Read the whole thing once, had a friend who was a big fan. Entirely... unimpressed myself, no matter how much she still tried to persuade me even after the fact. But hey, tastes and all.
Oddest bit was the switch between books 5 and 6, when it changes character and I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on.

That's not what I wanted to hear... :|
Could you please tell me something like "hey, ciemnogrodzianin, don't be daunted! it's only the first volume of ten - read on, it's much better in the next volumes!". I'd be grateful ;)

How To Read And Why by Harold Bloom, Christ Recrucified by Nikos Kazantzakis and several stories from Lovecraft (I own the complete fiction, which contains everything he have ever written).

Now I begun Steppenwolf by Herman Esse and the first few pages I read, they really piqued my interest.

Just finished The Martian and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Both far superior to the respective movies. I highly recommend reading Peregrine before watching if you intend to do both. A huge part of the fun is the slow build up of whats going on thats lost in the movie. The Martian, whats to say? Just a good down home sci-fi survival yarn.

I've bought, read and sold my copy of The Martian, because it wasn't anything special. Looking off, I need to admit that it was really decent sci-fi novel and cannot remember when I've received such a solid research and interesting story last time. It's really great book, definitely worth reading. Movie is just ok, nothing more. I believe psychological part is missing here, as always between book and movie.

Regarding Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - is there any sense to watch the movie if I read the book and consider it quite mediocre?

Not unless you are a huge Tim Burton fan. All his quirkiness on display as a director. Even stop animation.

I used to know a guy who knew Zelazny and he said Zelazny told him that he basically just cranked out the second cycle of books because he really needed easy cash. So that's probably why they're not as well-regarded.

I do like the first cycle of books, although I wouldn't say they totally live up to their reputation.

I had no idea that it's Tim Burton's movie! It changes everything. Now I know it's must-watch for me :D Thanks!

Texas Wind by James Reasoner. Reasoner is a Texas writer and this is basically a hard-boiled private eye story set in Fort Worth. Cody (not clear if first or last name) is a PI hired by a rich woman to locate her missing step-daughter. It's a well-written book. The style is not flashy, which is a good thing with stories like this. Things start simple, then something unexpected happens, then something even more unexpected happens, and then by the end you feel like you got the rug pulled out from under you but when you go back and skim through the first chapter again you realize it was right there all along. The ending is kind of haunting and thought-provoking in an understated way. Reasoner is not especially well-known outside of crime or western fiction circles, but he's the kind of writer who just tells good stories and makes it look easy even though it really isn't.

Time for an update, after some months. I took a dig in my mother's book shelf, came out with Angela's ashes. After that, I needed something entirely different, so I ended up with De natuur als uitvinder (Nature as inventor), about biomechanics and how we can enhance our technology and social structures by just looking at what natural selection has lead to. Afterwards, it was time for some world-destruction, with Frank Schätzing's The Swarm. If you like a well-researched thriller about how the oceans turn upon is, it's absolutely worth a read!

Finally, I had my first (but certainly not last) dip in Discworld, starting with Guards! Guards!. I hope to continu that series somewhere before the end of 2017.

Read so far:
#1: Agents of Empire (Noal Malcolm)
#2: Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
#3: De natuur als uitvinder (Ylva Poelman)
#4: The Swarm (Frank Schätzing)
#5: Guards! Guards!

★★★ The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Mark Twain

What can I say? The real gem deserving it's place in the canon. No matter how many years you are - you should read it once again. Wonderful story, absolutely unique sense of humour and the style making it a real pleasure to read.


★★☆ The Inner Life of Animals / Peter Wohlleben

Not as good as "The Hidden Life of Trees", which is simply a masterpiece, but good enough to be worth reading.


★☆☆ You Are Doing a Great Job: 100 Ways You're Winning at Parenting / Biz Ellis
★★★ Woodwork Step by Step / DK Publishing
★☆☆ Berserk / Paweł Majka
★★☆ Armenia. Karawany śmierci / Andrzej Brzeziecki
★★☆ Games People Play / Eric Berne
★☆☆ Zabawka Boga / Tadeusz Biedzki
★☆☆ Kaddish for an Unborn Child / Imre Kertész
★☆☆ Ślady / Jakub Małecki
★★★ The Sea-Wolf / Jack London
★☆☆ On the Beach / Nevil Shute
★★☆ Nicholas and the Gang / René Goscinny
★★☆ The Sword of the Lictor / Gene Wolfe

List of all 2017 books.

Glad to see something in this thread again. Sad to see it quiet for over a month.

(Me, still haven't read any book since Quiet, sadly. Not that it counts, but 2 days ago I read Naomi Novik's short stories which show up in the Temeraire series on Goodreads, though that's only true for the very short Feast or Famine. Vici is something entirely different, set in the time of the Roman Empire, just sharing the fact that it's the start of the relationship of a newly hatched dragon with what in the series would be called her captain and includes a bit of fighting. Would have been nice to see that setting explored more in this way too, but sure hope not with this set of human characters, as in this case not even the captain is any less of a representative of the human filth I had to struggle to ignore during the series.)

This Summer of 2017:

Destination: Void by Frank Herbert
It gives a feeling of stress and suspense throughout the novel, as the awakened colony ship crew scrambles to scrounge up an artificial intelligence to direct the ship after its organic ship brain and its backups died.

The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom
Colonists tries to colonize hostile Pandora. It is not going well.

The Lazarus Effect by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom
Set 400 years later after the Jesus Incident. Somehow the small continents of land disappears beneath the sea after the kelp is killed off. The colonists is split into organic island dwelling Mutants and underwater bunker dwelling Mermen.

The Ascension Factor by Bill Ransom & Frank Herbert
I believe this was the first novel after Frank Hebert's death. Per the novel intro, it was pretty much written by Bill Ransom. A disappointing conclusion to the Pandoran trilogy, imo.

Direct Descent by Frank Herbert
My first new Frank Hebert novel in many years. Interesting but quite short. It left me wanting more. Earth has become a galactic library planet, with knowledge crammed in underground libraries reaching many miles to the core. It has survived the centuries despite its government overlords changing politics.

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
A collection of quite entertaining and thoughtful short stories about robots, from the bickering troubleshooting duo sent to fix malfunctioning robots to the mind reading robot.

You can't be disappointed by Isaac Asimov.

Sword of Destiny by Sapkowski. The second collection of Witcher short stories. I think I liked the stories in The Last Wish a bit more. Maybe I'm not remembering clearly but there seemed to be less action in these and the Witcher is already a fairly talky series from what I've seen so far. Still entertaining, though.

The Robot Novels; The Caves of Steel/The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
The Robots of Dawn by Isaac Asimov

Thoughtful reading on the relationships between humans and robots, on Earth and on Spacer worlds. Crimes have happened and Detective Baley have to solve them, oftentimes with help of his "humaniform" Spacer partner, Daneel Olivaw.