EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone!

Rainy week in Michigan, but everything's green again which is nice.

I had a bit of a slow week this week, in that I only finished one book. The Dragon and the Unicorn( book involving a mythological creature) Usually when this happens it's because I really didn't like the book and i was dragging my feet. In this case, I did enjoy it, it was just very complex. There was Norse mythology mixed with Celtic mythology, leading into Arthurian legend, with a dragon as a world-beast and a shining unicorn, combined with demons and angels and the spread of Christianity through the British isles. I couldn't just tear through it like usual, or I'd get totally confused. It was enjoyable though. Not sure I'll continue the series, because I am not that big of a fan of Arthurian legend. This book was more a precursor to the Arthor story, so I'm assuming the next books go into the main narrative. Maybe some day, but probably not right away.

Currently I am reading Oryx and Crake which I just started this morning. Probably when I'm done I'll put up a new folder for general book discussions and we can start an Atwood thread to discuss further, if wanted. So far it's grabbing me much more than Blind Assassin did. That one I found pretty tedious from the start. I don't think it'll end up counting for a challenge prompt, since I'm getting down to some of the harder ones to fill.

This puts me at 37/52.

How's everyone else doing this week?

PS, when I finish pop sugar, I'll probably go back and focus on read harder. And then I'll still be reading, so I'll keep posting threads through the year, even if if I'm done with the actual challenges.

Hi Sheri,

I don't think I realized that you're in Michigan. I was there this past weekend in the Detroit and suburbs area (Troy, Bloomington Hills)--is that close to you (if that's not too stalker of a question, haha)?

The Dragon and the Unicorn sounds like it's right up my ally! I'm putting that on my TBR book. It caught my attention last week and I checked out the Unicorn package you recommended, but what you've written here cements my interest. Thank you!

I'd love a thread on Oryx and Crake. I can start reading it next. :-) Last week I finished The Last Unicorn and did a quick read of the novella sequel Two Hearts, which I didn't know existed until I was looking more into Peter Beagle--it's available for free online. My biggest regret about The Last Unicorn is that I didn't read it sooner. It's such a beautiful novel! As I mentioned last week, I loved the movie as a child, but there were so many layers of meaning in the novel--which I do think were in the movie, but I was too young to "get"-- but Beagle was able to communicate more poignantly in the novel. I found out this past week that he also wrote the screenplay for the movie, which explains why it follows the book so closely. Anyway, I found this to be one of those books that just gets into your heart and you see the world a bit differently afterword--but probably only if you're one of those people like me that secretly hopes that there really are unicorns and elves in the world :-) At any rate, one of the things that struck me most was the sadness around her immortality. This is something that Tolkien also addresses with the elves, specifically when elves and humans fall in love, but (yes, I'm going to say it!), Beagle address this much more powerfully than Tolkein does. If I hadn't been finishing up the book while waiting in line to cross over the border to Canada, I might have been weeping openly!

I also read The Singing Stone for my book I loved as a child. I'm pleased to say that it held up well. I wanted to revisit this book because it really was the foundation of my love of the mythology of the British Isles, including Arthurian legend (see the new addition to my TBR list above!) and anything to do with megaliths. Also, I realized reading it in retrospect that it's a wonderful book for girls about 9 and older as it has two strong female characters that dominate the story, and the two main male characters in the book are really just there to support them (although one is a bit of a jerk...) and they are okay with this!

At this point, I was getting a little "read out" as this is more "free time" reading than I've done in years, so I decided to switch it up to some non-fiction and read Food is Culture. The university where I work has a great Food and Nutrition Program, so finding a book about food was easy! It's...okay. It was translated from Italian, and the translator has a talent for dense language, so it's not as enjoyable as it could be for a "free time" read, but the content is interesting and it's a fairly quick read. It also has a red spine, so I might shift it to that prompt if I'm feeling the need to read a better food book after this.

That puts me at 19/40--almost halfway there! I think I will add on the extra challenge at the end as I seem to be on track.

I love the Friday morning posts and am glad to hear that you'll keep on once you're done the pop sugar challenge!

What is everyone else reading, challenge or not?!

