Books!

[Mélusine]

ooh, so many interesting looking recommendations!! I just finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman and am very sad because I don’t know what to do with myself now that such an engrossing story is over .

Read another Gaiman's book ? *Innocent look and smile*

[Eriaror]

Okay so I may very well be preaching to the choir here as I have not read the whole thread, but I have just finished Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy yesterday and I... I have all the words and no words.

I mean, it's a fantasy series that can actually be read as sci-fi, if you really look; it's the coming of age story of two children from two literally different worlds; set in the eternal struggle between curiosity and ignorance, science and zealotry, love and oppression. But above all of that it has such a heart and such a strong message that I cannot compare it to anything, my soul resonated with it to its deepest.

No book before has had such a profound effect on me as the third one, I was literally crying tears of joy in my bedroom, astonished by the worldly miracle of what being alive really is. The feeling might fade and wear off in some days, but frankly I don't want it to. These books may have made me a different person.

[viola]

ooh, so many interesting looking recommendations!! I just finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman and am very sad because I don’t know what to do with myself now that such an engrossing story is over . But I did encounter a TON of new deities and folk legends to research (as if I’m not enough of a mythology nerd  ), so YAY! Anyway, yeah, said book has probably already been mentioned on here, but it’s a really good one! Had a lot of plot twists I actually wasn’t expecting

whispers there is a sequel called Anansi Boys. It deals with different characters but it's the same universe with gods and stuff and it's also pretty great! Plus all the mythology stuff. Read all the Neil Gaiman. He does so much with mythology and it's absolutely wonderful and amazing and beautiful and lovely.

Okay so I may very well be preaching to the choir here as I have not read the whole thread, but I have just finished Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy yesterday and I... I have all the words and no words.

I mean, it's a fantasy series that can actually be read as sci-fi, if you really look; it's the coming of age story of two children from two literally different worlds; set in the eternal struggle between curiosity and ignorance, science and zealotry, love and oppression. But above all of that it has such a heart and such a strong message that I cannot compare it to anything, my soul resonated with it to its deepest.

No book before has had such a profound effect on me as the third one, I was literally crying tears of joy in my bedroom, astonished by the worldly miracle of what being alive really is. The feeling might fade and wear off in some days, but frankly I don't want it to. These books may have made me a different person.

I love this series! And also there is a sequel trilogy (The Book of Dust) that he's writing right now! I just read the second book which is about grown up Lyra. It's super interesting to see where it's going especially since in this one they end up travelling to the middle east. Alsoooo BBC is doing a tv show which I haven't seen but it looks like it will be better than the movie from a few years ago so fingers crossed


I've been reading a lot of mythology stuff myself, specifically arthurian legends and judeo christian mythology that didn't make it into the bible, and I just started Stranger in a Strange Land which I've heard great things about but never actually picked up before.

[Róisín]

Viola: Stranger in a Strange Land is very much of its time, but I love it nevertheless. Worth wading through the occasional political incorrectness (remember when it was written) for the sheer delight of the concepts. Not to mention the depth of characterisation and the sheer exuberance of the characters.

[Jitter]

Fearherviolas, I have not seen the movie nor the series (yet) of His Dark Materials but have heard from people who have that the movie is really bad and the series much better.

As the books tend to gather some very devout fans as witnessed by Eriaor here, not everyone is happy with the Series of course, as nothing can live up to all of one’s specific images, but all in all it seems to be well made and represent the “look and feel” of the books’ world to many people’s liking.

I have read the books ages ago, and the more I read people’s comments on them the more I think I should read them again. I remember the main plot surprisingly well (testament to how impressed I was) but I’m sure there’s loads and loads of forgotten and previously unnoticed treasure there as well.

[Eriaror]

Alsoooo BBC is doing a tv show which I haven't seen but it looks like it will be better than the movie from a few years ago so fingers crossed

Do watch the series, they just finished the first season (covers the first book) like a week ago, and it's awesome! I got into the world via the series and read book one's chapters while it was airing after watching the episode corresponding to them, and only then continued to books two and three.

