2012 reading goals

Finish Memories of Ice. I've started it about four times, got as far as half way, then put it down. I find it well-written but emotionally gruelling.

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by emotionally grueling, (But then I love a good emotional book myself) but I'd say that book is Steven Erikson's crowning pinnacle of achievement, Mine, as well as many other people's favorite book in the entire series.



For myself, I think I'm at last getting around to reading Guy Gavriel Kay's books, just got Tigana on my ereader. China Mievelle would be next on the list after that, as well as Ian Esselmont, since he is throwing out books quickly now and I've only read his first.
 
You make it [rereading The Worm Ouroboros]sound like a chore or something...:rolleyes:


:eek:Sorry! My bad. I'm looking forward to rereading it in March if all goes as planned.

I've added another book to my 2012 reading goals, too:

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I already have a copy.

I've set myself the goal of buying no books, unless something quite exceptional, for February-April. I bought about 20 books in January and I need to slow down the buying and just do some reading. Guilty of bibliophilic intemperance!
 
Say hi to For Whom the Bell Tolls for me, it's one of my all time favorites.

I read my first Hemmingway story last week with The Killers in a collection i sampled in the library. 8 page story that has very nice prose that was hardboiled like it was written by Hammett.

I was wondering do you think For Whom the Bell Tolls is a good place to try him novel wise ?

I dont know what most of his famous novel is about except some war story,bull fighting or something. I dont like to read synopsis when its a first time novel read of an author. Like to go in fresh.
 
I read my first Hemmingway story last week with The Killers in a collection i sampled in the library. 8 page story that has very nice prose that was hardboiled like it was written by Hammett.

I was wondering do you think For Whom the Bell Tolls is a good place to try him novel wise ?

I dont know what most of his famous novel is about except some war story,bull fighting or something. I dont like to read synopsis when its a first time novel read of an author. Like to go in fresh.

I think For Whom the Bell Tolls is his "heaviest" book. Dense prose, dense imagery. In my opinion it's his best and most satisfying. The Sun Also Rises is probably his "lightest" book, and his first (I think). A Farewell to Arms is his--get ready for it--"mediumest" book. Any of the three would make a good starting point in my opinion. They are all very different stories, with very different feels.

Also, you mention Hammett, he and Hemingway were good pals.
 
I think For Whom the Bell Tolls is his "heaviest" book. Dense prose, dense imagery. In my opinion it's his best and most satisfying. The Sun Also Rises is probably his "lightest" book, and his first (I think). A Farewell to Arms is his--get ready for it--"mediumest" book. Any of the three would make a good starting point in my opinion. They are all very different stories, with very different feels.

Also, you mention Hammett, he and Hemingway were good pals.

You dont want to read a light book as the first of a classic author modern great or not. Not like he is famous for light adventure books.

The two other books sounds good. I think i will get before that Snows of Klimanjaro collection because of the famous story and i am a big short story fan.

I didnt not know Hammett and Hemingway knew each other even! They are linked mostly with critics,literary history because of the lean sparse prose style and the objective camera POV writing that literary text books likes to often mention their names together with. Hammett prose style is one of the reasons he is one of my biggest literary heroes. Why i want to try Hemingway with his famous lean prose before other American authors of his generation.
 
I want to read an alternative, and if possible highly regarded, work by each of the authors featured in the Fantasy Masterworks series, i.e. a work not included on the list. Thus far I've completed ER Eddison's Styrbiorn the Strong, Gene Wolfe's There Are Doors and have nearly completed Michael Swanwick's The Stations of the Tide. I've already got three more lined up for this month, John M Ford's The Last Hot Time, Jonathan Carroll's The Bones of the Moon, and Geoff Ryman's Air, with George RR Martin's Dying of the Light, M John Harrison's The Course of the Heart and Roger Zelazny's This Immortal booked for March.

I also plan to get round to reading Tolkien's LOTR sometime this year.
 
I want to read an alternative, and if possible highly regarded, work by each of the authors featured in the Fantasy Masterworks series, i.e. a work not included on the list.
That sounds like an interesting goal. Something I plan to do once I've finished the FM series with all the authors that I liked.
 
This year I'm stuffing myself with Epic Fantasy since I want to down as much as possible from Malazan, A song of Ice and Fire and The wheel of time. That being my main goal for this year, to get those out the way as much as possible so I can concentrate next year on more contemporary fantasy and sci-fi authors.
In between each tome of these fantasy series I want to read something as far out as possible from my comfort zone. So far...not so good I'd say but I'm getting there as my next book to read after The great hunt is Despre omul frumos (Of the beautiful man), by Dan Puric, something I would never have thought would be on my reading list (it's a compilation of stories and interviews about how Romania CAN have beauty in it and how...after years of literature and film deriding our country...it's a welcome change of pace).
 
This year I'm stuffing myself with Epic Fantasy since I want to down as much as possible from Malazan, A song of Ice and Fire and The wheel of time.
Are you sure that's wise? Especially with "The Wheel of Time". You really got a huge chunk of you life you want to throw away? :p
 
Get a Kindle. It'll save me a fortune. :)

I'd like to get Edmund Cooper's back catalogue and start reading them again.
 
Are you sure that's wise? Especially with "The Wheel of Time". You really got a huge chunk of you life you want to throw away? :p

The Wheel of time is the series I'm prepared to throw away the moment it starts to stink and I'll just wiki the ending afterwards, or get some audio books to rock me to sleep at night. I'm not particularly set on completing series that I will not enjoy and am ready to stop at any time that my enjoyment goes away. I just want these series out of the way (or just given their chance) otherwise they'll just keep nagging me on the edge of my consciousness each time I'll think about what to read next.
 
The Wheel of time is the series I'm prepared to throw away the moment it starts to stink and I'll just wiki the ending afterwards, or get some audio books to rock me to sleep at night. I'm not particularly set on completing series that I will not enjoy and am ready to stop at any time that my enjoyment goes away. I just want these series out of the way (or just given their chance) otherwise they'll just keep nagging me on the edge of my consciousness each time I'll think about what to read next.

The Wheel of Time is a good series, its just not for everyone. The books were written for the more serious fantasy readers I think. I've read all the books so far and think its worth finishing. Readers get scared away from it because the series is a huge time sink, very long, complex story. There is a lot of detail going on in the books.

Saying that, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, which you have also mentioned is much the same kind of books. I've also read all them and believe they too are worth reading.

Song of Ice and Fire, I don't think I need to say anything about that series, its a masterpiece.
 
Why do people keep saying it is a good series as if it is even finished, as if it is ever going to be (not by Robert Jordan anyway)? It doesn't start too badly but by the middle it had developed to shameless padding and an obvious cash cow he author never tired of fattening.
 
Do we say George R.R. Martin's books are a good series?

Anyway, its only got 1 book to go that will be released later this year. I don't think Robert Jordan can help it that he passed away before finishing the series.
 
Anyway, its only got 1 book to go that will be released later this year. I don't think Robert Jordan can help it that he passed away before finishing the series.
Well, he only died 17 years after publishing the first volume, it would have been unreasonable to write a complete story in such a short time...:rolleyes:
 
I'm not doing so bad. I've sort of specified my strict goal as two books a week and, if I finish my current book today, I'll be a week ahead with 20 books in 9 weeks. Unfortunately, this includes stacking the deck by tending to pick shorter books. ;)
 

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