vinay87

L'Mort D'Arthur? The Wordsworth edition, in specific. I'm wondering if it's worth starting a city-wide hunt for.

heh that might explain why i hate it....

Blasphemy!!!! I think I'd rather buy bookshelves and hide the ones I keep on filling. I HATE lending books to friends. lol And just what in the name of Kafka's favourite metaphor is a book monkey?!

Gossip?! *steers away.* "The north pole, Jeeves! And don't look back."

That Penguin version was my first Les Mis read Darn I can't wait to start reading the Wordsworth edition once again.

My book is filled with my preferences. But no, some of my favourite characters are quite unlike me. I hate drinking but my favourite character is a binge drinker. I tried to make him quit, but what do I say, my Muse, she is the b*tch. A book does reflect a lot of the writer's thoughts. Though quoting a character's words as a writer's words isn't always justified. Sometimes, though, it is. When my characters rant outside the storyline, they use my thoughts. I put them there to act, in gaming/software terms, as Easter eggs. They're for my friends to observe, smile or even chuckle. A private joke, if you will.

lol... My reading speed varies a lot. For classics, it's about 30 pages an hour. For light fiction without much depth anywhere from 120 to 200 pages an hour. I read the last three Harry Potter books in three hours each. But RJ... the first time through took me a year. The second time, maybe two months. I think the third time was the same amount of time. The fourth (and currently ongoing read) is through audiobooks at night. I listen to three chapters and then fall asleep. I've listened to the awesome rendition of the books in audio by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading from BooksOnTape and I'm in love with it. Few audiobooks are so well done. RJ should be happy. I'm currently in the middle of the seventh book. Massive I tell you. But then again, some books can be 60 pages long and they last forever. RJ's books are around twenty times that each and yet they seem so short. (Well, except the tenth book which should have been a doorstopper.) That is just beautiful. On a side note, I think even Les Miserables called out to be read... Something about the blurb and the name Jean Valjean. That has become my favourite name in all of fiction.

You must!!! I've read the series thrice

Good... Even the covers are good, no? But I so do wish it was in one part though. I hate that they can bind War and Peace in one volume and not choose to bind Les Mis. If you ever get the Penguin edition at a library or even at a cheap rate, I suggest gifting that to people who want to read the book without going through the depth that Wordsworth Editions gives us. (Though that's sheer blasphemy.) Still the Penguin classics version is admirably short.

Now which of you nice ladies is going to convince a guy to read this?

I'm reading this now!!! Wordsworth translation of this book is excellent! I sadly have the TOR edition... bought when I was a wee 19 year old and judged the quality of an edition by the price I'll read it after Cristo. I double dog dare you to hate this book. The wordsworth edition is mindblowing!! Which is what you have right? Seeing as it's in two volumes? Tell me when you're done so due respect can be conveyed. I deem any person capable of ploughing through Tolstoy's work with ease as reader magnefique. I wonder where my copy has run off to. One of my first Jeeves book. Heck, might be my first Wodehouse. Excellent read. I have to buy the Jeeves' Omnibi one day.

I don't know if it's the effect this place is having on me or just my own new petpeeve but I can't stand books which "get better in time" now. Which is why I'm slaughtering my book to make it awesome in my own eyes from page one. Why should readers be expected to "hang with it" till the author sees fit to bleed awesomeness in his/her book? It's unfair of them to expect us that methinks. If the book gets better at page 100, then page 100 should be page 1, should it not?

It's like picking cake in a bakery. Just grab the one that seems the creamiest!

hahaha Robert Jordan's books are filled with women crossing their hands under their breasts and glowering their people. But I've only been annoyed with the way writers make paragraphs. If most are too long, then the novel becomes hard for me to read. And oh yes, when some characters speak too much without interruption, talking like oration is filling their every orifice. Really hard to believe something like that. And when some characters speak as though they're reciting an essay.

NO Thou shalt not besmirch my childhood dreams of unearthing a TRex graveyard!!! In other words, welcome

lol it has.... but it's awesome enough to be posted twice.