Stephanie,

Troy/Bloomington is about a 40-45 min drive. It's not that it's such a far distance, so much as there's no freeway route there, due to all the little lakes in that direction. The only routes are all surface roads at about 35mph. Are you in Michigan, or were you visiting there for Penguicon?

I do love Last Unicorn, I bought the book a couple years at one of my pilgrimages to Powells :) I haven't watched the movie, mainly because I was worried it wouldn't be as good as the book. If you say it follows pretty closely, I'll give it a try! Also no worries here, I am not really a Tolkien fan. Yes, I know, gasp in horror. I think some of it is so many people have used him as a starting point, the whole tolkien-esk genre feels watered down for me. I don't really like the whole "group of dudes traveling on a mighty quest" with dwarves and elves a whole lot.

I was thinking about starting a folder for general book talk, and starting a Margaret Atwood thread. Seems like people have strong opinions about her, would be good conversation fodder.

yay for the advanced challenge :) I like several of the prompts on there, although there are some tricky ones.

Hi Sheri,

I'm in Canada about an hour from the border. I was in Michigan to see Chris Rock at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. My first time in the Fox--holy cow, that theatre is amazing! I almost found it hard to pay attention to the show because I was looking around so much!

We'll have to agree to disagree on Tolkien, heh. Although I do agree with you on the dude angle, but he was writing in dude-centric times, so I can give him a pass on it, unlike how I might approach a modern author's dude-centricness. I'm a sucker for world-building, and so Tolkien is pretty much the alter upon which I worship for that :-) Also, once you get into the ancient history of his world (like the The Silmarillion), there are some female characters of note, and they tend to be the most powerful of anyone--although the Simarillion was heavily edited and then published by Tolkien's son (in the 60s, I think) after Tolkein passed away, so this probably accounts for that. But yeah, still largely about Dudes of the human, elf, dwarf, and god/demi-god variety.

More threads--yay!

Stephanie,
The Fox IS beautiful, love that theatre. We have some nice ones in Detroit!

Yeah, I realize I'm in the minority on Tolkien. I liked him ok in middle school, I read the Hobbit, and then I made the mistake of picking the Fellowship of the Ring for a book report. After having to write a paper on it, it left me no desire to finish the trilogy. I tried to go back and re-read in high school and I couldn't even manage to finish the Hobbit again. I watched the movies when they came out, and it still didn't really make me want to read any more, and I barely managed to sit through them. By the time the Hobbit movies came out and they were turning a fairly small book into another excruciatingly long movie (yes I know they threw some Silmarillion in there) I just threw my hands up and said I'm done. I've tried, and I'm done.

If it makes you feel any better I didn't like the first Shanara book that was a tolkien rip off either.

Even Mercedes Lackey, one of my favorite authors, can't really make the dudes questing with elves that much more appealing. I mean I read her obsidion trilogy and the one after it. but they're among the few of her books that I don't re-read on a regular basis. And hers actually have women in the questing party.

My fantasy interest tends to lie more in fairytales and urban fantasy. I LOVE fairytale retellings. I can the occasional big epic fantasy, but the ones I like most tend to shake things up from the typical fantasy tropes.

Sheri - are you me? Haha! I feel exactly the same way about Tolkein/Shanara and much prefer urban fantasy. It took me 26 years to get through Fellowship of the Rings. I was bored to tears. Which puzzled me because I love stories with an ensemble cast, and I generally like a quest tale. But the LotR trilogy was agonizingly boring to me.

As an aside, my hometown(Tucson) also has a stunningly gorgeous Fox Theatre. It's really unique and was done in an original style they dubbed "southwest deco". I worked for the City's historic preservation office when it was being rehabbed and got to see it come back to life one paint stroke and fabric swatch at a time. Its one of my absolute favorite places in town.

These comments about rereading a book you loved as a child remind me that as a young adult (married, but in my mid-20s, no kids yet) I loved The Mirror of Her Dreams. I remember consciously making myself stop reading it each night so that it would last longer. I enjoyed most of Donaldson's other series too. I'll have to reread it (we own a copy of MoHD) to see if it has held up well for me.