(Untitled)

[molly_may]

I do not like working six days a week! I understand there are people who have to do it all the time, whereas I only have to do it for five weeks a year, but I still do not like it, and I cannot wait for Christmas to be over.

On to more pleasant things! I see that several people have done a Books Read in 2010 post today, even though 2010 is not

Comments

[flake_sake]

I adore Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. The series is fantastic. I hope she'll write another novel soon.

[molly_may]

Me too! She's just an amazing writer.

[mere_ubu]

::flail:: Oh, I just love Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell beyond all sense. It's one of the few things that I finished and, within minutes, started again from the beginning. (The other is BtVS, which I actually found, improbably enough, because I read JS&MN! On Susannah Clarke's website, there's a Q&A in which she's asked about her five favorite authors, and one of them is "Joss Whedon and other assorted writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.")

Someone gave my daughter The Hunger Games trilogy for her birthday, and she tore through it in a weekend and loved it. I'm hoping to do the same over xmas.

[molly_may]

I think that Q&A on her website was one of the major reasons I picked up JS&MN to begin with! I've owned the book for years, but only just read it this year, and I think I bought it in the first place after Neil Gaiman linked to her website and I read her comment about Joss and Buffy, and of course, after that, I had to have the book!

[mere_ubu]

Ha! It shames me to admit I've never read any Neil Gaiman. Maybe this a sign that I should continue to go where JS&MN leads me . . .

[molly_may]

I like Gaiman a lot. American Gods and Anansi Boys are both very good, but if you've never read Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett, I think you would really enjoy it. Also, his books for kids, Coraline and The Graveyard Book are both excellent.

[spygrrl76]

Thanks for the recs! Hunger Games is on my list, but good to know another opinion. When Everything Changed sounds great too. I'll definitely add it to my ever growing list.

I only read the 1st Sookie Stackhouse series book and wasn't impressed either. I have a friend who goes through them like candy, but I don't see the attraction.

[molly_may]

I think you will like When Everything Changed! It's a great, fairly comprehensive history of feminism in America over the past half century.

I was hoping the Sookie books would be the equivalent of literary candy for me, but I just found them kind of boring, and not especially well-written. Lots of people love them though, so maybe I'm just too picky.

[snickfic]

Oh, JS&MN is wonderful delicious goodness. I've been thinking it's about time I picked it up and started a reread, but I'm worried it's one of those books that I'm going to have loved the first time and never manage to get through the second time.

And so many people have been recommending the Collins trilogy that I really am going to have to give it a try here soon.

[molly_may]

My one recommendation when it comes to the Collins trilogy is to read them fast, so you can appreciate the breakneck pacing. There are plot holes and the writing is not especially gorgeous, but the pacing, especially in the first two books, is amazing, and the dystopian future is filled with never-ending horrors.

[hazel75]

I've thought about doing a similar post, but, honestly, it would take some serious pre-thinking b/c I've read so damned many books this year. Not *good* books, per se (b/c I don't do much, if any, of that kind of reading), though.

[hazel75]

And I guess that at some point I've going to have to read the Hunger Games trilogy b/c so many folks have recced them. I just hope it's not like the His Dark Materials (or whatever that was called) b/c those books were recced by so many and I HATED them :P

[molly_may]

I didn't hate the Dark Materials series, but then again, I never got around to reading the third one at all, so you can deduce just how indifferent to them I was. The Hunger Games series is flawed, absolutely, but they're really gripping stories.

[hazel75]

Well, to be honest, I didn't hate them until the third book, but I hated it enough to make up for any ambivalence I had about the first two books.