October 2015: What are you reading?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I've begun reading Scull and Hammond's The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (which is one way of reading the title page). This new book attempts to reproduce and discuss every scrap of pictorial work that JRRT produced on LOTR. The relatively few plums will be familiar to many Tolkienists already (the colored-pencils drawings of Old Man Willow, Barad-dûr, etc.). Many of the illustrations are examples of calligraphy, in which art Tolkien's accomplishment is well known, and cartography, some of the latter quick items for his own reference, some more finished. It's really good. I liked the way the authors began the main part of the text with a nice reproduction of the familiar Hobbiton painting from The Hobbit to suggest that Tolkien used it to help him get the writing of LOTR going: yep, there's the field south of Bilbo's front door, there's the tree that Tolkien may have decided would be the Party Tree, etc.; and Scull and Hammond also invite us to contrast the charming bucolic painting with the description towards the end of LOTR of what the place became thanks to Sharkey and his crew.
 
tobl said:
it gets much more profound the farther it goes into the series, especially with the personal tragedies. but if you want also great space battles might i suggest: h paul honsinger - Brothers in valour series? the lost fleet series? Stephen w bennett - koban series? christopher g nuttall ark royal series? evan currie into the black? Raymond l weil?mike resnick?
Click to expand...

I thank you for your suggestions, and will be sure to investigate them. :)
 
Started The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England. Bit modern for me, but I enjoyed the guide to Medieval England a lot (one of my favourite histories, and I'd recommend it whether someone's read no history at all, or a fair bit).
 
Bugg said:
I only recently finished reading that series myself. I enjoyed both those books you mention, but it's with HMS Surprise that it really takes off, IMO :)


I'm currently 200 page into Only to Die Again by Patrick Lee. I read the first book in the series, Runner, last year and loved it. This one's another break-neck paced thriller. The main character, Sam Dryden, is very much like Jack Reacher, only flawed and not omniscient. Patrick Lee's books do read very much like Lee Child's, except each story is built around a central SF premise :)
Click to expand...
i have a bit of a problem with Patrick lee... ~for once i quite enjoyed his BREACH series... i found innovative and imaginative. on the ohter hand his new series didn't convinced me. i read Runner and didn't connected... so.... Signal is the nº 2 in that series, the book you called, only to die again ... i guess i will wait for a new trilogy from him or something to decide about him.
 
Finished:
  • 14 by Peter Clines - Cool tribute to Cthulus and suchlike.
  • The Psy/Changeling urban fantasy series by Nalini Singh - It's my equivalent of Pringles - when you pop you just can't stop even if you know it's fast-food reading.
Making my way through:
  • Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone - Excellent worldbuilding
  • Vermilion by Molly Tanzer - it's a good book but I keep getting sidetracked by other books. Odd.
  • Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey - very violent but also excellent writing.
About to begin:
  • Book of Shadows by Alexandra Sokoloff
  • If Walls Could Talk by Juliet Blackwell
 
The Bluestocking said:
Finished:
  • 14 by Peter Clines - Cool tribute to Cthulus and suchlike.
  • The Psy/Changeling urban fantasy series by Nalini Singh - It's my equivalent of Pringles - when you pop you just can't stop even if you know it's fast-food reading.
Making my way through:
  • Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone - Excellent worldbuilding
  • Vermilion by Molly Tanzer - it's a good book but I keep getting sidetracked by other books. Odd.
  • Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey - very violent but also excellent writing.
About to begin:
  • Book of Shadows by Alexandra Sokoloff
  • If Walls Could Talk by Juliet Blackwell
Click to expand...
i was thinking on Reading the Sandman series but somehow it never quite appeeled to me.... do you recommend it?
 
tobl said:
i was thinking on Reading the Sandman series but somehow it never quite appeeled to me.... do you recommend it?
Click to expand...

It's good if you're in a certain mood or if you like urban fantasy with a male protagonist who's way more cynical than Harry Dresden and, curiously, less sexist.
 
If you get the chance, take a look at Figures 15 and 16 in The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, for cartography for the Barrow-Downs. The image looks remarkably like a right hand reaching out -- although perhaps the hand is missing a finger. It's a bit creepy. Scull and Hammond don't comment on this feature of the map, but I wonder if it can have been a coincidence. One remembers the bit in the tumulus in which a ghastly hand is creeping towards the immobilzed hobbits!
 
The Bluestocking said:
[...]
About to begin:
  • Book of Shadows by Alexandra Sokoloff
Click to expand...

I'll be interested in hearing about this. I read her novel The Hallowing a while back. It wasn't great but it was entertaining, a haunted mansion story with a couple of good twists.


Randy M.
 
Scull and Hammond will probably get chaffed by some reviewers (glancers?) for reproducing some sketches that are very simple indeed in their Art OF The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, but I hope they and many others will pay little attention to such remarks. Those simple lines document Tolkien's ongoing effort to create a consistent secondary world and to head off inconsistences that would spoil his own satisfaction if the book were published with them -- of course, he cared about his readers too, but I think he would have expected that few readers would pay such close attention to detail. John Rateliff wrote an excellent essay dealing with Tolkien's style and how it works, for Tolkien Studies Vol. 6 a few years ago; the sketches help one to see how Tolkien's evocative prose had a foundation, or a point of balance, in his determination to be a meticulous craftsman as a "world-builder."
 
I finished Swords and Scoundrels by Julia Knight. It was a great book. It made me appreciate everything that fantasy has become, with swords, guns, clockwork, and magic. Quite a mix, and in the end it all worked so well together. Her skill at characters blows me away. I made some mental notes as I read it.

Just in time for Halloween, the library finally got their copy of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I am just going to sink my teeth into it right now. It's friday night...I'm sick, and I'm going to read.
 
I've been reading the short stories of "The October Country" by Ray Bradbury. So far, the stories that have stood out most to me are "The Next in Line" for it's themes surrounding fear, and "The Lake", which I found myself crying over even though I was in a waiting room. :oops:

Bradbury is really a master at storytelling on an emotional level. His descriptions tend to be suggestive rather than explicit, but I find myself really drawn in to each story.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
Ursa major POLL -- 300 Word Writing Challenge -- No 19 (October 2015) -- MOSAIX WINS! Writing Challenges 0
Culhwch Discussion thread -- October 2015 75-word Writing Challenge Writing Challenges 359
Culhwch October 2015 75-word Writing Challenge - VICTORY TO DG JONES! Writing Challenges 43
Ursa major DISCUSSION -- October 2015 300-word Writing Challenge (#19) Writing Challenges 237
Brian G Turner October 2015 fantasy book releases Book Discussion 0

Similar threads


Back
Top