By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged:

OK, I am now working my way through Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song for Arbonne, which means that it’s time for you, the Readership, to decide what I read next. Up for selection this time are two works of old literature that I’ve meant to read for years, and it’s time to knock one of them off. And that’s where you come in! First is The Nibelungenlied, the great German epic poem that tells the tale of Siegfried and his adventures; the other is The Sagas of the Icelanders, which is a collection of, obviously enough, Icelandic sagas. I’ll runDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged: ,

The Daughter and I recently finished working our way through Susan Cooper’s Dark Is Rising Sequence, a five-book series where each novel tells a distinct story that is part of a larger whole, depicting the final battle between the Old Ones, who serve the Light, and the servants of the Dark, who would seize the magic of the world and dominate the lives of men forever, or something like that. The books are interrelated, so that reading them out of order is not advisable, as each one assumes knowledge of what has gone before. However, the books don’t exactly tellDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged:

Since I’m going to finish my re-read of Tigana this evening, I’ve closed my “What to read next” poll. There were only ten votes, with Dan Simmons’s The Terror taking six votes over Stephen King’s It. So there it is. I haven’t read Simmons before, so this will be interesting, I hope. After The Terror, I need to plow through a couple of books for the sake of obligation, and then it will be back to GGK and A Song for Arbonne. And when I get to that, a new reading poll will appear. Thanks, voters! Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged:

I’m just about finished with A Farewell to Arms, which means that in the next day or two I’ll be reading Tigana. And that means that it’s time for my next poll of what I need to read after Tigana, which is where you all come in! I’m thinking that I’m in the mood for a bit of horror, so I’ve chosen two titles from that fine genre. First is The Terror by Dan Simmons, and the other is It by Stephen King. Let the voting commence! (A post on A Farewell to Arms is forthcoming, obviously.) Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged:

Well, voting has closed on my inaugural “Make Me Read!” poll, and it wasn’t even close. Sylvia Plath got stomped. I guess there are no fans of hers among my readers? Or maybe people just think that Hemingway is better. Who knows — but The Bell Jar got a single lone vote, while A Farewell to Arms got fourteen. So, Hemingway it is. Bring him on! And thanks for voting. The next poll will appear when I finish Arms, and thus begin GGK’s Tigana. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged:

OK, I decided that what this blog needs is a new feature. So here’s a new feature. Over there on the sidebar — go ahead and look, you might need to scroll down slightly, so I’ll wait for you to come back…waiting…waiting…OK, we’re back — you’ll see a little poll. I’ve been waffling on my 2009 Guy Gavriel Kay Re-read project, as to whether I should just plow through everything he’s ever written at once or alternate other books in between. I’ve decided on the latter, because I want a little bit of time to reflect on the preceding GGKDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged: , ,

After clearing the decks of some earlier reading I wanted to get out of the way, I’m finally embarking on something I’ve intended to do for a couple of years now: I am re-reading every word Guy Gavriel Kay has written, in the order that he wrote them. Why? Because he’s my favorite living author, and it’s been a while since I’ve gone through his work. Here’s how it breaks down: :: My last re-read of The Fionavar Tapestry was almost exactly three years ago. This will be, by my count, my fifth complete re-reading of the trilogy, although IDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged:

After the Twilight debacle, I needed something good to read. I’ve been hankering to do a complete re-read of Guy Gavriel Kay’s entire corpus, but I spied something on my stacks that I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time, so I figured, now’s the time. Enter To Kill a Mockingbird. I read Mockingbird back in high school, in tenth grade. (That being the case, I should admit that I’ve been a bit mean, perhaps, in previous mentions of my English teacher that year. She wasn’t my favorite teacher by any means, and she did us the disserviceDown the rabbit hole….

By:
On:
In: Uncategorized
Tagged: ,

I linked it in yesterday’s Sentential Links, but I wanted to flesh out my response to George RR Martin’s irritation at people who are irritated with him that A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in his Song of Ice and Fire series, isn’t done yet. John Scalzi posts about this: Some fans do have a tendency to forget that the creative folks they love are not simply black boxes, who produce desired product at regular intervals. They’re actually real people who do other things than just what the fans want them to do, because humans from time to timeDown the rabbit hole….