Outread Aubrey! Challenge discussion

Felt nudged from God to read "Boundaries" instead, so I am. I am glad I did. Positively life changing!

I finally finished "Drowning Mermaids." I wrote a review about it, if anyone is curious. That was a fun adventure.

I also read the darknet paper, but can't get credit for that, sadly.

Now I'm working on Free Culture. I'm only halfway through the introduction but I already highly recommend it to anyone who supports the open source movement, anyone who opposes it, anyone on the fence about it, and anyone who doesn't have time to care. More on that later.

Grace wrote: "Morgan, there's a decent chance that they may see him again. ^_^ ;)"

Yay! How long do I have to wait?

Aubrey wrote: "I read one of the Chuck Black books, and I agree with the others. The writing was horrendous. Also, some of the theology of the allegory was sketchy. It made the line between spiritual warfare and flesh-and-blood killing too fine for my tastes. Warring against spiritual forces and going out and killing everybody who isn't for Christ are two VERY different things, and the book didn't exactly make it clear which was which!"

I don't remember noticing that, but it's a good point. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the Kingdom books were terribly written. When I saw that practically all the reviews on Amazon were positive, I thought I must just be being hypercritical.

If someone is looking for well done fantasy allegories, I would recommend The Chronicles of Narnia and The Door Within Trilogy.

Leah wrote: "Chuck Black's original series was poorly written. The Knights of Arretrea series is positively stupendous though! Some of my favorite books ever."

My sister said much the same thing. I haven't read them myself, though.

Rereading "The Holiness of God" by R.C. Sproul for a family book club thing. I don't remember it the first time I read it, but I just finished the first chapter and... wow. o.o

Also, my copy of N.D. Wilson's "Boys of Blur" finally came! It is beautiful book. The dust jacket feels really cool, the cover underneath is all black with shiny blue words on the spine... I barely know what the book is about and I'm already in love. X)

Ooh, we get to see Elasson again? :D I liked him. ^_^

You weren't the only one, Olivia.

I read The Always War last night. The character voice wasn't as good as in Margaret Haddix's other books, but I still enjoyed it immensely. I'm planning to read DragonSpell next, since it's the last of this batch of library books.

I guess I haven't read much this week, but soon I'll be able to add my second poetry collection to my shelves (!!!) because it's nearly finished :) This one is infinitely more conventional, less creepy, and probably more 'general interest' than the last one. No super creepy poems here, nothing 'dodgy' or whatever. But the cover design has been a pain to work out. I think I'm almost there, though. With any luck, I can release it next week.

Need to finish the Aeneid and The Dream Of The Celt because I'm partway through both.

Need to write my Classics essay too.

Congratulations, Miriam!!! Yes that warranted multiple exclamation points. :)

With any luck I'll be able to release it by Tuesday latest, and then it'll be exactly a three-month gap since the last one, and I like that kind of thing, ha ha. :) Can't add it to Goodreads yet because I haven't worked out a blurb or anything. I put the cover up on my Tumblr though: http://miriamjoyblogs.tumblr.com/post...

I added it to Goodreads just now, so it's a thing that exists, if anyone here is interested in poetry? Hopefully it'll be out Tuesday, all going according to plan. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

I finished Mark of Athena, and I have now begun Boys of Blur. Super excited for that one. ^_^

Yay! Congrats, Miriam!

I'm about halfway through Free Culture, which I highly recommend to everyone as an extremely balanced view on the copyright issue. It's going to take a while to finish, so I don't know when I'll get to anything else...

Happy Easter everyone! :D

Read Joel Parisi's S.H.R.A.I.D. today, and I quite enjoyed it. I liked the passing mention of Floyd, and how it seemed similar in some ways to Marvel's "Agents of SHIELD."

(view spoiler)[Bravo on giving me feels in the very first book when you had Emil killed, sir. I was feeling for Kara during that. (hide spoiler)]

*needs to read Joel's book one of these days* I formatted it and I still haven't read it!

Somebody still needs to read my book which she formatted and still hasn't read. *hint hint* :dieshappy:

Working on KnowOrphans now. One track mind? Me? Why do you ask? :P

I have no idea who you're talking about, Faith... *big innocent eyes*

I didn't say nothin', Leah. ^_^

Things I still haven't finished reading: The Dream Of The Celt, The Aeneid. Because apparently I don't read anything during the holidays. Sighhh.

