Into the Forest discussion

I finished Daughter of the Forest. It is, up to now, my least favourite Juliet Marillier book. This does not mean I did not like it, for it did, quite a lot actually, but just not as much as Heart's Blood and Wildwood Dancing. However I will explain more in this months Group read once more of you join in! ( nudge, nudge)

Now I am reading a delightful book Persian Folk and Fairy Tales for my non-European collection for the challenge.

I also re-started The Moon's Wife, which I like a little more this time.

I promise I've started Daughter of the Forest! I promise!

Now as to when I'll finish it, I have no idea. I haven't been reading much in general this year... I hope I get out of this reading slump soon!

I'm currently trying to read From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers by Marina Warner. It's fascinating, but I wish there was an ebook version of it - it's huge. It's also awfully dense with information: I find I can only read a chapter at a time.

I lovelovelove Among Others, Leah & Becca.

What did your book group think of it, Becca? Some of us -- in my book group-- love science fiction, some haven't gotten there yet, but it's more about a young woman growing up and learning from her science fictional heroines & heroes & friends in her book group...

Currently reading a plethora of books for me:
Songs for the New Depression, an ARC from the publisher/ author, which I'm enjoying,
Life After Life on the Kindle for my RL book group,
The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism, from the library which is blowing my mind in a good way...

I'm about halfway through Daughter of the Forest and really liking it so far, though it's not the happiest of books.

My other book at the moment is another group read - Tess of the d'Urbervilles. And it's also another rather sad book so far though I'm not far enough into it to tell whether I'm going to like it or not.

I did take a quick break to read something a bit lighter - The Grimm Legacy - which is about a girl who starts working in a lending library of historical artifacts including some of the magical objects from fairy tales. It should have been really fantastic but instead it just ended up being rather bland.

I love Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but it's not a happy book!

I just started A Tale for the Time Being and, though I'm only 40 pages in, it is so good. The writing reminds me of Margaret Atwood most, but not quite like hers. Wonderful characterization.

I'm also reading The Bread We Eat in Dreams, which is good as all her fiction is. I think I've read too much of her recently though. I'm feeling a little burned out on her prose style, which is lovely, but very distinct.

After I finish A Tale for the Time Being, I'm going to start re-reading Daughter of the Forest.

I remember reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles in high school and finding it boring, but then re-reading it in my 20s and liking it.
I am actually starting to like The Moon's Wife, which surprises me because the beginning seemed so silly.

Margaret wrote: I'm also reading The Bread We Eat in Dreams, which is good as all her fiction is. I think I've read too much of her recently though. I'm feeling a little burned out on her prose style, which is lovely, but very distinct...."

I love Valente too, but I agree a little of her goes a long way! I try to space out her books (and Winterson's for that matter) as far as possible.

I agree about Valente. When I am in the mood to read her books, I love them; and when not, I just can't get them started.

I just finished Persian Folk and Fairy Tales. They were quite different and refreshing. Not like European Fairy-Folk tales but also not at all like Arabian Nights. Now I reading as part of a different challenge I'm doing The House of the Mosque, which is a family saga taking place in both before and after the Islamic revolution. It's very interesting.

Re-reading The Looking Glass Wars

Just finished and LOVED IT!!!! No matter how bad I want to read the sequel, Rebel Spring I will wait until it gets closer to book 3's release this December.

Now I'm starting

Just finished Allegiant by Veronica Roth (my review) and I'm fairly pissed off - not at the ending - at having wasted around 12 hours (in total) to read what equates to an "okay" trilogy. My gut told me to stop after Book Two.

Anywho, had to vent for a sec. Possibly it's bad luck for Allegiant that I read it right after a book I loved (The Golem and the Jinni) but still...grrr.

Off to select something that'll cleanse the palate, possibly re-read a favorite before starting our group reads.

Just got back from my trip.

I wasn't going to take an real books to read - just my Kindle - but I was almost done with Daughter of the Forest, so I took that along and finished it up on the plane.

The rest of the flight was filled with The Heavenly Fox, which turned out to be fun but not amazing. He does have a few other fairy tale and folklore inspired collections/books, so I'll have to give them a try at some point.

I also took Catherynne Valente's A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects with me, which was a good call since I had very little time to read but a poem or two at a time was manageable. I'm not a big fan of poetry, but I love Valente, so I still enjoyed it. A lot of the poems/stories had a somewhat feminist twist to them, which was interesting. That's not something I normally associate her with.


My souvenir book from the trip is The Winter People which sounds like it'll be a good spooky ghost story.

Leah wrote: "Just finished Allegiant by Veronica Roth (my review) and I'm fairly pissed off - not at the ending - at having wasted around 12 hours (in total) to read what equates to an "okay" tr..."

I know exactly what you mean! I finished Allegiant today and it left a sour taste in my mouth. For me both the book in general and the ending (oh the ending!) was a total disapointment. I like the first two books though.

