Ohhh literary waifus…never thought about that much. As a kid it would have been Hermione nowadays no clue. Hard to say for an overall favorite character but one that would be up there would be Strahd Von Zarovich from the Ravenloft novels. What an awesome antagonistic character he had power and knew it, but when he was over matched he also knew how to buy time until he could get rid of the one who threatened him. Love me some Strahd books.
Book wise, I’m more into Asimov’s scifi. Oldie but goodie! <3 Also, ye good ol’ Tolkien
I recently read the Hunger Games trilogy. Or rather, listened to the audiobooks I got in a Humble Bundle a while back. I like how the narrator had different voices for each character. I’m about to commit blasphemy, but I think the movies were better than the books, especially the second one. The way the interview scenes resembled actual TV shows like American Idol were something that could only be accomplished in a visual medium. They changed some scenes, but still managed to make it work. Like when Katniss meets the second Game Master for the first time, they took out the scene of him showing her his watch, but if you rewatch the scene and listen really closely to the dialogue, you can pick up the subtle foreshadowing. Plus, I liked the ending of the second movie better, where Finnick says the “arc words” to Katniss to show he’s on her side, instead of her simply remembering them. I haven’t seen the latest movie though, so no spoilers please :3
I just finished a book called Night by Elie Wiesel.
Im not sure what I was expecting from this book. Probably “it’s just another holocaust account, I already know how those go.” But this book hits fucking hard. It made me cry. Over and over again. And it all is so very real.
I won’t go into detail, because I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who is old enough to understand. All I will say is, this book won a Nobel Peace prize. That should tell you how much effect it has.
Right now I’m reading through Wheel of Time, and inbetween each WOT book I reread a Song of Ice and Fire book in preparation for Winds of Winter 
I’m also reading through the Haruhi light novel series for the second time which I adore. It gets a little weaker towards the end but I feel so comfy and at home with these characters because of how long I’ve known them. Hopefully the next one will come out soon!
I’ve also recently finished The Secret Life of Bees which I absolutely loved, Sue Monk Kidd is brilliant, almost on the level of Khaled Hosseini, almost. (A Thousand Splendid Suns is an unbelievably good novel.)
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We actually have an entire topic dedicated to light novels, if you’re interested!
Not that its wrong to call them literature~
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Thanks for that. Instantly added to my Amazon Wishlist. Sounds amazing.
I realized recently I don’t know much about that particular time in history, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever read about the holocaust other than the fictional account in The Book Thief, and I thought that novel was pretty bad honestly.
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We read that in an AP English class back in High School. That book goes over some serious shit, and does it in an absolutely fantastic way to really portray the depth of the atrocities to the reader.
What are you reading right now?
I usually read 3 books at once - one print (currently the 2nd Haruhi light novel) One Digital (currently Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger) and one Audio (currently The SIlkworm by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)
What are your favorite books?
My favorite books are the His Dark Materials series
What is your favorite genre?
I like books that border on scifi and fantasy the best. I also really like historical fiction.
What books are you looking forward to?
I have so many books in my too read stack I have chosen not to follow anything coming out.
I’m almost done with my annual re-read of the LotR trilogy, only the 2nd time I’ve read it in english tho
Want to get the english version of the Silmarillion someday, and all the History of Middle-Earth books, can never have enough Tolkien^^
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I’ve been on a mystery hunt for a while now, trying to catch up on some great classics.
Favorite author, I think, would be G.K. Chesterton, especially Orthodoxy and The Man Who Was Thursday (both are public domain, so read them for free! In fact, there are tons of public domain classics online now. You can read hundreds of fantastic books legally for free! yay). His writing style is just fantastic. Great British humor. I’ve re-read them countless times.
Though, recently, I’ve fallen in love with locked room murder mysteries again. Chesterton has an awesome series of them, called the Father Brown Mysteries. They’re absolutely fantastic. I think the order is something like The Innocence, then the Wisdom. There’s more, but I don’t see them at the moment.
Also, recently, my mind exploded. I just read about the Detection Club, which included basically all of my favorite mystery writers. G.K. Chesterton, my favorite author, was the first President; Agatha Christie, who wrote my favorite mystery novel (And Then There Were None), and Father Ronald Knox, a priest who wrote the Decalogue for the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, were part of the club and they all knew each other.