On the other hand, I managed to get Fleeting Ink out today, against all the odds, so at least that's one less thing on my to-do list.

Now to do my French practice paper so that I go back to READING at some point maybe pleeaaase.

Aubrey wrote: "I have no idea who you're talking about, Faith... *big innocent eyes*"

I don't believe those innocent eyes for anything, Miss Aubrey! :P

I've started two college course in which I'm required to read a LOT. I knew I could count all of the American classics, but then I recently realized I could add all of the Shakespeare plays I read toward my final count. ^_^

I've cleaned up my "currently reading" shelf, too. I've put aside Chambers' "Tell Me" book and a sort of post-Harry Potter book (in which the next generation attends Hogwarts) for a later time, because I haven't read them in a while.

I also gave up on The Fault in Our Stars. I wasn't really getting into it, and there was scene that bothered me and I didn't want to run into that again. Plus, I spoiled a major scene of the book for myself. But thankfully this was an audiobook, so time wasn't necessarily wasted because I was being productive while listening.

I just bought The Fault in Our Stars. What didn't you like about it? :)

I'm about 75% of the way through Free Culture. And when I finally finish it I've got "The Long Earth" which I'm looking forward to.

CONGRATULATIONS with cupcakes, Miriam!

You might recant that statement if there was something in it for you, Faith. ;-P

Apparently Olivia will be a force to be reckoned with. o.O :D

I finally caved and resorted to reading online scans of one of my current manga series (Pandora Hearts), so as of tonight I am caught up through vol.22, even though it's not out in English officially yet, muhaha.

Although admittedly half of the reason I caved and crashed through the rest of the chapters tonight was so that Jenni would get off of my tail. She's been whining in my ear about "feels" and "spoilers" for weeks now.

Well the feels and spoilers were taking over Tumblr so yeah.

They took you over long before they took my Tumblr feed over.

It was kind of a rolling effect.

Grace: There was some language I didn't appreciate, and a small inappropriate scene. I had told on here that there was a sex scene(?), and I didn't feel like listening to that part. *Shrugs* Maybe I'll pick it back up, just to give it another shot... *Feels like she should* It's on audiobook, so no time is lost if I don't enjoy it...

Aubrey: We'll see. XD I'm working my way through Hamlet right now. Really enjoying keeping track of all the special terms for words and phrases. -_-

IIRC the sex scene was about a page long and wasn't graphic but it's been a while. I remember when I hit it I basically flipped a page and it was gone but definitely understandable wanting to skip it for an audiobook.

Olivia - I love Hamlet! It's definitely my favourite Shakespeare play. I identify with Hamlet to a ridiculous extent, and I have a lot of theories about Ophelia...

Jenni: *Nods* I think I'll give it another try. Can't hurt anything, right? ;)

Miriam: Ooh, fun! :D This is my first time reading Hamlet. I watched the movie/drama o fit with David Tennant, so I know the plot/characters and such, which makes reading it a little easier.

Ooh, theories? o.o Do tell. :D

Yeah. The problem is there are a lot of different definitions of "sex scene," so it's hard to tell! But I don't mind language. So we'll see. :)

Thank you, Olivia! :)

My suggestion would be that in text instead of audio it would be a lot easier to skip objectional content. But that's just me; I tend towards audiobooks that I know won't make me flinch and read everything else on paper/ebook since I read pretty fast anyway...

Agreed there are a lot of different definitions and I just don't remember the book well enough to give any better warning about it. Just that I skipped it, lol.

Olivia -- I studied it last year, but had read the play before. :) While it may seem ridiculous to tag spoilers for a 400 y/o play, I don't want to ruin it for anyone, so:

(view spoiler)[I believe that Ophelia was murdered, rather than it being suicide. I wrote about this in a lot of detail on my Tumblr, given that I'm a bit of a Hamlet fangirl, and the theory seems kinda popular? Even though I'm the only person who's actually looked for textual evidence of it... http://abstractandbriefchronicles.tum... I just think it's way too fishy for it to have been suicide. It makes no sense, it's out of place within the narrative, there's something off about the whole scene. I think it's only a male-dominated reading of the text where Hamlet's the only possibility for vengeance of a murdered father that leads us to come to that conclusion. (hide spoiler)]

So yeah, basically. I'm a Hamlet nerd.

I think I made a terrible first impression on my new English teacher today -- not least because I let slip that I wrote Hamlet fan fic once. She probably thinks I'm super weird.

