Nali

I have read the Original Shannara Triology aswell as the Heritage series, and I enjoyed em so, so much! It was the first real fantasy books I ever read, and I always intended on going back to read the rest of Terry Brooks' work, but I keep putting it off in favour of other books... I might give myself a push and go do now that I have read what you all have written about the other books!

My first s/f, fantasy etc are as follows: S/F: Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Addams Fantasy: Shannara series by Terry Brooks Horror: It by Stephen King

I picked up a copy of list a few months ago and started working my way through it - I have managed to read 49 books so far, and will keep going! Heres a link to what I have managed to get to so far: 1001 Books You Must...

Oh, there are sooooo many authors I like, but to list a few: Terry Brooks J.R.R Tolkien J.K Rowling (yeah I know, I'm a HP fan!) Meredith Ann Pierce Jane Austen Nicholas Sparks Liza Marklund Stieg Larsson just to name a few

This is a review of the book "Buried Alive" by Liza Marklund, in my opinion one of Swedens best writers. Buried Alive tells the story about Mia, a woman working with refugees in Sweden. She meets "the man with the black eyes" and falls in love with him. As the story unravels it turns out that "the man with the black eyes" is an abusive boyfriend and he threatens Mia's life. As a result of this Mia has to go into hiding or risk losing her life. The book follows her fight for survival, her struggle to remain undetected by her abuser and her efforts to create a new life, with a new man despite all she has been through. I have read this book several times, and I find it chilling and gripping every time. It's one of those books that is very hard to put down in the evenings, because all you want to do is find out what happens next. The books is written as "a true story" - this has in resent times been questioned by the piblic, newspapers and critics, but it has been established that the book is in fact based on actual events, and should perhaps be labled as "based on a true story" rather than "a true story" due to the many changes that had to be made to protect Mia's real idenity and location. Without giving too much away, this book shines a light on the struggles any persecuted person might face in todays world, where it really isnt that hard to find someone. It also directs some well aimed kicks at the goverment and it's way of handleing a situation like the one Mia in the book is facing. Provide your reactions to the book I think this is a good read for anyone who finds social critisism interesting. On another level this book can be read purly as fiction and then it would be aimed at persons who find thrillers, personal struggles and also love stories in the face of the impossible interesting. For those who read this one and want to know what happens to Mia, there is a sequel called "Asylum Granted" - in the same style as "Buried Alive" but to make too many comments on this book would take away the suspense of the first one. *as a sidenote, I had a quick look at amazon.com and can't find the book in english there, only swedish and german, but I'm sure if you want to read this novel you can find it in a bookstore or have them order it for you!

What I do is that I "collect" titles until I have say 10-20 of them, I do this by browsing the web, reading the reviews in papers or listen to what friends tell me is good, then I go to a place like Amazon and I look the books up, I read the blurbs, the reviews and comments where I can find them, and after that I buy the book if it still feels like something I'd like to read. I have to say tho, that I have many books at home that I bought just from the cover/blurb or because a friend swore up and down that this is the best thing she ever read. For me it is important to read at least a little about a new/unknown to me book/writer before I start reading because I have this annoying almost ocd like thing where I HAVE to finish a book that I started, there is only ONE book out of the 1000-something books I've read that I have not finished, and even then I got to the last 30 pages and just couldnt get through it... >.<

As far as I can tell: A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. From Wikipedia: Dickens began to write A Christmas Carol in October 1843,and completed the book in six weeks with the final pages written in the beginning of December. As the result of a feud with his publisher over the meagre earnings on his previous novel, Martin Chuzzlewit,Dickens declined a lump-sum payment for the tale, chose a percentage of the profits in hopes of making more money thereby, and published the work at his own expense. High production costs however brought him a mere £230 (equal to £19,128 today) rather than the £1,000 (equal to £83,164 today) he expected and needed, as his wife was once again pregnant. Bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages, the book was published in London by Chapman and Hall, and released on 17 December 1843. Four expensive, hand-coloured etchings and four black and white wood engravings by John Leech accompanied the text. Production was not without problems. The drab olive endpapers were replaced for the second printing with yellow endpapers, but, once replaced, clashed with the title page which was then redone. Modestly priced at five shillings (equal to £20.79 today), the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve and the book continued to sell well into the New Year. By May 1844, a seventh edition had sold out. In all, twenty-four editions ran in its original form. In spite of the disappointing profits for the author, the book was a huge artistic success with most critics responding positively.

I'll make a suggestion too, since everyone else has made one I enjoy reading fantasybooks a lot, some of them more than others, there are so many different kinds of fantasy, but what really got me started was the Shannara series from Terry Brooks. I started with the Original Shannara Triology (OST) and got so hooked I read all the other books too. I would reccomend that you read the Original Shannara Triology first, followed by the Heritage of Shannara series (HOS) The tree books in the OST are: The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara and The Wishsong of Shannara. The four books from the HOS are: The Scions of Shannara, The Druid of Shannara, The Elf Queen of Shannara and The Talisman of Shannara. The books contain many of the things I find appealing with fantasy; Magic, epic battles, different races (elfs in particular!! ) and ofcourse a big ol' quest to basically save the world. Even though I'm from Sweden I really enjoy doing my reading in the original language as much as I can, wich means I read a lot of english books. I found these books to be well written and the language is not too hard, with too many words no normal mortal would understand. I really recommend giving it a go if you want an easy read and a fine introduction to fantasy! Hope this helps! /Nali

Hello all! I'm a 28 y/o woman from Sweden, who loves reading books. I came upon this forum when I was looking for something new to read and just had to sign up! I usually read fantasy, some romance, historical fiction and non fiction and some thrillers/mysteries, but I'm up for trying any genre really. /Nali