Seriously. This blew my mind. All my favorite writers ate brunch in London with each other regularly, from a journalist to an elderly lady to a Catholic monsignor. Man, I’d love to be a fly on the wall for those meetings.
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I just finished reading The Amber Spyglass, the final book in the His Dark Materials trilogy and really just have to get my thoughts out quickly. It’s great to see it mentioned multiple times in this topic!
So, as bizarre as I always find the direction it goes after The Northern Lights is, it always manages to weave such a tight narrative but above all else, and I think most would agree with me, its strongest point is its absolutely stellar cast of passionate, incredibly strong-willed characters. Yet even among all the joy I got from reading from those characters’ perspectives I live for the Will and Lyra chapters. As if just being treated to the incredible persona that is Lyra from the first book wasn’t enough, we now get a character almost, if not equal to her in passion and strong characterisation as well as the beautiful character interactions that follow.
And of course the ultimate payoff for all that is: [spoiler]when they realised they’ve been in love the whole time, right at the end. I’ve always thought that there’s nothing sweeter or cuter than young love, especially between two characters who are completely oblivious to it, but of course the bittersweetness of it all is that they can never see each other again because they have to close all the world-crossing windows. I almost like this more because the ephemerality of it makes it all the more beautiful and I love the descriptions of how Lyra and Will just spend every moment with each other on the ship back home.
I can’t help but also feel quite jealous of it all because I don’t think I will ever experience such complete, unconditional passion for another person and have it reciprocated so perfectly as is the case with Lyra and Will. And indeed the idea is that no couple has ever felt that kind of perfect love for each other which is obviously reason for the whole chain of events and prophecy etc.[/spoiler]
So I feel like this may actually place it at the top of my all time favourite book series’, toppling series like Harry Potter which I grew up with (and also love, of course). I’m definitely going to take some of the suggestions from this thread and while I’m at it, does anyone have any good recommendations for romances like the His Dark Materials series? It doesn’t even have to be the same genre, I’d just appreciate and highly regard recommendations of this type from Key fans!
Finally, has anyone read Lyra’s Oxford or the other add-on book (I forget the name) to the series by Philip Pullman? I’m almost certainly going to read them as I found one thing unique about this series that I’ve very rarely gotten from anime, movies or TV series is that I desperately didn’t want it to end; I just wanted more time with characters I so completely enjoyed.
I’m very interested also to go back and watch the film adaptation, regardless of how it is perceived, just to compare the constructs from my imagination to someone else’s interpretation of the world. That’s one thing I didn’t realised I missed about reading - this is my first foray back into reading novels for a good five years I think - it’s a very mentally active experience, whereas films interpret and stylise things in a way that doesn’t leave room for imagination.
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I loved this trilogy! Really glad to see someone enjoying this and also posting about it on Kaza! I should really re-read this trilogy soon, I think I’ll be able to appreciate it even more since I’m a fair bit older than last time I read it.
I actually recently rewatched the movie and it is unfortunately as bad as I remembered it being. It’s worth a watching for any fan of the books regardless, and it’s certainly a visually appealing movie! Very sad that they did badly with that movie, I would’ve absolutely adored seeing the entire trilogy made into movies.
Unfortunately I don’t really have answers to your other questions, since I haven’t really been into novels for quite a while now too, although I’m very interested to see how you find the add on books! I completely forgot they existed until now and never read them myself, so it’d be great if they’re cool.
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It was literally almost nine years ago when I first read it so I had the best experience. I only remembered maybe one or two major plot points over the course of the series. I’d forgotten how/if certain characters had died by the end and just generally forgot everything except the basic plot and a few key points.
I honestly wish I could do this for every story I’ve ever read/watched/played because it’s so great knowing you love something but being able to experience it fresh again!
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So after not reading any form of printed literature since I was in high school, I’ve come back and started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series. A very mainstream choice, I know.
Just finished reading the first book, and I gotta say, George R. R. Martin really has a way of putting you at the edge of your seat. Every chapter starts small and slowly builds up and ends on such an anticipatory note that you can’t help but keep reading to the next chapter.
Also the descriptions of food in the book always make me hungry
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I only read the first book, then went with the show for whatever reason, but that is one thing I remember distinctly, those descriptions always made me super hungry.
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How’re you coming along with these Papa Peeps? I made it about halfway through book 4 before life got busy; and I never have really gotten around to picking them back up (although I really need to). I remember them being really good; although there are entirely too many non-critical characters to remember who is related to whom.
