• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

I just finished reading...

Status
Not open for further replies.
The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. It was a very good read. Diamond makes his books informative and writes with purpose. In this book, he relates human social patterns and characteristics to those of other animals in order to point out that use of advanced tools is our only real difference from other animals. He's honest when he has no answer for a question, and he lets you know if there is some debate over the answer to a question. Personally, I identify with his reasoning and find his thoughts to be genius.
 
Halo said:
I just finished Brilliance of the Moon, the final volume in Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori trilogy. I can't recommend this trilogy highly enough.
Click to expand...


i loved the whole trilogy too. i just recommended it over on a fantasy thread. i thought everything about it was excellent.
 
Well Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It is about the same length as Animal Farm, so didn't take much time to read through. In a short space of time you are told of a child drowned, gassed, burned, starved, humiliated and broken. Not pleasant reading. Despite the importance of the subject material, I didn't find it as engaging a read as say Angela's Ashes. It's alright, but when the shock factor wears off, I'm not convinced there's much to remember it by.
 
I just finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Absolutely loved it. The depth of the characters and the detail that is used to explain the different environments is amazing. You really begin to understand the individual characters and how they relate to each other. At first it may seem a little dragged, but don't stop. It does get better!

East of Eden
 
I finally finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman. (not that it was long, I just have been super busy lately) I really liked it!
 
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The book is ok but nothing more. It failed short of my expectations. The message is great but the books isn't. It would rate it 2 out of 5. :(
 
Finished Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre. Different use of language, and some good concepts with regards to 'fate tunes' and the 'spiritual knife'. It's alright, but I was expecting something more.
 
War and Peace
Great characters, great story and excellently told.
Didn't like the Tolstoy ramblings part, where he goes on about history and certainly don't agree with him.
 
Gizmo said:
How did you like that? I've read it last summer and it was quiet interesting but nothing spectacular. :D
Click to expand...

The Red Badge of Courage
well me being a conscientious objector i would have never put myself in that situation
henry's self pity and resentment for the other men in his company did not make me feel any compassion towards him
 
Necroscope - Lumley

There are some good ideas in here but the author does go off on tangents. Some of it is just gratuitous for the sake of it without adding to the atmosphere. Not bad if all you want is a pulpy horror read.

------------------------

Finally got around to reading Ender's Shadow - OS Card.
Runs parallel to the events in Ender's Game, only this time spotlighting the character of Bean. Card's characterisation is good as per usual, though it's difficult for any author to endow superintelligence on a character and make it plausible. It's a lot more impersonal than Ender's Game, but given the nature of the lead character that's to be expected.

Without reading Ender's Game, I can see many readers becoming lost in the plotline. For those who've read Ender's game, it adds something akin to what those LOTR extended edition DVDs added to the original films.
 
A Home at the End of the World -- I saw the movie a couple months ago and I really liked it. The book is a lot like the movie, but (of course) there are differences. I shouldn't list them here since it'd probably be a spoiler, but I want to say that it was still a very good book. I liked how in it I could learn more about what was going on in the characters' heads, which you can't do with the movie.
 
"My Invented Country"

by Isabel Allende. Now, how on earth do I go about talking about this one without getting all political?

In the early nineteen-seventies the people of Chile were saying much the same things that many of my friends are saying now. My friends are only threatening to leave this country; Allende actually did have to leave hers.

Maybe I'll just quote another Chilean, Pablo Neruda (as Allende is wont to do), and leave it at that:

You ask “Why doesn’t your poetry
Speak to us of dreams and leaves
Of the great volcanoes of your native land?”

Come
See the blood along the streets
Come see
The blood along the streets
Come see the blood
Along the Streets!
 
I did it. Yes.

I just finished all 453 pages of Emma by Jane Austen.

These are a lot of words for a dreadfull plot and I don't have a clue how this book could turn up at the BBC's Big Read. There can't be that many people who enjoyed the mad ravings of this stupid girl.
 
Sophie's World - Joltein Gaarder. Very interesting plot, besides of the whole philosophy on the side, that was after all basic. Although the book was good, the ending was very dissapointing, it seemed almost as if the author was trying to come to an end as quickly as possible, without taking in account many many details that were - If I must say so myself - very irrational...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top