Philotic Web

I very much enjoyed the Song of Ice and Fire books (in spite of the scenes that made me want to throw the book across the room and/or punch George R.R. Martin in the face).

Any examples from the first two books you'd like to share?

Haha, I have a very poor memory of what happens in which book. I guess that's what happens when you read all of them over the course of two or three weeks ><. I don't want to give away anything you might not have gotten to yet, so Ill just say he seems like a sadistic bastard who likes to make his characters suffer as much as possible.

(I'm not really sure where to post this, but since Tyler is currently reading this series, I thought this was as good of a place as any!)

Dear Mr. Barry and Mr. Pearson,

My name is Tyler. I am 7 years old. I started Peter and the Starcatchers on 8-8-12 and I finished it in 2 nights! I'm already on The Bridge to Neverland.

My question is: How did you come up with Starstuff?

Thank you,

Tyler

-------

Tyler:

Dave knew there would have to be magic in Peter and the Starcatchers because the original Peter Pan has such wonderful magic in it. One day he called me and said, "I've got it!" We'd already started writing the book so I had a pretty good idea he meant the magic factor. He'd been thinking about meteors falling to earth and that maybe every once in a long while one would be something other than just plain rock... and off we went.
Thanks for asking. And especially, thanks for reading!
Ridley

That is pretty much the coolest thing I can think of happening for a little person (or a big one) who likes reading. How awesome.

I don't know why I keep reading the Todd McCaffrey/Anne McCaffrey Pern collaborations. They just aren't the same.

I think I'm now going to have to kindle the harper hall series. man those books are fun reads.

so Ill just say he seems like a sadistic bastard who likes to make his characters suffer as much as possible.

Reminded me of this:

As what I'm currently reading is The Walking Dead, I feel like Robert Kirkland should be added to the bottom of that saying "No, YOU'RE adorable."

I don't know why I keep reading the Todd McCaffrey/Anne McCaffrey Pern collaborations. They just aren't the same.

I think I'm now going to have to kindle the harper hall series. man those books are fun reads.

They really are.

I finished The Wind-up Bird Chronicle just now. I very, very much enjoyed it. I'm not sure what else to say about it at the moment. It made sense to me at this time.

I just finished Mockingjay. the end was a bit surprising because characters I expected to die did not die. I think there's a thread for this book somewhere, I should go look it up.

Just finished The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a state hospital attic. Nonfiction. Suitcases from an abandoned psych hospital are examined, certain cases are selected for further study of the patient's per-hospitalization life. Lots of photos of the bags and contents can be found by googling the Willard Suitcase Project.

I find it tremendously irritating that while most of Pern is available on the kindle, the Harper Hall trilogy is not.

If I buy and download the kindle edition from amazon.co.uk can I then load it onto my kindle?

If I buy and download the kindle edition from amazon.co.uk can I then load it onto my kindle?

Most likely not. The files operate similarly to DVDs, in that they are regional, and this leads me to believe it wouldn't work on a machine from outside that region or that Amazon wouldn't allow the user to even try, if the files do work.

I finally got around to reading Earth Unaware.

Mark of Athena and Ready Player One are next.

Even though Goodreads tends to confirm what I've always thought (people don't tend to be as enthusiastic about the books I love and vice versa), which makes me hesitant to even say anything, Every Day by David Levithan was frustratingly awesome and one of the few actual page-turners I've read.

I started it when I left the apartment yesterday on my way to downtown and managed to finish it yesterday, despite being out for 2/3 of a day and being otherwise very busy. Which may be no feat at all to certain people here but says a lot for me.

I finished The Storytelling Animal, excellent read! Neuroscience, Psychology and the human impulse for storytelling all wrapped up in one piece of scholarship.

Just started "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character" by Paul Tough. I'm only 30ish pages in but it's very interesting so far, talking about the correlation between stress/body's reaction to stress and health, path in life, etc.

It explained that the difference between well to do children and poor children in school was not due to access to information or earlier starts in school or anything like that, but rather to stress levels and ability to control impulses. Fascinating stuff and it's really turning my thinking around on some things I was so sure about before.

David and I finished the Trickster Duology and he LOVED it. All the years of teasing me for devouring Tamora Pierce books are flung back in his face!