I’m currently reading (rather, about to start) a little World War II literature by Cornelius Ryan. Namely “A Bridge Too Far”, “The Longest Day”, and “The Last Battle”.
I’ve just finished Storm of Swords and should get started with A Feast for Crows sometime next month! (seeing all the spoilers for season 6 on social media definitely doesn’t help). I personally liked Storm of Swords but because of what happens, I feel like the story is about to go in a very different direction from what it has been the past 3 books, and that has me worried. If my research is correct, it seems the next books will have a more in-depth focus on House Greyjoy, and that doesn’t quite interest me all that much.
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So I just recently finished reading The Fault in Our Stars (yeah I’m so damn late in the party). First of all, I’m really impressed at how well-written the whole thing is: apart from occassionally being over-descriptive about Augustus’ outfit, the book doesn’t waste text at all, and almost each scene has a relevance in the grand narrative or thematic exploration. Second, it also hits you hard in the feels gut (or maybe part of it is because I was listening to Clannad OSTs while at it hahahahaha).
I watched the movie before reading the book, though I’m not quite sure about which contents the movie excluded (it has been a long time since then haha). I’m pretty sure they left out Kaitlyn in the movie. She’s not someone that I’m really fond of - she feels too close to her stereotype to be likable, though I did appreciate that she didn’t dwell too much on Augustus’ demise as she was talking to Hazel near the end of the novel - but the scene where she debuted was my personal favorite chapter in the book. But mostly because it gave insight to Hazel’s character that we didn’t see much in the movie. (That defines the entire book too.)
That’s also why Hazel ended up being my favorite character in the book. In the movie, it was Isaac. The Night of the Broken Trophies scene and the scene with vandalizing a certain someone’s car were highlights for me hahaha
Oh yeah, the scenes after Gus passed away was pretty short in the movie, but in the novel, it encompassed a lot of pages. It did feel kind of draggy, but I thought it was an interesting point, considering how we ever rarely see stories of tragedy present us how people grieve. And there’s also thee shift in the narrative from being a story of those about to depart, to being a story of those who grieve, so the reason for the novel to have that part long. I thought that was interesting.
So I recently finished a romance novel by David Levithan called ‘Everyday’
The story follows a man named…woman named…? Wait, actually the main protagonist is…an entity?
The concept of the book revolves around A, a gender-less being that wakes up in an entirely new body everyday. A does not have a name, for the entirety of A does not exist. This being follows a 24-hour cycle in which at the start of the first second, A’s soul is ripped from the body and transferred into a new body. As A controls a new body, the entity has the power to tap into the original host’s memories in order to resume his/her day without ruining their life. A lives life day by day experiencing everyone’s happiness, anguish, and slew of problems, without having any of its own. However one day, A finds itself in the body of Justin which has a girlfriend named Rhiannon. Upon tapping into his memories, A realizes that Rhiannon has many problems with not herself, but the relationship. This has been the first time A had ever felt emotions about a individual and decides to pursue Rhiannon to be with her. A manages to repair the broken relationship and make Rhiannon fall in love again, however A needs to convince her that she did not fall in love with Justin, but with A. The following day, A wakes up in a body named Nathan Daldry and travels to where Rhiannon was, to attend a party and meet her. What A forgets is that the 24-hour cycle comes to neigh and is abruptly ripped from Nathan Daldry’s body and wakes up into another’s. This brings the suspicion of a priest who chases after the whereabouts of A bringing the idea that it is a demon possessing the bodies of others. The pursuit begins as A tries to make Rhiannon fall in love with A while avoiding its existence from the priest, everyday.
Everyday is part of a 4-book series with this book being the second. The other books technically are just different perspectives to the whole story while the last book of the series concludes the story of the second. To this date, the fourth book of the series has not been released yet.
Personally, I really like this because of the concept of accepting your reality or someone else’s. There is a huge sense of disbelief of reality when reading this. I mean, there’s no way A would actually have to keep up with the host’s life right? Whenever A is transferred to a new body, I keep thinking to myself, man A is going to screw over that host’s life on purpose one day. There would technically be no repercussions to the actions A will take. But miraculously, A does nothing of that sort. A has the sense of empathy of others, which almost all humans exude greatly. Yet, A is not a human, but an entity that has human characteristics. It makes me question what being human even means.
.
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