Grace: Welcome! :) I think I just to get used to the fact that there will be language in books. I've been told I need to do that. XD

Jenni: *Nods* That's true. I think I'll give TFiOS another try. :)

Miriam: Hamlet fanfic? That is awesome. B) *Reads the stuff in the spoiler* Whoa. O.O Well that certainly gives the whole story a twist. o.O I'll have to keep an eye out for that as I read. ^_^

I'm just gonna laugh. That's all.

And you people need to make up your mind about The Fault in Our Stars so I know whether or not to bother with it!

Aubrey wrote: "You might recant that statement if there was something in it for you, Faith. ;-P"

Mmm...Maybe, but highly doubtful.

Aubrey wrote: And you people need to make up your mind about The Fault in Our Stars so I know whether or not to bother with it!"

I'd tell you if I could get my hands on a copy...

Finished "Boys of Blur," which was AMAZING and beautiful. Now on to Riordan's "House of Hades."

Also, I'll most likely be starting "The Coquette" by Hannah Webster Foster for school, and hopefully finishing Hamlet.

Miriam, I read your post on the murder theory. That needs to be a novel.

Finished Free Culture. Let me repeat that everyone needs to go read it now. Now I'm reading the Long Earth, which is off to a pretty good start. Got a bit distracted by finishing watching "Angel" though, which isn't reading at all....

Katie wrote: "Miriam, I read your post on the murder theory. That needs to be a novel."

It appears in one of my novels... if that counts? Ha ha, one of my characters is feeling really miserable and complaining that he's probably a tragic hero because he's an English student and they do that (trust me, I do it all the time, I am genuinely basically Hamlet) and then somehow my protag ends up explaining 'her' theory about Ophelia and I'm like yayyyyy Ani is me in her reading of Shakespeare. Heehee. But yeah, I totally want to write a novelisation of that version of the text, maybe from Gertrude's POV or something fascinatingly messed up like that.

Olivia wrote: "Hamlet fanfic? That is awesome. B) *Reads the stuff in the spoiler* Whoa. O.O Well that certainly gives the whole story a twist. o.O I'll have to keep an eye out for that as I read. ^_^"

Yup. New level of Shakespeare fangirling I think. But seriously, Hamlet x Horatio was totally where that thing was going. They're adorably heartbreaking together ... particularly the final scene of the play.

Update on my new English teacher: she definitely thinks I'm weird. Today she caught me and my friend Ant discussing the ever-important question of, "If the Romantics were in an emo band together, who would play which instrument?" For the record, we figured that Byron's probably the lead singer in skinny jeans and guyliner, and Mary Shelley is on drums. That's all we figured out so far, though, except that Wordsworth might be on piano or something fairly sensible like that. Hamlet fan fic is not the worst of my literary enthusiasm.

I like Horatio. ^_^ There's a book by Lisa M. Klein that tells the story(ish) of Hamlet from Ophelia's POV, which was interesting.

XD Noooo, you're not weird. Just very creative. ;)

I think I've heard of that book, but if it's the one I'm thinking of, the things were not entirely good... :/

Horatio cracks me up. I love when Hamlet is being all melodramatic and he gets to the end and Horatio just goes, "You might have rhymed." Horatio: sass master of Elsinore.

There were? It's been a while since I've read it...

XD I remember that.

If your English teacher can't appreciate that kind of weirdness then you're probably more qualified than she is.

Forgot to mention: I finished Hamlet today! :D Very interesting drama. It was interesting to note how the king's soliloquies or just lengthy speeches were often ended in rhyme.

Starting "House of Hades" tonight. ^_^ Excitement!

Also, I've begun The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster. Interesting story so far.

Finished and reviewed a couple books this week—The Iron Marshal by Louis L'Amour and The Kingdom of God by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. A good Western and a brilliant piece of theology.

Now I've got Walter Lord's Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway to read over the weekend, and Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative awaiting me at the library.

Now that last one has quite the title. You'll have to let us know how it is, Elisabeth!

I reread "Fire and Ashes" and "Inspector Floyd." The latter is actually a fairly decent story, surprisingly. A little rushed...but then the aim was to write "episodes." And since I read both books in less than an hour (each) I shouldn't be surprised...

Still working on "The Long Earth" which is...not at all what I expected.

I recall liking both of those particularly out of the series.