Anyhow I just started readng Jeaniene Frost's Halfway to the Grave. So far it's pretty good.

Reading Wrath of the Bloodeye by Joseph Delaney.

I just finished a great book that was Historical fiction with a touch of Magical Realism called The House of the Mosque and am now reading To Kill a Mockingbird

Crimen y castigo

Divergent

Destined


:)

Has anyone read any of these books?
I would like your comments not spoilers :)

Gina wrote: "Crimen y castigo

Divergent

Destined


:)

Has anyone ..."

I've read Divergent. I really liked it. The plot and the characters were really good. Kind of like the Hunger Games, really, but not quite.I also liked Insurgent the next book in the trilogy but I was not impressed by Allegiant.

Happy reading! :D

Gina wrote: "Crimen y castigo


..."
Is that a Spanish edition of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky I assume?

I haven't read that one but I did read his Notes from Underground in December and was really impressed by how many other works it'd obviously influenced. I do intend to read more by him someday!

Gina wrote: "Crimen y castigo

Divergent

Destined


:)

Has anyone ..."

I haven't read Crime and Punishment, but I have read The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and Notes from Underground and loved them. The Brothers K especially; it changed the way I think about the world.

I won't go as far as to say I loved Notes from Underground but it's definitely worth the time to read! It was neat to unexpectedly read passages that were obviously the inspiration for Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Zamyatin's We.

Thus, indirectly, Dostoyevsky is the great-grandfather of nearly every English language dystopian novel being written today... Very cool!

I finally got back to reading The Golem and the Jinni this week. I hadn't touched it ever since I bought the e-book copy and returned the library book version, so I just started over from scratch. It definitely lived up to all the hype!

I also finished Tess of the d'Urbervilles and I'm enormously impressed by how forward thinking Thomas Hardy was for his time! I loved how he pointed hypocrisy of the Victorian eras sexual morality... and it's sad how much of that still applies today! It was very depressing, but I liked it anyway.

So, I wanted something relaxing for my next read, so I figured a good essay on nature would be the perfect thing. And since I had The Tree by John Fowles on hand, I've started that. I thought it'd be a nice, simple, lightweight read. Boy was I wrong! It may be short, but it's a rather challenging to read. It's definitely the most literate "nature essay" I've ever read. I guess I should have guessed it would be after how challenging The Magus was.

Melanti wrote: "I finally got back to reading The Golem and the Jinni this week. I hadn't touched it ever since I bought the e-book copy and returned the library book version, so I just started ov..."

I've tried The Magus a couple times, but I've never been able to get into it. I quit after 50-60 pages.

I'm reading A Fine and Private Place, which is good, I think? It's good, but there's a lot of dialogue and very little plot. Maybe interesting is a better word.

I've also started The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales and it's excellent. If you're a poetry lover, this one has some really great poems, both fun and thoughtful. And all about fairy tales!

And on my kindle I'm reading The Iron Heel by Jack London. This is a alternate history(unsure about genre here) about the early 1900s, if the socialist party had been a legitimate threat to capitalism. It's told from the perspective of a socialist leader's wife's diary, with footnotes from hundreds of years in the future, when socialism is taken for granted. It's very interesting if you like dystopia/political/socialist fiction, but it's also a terrible novel. The diary is written like no diary would ever be written, and of course there's the gender issue. Jack London does not write empowered females. That being said, I had no idea Jack London was a socialist and, being interested in socialism myself, I enjoy reading its different variations of writers come up with.

Margaret wrote: I've tried The Magus a couple times, but I've never been able to get into it. I quit after 50-60 pages. ..."


Same here! The French Lieutenant's Woman was very good however!

Jalilah wrote: "Margaret wrote: I've tried The Magus a couple times, but I've never been able to get into it. I quit after 50-60 pages. ..."


Same here! The French Lieutenant's Woman was very good ho..."

I stalled out on the print version of The Magus around page 100 or so, but I'm stubborn so I tried the audio version and had better luck with that one. And, thankfully, I've never had to like the main characters to like a book.

Jalilah wrote: "Margaret wrote: I've tried The Magus a couple times, but I've never been able to get into it. I quit after 50-60 pages. ..."


Same here! The French Lieutenant's Woman was very good ho..."

I'll try that one some time!

Margaret,
It's been a long time since I've read IRON HEEL. I seem to remember that the female narrator is somewhat worshipful of her male leader, but I thought I remembered her as being fairly courageous in the fight for socialism. What did you dislike?

I finally finished Life After Life. I don't know why I bothered to finish reading it, it wasn't worth it. Why do some books get so popular?

Next up is Countdown by Deborah Wiles .

Gene wrote: "Margaret,
It's been a long time since I've read IRON HEEL. I seem to remember that the female narrator is somewhat worshipful of her male leader, but I thought I remembered her as being fairly cour..."

