Books I've Read

[Ben4]

Hello all, this is the thread where I am going to be posting about books I have read. If there is anyone reading this, which I highly doubt there is, feel free to post anything. All through high school, I read most of the books that were required in class, though I missed a few here and there. I would occasionally read a book for fun in my free time. Now I am a junior in college. My first two years I didn't read much, but recently I have started doing it more, and would like an outlet with which to keep track of and share my opinions on books. So here I am. I am going to start with every book I've read so far in college. It is a very short list.

A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
I have never seen the show besides a few episodes here and there. I hope to get around to it someday, but in the meantime, I've been reading the novels. I must say, they are pretty great. Martin does a great job of developing his vast world, but at the same time each and every character. There is no black and white, good and evil, everything is morally complex. This first book does a great job kicking off the story which will only become grander in scale. I would recomend

A Clash of Kings, George R.R. Martin
Book two in Martin's epic keeps the story rolling, adding many new characters and continuing to develop the old ones. Not a whole lot to say about this one. If you read the first one, I can't think of a reason why you wouldn't keep going.

A Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin
This one is my favorite of the saga so far. Part of that may be that it is the one I read most recently, so it is freshest in my memory. But what I like about this one is how it starts to shift the story telling toward the Lannisters more than in the previous books. Spoiler alert, for those of you even further behind than me. While the Starks are still the main focus of the story, this book starts to show you what is happening on the other side of the family more. While the Starks are all but in ruin at the end of this book, Caetlyn and Rob dead, The remaining children in hiding, the Lannister family is also destroyed by the conflict, even though they are the victors. In the first two books, Jaimie is one of the characters you hate the most, but in this one, you start to get chapters told from his point of view. He quickly became my favorite character in the series by a wide margin. It was so sad to see him return to King's Landing, having lost his hand, and then losing his family as well. The death of Joffrey drove him and Cersei apart, he and his father have a falling out when he choses the kingsgaurd over his family. And the ending was perhaps the most heartbreaking thing of all. Tyrion was another character who had lost everything. Imprisoned for the murder of Joffrey, everyone hates him even though he saved them in the climax of the last book. When Jaime rescues him, and then he lies and says that he did kill Joffrey, I lost my shit. It was so sad to see the brothers driven apart like that. And then Tyrion kills his own father, in a way becoming the monster that everyone believes him to be, a kinslayer. I cannot wait to see what happens with these characters next. Also Littlefinger was behind killing Joffrey and Jon Arryn? This is gamechanging.

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, Nathaniel Fick
Well I lied, I can wait a little to see what happens to our friends in Westeros. This book is the memoir of a platoon commander in first recon, an elite unit of Marines that played a big part in the invasion of Iraq. The events in this book were also recorded by Evan Wright in his book Generation Kill, which was made into a miniseries on HBO. I enjoyed the series, which piqued my interest in this book. Fick also describes his experience at OCS and TBS and other training he went through to become a Marine, and his experiences in Afghanistan. This book is a very intelligent meditation on what it is like to be an infantryman in todays wars. I would recommend to people who are into military history and that kind of stuff.

Well, those are all the books I've read in the last two years. I will probably update this thread whenever I finish a book. Thanks for reading, if you are out there.

[Tha1ChiefRocka]

That's good. People like me who are in college to be English teachers appreciate people who read.

Now that it's the school year, I have a lot of assigned reading, but I also try to read books for myself as well.

I'm almost done with this, its a fantastic book;
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/106...postmortal

PS: Do you want any recommendations?

[Repo]

[Ben4]

[Hayden]

Some recent reads:

Yasunari Kawabata - Snow Country (heavy rec)
Albert Camus - Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (aight)
Kundera - The Festival of Insignificance (very Kundera-esque, small dose)
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet (pocketbook long-form philosophical poetry, def rec)
Gao Xingjian - Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather (short story collection, also rec)
Beckett - Echo's Bones (obviously unfinished, but ridiculous dense and has some fantastic paragraphs)

Also, embarrassingly late on Of Mice & Men, but finally recently read that as well.

[cestuneblague]

Books are the slow version of TV

[Ben4]

A Feast For Crows, George R.R. Martin
Book four in A Song of Ice and Fire. This one picks up where Storm of Swords left off, but only follows about half of the characters. It focuses on King's Landing with Cercei and Jaime, follows Brienne on her quest, and checks in with Samwell, Arya and Sansa every so often. It also shows what is going on in Dorne after the Mountain killed Prince Oberyn during Tyrion's trial. I feel like of all the books so far, this is the one where the least happened. A lot happened right at the end, Brienne is hanged, Cercei is taken prisoner by the Sept, and Jaime choses not to answer her letter. All in all, the book seemed like a lot of build up to a giant cliffhanger, and who knows when it will be resolved, since the next book picks up after Storm of Swords as well, but with the other half of the characters. Maybe my least favorite of these books so far, but it was still good. It was interesting the role the religions of the seven kingdoms played in this one.

Side note, I started watching the show, and finished through season one. I like it, but it feels just a little bit rushed compared to the books. Also I totally missed that Renly and Loras were gay in the books. It was a lot more subtle.

[Ben4]

A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin
Book five in the series also picks up where Storm of Swords left off, with the characters that weren't in Feast for Crows. It mainly is about Daenerys, Tyrion and Jon, with some interesting chapters from the ironborn characters. While I did like this book, I think it was a little to much of a cliffhanger. Compared to the previous books, I feel like the characters didn't have as satisfying of arcs this time around. Looking at Storm of Swords, every character's story feels like it gets wrapped up at the end, if they live that long. Tyrion is smuggled out of Westeros, Jon is elected lord commander, Daenerys decides to stay and rule in Mereen, Arya leaves for Braavos. This book seemed to lack any finality to it. This book and A Feast for Crows really felt like a lot of set up to me, although both had their moments. Of course it is awesome when the dragons finally start doing things, but that is right at the end, and it is really only a tease of their true potential. Very exited for The Winds of Winter to be released.

[Ben4]

1984, George Orwell
This was the book that I liked the most of the books I read in high school, so I decided to reread it. I enjoyed it just as much this time. Orwell creates a haunting vision of a bleak alternate future. It is a rather small story, with really only three characters, each one only as developed as they need to be. This is still one of my favorite books, if not my favorite.

[Antonio-Pedro]

Finally ended the O'malley holy trilogy after reading


Seconds, 2014
Want to avoid a past mistake, write it on a notebook, eat a mushroom and go to sleep, very fun reading which has a interesting turn of events in the ending

Lost at sea, 2003
Quite in a slower pace compared to both the un-chronologically and fast edited rhythm of Scott pilgrim and seconds, feels like reading a long diary of a coming-of-age girl, which depicts the author on his earlier works still working on his storytelling, very delightful but not as rewarding.
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