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Ian's reading 2014


ian

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Ian, you've definitely peaked my interest in Game of Thrones.......blast it! :D

 

I know what you mean - all those books, and oh so long! I'm going to be some time over this.......but so far, it's been worth it!!

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Tyrion Lannister is rapidly turning into one of my favourite characters ever. Should I be worried about this?   :P

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A Clash of KIngs  - George RR Martin

 

Throughout Westeros, the cold winds are rising.

From the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding lands of Winterfell, chaos reigns as pretenders to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms stake their claims through tempest, turmoil and war.

As a prophecy of doom cuts across the sky - a comet the colour of blood and flame - five factions struggle for control of a divided land. Brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night.

Against a backdrop of incest, fratricide, alchemy and murder, the price of glory is measured in blood.

 

My thoughts

 

This carries on where GOT left off.What can I say, this book is almost as mind-blowingly epic as the first one! I did have a little wobble about halfway through where it suddenly occurred to me that there probably isn't going to be a complete narrative here where the good guys win and the bad guys die pleasingly gruesome deaths. If anything, it's more likely to be the other way round. Once I got over that however, I started enjoying it again fully. It's very nice to immerse yourself in a book/series that is sooo long, that the author has the space and time to develop storylines and characters in a way that doesn't feel forced or rushed in any way. I also like the moral ambiguity of most of the characters - very few (if any) are wholly good or completely bad. And I still haven't figured out which side of that equation Tyrion Lannister sits on after 2 books!!

 

5/5

 

and on to book 3 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Oh, the fun you're going to have . . .  :D

 

A Storm of Swords by George RR Martin

 

Yup!

 

You often see writers try to add twists to their plots that you won't see coming. Very often, unfortunately, you actually see them coming a mile off, and you're left disappointed. Better, in my opinion, to telegraph a plot twist for all to see, so that you can build the tension waiting for it. This is what GRRM does so well in this book. I won't say more as I don't want to spoil the book for those who haven't read it yet. And then he DOES add the twist that nobody saw, just to mess with your mind! Are these the best fantasy books around? I don't know, but in terms of getting transformed from your own life into the lives of several others, this takes some beating! 5/5

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Are these the best fantasy books around?

 

For me, they're among the best, and A Storm of Swords in itself is one of the very best, imo.  Just don't expect the series to be finished any time soon . . . :rolleyes:

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  • 3 weeks later...

A feast for Crows - George RR Martin.

 

I found this book to be not quite up to the standard of the first three. I think I can still give it 5/5 but it doesn't get the five quite as easily as the other books. What lets it down (in my opinion) is that the book is focused too much on what were minor characters. I guess that's necessity - most of the major ones are dead! The end disapointed as well, as it just...well.... ended. 

 

I must explain myself - I was reading this on Kindle. It said I was at 92%, when I finished the last chapter. The rest is the various houses family trees. Fortunately, there is an apology of sorts from George saying he had to cut the book in half to keep it to a manageable size, so he gives us the whole of some characters story and none of others.

 

Niggles aside - these books are still awesome!

 

5/5

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I agree about the abrupt ending, and the family trees do take up a lot of space. I'm glad you still enjoyed the book even if it wasn't as much as the previous books. I also thought there was more focus on minor characters which I liked less. Great review! Are you going to read book five soon?

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I hope you enjoy it :). It's great several of us here on the forum have read the series, it's nice to have friends with whom to talk about books we've all read.

 

I have to agree - most of my friends don't read (much) so it can be frustrating to read a really good book and not have someone to talk to about it. Of course, you have to be mindful of spoilers. There has been at least one jaw-dropping revelation in this one!

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  • 2 weeks later...

A Dance with Dragons - George RR Martin

 

I'm going to count both volumes of this as one book.

So that's it - I'm up to date. I can't say that I'm happy: I would have preferred to move straight on to the next book.....and the next. Sadly though, I can't read what isn't written yet!

I don't want to go into details again, as there is too great a risk of spoilers, and half the fun of these books is the gasp of astonishment that accompanies nearly every chapter end. The sheer length of these books, coupled with the realistic human nature of each character, means that you cannot help but care what happens to each, even the ones who you don't like much. Add in GRRM's willingness to kill off characters left, right and centre, and you have a real roller-coaster ride.

 

I cannot wait for the next book! 5/5

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The Racketeer - John Grisham.

 

Given the importance of what they do, and the controversies that often surround them, and the violent people they sometimes confront, it is remarkable that in the history of the USA only four active federal judges have been murdered.

 

Judge Raymond Fawcett just became number five.

 

His body was found in the small basement of a lakeside cabin he had built himself and frequently used on weekends. When he did not show up for a trial on Monday morning, his law clerks panicked, called the FBI, and in due course the agents found the crime scene. There was no forced entry, no struggle, just two dead bodies - Judge Fawcett and his young secretary.

 

I did not know Judge Fawcett, but I know who killed him, and why.

 

I am a lawyer, and I am in prison.

 

It's a long story.

 

My Thoughts.

 

It was always going to be a struggle to find something suitable to read after my Game of Thrones marathon. Everything was going to seem very short and sparse in detail in comparison. Do I go for something similar? Something I've read before and loved? In the end I decided to go for a Grisham - I've read a couple of his before and liked them without being blown away. Pretty much the same here.