I just got to the part where she's being courageous. Mostly, the worshipful nature of her relationship with her husband bothers me. It's just not a realistic relationship, but I'm keeping in mind the time period. I'm enjoying the read from a philosophical standpoint, but it feels a bit idealistic and underdeveloped to me. I still have about 50 pages left.

Thanks for confirming my recollection. Yes, there's no question that HEEL is overly idealistic and borderline doctrinaire. All that saves it, slightly, is the vision of the robber barons as utterly corrupt-- sort of the "one percent" of our day!

Gene wrote: "Thanks for confirming my recollection. Yes, there's no question that HEEL is overly idealistic and borderline doctrinaire. All that saves it, slightly, is the vision of the robber barons as utterly..."

Very One percent! There's definitely a lot of it that's still very relevant.

I am currently reading Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin.

So, I just finished The Tree and thought I'd share a snippet that made me think of the de Lint approach to urban fantasy:

... We have simply transferred the tree setting to the now more familiar brick-and-concrete forest of town and city. Certain juxtapositions of tree and building, especially in city hearts, and perhaps most strikingly of all in New York, have always rather touched me: the sight of those literal and symbolic leaf-walls standing side by side, half-hiding, half-revealing, can be strangely poetic, and not just in architectural terms. Older and less planned quarters of cities and towns are profoundly woodlike, and especially in this matter of the mode of their passage through us, the way they unreel, disorientate, open, close, surprise, please. The stupidest mistake of all the many stupid mistakes of twentieth-century architecture has been to forget this ancient model in the more grandiose town-planning. Geometric, linear cities make geometric, linear people; wood cities make human beings. ...

I'm not sure I agree with that last sentence entirely, but the rest of the paragraph struck me as something Charles de Lint might say.

Melanti wrote: "So, I just finished The Tree and thought I'd share a snippet that made me think of the de Lint approach to urban fantasy:

... We have simply transferred the tree setting to the now..."

I agree! Although his writing style is different, but the content, except for the last line is like the type if thing De Lint would say!
Are you on his FB group Mythic Cafe? The members would like it.

I am still reading to Kill. Mockingbird. I like it a lot, but have not had much time to read.

I'm one of the holdouts that don't have facebook. Feel free to share it with them if you like!

Melanti wrote: "I'm one of the holdouts that don't have facebook. Feel free to share it with them if you like!"

Good for you! I resisted for ages, but finally got it mainly because of my work, however it can be very distracting

So, I finally had time to catch up with the group on the Arabian Nights buddy read, and posted a the same passage in a few translations again. With a rather fun passage this time.

I also read the first Fables collection - Fables, Vol. 1: Legends in Exile and am not that enthused... There were moments that I thought it was clever, but overall, I'm just not a graphic novel fan. I already knew that, of course, but I wanted to give it a try anyway since it's so popular.

I've also started in on Winter Tides for the Endicott group, and it's at bare minimum very dark fantasy, if not full out horror... I'll keep you guys posted. It's certainly the darkest book I've read from the Endicott list so far!

Currently I have been reading Infamous by Sherrilyn Kenyon and also Mafia State by Luke Harding. I've also A Storm of Swords by George RR. Martin but I'm reading it very slowly since I watched the show before reading the book I find it hard to sit down and read it. But I will :)

I'm just finishing A Dance with Dragons which is the last book to the A Song of Ice and Fire series (Game of Thrones) This series was one of the greatest adventures of my life!

I have been trying to work through Tad Williams' Otherland series, but thanks to school, the four thousands pages are becoming rather drawn out.

I love George R.R. Martin and Tad Williams! :)

I'm reading Triskellion by Will Peterson.

I quite liked . Then I read two, that for me, were stinkers: and . Wanting to read something very different, I picked up . Hopefully it's one I'll enjoy...

by Sophie Masson, from the YA Endicott list. Just okay so far.

Just finished The Passion, which doesn't quite measure up to some of her others that I've read. And though it makes a couple of references to the fairy tale about the girl who cried jewels, this particular book isn't a retelling.

I've now started in on Mrs. Mike and A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories and am enjoying both, though for different reasons.

Just finished Winter Rose. I love McKillip's writing and such a nice retelling of the Tam Lin tale.

I'm reading Son of a Witch. I'm only about 20 pages in so far, though.

Kathy wrote: "Just finished Winter Rose. I love McKillip's writing and such a nice retelling of the Tam Lin tale."

Now you made me all the more enthusiastic to read it Kathy! It's been on my to read list ever since I read Tam Lin by Pamela Dean

Jalilah wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Just finished Winter Rose. I love McKillip's writing and such a nice retelling of the Tam Lin tale."

Now you made me all the more enthusiastic to read it Kathy! It's bee..."

There are just some tales that I love and Tam Lin is one of them. But like Selkies, so many are YA or children's books. This one was well done I thought.