The Reader’s Nook - The N&G Book Thread

sorcerer said:
After picking it up on a whim in May, 2018, I have finally finished "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones.
This book is a masterpiece. By far the most intricate story I've read. Almost every character is developed in some way, and everything in the story is connected.
The choice to switch between different timeframes throughout the book is something unlike anything I've ever read, and I felt it to be my favorite part of the book.
It's written beautifully, and once you're engrossed in a chapter it becomes very hard to leave it.

There are many scenes from the book, like Stamford getting the blueberries or Counsel on his deathly journey, that would work amazingly in a television series. Unfortunately, the way that the book is written makes it borderline un-adaptable, and the wide array of characters would probably confuse a lot of people. If a really talented cast and team come together to do it, it would certainly be a sight to behold, but it may be a while.

This review dedicated 7 paragraphs to it and I felt it was a better explanation than what I could give regarding the contents of the book.
It doesn't spoil anything that would ruin more than the first page of the book. It would be incredibly hard to spoil everything in the book anyways, as there are many many many surprises in it.
www.nytimes.com

People Who Owned People (Published 2003)

John Vernon reviews following books: The Known World by Edward P Jones; and Truth by Jacqueline Sheehan; drawing (M)
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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I was looking for my next book to start today. So thank you! I just borrowed this ebook from my library.
 
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sorcerer said:
One thing you may want to know going into it is that Jones introduced a lot of characters in the first 100 pages or so. Like, so many that it was hard for me to remember who some of them even were.
Fortunately, almost every time he writes about a character that isnt one of the main ones, especially if they haven't been brought up in a while, he'll introduce them with their occupation and relationship to the main characters. So by the end of the book there are like 30+ people you can describe.
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Thank you for telling me this! I get really overwhelmed when I can't keep the characters straight in my head. And I've been known to come up with a spread sheet to help with that for really dense books. You have preempted the panic with your advice.
 
sorcerer said:
Now that my I'm ready for another book, I think it's time I give this one a try

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Indymisanthrope said:
I'm gonna try tackling that one for the first time during the holiday break this year when I can give it uninterrupted attention.
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I reread the first half earlier this summer, then set it aside due to my ever-growing backlog. Trying to keep the reread closer to the movie's release next year (so hyped). It's good stuff; the first time I got all the way through it was my fourth or fifth stab at it; knowing Herbert was interested in ecology helped put a lot of the ideas and worldbuilding into perspective.
 
sorcerer said:
After picking it up on a whim in May, 2018, I have finally finished "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones.
This book is a masterpiece. By far the most intricate story I've read. Almost every character is developed in some way, and everything in the story is connected.
The choice to switch between different timeframes throughout the book is something unlike anything I've ever read, and I felt it to be my favorite part of the book.
It's written beautifully, and once you're engrossed in a chapter it becomes very hard to leave it.

There are many scenes from the book, like Stamford getting the blueberries or Counsel on his deathly journey, that would work amazingly in a television series. Unfortunately, the way that the book is written makes it borderline un-adaptable, and the wide array of characters would probably confuse a lot of people. If a really talented cast and team come together to do it, it would certainly be a sight to behold, but it may be a while.

This review dedicated 7 paragraphs to it and I felt it was a better explanation than what I could give regarding the contents of the book.
It doesn't spoil anything that would ruin more than the first page of the book. It would be incredibly hard to spoil everything in the book anyways, as there are many many many surprises in it.
www.nytimes.com

People Who Owned People (Published 2003)

John Vernon reviews following books: The Known World by Edward P Jones; and Truth by Jacqueline Sheehan; drawing (M)
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...

I finished this book yesterday. Wow. Now *that* is some epic storytelling. There were times when the author had us going from one timeline to another and back again all within 2 sentences. And it wasn't confusing. Incredible writing. I can see why you say it would be hard to adapt as a series. It took me about 100 pages to really get into it. But once I did, it was hard to put down. Excellent recommendation, thank you!
 
sorcerer said:
omg you finished it already. I would've only been like 50 pages into it if I had started it couple weeks ago.
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I have challenged myself to read 52 books in a year. Which means I need to read 1 a week. And I think it took me 8 days. Also - I was sick last week. Home from work one day. And didn't go out this weekend. That was a lot of reading time.

Otherwise, yes, it would have taken me a good bit more time.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
How are you tracking on that for the year? I've been trying to keep pace for 26 a year, and struggling in the summertime, then falling behind. I don't like to give up on books, but I can definitely tell when I run into a book that I don't like, because my progress slows to a crawl.

Anyway, I started to realize that when I focused less on the number of books, and more on the amount of reading I was doing, that targeting ~30 pages a day felt attainable, and would get me to 27 400-page books a year (+/- depending on actual page counts).

I feel more accomplishment when I read multiple books, but I actually end up reading more when I try to maintain a steady rate.
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I am at 22 books for 18 weeks. Which is great, it gives me some breathing room for the more difficult books.

