Over on the Ship of Fools Forum, there's a discussion going on about books that are acclaimed classics, but which you can't manage to read or enjoy.
I have a few of those, and I refuse to feel guilty about it; there are so many books in the world that I want to read that I'm not going to worry about the books that are supposed to be classics and that well read people 'ought to read'.
So I'm not going to be revisiting any of the Russian authors any time soon. I tried War and Peace once, and after three pages I got so confused by all the different names for the same people that I gave up.
Likewise, The Worm Ouroboros by Eddison - a fantasy classic, but I have no idea what it's about. There were three different languages in the first three pages of that - without any translations. Also, the title always makes me think of the Red Dwarf joke about Our Rob or Ross.
As far as Virginia Woolf is concerned - look, just go to the Lighthouse, for heaven's sake!
And Madame Bovary - pull yourself together!
Thomas Hardy is depressing (and gets more so as he goes on), and Jane Austen's plots move at such a glacial pace it's like watching paint dry.
I tried to read Lady Chatterley's Lover when I was twelve - but all I remember of it was a description of a rainy garden, and as nothing exciting seemed to be happening, I gave up on that.
There was a CJ Cherryh fantasy that I tried to read that had the characters slogging through mud and cold rain for three chapters, and they were having such a miserable time of it that I gave up on that one too! (It wasn't the Morgaine one where the entire planet is drowning - I was fine with that one).
It's not as if I have any shortage of reading matter anyway - my 'mountain of books that must be read' will last me at least two years if I don't add any more to it.
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
George RR Martin's Reading List
While fans of Game of Thrones are waiting for the next book, they often ask George RR Martin for recommendations of other books which are like the mammoth epic fantasy series.
I came across the list of 33 books that he has chosen on Huffington Post, and was delighted to see some old friends there:
No. 1 on the list is pretty obvious - it's Lord of the Rings.
However, it was No. 3 that made me go 'squee' - it's Jirel of Joiry, by CL Moore, the first fighting heroine in fantasy. She was wearing armour and beating up the bad guys long before Brienne of Tarth was a twinkle in her creator's eye!
Then there's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - the barbarian and thief duo in the seedier quarters of the city of Lankhmar and beyond (and without Lankhmar, there would probably be no Ankh-Morpork). This series is by Fritz Leiber, and it's great fun.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams, made me stop and do a double take, but after you've got over the "But it's all about rabbits" stage, this actually does make a lot of sense - there are rabbit legends, different warrens with differing political systems, and complex interactions with other animals as Hazel, Fiver and the others struggle to establish their own warren.
A Wizard of Earthsea is another magical and detailed world, this time by Ursula K Le Guin. The classic Wizard School, with an archipelago of islands, dragons - and the white characters are these weird barbarians with a strange religion, who don't get on well with the rest of the islands.
Then there are a couple of Arthurian stories - the classic Once and Future King, by TH White, and Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff (one of my all time favourite children's authors). Another favourite children's author is Alan Garner, and The Wierdstone of Brisingamen is also on the list.
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake, also makes a lot of sense, with that convoluted and inward looking castle and a huge cast of grotesque characters.
He finishes off with some historical fiction, including classics like Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who wrote rather more than Sherlock Holmes stories), Nigel Tranter's Scottish history, Bernard Cornwell, the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser (being the further adventures of the cad and bully Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays, full of footnotes about the real history, and great fun).
Another favourite author, Sharon Penman, is mentioned for Lionheart (about King Richard, of course) but I think I'd recommend her Welsh trilogy Here Be Dragons, Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning - that is, if a reader is prepared to spend the last 200 pages of the last book sobbing, like I did (partly because I knew the history, so I knew what was going to happen to the characters). But anyone who's been through the Red Wedding would be able to cope with that, I think!
So those are my old favourites - which makes me think it really is time to start tracking down some of the other titles on the list which I haven't read. The Lies of Locke Lamora has already been recommended to me as something I might like (it's by Scott Lynch). I've also read one or two of the Conan stories, and I keep meaning to get round to the Dying Earth by Jack Vance.
Lovecraft I might leave to one side, and I suspect that Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique is similar to Lovecraft, so not my glass of tea.
Daniel Abraham's name is new to me, though, and his book Shadow and Betrayal is mentioned. So is Patrick Rothfuss and The Name of the Wind. Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold sounds promising, too.
