AR Book Club

[Pharass]

Daenerys' chapters gets less and less interesting with each new installment of the series. I found them a chore to get through in A Dance With Dragons. Than again, neither Dance nor the previous novel A Feast for Crows managed to reach the heights of the first three novels. They were not bad, mind you, I just didn't enjoy them as much as their predecessors.

[Avaitor]

I'll have to take your word for it. They've become so sparse as of now that I can't really say that I love or hate them.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I hope I can get back in the mood to read soon, I still have the Moviegoer to go through.

[Avaitor]

I'm on A Clash of Kings now. I think after I'm done with this one, I'm going to stop reading the books for a little to catch up with the show, then I'll get onto the next ones.

One thing has fascinated me, though. Earlier in the book, Cersei made a claim that as she and Jaime were born together, they will surely die together. Is this foreshadowing?

[Avaitor]

Spoiler

Andddd I hit Arya's death.

Martin, you cruel bastard.

[close]

[Pharass]

Right now I'm reading some non-fiction for a change, namely: Death in the City of Light by David King, which chronicles the case of Dr. Marcel Petiot; the serial-killer who terrorized occupied Paris. So far, I find the book to be a very engrossing read about a truly despicable individual. Of course, it's also extremely depressing and not just because of the ruthless cynisism and contempt for humanity that the good doctor displayed, but also because of the fact that no matter how horrible a person Petiot was, the fact that remains that compared to the Nazis running France at the time, he was an amateur.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'm reading Love In The Ruins by Walker Percy which is excellent so far. It's pretty funny and imaginative at the same time and the characters are quite varied.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I just finished up 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' by John Buchan. Great little adventure story.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I finished The Prisoner Of Zenda. It's a great little adventure story.

[Pharass]

I finished The Prisoner Of Zenda. It's a great little adventure story.

Are you going to read the sequel next?

I just finished Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: A great thriller about a man who comes home one day and finds that his wife is missing and is soon suspected of having murdered her. The story is told in first-person by both the man and the wife (the latter via diary entries); all the characters are interesting and the various twists of the story are excellently staged. I'll definitely seek out more books from this author.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I finished The Prisoner Of Zenda. It's a great little adventure story.

Are you going to read the sequel next?

I have it on standby. First I'm going a bit more modern-ish with Salem's Lot and Black Cherry Blues.

[Avaitor]

I'm considering going through every Hugo winner for Best Novel, since I end up looking for a lot of books that win the award anyway.

I might reread one or two as well. I knew that I read through Goblet of Fire, but I honestly can't remember anything about it.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I sort of did something like that when I splurged in Penguin's short lived Red Classics Boys line since not only were they classics, but had really cool art design without any padding outside of the story.

The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Riddle Of The Sands, The Prisoner Of Zenda, and Rupert Of Hentzau. I find doing something like that is easier when they all fall into the same genre.

[Avaitor]

As for now, I started A Feast for Crows yesterday. Although i'm not hating it at all, I can see why it's the least popular book in the series thus far. We're geting into the perspective of characters that we haven't done so before, like Cersei and Brienne, and while I've been wanting to do so for them, it's still a bit of a change, while they're also throwing a lot of new things at us while not really going back and resolving certain points from the end of the last book.

I'm only about 200 pages in so far, so I'm really curious to see how it goes.

[Pharass]

I think my favorite parts of Feast (aside from those that focused on Sansa who really comes into her own in that book) were the ones that revealed just how deluded and unstable Cersei is. It's been awhile since I read it but I can't recall her making a single good decision in any of the chapters that featured her

Currently reading The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle. As the title indicates, this book is a collection of short-stories that focuses on a hussar in Napoleon's army. The stories themselves are great adventure stories that expertly mixes humor (often at the main character's expense, although he's always blissfully unaware of it) with more serious stuff. If you want to check out another character of Doyle's who easily rivals the great Holmes in entertainment value, I recommend seeking this book out.