I have a note in my phone where I keep track. I try to make sure I start a new book every Sunday. So, if I finish one earlier in the week, I can start a new one or just give myself a few days to read magazines or whatever. And if I use my kindle, I know I should read 17% of a book a day in order to get myself to that 1 a week (I did some weird internal calculus to come up with that number). So that is very similar to your number of pages per day. If I'm reading a book, I'll divide the total pages by 7 and try to aim for that daily amount. I know that sounds like a lot of rules for myself. But I get distracted with other things. So giving myself daily and weekly goals keeps me from being distracted. And it also is making it become more of a habit than a rule. I just do it now.

I can also tell if I don't like a book - I don't finish my 17%. And it helps me decide whether or not to call it a loss or to kick my butt into gear.
 
Teeeee said:
I am at 22 books for 18 weeks. Which is great, it gives me some breathing room for the more difficult books.

I have a note in my phone where I keep track. I try to make sure I start a new book every Sunday. So, if I finish one earlier in the week, I can start a new one or just give myself a few days to read magazines or whatever. And if I use my kindle, I know I should read 17% of a book a day in order to get myself to that 1 a week (I did some weird internal calculus to come up with that number). So that is very similar to your number of pages per day. If I'm reading a book, I'll divide the total pages by 7 and try to aim for that daily amount. I know that sounds like a lot of rules for myself. But I get distracted with other things. So giving myself daily and weekly goals keeps me from being distracted. And it also is making it become more of a habit than a rule. I just do it now.

I can also tell if I don't like a book - I don't finish my 17%. And it helps me decide whether or not to call it a loss or to kick my butt into gear.
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I should say - I didn't start on Jan 1. I started on July 1. I don't know why, I think it just happened to be that month that the idea popped into my head. I hit 42 books last year. So I'm hoping to best that this year.
 
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LeSamourai said:
100ish 😬

I set a goal of 52 for this year to try to read less (not joking), but it didn't work. Maybe next year.
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Wow, I'm impressed. That is 2 a week or so. But why are you trying to cut back? Reading is awesome.

BjorgenFjorgen said:
Oh man, I just try to read 5,000 pages a year. I haven't come close to 10,000 since university.
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I have never thought to make total number of pages my goal. Mostly because I'm bad at math - roughly how many books would you say that is?
 
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Teeeee said:
I have never thought to make total number of pages my goal. Mostly because I'm bad at math - roughly how many books would you say that is?
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I use Goodreads (and a spreadsheet) to keep track, so it adds it all up for me. But I read books of varying lengths all the time, so it seems more accurate for me to compare years that way, instead of reading five fewer books in a year I tackle Gravity's Rainbow or something and thinking I that I didn't read much.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Wow. What kind of books are we talking? I can get through something fairly quickly if I'm trying to understand the gist of an idea and am sort of scanning for important points, but it's tough for me to absorb fiction/pleasure reading at that rate for sure.
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A bit of everything, it's probably about 2/3 nonfiction, stuff like science, linguistics, psychology, technology, philosophy, economics and such, whatever seems interesting, and on the fiction side, science fiction and literary fiction being the most common. I'm usually reading 8-10 books at a time, so it's more like I'm finishing a couple of books a week than reading them that fast, though.

I figure I should read less so I can become more of a normal person. I haven't watched any sports in years, and I prefer books on a topic to news on the same thing, but I find that this leaves me cut off from what people are talking about at work and at social events and things like that...
 
Anyone a fan of Tana French's Dublin Murder Squad series and super nervous about the Starz adaptation that starts airing this weekend? I love those books so goddamn much I think I'm going to avoid the show. Adapting the first two books in eight episodes? Surely that's a recipe for disaster.
 
I'm about to start Middlegame by Seanan McGuire. Well, I did start it last night but read 2 pages so does that even count? Lol. I'm super excited about it. Has anyone read it?

It has to have one of the greatest opening lines ever:

There is so much blood.
 
Did anyone finish that Night in the Lonesome October readthrough? I really wanted to do it, but the way the first few chapters were set up made it really difficult to track what was going on and, thus, to stick with it.
 
LeSamourai said:
Hmmmm... I just finished Ted Chiang's Exhalation, his second collection of short stories. The guy only writes one short story every couple of years, but man, they are STORIES. One of the stories from his first collection was the basis for the movie Arrival.
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How was Exhalation? The NYT times printed one of the stories from that back in the spring and I finally got around to reading it recently. It was the one about the prisms and branching timelines. I thought it was great, but wasn't sure if they were all at that level. It felt very similar to the story that Arrival was based on - I like how he hammers out the details of how it all works but it never feels overly technical just for the sake of nerding out - it's always directed toward heightening the dramatic tension of the ultimately human story and giving you that emotional resonance that sticks with you. It feels like he's writing more squarely for the world we actually inhabit than other sci-fi writers I've read, but I really don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to science fiction. Like, he's not conducting thought experiments, he's just bending the rules of the universe to tell the story he's trying to tell.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Yeah, I finished it up on Tuesday. I was disappointed. For something that seems to have a pretty enthusiastic following online, it never really comes together in any satisfying way. It's basically "can you guess which thinly veiled character this is supposed to be?" for 275 pages (with one weird dreamlike interlude and one action scene with Jack that is ultimately meaningless), followed by a 5-page 'climax.' If you want a Zelazny fix, just read Nine Princes in Amber instead.

Sorry I encouraged some of you to spend money on this; it was a bust, imo.
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No need to apologize. I liked the idea of doing a read-through of something together.
 
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