 

My main problem with this book was that the blurb on the back, which was slightly different to the one I've given above (which I have cut and paste from a website) sort of spoilt the story by hinting at a major plot twist. So after that, all of the surprise was taken out of the story (I'm trying not to spoil it here myself). I also had slight issues with the main protaganist, who I found to be not very likeable - just the wrong side of smug. I've had this reaction to some other Grisham novels, so that's probably just me.

 

Those problems aside, the book is well written and the narrative cracks along at a fair old pace. The ending possibly could have been tied up a couple of chapters earlier, but I'm being super-critical now.

 

3/5

 

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It's a shame you didn't enjoy it as much as you had hoped. I guess though after reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series and really enjoying it, most of what's read after is likely to be a disappointment. I sometimes get this when I finish a great book or an epic series, it's hard to pick a next read because it might not be as good.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Day of the Lie - William Brodrick


 


They came for me in November nineteen fifty-one and took me to Mokotow prison.


 


Cambridge, the present day. And out of the past, a cry for help: Father Anselm, the brilliant Benedictine, receives a visit from an old friend with a dangerous story to tell - the story of a woman betrayed by time, fate, and someone close to her . . . someone still unknown.


 


As a young woman, Roza Mojeska was part of an underground resistance group in Communist Poland. But after her arrest, an agent of the secret police makes her a devil's bargain - and in the dark of a government prison, a terrible choice is made.


 


Now, fifty years later, Anselm is called upon to investigate both Roza's story and a mystery dating back to the early 1980s, in the icy grip of the Cold War. And as he peels back years of history, decades of secrets, a half-century of lies, he exposes a truth that victim and torturer would keep hidden..


 


My Thoughts


 


What interested me when I picked this up was the author's bio - William Brodrick was a monk, then left to become a lawyer, then started writing. Here, I thought, is a man with a unique viewpoint on life.


 


The book tells the story of Roza, who grew up in Poland, first during the Nazi occupation, then during Communist rule to modern day. She was part of a group helping to print and distribute a newspaper promoting democracy, which saw her imprisoned twice. Now, she has the chance to confront her jailor.


 


This isn't a fast-paced thriller, as you can imagine, but a detailed look at how people come to be collaborators, and how we, who didn't live through such times, shouldn't view those people in strict black and white terms. It's a very thoughtfully written book. There is actually a series of books centered around the main character (a lawyer who became a monk!) but I didn't feel I was missing anything by not having read the previous books. Good Stuff.


 


5/5


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And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

 

Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and stepmother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Abdullah, Pari - as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named - is everything. More like a parent than a brother, Abdullah will do anything for her, even trading his only pair of shoes for a feather for her treasured collection. Each night they sleep together in their cot, their heads touching, their limbs tangled.

 

One day the siblings journey across the desert to Kabul with their father. Pari and Abdullah have no sense of the fate that awaits them there, for the event which unfolds will tear their lives apart; sometimes a finger must be cut to save the hand.

 

My Thoughts

 

I almost didn't want to read this. I've read both of Hosseini's previous books, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to read another book about Afghanistan during the 70's & 80's. Then I realised that I was been stupid, and a little insulting.

 

In any case, I needn't have worried. The book follows the story of a family from a poor village in Afghanistan in the 1950's, and the decision of the father to give away his daughter so that he will have less mouths to feed and she will have the chance of a better life. The book then sees how that one decision affects the lifes, not only of that family, but of other families whose lives are intersected by theirs.

 

Khaled Hosseini has this trick (if you have read either of his other books you will know what I mean); he can make you feel both incredibly sad and uplifted at the same time. The characters are complex and contradictory - human in other words - and so you can't help but get involved, even if some of their motives seem wrong. I'm glad I decided to read this after all. 5/5

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The Day of the Lie - William Brodrick

 

They came for me in November nineteen fifty-one and took me to Mokotow prison.

 

Cambridge, the present day. And out of the past, a cry for help: Father Anselm, the brilliant Benedictine, receives a visit from an old friend with a dangerous story to tell - the story of a woman betrayed by time, fate, and someone close to her . . . someone still unknown.

 

As a young woman, Roza Mojeska was part of an underground resistance group in Communist Poland. But after her arrest, an agent of the secret police makes her a devil's bargain - and in the dark of a government prison, a terrible choice is made.

 

Now, fifty years later, Anselm is called upon to investigate both Roza's story and a mystery dating back to the early 1980s, in the icy grip of the Cold War. And as he peels back years of history, decades of secrets, a half-century of lies, he exposes a truth that victim and torturer would keep hidden..

 

My Thoughts

 

What interested me when I picked this up was the author's bio - William Brodrick was a monk, then left to become a lawyer, then started writing. Here, I thought, is a man with a unique viewpoint on life.

 

The book tells the story of Roza, who grew up in Poland, first during the Nazi occupation, then during Communist rule to modern day. She was part of a group helping to print and distribute a newspaper promoting democracy, which saw her imprisoned twice. Now, she has the chance to confront her jailor.

 

This isn't a fast-paced thriller, as you can imagine, but a detailed look at how people come to be collaborators, and how we, who didn't live through such times, shouldn't view those people in strict black and white terms. It's a very thoughtfully written book. There is actually a series of books centered around the main character (a lawyer who became a monk!) but I didn't feel I was missing anything by not having read the previous books. Good Stuff.

 

5/5

 

 

As usual, great review, Ian. :)  All of them are.  But this in particular appeals to me.  Thanks for the heads up. :D

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You are very welcome!

 

I wish I had the same confidence in my reviews. As usual, when writing: the words on the page/screen fail to live up to the ones in my head.

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