I'm a bit wary, now, since the Trickster books are my favorite. He's anxious to read more of her, but I fear it'll be a slight decline. I think we might do Beka Copper next? I think he'd enjoy the non-Tortallan Will of the Empress most, but I don't think he'd enjoy the Circle books previous to that one... (Although I read Will of the Empress without reading the others first, had no trouble following it, and quickly back-tracked to read the others afterward. So...maybe we'll do that?) I like Alanna and Daine's books, but they're still written in that slightly episodic "younger reader" style that Tammy was shoe-horned into back in the day by the industry. David loses patience with things he doesn't find challenging and stimulating enough, so I'm wary about our success with those. Protector of the Small is more modern in it's length, style, etc, but it's not my favorite. So....back to Beka Cooper?

Either way, we've taken a break from Pierce. We're reading Allison Goodman's EON, which I looooooooooooooooooooooved when I read it last year, but am really struggling with while reading aloud right now. I don't know what my issue it. David is sufficiently interested, so we'll keep going, but I am just not as excited about reading this one as I have been reading other.

David is mostly looking forward to March, when (I think?) the sequel to PATHFINDER comes out. Apparently it pubs on October 30th!

David is mostly looking forward to March, when (I think?) the sequel to PATHFINDER comes out. Apparently it pubs on October 30th!

Thanks for the tip! I just requested it from the library!

Someone needs to remind me that my goal of 2013 is to branch out in the genres I read for fun.

We have to read a certain type of book each month for work; usually it's the genre of our choice but aiming for a certain grade or it's something that might fall under the Continuing Education category. But for November, we had to read a historical fiction, something I'd probably not have chosen to read on my own, and it was not only not terrible, it was really interesting. I learned something new today (both with regards to the type/genre of story being not too shabby and the factual elements in the story being intriguing), so yay.

I've already started reading more nonfiction because of Cezen, I think, so between you all and work, I might just become more well-rounded yet.

But mysteries...ugh. Never met a mystery I've actually liked.

But mysteries...ugh. Never met a mystery I've actually liked.

I'm not a big fan of modern mysteries, but I've found I really enjoy some of the classics like Poirot and other Agatha Christie books. The Name of the Rose was also very good, if somewhat dense. Plus, it's a mystery and a historical fiction! Originally written in Italian though, so ymmv, depending on how you feel about reading translations.

I just finished Bright of the Sky, the first in the series of The Entire and the Rose. I guess it's officially speculative fiction, but it's more just standard "the future will be different" sci-fi that then turns into that hazy sci-fi/fantasy when the main character, who is kind of a weirdly bland Mr. Perfect, goes to the alternate dimension that he's been to before, he just can't remember much about. It's really kind of a bland book, too: despite the main character being in another world that operates on completely different rules, and slowly remembering how it works, I felt like we only really got half of them. Hell, main descriptions of the world were completely ignored until the end chapters, it seemed. The author, Kay Kenyon, distributes description randomly, and sometimes only when it came into importance.

She also does this weird thing of switching the limited third-person between characters, sometimes with nothing more than a paragraph separating them. It didn't really hurt the narrative, it just sometimes felt like it didn't add anything at all. Like if a movie randomly shifted to following the fruit vendor for two minutes after James Bond blew through their shop, just to reassure you that they were okay.

In the end it was a book that I never looked forward to reading, but found myself enjoying whenever I was. I'm not sure if I'll finish the story with the other books, although I just might; I am a sucker for strained father-daughter relationships. I got this one for free, though, at my brother's recommendation, because it was on Amazon's free book download thing.

The slog of slog progresses as I continue in my reread of The Darkness that Comes Before

For an instant, Conphas felt like a thief, the hidden author of a great loss. And the exhilaration he felt almost possessed a sexual intensity. He saw clearly now why he so loved this species of war. On the field of battle, his every act was open to the scrutiny of others. Here, however, he stood outside scrutiny, enacted destiny from a place that transcended judgment or recrimination. He lay hidden in the womb of events.

Like a God.

Hah. Politicians always think so highly of themselves.

I just finished reading "Drama" by Raina Telgemeier and I'm finding myself really bothered by her choice to make a pair of twins gay. It is revealed early on that one is out and although he struggles with it a bit, that struggle doesn't seem to hold him back much. The twin, on the other hand, is revealed at the end of the book and is pretty reserved about everything. The reason it bothers me is Telgemeier seems to make the point earlier that it's annoying how people assume twins are the same person, yet the only difference between these twins seems to be their level of outgoing-ness. What are the odds that two children in the same family are going to be gay, let alone a pair of twins? It just seems like a subtle argument for or "proof" to help reinforce the idea some people have of children being "turned" or "made" gay in certain types of upbringings/households. Maybe it's not as statistically unlikely, though, as I'm imagining it being.