Then there's Thomas B Costain and The Silver Chalice, Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (I love Howard Pyle's artwork, and pirates. He also did illustrations for Robin Hood). Frank Yerby's Goat Song (about Ancient Greece) is next, though I think I prefer my Ancient Greece as told by Mary Renault.
Rosemary Hawley Jarman, with Crown in Candlelight, rings a faint bell - I may have read it once. I know I've heard good things about Stephen Pressfield - the Afghan Campaign is recommended, but one of his earlier books was Gates of Fire, about Thermopylae.
The Serpent Dreamer by Cecilia Holland is next - and it's nice to see a mixture of male and female authors on this list.
Then there's Sacred Band, by David Anthony Durham. It has a dragon on the cover, which looks promising. The Devil's Oasis is by Bartle Bull, and appears to be set in Egypt. And finally, there's the Iron King by Maurice Druon.
By the time I've tracked down all of those, there's a faint possibility that George RR Martin might have finished his series!
I came across the list of 33 books that he has chosen on Huffington Post, and was delighted to see some old friends there:
No. 1 on the list is pretty obvious - it's Lord of the Rings.
However, it was No. 3 that made me go 'squee' - it's Jirel of Joiry, by CL Moore, the first fighting heroine in fantasy. She was wearing armour and beating up the bad guys long before Brienne of Tarth was a twinkle in her creator's eye!
Then there's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser - the barbarian and thief duo in the seedier quarters of the city of Lankhmar and beyond (and without Lankhmar, there would probably be no Ankh-Morpork). This series is by Fritz Leiber, and it's great fun.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams, made me stop and do a double take, but after you've got over the "But it's all about rabbits" stage, this actually does make a lot of sense - there are rabbit legends, different warrens with differing political systems, and complex interactions with other animals as Hazel, Fiver and the others struggle to establish their own warren.
A Wizard of Earthsea is another magical and detailed world, this time by Ursula K Le Guin. The classic Wizard School, with an archipelago of islands, dragons - and the white characters are these weird barbarians with a strange religion, who don't get on well with the rest of the islands.
Then there are a couple of Arthurian stories - the classic Once and Future King, by TH White, and Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff (one of my all time favourite children's authors). Another favourite children's author is Alan Garner, and The Wierdstone of Brisingamen is also on the list.
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake, also makes a lot of sense, with that convoluted and inward looking castle and a huge cast of grotesque characters.
He finishes off with some historical fiction, including classics like Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who wrote rather more than Sherlock Holmes stories), Nigel Tranter's Scottish history, Bernard Cornwell, the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser (being the further adventures of the cad and bully Flashman from Tom Brown's Schooldays, full of footnotes about the real history, and great fun).
Another favourite author, Sharon Penman, is mentioned for Lionheart (about King Richard, of course) but I think I'd recommend her Welsh trilogy Here Be Dragons, Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning - that is, if a reader is prepared to spend the last 200 pages of the last book sobbing, like I did (partly because I knew the history, so I knew what was going to happen to the characters). But anyone who's been through the Red Wedding would be able to cope with that, I think!
So those are my old favourites - which makes me think it really is time to start tracking down some of the other titles on the list which I haven't read. The Lies of Locke Lamora has already been recommended to me as something I might like (it's by Scott Lynch). I've also read one or two of the Conan stories, and I keep meaning to get round to the Dying Earth by Jack Vance.
Lovecraft I might leave to one side, and I suspect that Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique is similar to Lovecraft, so not my glass of tea.
Daniel Abraham's name is new to me, though, and his book Shadow and Betrayal is mentioned. So is Patrick Rothfuss and The Name of the Wind. Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold sounds promising, too.
Then there's Thomas B Costain and The Silver Chalice, Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates (I love Howard Pyle's artwork, and pirates. He also did illustrations for Robin Hood). Frank Yerby's Goat Song (about Ancient Greece) is next, though I think I prefer my Ancient Greece as told by Mary Renault.
Rosemary Hawley Jarman, with Crown in Candlelight, rings a faint bell - I may have read it once. I know I've heard good things about Stephen Pressfield - the Afghan Campaign is recommended, but one of his earlier books was Gates of Fire, about Thermopylae.
The Serpent Dreamer by Cecilia Holland is next - and it's nice to see a mixture of male and female authors on this list.
Then there's Sacred Band, by David Anthony Durham. It has a dragon on the cover, which looks promising. The Devil's Oasis is by Bartle Bull, and appears to be set in Egypt. And finally, there's the Iron King by Maurice Druon.
By the time I've tracked down all of those, there's a faint possibility that George RR Martin might have finished his series!
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