DVDizzy Forum

Angels And Ages (Adam Gopnik) - A comparrison of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, who were born on the same day. It was very interesting to read about their similar lives and the way they both changed the nature of civilization.

Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier) - A well written and suspenseful novel that spooks and surprises like few others I have read, and evokes the mood perfectly.

I'm working my way through various Just William books. I love 'em to bits.

How many of you are familiar with Just William?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_William

So far this summer, I've read:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Room by Emma Donoghue
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

I've just started reading James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce, and I quite like it so far.

I keep trying to read The Silence of the Lambs but I keep getting distracted with other things.

Nobody is familiar with Just William?

Jules wrote:Nobody is familiar with Just William?

I've never read any of the original books, but I do remember a BBC adaptation from the mid-90s.

My Swordhand is Singing, by Marcus Sedgwick. A rather short book that I read in a few days, with an initially slow pace that leads up to some chilling moments. It has a rather claustrophobic, unpleasant atmosphere, and the amount of research Sedgwick did for archaic mythology when it comes to nosferatu/zombies/vampires is quite impressive.

Finished Silence of the Lambs.

I am now reading The Case of the Missing Servant which is the first book in the series known as the Vish Puri series. It was also a book I won through the GoodReads website.

I finished Mildred Pierce earlier this week and now I'm on to reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. I'm only a few chapters in, but it's pretty good.

Currently reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brien.

I finished Norwegian Wood last night, and I thought it was pretty good. It wasn't overly wonderful, but there was some nice writing (even if it's a translation), and I found that I could relate to some of the characters. Up next: The Chronicles of Narnia. I've decided to read it chronologically as the story progresses and not the order in which they were written. I've actually only ever read Magician's Nephew, TLTWatW, The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian and Dawn Treader, so I'm excited to finally read the last two (I have no idea why I never read them).

I actually finished The Case of the Missing Servant a while ago. I got the second book in the mail today which I also won from GoodReads and I will read later.

Right now, however, I am on another mystery book (Though I am really not a huge fan of the genre); To Fetch a Thief it's another series book known as the Chet and Bernie series.

Just started The Wind Through The Keyhole, by Stephen King. Very excited about this, I miss the Dark Tower characters.

Jules wrote:Nobody is familiar with Just William?

I was VERY familiar with the books when I was younger Definitely a favourite when I was a child.

I've recently tried to get my younger brother to give them a go but I don't think they're quite his cup of tea.

Along the same lines, I also used to read a great many Enid Blyton books. "The Famous Five" were my favourites but I enjoyed pretty much anything written by her.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Probably Jules Verne's most well-known book, which I'm now over midway through. It doesn't have much of a story whatsoever, instead generally describing Nemo, Aronnax and co going underwater to look at coral, pearls and whatnot. I enjoyed the first quarter most out of what I've read: there's the mystery of the "kraken"-like monster sinking ships, and the few chapters in which Nemo explains how the Nautilus works are quite fascinating, if self-indulgent. It doesn't matter that the protagonist is one-dimensional, because he just serves as the Watson to Nemo's Sherlock, and the captain is a very compelling character. Unfortunately, Verne's writing style is too formal and has a lot of dull unnecessary background information, detailing the temperature, time and direction of the Nautilus at the beginning of practically every chapter.

I'm hoping to start A Game Of Thrones soon since I am so enamored with the tv show.

I'll have to practice flipping pages back and forth cuz I expect I'll be doing that a lot.

I just started Phantom by Susan Kay, its pretty good so far.
and just finished Angelfall by Susan Ee-which was freaking amazing.

I read all of To Fetch a Thief which was enjoyable for what it was.

After that, I began and finished the second book in the Vish Puri series The Case of the Man who Died Laughing which was as good as the first book. I have the third book coming in the mail. I will start that as soon as I get it.

I've temporarily stopped reading 20,000 Leagues, and recently read Around the World in 80 Days, a far superior Jules Verne novel. Unlike Leagues, it has a continuous story and ambitions for its characters, comic relief and is generally much more exciting. The twists in the story were clever and often came as a surprise, and even though there are unnecessary background details to the locations visited (e.g. the history of Mormonism and information about the history of American railways) that slow it down, it is generally a quite enjoyable ride. There are several colourful gems of description, like when an American train is illustrated as a glittering box of jewels, that effectively bring the story to life. It really surprised me how much I enjoyed it.

Now I'm reading The Time Machine and hope to look at more famous HG Wells works. As for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...I do hope to pick that up again, but not to see what happens to the characters (well, Nemo's interesting, but other than him I don't care for any of them). As I think Mark Twain said, a classic is something nobody wants to read, but everyone wants to have read.