This month, I succumbed to marketing. I'd seen multiple copies of Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth 
around my used book store, trumpeting the new miniseries. Ken Follett seemed like such a familiar name, but I'd never read any of his stuff. So I figured, what the heck?
Well, heck. This sprawling novel plays out like a Behind the Music episode. The good guys get ahead, then SLAM! back to square one they go, over and over and over again. Yet good triumphs over evil in the end.
I was not particularly enamored with the writing in this book. Follett maintains a third-person omniscient perspective throughout, which I found somewhat tedious. "He said," "she thought," etc. It just seemed a bit wooden. The dialogue is a bit too "modern" to really sell the story as a period piece, despite the obvious efforts Follett made to tie the story into real history from the 12th century.
Still, I'm an easy audience. Despite the rather ludicrous Series of Unfortunate Events that befalls the lead characters, and the inevitable triumphs that bring them back from the brink time and again, I found myself fairly engaged. If you enjoy learning a few tidbits about early English history, the Catholic Church, architecture and the building trades, then maybe this novel is right up your alley. It was interesting enough for me to finish in fairly short order, despite its hefty 1,007 page length.
What are you reading?
Your review is much more thorough but perfectly captured my abivalence here. I have World Without End somewhere around my house, so I'll tackle it when I'm in the mood for another light month.
I've got about ten pages left of Clarence Darrow For the Defense. It's a sort of fictional biography of Darrow (well, the facts are mostly accurate but it includes some conversations that likely never happened - it's pretty much like a Bob Woodward book in that way). Enjoyable enough to learn more about the famous cases in which he participated.
I'm not sure what I'll be reading next. I know I'll soon be reading Robert Caro's The Passage of Power, but I think I might hold off on starting until after the bar exam.
Despite putting it on my short list following your expression of ambivalence*, I still haven't read Pillars.
*I'm going to give you credit for a clever way of displaying your ambivalence.
All the Follett books I've read (Pillars of the Earth, Hammer of Eden, A Dangerous Fortune- huh, it feels like more) haven't really impressed me. For such long books, they're pretty short reads, and I wasn't very impressed by any of them.
I took David Brin's recommendation and read The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt, a sci-fi archeological mystery that was entertaining enough. You get a little bit of everything in this one, including so-so dialog. But still.
And now I see that the main character, Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins appears in five more of his books; looks like I have next month covered.
I have read 6 pages of Hairstyles of the Damned this month.
That's it. I'm quite a bit depressed about that.
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about that one. For me it was probably the most relatable coming-of-age story I've read, which actually made it difficult for me to enjoy. Some of it hit a little too close to home.
I'm still not sure how I feel about Joe Meno in general. The Boy Detective Fails is one of my favorite books of all time, but I recently read The Great Perhaps and just flat-out hated it.
I just recommended The Boy Detective Fails to a friend who was looking for a good book that wasn't depressing.
Have you read any of Jesse Ball's books? The Curfew was very good and I liked his other ones as well. I'm not sure why I associate Meno and Ball (I'm not sure I would say they even write similarly) but I do. I guess I discovered them at around the same time.
I have not read anything by Jesse Ball, but after reading a couple descriptions he sounds like he would be right up my alley.
I skipped ahead 200 years and read Crichton's Timeline. I already owned this (and most everything else he's written), but thoroughly enjoyed it the 2nd time. Nothing spectacular, but a fun blend of science fiction and history. A lot of the quantum physics and multiverse theory discussions were beyond me, but I'd say that for a layperson, Crichton created a fairly plausible world.
Still working on A Confederacy of Dunces.
Timeline wasn't my favorite Crichton book, but I still enjoyed it. The movie was terrible, though.
The movie was terrible, though.
But it stars Paul Walker...how could it be bad!
The next enjoyable movie I see Paul Walker in will be the first- I don't think he's been the main problem with any of the movies he's been in, but he sure doesn't help any.
Crichton was the master of writing really good books that translated really poorly to movies. Timeline, Sphere, Congo. Jurassic Park was successful, but I knew a few who thought it was horrible (compared to the book)
The worst part of that was when Chricton brought back the Jeff Goldblum character from the movie in the second book even though he killed him off in the first book.
Ick. Now you made me think of Sphere. So very disappointed in that one.
