content.

Anyway, I've been interested a lot in the eastern front of ww2 lately, so at a friend's recommendation I picked up Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege by Antony Beevor. Fantastic book, I've sped through it and I'm almost done. On top of that can't leave out Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, which is essentially Stalingrad's fictional counterpart (Beevor includes a lot of Grossman's quotes in his book to help illustrate his points and narratives).

About ASOIAf - When I read them a year or two ago I was absolutely obsessed with them, and I'm still interested in the world itself and its lore, but going back and reading some of the books has made me realize that GRRM is... not really the best writer. Back when I was in full GRRM fanboy mode I would dismiss complaints of the books being too long and having too much filler in between the good parts as people not appreciating good dialogue rather than raw action, but really, they're right. The dialogue isn't even that good. It's just plain and average. George R.R. Martin's former job as a soap opera writer kind of shows through here, to be honest. Also, he's awful at planning his stories. His rambling and widespread style does add something to the scope and epicness of the story, but at the same time it just makes it dull and drags on at times. I wish he could have condensed his books into 600 pages or less, not because I want to read less, but because a decent portion of the books are hardly even worth reading. I am looking forward to Winds of Winter, though. I suppose I'll have to get around to re-reading the series before that comes out.

[close]

I would agree on that it drags on sometimes, but his dialogue truly improved after the third book. It is a bit late, but it is three nonethless.
The fact I personally love about ASoIaF is that you actually get to appreciate the characters, I mean, the affection to the character if you like the books is so much more stronger than in other books I have read...
Still, WoW is taking way too long. It's probably going to be early 2016...

I never had a problem with grinding through the books, especially when it is a drag until A Feast For Crows. Different characters can be drags, and a lot of the not so interesting characters become POV characters in the last two books unfortunately.

[Killington]

What do you guys think of audiobooks? I find that when they're read by the author, or a good narrator, they can be pretty awesome. I highly recommend that everyone listen to the hitchhiker books on audiobook, even if you've read them and know them well, the lines being delivered by Douglas Adams makes it that much better.

[Nipplestockings]

What do you guys think of audiobooks? I find that when they're read by the author, or a good narrator, they can be pretty awesome. I highly recommend that everyone listen to the hitchhiker books on audiobook, even if you've read them and know them well, the lines being delivered by Douglas Adams makes it that much better.

Yeah audiobooks are great!

[Killington]

What do you guys think of audiobooks? I find that when they're read by the author, or a good narrator, they can be pretty awesome. I highly recommend that everyone listen to the hitchhiker books on audiobook, even if you've read them and know them well, the lines being delivered by Douglas Adams makes it that much better.

Yeah audiobooks are great!

Haha xD

[Riddlez]

What do you guys think of audiobooks? I find that when they're read by the author, or a good narrator, they can be pretty awesome. I highly recommend that everyone listen to the hitchhiker books on audiobook, even if you've read them and know them well, the lines being delivered by Douglas Adams makes it that much better.

I don't get the hate towards audiobooks.
I had a Dutch book about WW2 narrated by the writer, boy he has an awesome voice. It all comes down to if the narrator understands the book or not, so he knows how to read.

I once listened to a narrator who had a voice as deep as Morgan Freeman, that was just amazing.

[lindblom]

Song of ice and fire are some of the best books I've read in my entire life, though I don't usually like reading..

[Colonel Howe]

I tried reading LotR books.

Very overrated

Don't into hobbit

[Death by EMP]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is still the best book/novel ever created, but everyone I recommend it to is too much of a pansy to read it. Ah well, their loss.

[Shredder]

Yesterday I started Cornwell's The Pagan Lord. So far it seems pretty good, really detailed in Paganism vs. Christianity in Britain, and it has a lot of historical references as well as graphic descriptions.

I tried reading LotR books.

Very overrated

Don't into hobbit

u wot