The Reading Room

This is one of those rare books where a summary of the plot would barely constitute a spoiler. Zelazny, although an excellent plotter, was an even better stylist, and that's what comes through here.

( Nevertheless, spoilers ahoyCollapse )

Highly recommended.

I've never read the whole of the Lord of the Rings trilogy before. I've tried, more than once, and ended up skimming it in favor of something else I wanted to read, or forgetting it altogether and then coming back to it without recollection of what I was up to.

It occurred to me, when reading the forward, that Tolkien sent his story one chapter at a time to his son while he was writing it. One chapter at a time is not such an unmanageable feat for reading such rich text, I thought. But how will I keep a memory of what has gone on it what I've already read, and not get lost within the text as has happened before?

The answer came in good time, actually. Most people have an opinion on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. So why not share it here? One chapter at a time.

( ~A Long-expected Party~Collapse )

This morning, I just finished my first Clive Barker book. I had heard lots of wonderful things about his stories and his imaginations. Only one thing was looked over when all of these wondrous things were being said.

( He is not actually very good at his craft.Collapse )

I just couldn't pass up this opportunity to get in a post pretty much as soon as I was added to this group. If I do start to spam later on, please feel free to quell me, but I don't think that looks like it's going to happen right now, cause I don't have a lot of time, and I'm not reading a lot of books.

Anywho! For anyone who hasn't already picked up and read a book by Robin McKinley, I would strongly suggest any of her books, aimed at young adult readers, but with a striking narrative flow that grabs in most readers, even in their twenties and older.

A lot of her stories are told with a very simplistic narrative style, inviting the readers to read further into her works and delve into deeper parallels that she draws between life and fiction. She's also retold many fairy stories, although this book is not one of those.

( In this particular book, called Sunshine...Collapse )

This is one of those books where you may, at times, wonder why you're bothering to read on. But the payoff is worth it.

Blue Van Meer, the narrator, is a high school student with an itinerant and iconoclastic lecturer in politics for a father. But for her senior year, he's landed them a berth for the entire year, so that she'll have a decent shot at getting Valedictorian in her school.

The school is a wealthy private school, and Blue soon enters the orbit of eccentric cinema studies teacher Hannah Schnieder, and her coterie of students called the Blue Bloods.

( Serious spoilers ahoyCollapse )

Hello and welcome to the Book Room, a reviewing and discussion space that is intended to be to the literary what screening_room is to the cinematic.

This is a moderated community, with only a few rules, all of which can be found on the Info page.

Oh, and if anyone else would like to volunteer to help me with the moderatorial duties, that would be cool.