I think I only ever read JP II (like the pope?) and some medical thriller thing. I thought JP II was good, but I was in high school and I thought lots of things were good. Like Sprite. That stuff is nasty.
I guess what I'm saying here is, Jurassic Park 2 is like the Sprite of movies.
I'm on record as having genuinely liked the Sphere movie. I think I'm the only one.
Well, I saw it when I was 16, and if I can't trust 16-year-old me's taste, I don't know what to believe.
/hums 'nookie'
ANDROMEDA STRAIN
what Rhu said.
I finished Ball Four from Jim Bouton. It was a really interesting read, not necessarily for the "tell-all" aspect, but more for his point of view for feeling out of place with the rest of the "jocks". That particularly resonated with me as I've felt that feeling on most every team I've ever been a part of.
Also, I found out Bouton invented "Big League Chew" and those baseball bat shaped popsicle sticks with the autographs on them. I used to collect those. In my head, though, I kept confusing "Bouton" with "Bunning" as they are both pitchers named Jim B.
He invented those popsicle sticks? I never did get the Puckett, not for lack of trying 🙁
When I met John Stossel randomly a few years ago, I spent the entire time talking to him about when he worked with Jim Bouton and Geraldo at a TV station in New York in the 1970s.
It's been a bad month for reading (werewolf contributed to that). I'm about half way through The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowel, who writes exactly like she talks.
Short month for me-
Adiamante and The Ethos Effect by L.E. Modesitt. Pretty technical sci-fi, with a lot of moral/ethical quandary stuff.
I picked up some other books at the used-book place, but haven't gotten to them yet. Charles de Lint (The Ivory and the Horn), Jim Butcher (Princeps' Fury, the fifth book in the Codex Alera), and a couple others.
Read the first three books of the Barsoom series by Burroughs. I enjoyed the first one but the second and third were just fun reads.
Having seen the movie and read the book, I would say the movie's plot is based on a 59 word summary of A Princess of Mars. Just enough to confuse newcomers while annoying fans of the series.
I really enjoyed A Princess of Mars except for-
When I finished The Gods of Mars I was done with Burroughs for a while. The ending didn't impress me.
I didn't have as much of a problem with changes to the movie from the book. It IS 100 years old after all, and could use a little help from that standpoint. I have problems with (unnecessary) changes to movies of recent books though
I got a little overwhelmed in the middle of reading 1Q84 and decided to take a break with Snuff by Terry Pratchett. It's not Pratchett's best effort, but at this point he's pretty unimpeachable to me. I'm willing to be very forgiving, especially given his deteriorating health.
Up next I plan on reading Complication by Isaac Adamson, which I am really looking forward to.
... and Complication is added to my list. (1Q84 is already there)
Yeah, I have high hopes for Complication. Isaac Adamson's Billy Chaka series was published while I was in high school, and even though it's all light, goofy neo-pulp-noir fun, reading those books was somewhat of a formative experience for me. I still find myself re-reading them every year or so, and I have a blast each time. I'm really excited to see him take on a darker style.
I finally finished The Path of Daggers and it would probably be my least favorite in the series so far. It seemed really anti-climactic, although that might have had to do with the lengthy gaps I'd have before I could pick it up again.
But, since I enjoyed the first few books, I know have to keep going until I'm caught up. I just got an iPad3, so I downloaded the Kindle app and made Winter's Heart my first e-book purchase to try out that whole business. (Come on Rock County library system, more popular e-books for checking out, please.)
Trudging through the Percy Jackson series: Halfway through the final book The Last Olympian. It's an okay series, but trying to hard to be Harry Potter.
Still trying to finish 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I wonder if one of them is finishing books in a timely manner... because I need that habit, and I don't feel too effective (maybe I should get off the internets)
Read Ameritopia by Mark Levin. Since it's policitcal, I won't go into too much detail.
Not sure what I'm going to read next. Picked up a brochure at the library suggesting books to read if you like Game of Thrones. So I may pick one off that one.
I think even Harry Potter gave up on trying to be Harry Potter by the last book.
That's because the claim that there was a grand plan in place was important to the first 6 books.
That's a good way of putting it- the Deathly Hallows was one of the bigger literary letdowns that I've experienced.
I agree entirely, and I never even read the books (I was always very interested in the plot, but not the execution... I "followed" them without reading them, which is probably the dumbest thing in the world, huh?).