As the books tend to gather some very devout fans as witnessed by Eriaror here, not everyone is happy with the Series of course, as nothing can live up to all of one’s specific images, but all in all it seems to be well made and represent the “look and feel” of the books’ world to many people’s liking.

I'm kind of an interesting kind of fan here, 'cause I was more than happy that my imagination could lean on the show's amazing production design (these people imagine stuff as their jobs, after all) and that I could tie the actors' faces to characters, I felt that it actually enhanced the reading experience for books two and three, too.

Spoiler: not very specific but just in case • show

Like, getting to imagine Ruth Wilson's face distort to a completely animal rage when Mrs. Coulter shouts NAME HER in that scene close to the end of book two. Or imagining how Dafne Keen and Amir Wilson would act out the scene when the boat sets off to take Lyra and Will you know where in book three.

Also the soundtrack is stellar, and it makes a great companion for reading as well!

[Jitter]

I mean people who have read and reread the books many times before the series was in the works and have a very established idea of what the characters and milieus should look like. (Not that everyone sees them as images of the mind’s eye)

For me at least it’s impossible to hold on to my own image of a character if I see live action on it, unless maybe if it’s really really bad. Like, I wanted to read the Lord of the Rings again before the films came out to hold on to what I think the hobbits and others look like. But they are gone beyond recovery. The characters in the film are great (in terms of appearance) nut it would be nice ro remember how I thought them to be.

[RanVor]

Oh boy, I'm really sorry for what I'm about to type, but this is a literature thread, and I can't think of a better place to complain about literature.

I've recently started reading books again, after a few months of not doing it, and I've finished an anthology of short stories under the title of Więzy krwi (Blood Ties) by one of my favorite authors, Maja Lidia Kossakowska. Overall it was quite dark, with three out of nine stories firmly in the horror territory, but I enjoyed it a lot and I'd love to share my experience with you. Except I can't. Because it's not available in English. And it's unlikely to ever be translated.

Outside of the Witcher series and the works of Stanisław Lem, Polish fantasy books are rarely translated to English. And that mighty sucks, because many of them are fantastic. Reading original versions is, of course, not an option, because nobody learns Polish (as is reasonable, because it's super hard and kinda useless otherwise). It's great that we all live in different cultures and learning about different traditions and backgrounds is very fun, but boy, do I despise the language barrier.

[Róisín]

Ever thought of making a translation?

[RanVor]

Ever thought of making a translation?

You mean like, unofficially? I did think of it a few times in the grip of frustration-induced madness, but it's a helluva lot of work (I know, I've done it before), requires time I don't really have and honestly, I'm just not comfortable enough with my English to consider translating in that direction, especially since my inept attempts at writing made me aware of some of my shortcomings in that regard.

[Róisín]

Practice often helps....
And RanVor, your own writing is far from inept.

[viola]

Outside of the Witcher series and the works of Stanisław Lem, Polish fantasy books are rarely translated to English. And that mighty sucks, because many of them are fantastic. Reading original versions is, of course, not an option, because nobody learns Polish (as is reasonable, because it's super hard and kinda useless otherwise). It's great that we all live in different cultures and learning about different traditions and backgrounds is very fun, but boy, do I despise the language barrier.

Maybe with the netflix show there will be more demand for translations. I know a lot of scandinavian crime fiction took forever to get translated to english, but they've been getting a lot better about it since books and tv shows based on them got a lot more popular. Hopefully the tv will bring the whole genre out into the mainstream. It frustrates me to no end how nonenglish literature gets written off and is pretty much at the whim of whether or not publishers feel like translating it.

[Mebediel]

Mélu and I have been talking about how we're going to keep each other accountable for our New Year's reading goals, and we were thinking about making updates of what/how many things we've read every other month or so. We thought it might be nice to open that up to other people as well, and this seems like a fitting thread for it, but we also don't want to bother or overwhelm people. Would folks be alright with posts along the lines of what we've been talking about? We could also make a separate thread or just keep our updates to PMs instead.

[Róisín]

Maybe you could talk about what you have read here - I’m sure we could get some interesting book recommendations out of that discussion?

[viola]

I second what Róisín said! I would love to hear about what you guys are reading and I might just join you.