In my opinion, the 5 books every child should read are: 1. The Merry Adventures Of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle 2. The Wind In The Willows 3. Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Fin - Mark Twain 4. Heidi - Johanna Spyri 5. Grimms's Fairy Tales - Brothers Grimm I haven't ever read a Roald Dahl book. And I've read just one Enid Blyton book. I know, my parents don't read so I had no one to point me to the good books. Did well on my own though.

Well, if the title wasn't lucid enough, what I mean is have you read any book that just appeared magical to you for some reason. Ever since I was about fourteen, I'd been looking at a book at my favourite book shop. I couldn't afford it back then but I'd just take the book off the shelf every time I went to the shop, stare at the cover and try to make sense out of the blurb on the back. It was part 9 of a series and the shop didn't have the other parts in the series. I always knew I'd love the book. Indeed, I loved it even then. The cover, the smell, the sheer look of it. I didn't understand the blurb, it didn't make much sense to me. But I somehow knew that it'd be a favourite book for me someday. Then in 2006 I got frustrated and asked the shopkeeper to get me the rest of the books in the series. Since my word is mostly command there, being their most loyal customer for 10 years, he found the rest of the series and I immediately purchased the first book of The Wheel Of Time. I bought the next two books in the week after I got the first book and the rest of the books (including book nine) in the next ten months. Even though book nine is most out of place, sporting a different cover compared to the set, I prefer it that way because it was the book I fell in love with. I know that most fans believe that Robert Jordan's books sadly peaked at book 3 and has been going downhill ever since. I don't believe that and for me, book nine Winter's Heart is still one of my favourite books. So do you have a book that magically forced you to read it?

Oh wow! Guess a lot of words we take for granted are that way CaliLily. I learnt that some parents don't know the importance of appreciation of the little things a child does for them. Case in point: My mom helps some mothers in the apartments tutor their children (1st to 5th grade) in homework, studies etc. I sometimes take her place when she asks me to. A kid was making his dad a birthday card today and I was watching him do it. He then began talking and said that his mom doesn't appreciate it. He's a third grader, mind you. His mom always just says "nice" and doesn't even hug him or anything. I guess I'm really lucky. My dad still talks about the letters I wrote to him when I was 7. I sent it overseas without postage stamps on it >.

I did get the idea from you... But I think I'll wait for a few weeks (read that as until I get my Netbook) till I try the same. I'm not asking for detailed reviews though. Just want to know if everything's in place and you know... the usual. "Bleh" "Meh" "I like it" "OMG! IT'S AWESOME" "I'LL NAME THE EIGHTH SON OF MY EIGHTH SON AFTER YOU!" etc.

I've finished the first draft of two books. I'm writing my third one alongside the second draft of another book now. I was actually considering starting a thread to request readers to read the chapters of the second draft as I dish them out. I write faster with readers you see. And since I can write about a chapter or more in a month, I wanted to ask people here if they'd read but I'm still unsure. It's a fantasy genre novel consisting of ten parts. I've been writing the first book on and off for eight years and I've finally found my need/drive to write. Yeah, I'd love to be in the world(s) of my book. Mostly because I started writing this book (and the others) because I wanted to read a book like that. I'm still not near the perfection I so desire but I'll get there. One metaphor at a time.

My book. No question there. I'm heading into my book, first and foremost.

In a way. But I also sometimes feel that I have a deep seated pride in myself. A pride that I can change people by yanking their shoulders somehow. Arrogant, true but I am beginning to believe a holistic version of this nowadays. One character I sort of associate this with is Alyosha Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov. Also, I have a tendency to daydream, so far am I sometimes in my daydreams that I wonder whether I'm turning schizophrenic. So in another way, I'm also Don Quixote. Well, to be completely honest I'm most like a character from my own book.

It's been so long since I've even seen a copy of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. I'm so going to hunt for it the next time I go to a bookshop! On that note, does anyone know a good movie based on that book? I've never seen a movie of it and I'd sure love to.

The only thing I got for free is an audio cassette that's been in the shop for 30 years. Nice idea though... Never got a book for free