I just finished reading "Drama" by Raina Telgemeier and I'm finding myself really bothered by her choice to make a pair of twins gay. It is revealed early on that one is out and although he struggles with it a bit, that struggle doesn't seem to hold him back much. The twin, on the other hand, is revealed at the end of the book and is pretty reserved about everything. The reason it bothers me is Telgemeier seems to make the point earlier that it's annoying how people assume twins are the same person, yet the only difference between these twins seems to be their level of outgoing-ness. What are the odds that two children in the same family are going to be gay, let alone a pair of twins? It just seems like a subtle argument for or "proof" to help reinforce the idea some people have of children being "turned" or "made" gay in certain types of upbringings/households. Maybe it's not as statistically unlikely, though, as I'm imagining it being.

To the contrary, I think it's an argument for the position that your sexual orientation is determined by genetics before you're born from the camp that are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that nurture could have anything to do with it. What bothers me more is when authors tack on an attribute like "gayness" in an attempt to spice up a character without writing about it realistically.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough was so damn interesting, it was almost enough to get me thinking about going back into the field of education. Almost.

I just started Ready Player One and, so far, it's the first book to keep my attention in awhile. Yay!

I just started Ready Player One and, so far, it's the first book to keep my attention in awhile. Yay!

Oooh, we're reading buddies!

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough was so damn interesting, it was almost enough to get me thinking about going back into the field of education. Almost.

I was reading an article about grit a while back. It was both odd and pleasing to see it as a technical term.

Man I've been rereading The Subtle Knife for the first time since 7th grade and it has revitalized me in the weirdest of ways. I put down that lame sci-fi book from before, and was almost a quarter of the way through Knife before I went to bed.

There's just something awesome about His Dark Materials that either appeals to all age groups, or evokes the weirdest nostalgia.

Man I've been rereading The Subtle Knife for the first time since 7th grade

Wait...

::narrows eyes::

Jeff, how old are you?

Just finished Xenocide, which reminded me I hadn't been around pweb in a long time. Also, I think, now that I'm older and was able to focus on the book more and therefore understand the concepts more, Xenocide has become my favorite book in the whole Ender saga.

human. posting is a lot less interesting than another person admitting a love for Xenocide. One of us! One of us!

According to xkcd there are seven of you (us? I need to reread them all and assess again).

I love Xenocide. Not sure if it's my favorite, but I love the whole original Ender quartet so very very much.

David and I finished the Trickster Duology and he LOVED it. All the years of teasing me for devouring Tamora Pierce books are flung back in his face!

I'm a bit wary, now, since the Trickster books are my favorite. He's anxious to read more of her, but I fear it'll be a slight decline. I think we might do Beka Copper next? I think he'd enjoy the non-Tortallan Will of the Empress most, but I don't think he'd enjoy the Circle books previous to that one... (Although I read Will of the Empress without reading the others first, had no trouble following it, and quickly back-tracked to read the others afterward. So...maybe we'll do that?) I like Alanna and Daine's books, but they're still written in that slightly episodic "younger reader" style that Tammy was shoe-horned into back in the day by the industry. David loses patience with things he doesn't find challenging and stimulating enough, so I'm wary about our success with those. Protector of the Small is more modern in it's length, style, etc, but it's not my favorite. So....back to Beka Cooper?

Daine was definitely my favorite of her quartets, but the Trickster Duology is probably second. I haven't read them in a while though, so maybe I'm just biased by younger me. Are there more Beka Cooper books after Trickster?

Man I've been rereading The Subtle Knife for the first time since 7th grade

Wait...

::narrows eyes::

Jeff, how old are you?

Hate to break it to you, hun, but Knife came out in 1997. I was nine.

Damnit!

David has this thing where he believes everyone is the same height he is, regardless of any blindingly obvious evidence to the contrary.

I have this thing where I believe everyone is the same age as I am.

Damnit!

David has this thing where he believes everyone is the same height he is, regardless of any blindingly obvious evidence to the contrary.

Huh... I have never heard of this one before.