lol, I'm fearful of that happening at some point. No way can 14 books at 750+ pages each be exciting the whole way through. That's what turned me off the LOTR book - I got tired of 30 pages describing a meal.Could you perhaps point out the thirty page meal description? I don’t recall it.
From memory (because I CBF looking at the bloody thing again) there’s a long description very early on of a feast where all the muppets, I mean hobbits, pig out.
Check your memory then. There’s no such scene.
I’ll be the first to admit that LotR drags early on, when it’s all hoibbits being quaint, pootling about and stealing mushrooms, and Tom Bombadil making rhymes and so on, but tonally it changes completely later on, and the story just drives and is stark, spartan, and utterly relentless, and there’s plenty of modern authors of multi-volume epic who could learn from his efficiency and ability to paint indelible pictures with a few carefully-crafted paragraphs… I’ve always thought that Tolkien started out telling a very different story to the one he ended up finishing.
Speaking of multi-volume epics though, I just finished Shadows of the Apt, and in general I can highly recommend it. Really original fantasy world where EVERYONE in the world is some sort of insect-person, with tech level starting to move from mad-scientist steampunk clockwork to late 1800s industrial, characters who are interesting and who change (and change sides) as time goes past, and who the author is not afraid to casually kill off. These books actually do main character death better than ASoIaF i reckon, because GRRM makes the killing of a main character a huge plot event around which plans and schemes circle for hundreds of pages, while Tchaikovsky just has them die, randomly and abruptly, to a random bolt in the middle of a battle scene, which really rubs in the cruelty of it all.
It’s an awfully long series, but probably only one book (Sea Watch) feels somewhat meandering at times. The first books he’s still finding his feet a little, the last feels like it’s trying to cram too much into it, and the relationship between two main characters never quite rings 100% true to me (it’s not a book about The Designated Couple Getting Together, but the series spans years of time and things do develop a bit between various different characters). But still some of the best and most original fantasy I’ve read in a long time. In scale it’s a lot like the malazan books, very military-focused, but the characters are infinitely more relatable (and distinguishable), the plot less opaque and metaphysical, and there are less unnecessay apostrophes in peoples names. Recommend it highly. His next book is a standalone, it’s sitting on my coffee table and I’m looking forward to it greatly.
Sorry, I got half way through your post and got bored.
Sorry, I got half way through your post and got bored.
Lol.
I got this far & laughed so hard I popped a rib…
“his efficiency and ability to paint indelible pictures with a few carefully-crafted paragraphs”
Thats so the opposite to reality.
It was probably in old old blitz when I spoke on JRR, but I read the Hobbit as a kid, & went on later to LOTR, at maybe 12 - 13?
Remembered getting into it but not finishing it.
So when the movies are coming out a mate gets it & reads it & I borrow it to do the same. I get halfway through & it all comes back to me why I didn’t finish it the 1st time. It was like deja vu.
I’d put money on it that I stopped & consigned it to the bin on exactly the same page. A more long winded, unending, unmitigated borefest I’ve not encountered.
Fantasy is hard enough, but 10 15 pages describing some hollow they camped in o/nite in a forest was beyond ridiculous. I’ve never been back to the genre in books movies or TV, life is too short to waste on such things.
Concur on fantasy, BSD.
Some of it on TV is OK (GOT).
Book 3 of Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy is here and i am excited.
Terry Pratchett’s daughter has officially retired the Discworld novels; she won’t write any more and she won’t give out the rights to anyone else. Personally I think it’s the right choice. I’d hate to see it all go the way that the Dune universe books have ie ■■■■■■■ ■■■■.
This one sounds like it could be interesting. l didn’t read this in high school, but years later. l am glad l waited to read it, as by then l had a greater appreciation of her craft.
Beyond To Kill a Mockingbird: The lost novel
Beyond To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee
Kathleen Drew
July 08, 2015
The literary world is poised for what many are calling the biggest book event of the decade, the July 14 publication of Harper Lee’s long lost first novel Go Set a Watchman. Lee has not published a book since 1960, when she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. The novel was an instant sensation, won the 34-year-old author a Pulitzer Prize and was later made into an Academy Award-winning movie. Fans gave up long ago on the hope that it would be followed by a second book, and Lee herself reportedly told friends she could never complete another novel. When the lost manuscript, the precursor to Mockingbird, was found, anticipation reached a fever pitch — as did concern over the author’s true wishes.
“All I want to be is the Jane Austen of Southern Alabama,” Harper Lee told Roy Newquist in a taped radio conversation in 1964, her last formal interview. Lee greatly exceeded that wish with Mockingbird. In the decades that followed its publication, Mockingbird has sold over 40 million copies, has been translated into over 40 languages and is required reading for many middle school students in the United States and beyond.
In meticulous Southern prose, Mockingbird focused on segregation, tolerance and the trial of a black man falsely accused of raping a young white woman during the Depression era in rural Alabama. “I thought she was extremely courageous to write that book about her hometown. Of course, she said it was fiction but we could identify some of the characters from people in town,” said Mary Tucker, a retired African-American schoolteacher who lived through segregation and who spoke with Yahoo global news anchor Katie Couric in Monroeville, Ala, Lee’s hometown. Rick Bragg, a former New York Times journalist and best-selling author from Alabama, told Katie, “She wrote the story that explained us to ourselves. A lot of us, you know, were not piebald racists. A lot of us knew that the cruelty that came to light in our region was dead wrong,” he says. “But she put it in a story.”
Beyond To Kill a Mockingbird: The lost novel of Harper Lee
Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee in 1926, one of four children. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was a homemaker. Everyone who knows her calls her Nelle, which was derived from her grandmother’s name, Ellen, spelled backwards. She grew up next door to another famous writer, Truman Capote, and they bonded.
After Capote headed to New York City to begin a writing career, Nelle, then 23, followed in 1949. She held various jobs, including ticket agent for Eastern Airlines, and struggled financially but continued to write when she could. Thanks to a generous gift from friends Michael and Joy Brown in New York, Lee was able to take a year off to write.
She wrote her first novel, and a talented editor named Tay Hohoff told her the manuscript had some interesting characters, but the narrative wasn’t perfect. Lee was directed to go and focus on the characters when they were 20 years younger, in the 1930s. After two years of writing and rewriting, the result was To Kill a Mockingbird.
The book catapulted Lee into the limelight, but the media attention became too much for her and she retreated from the public eye, refusing interviews and appearances. It looked like there would be no second act for Lee.
But that all changed last February when publishing house Harper Collins announced that a new book had been discovered. Lee had moved back to Monroeville after suffering a stroke and was in an assisted living facility. Tonja Carter, Lee’s lawyer, said she had found the manuscript for Go Set a Watchman last August in a safe deposit box.
“Nobody quite knew where it was. The author, Harper Lee, didn’t know where it was,” said Jonathan Burnham, Senior Vice President and Publisher of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins. He says Carter contacted Lee’s literary agent, who also read it. They talked to Lee themselves and then came to HarperCollins because it is the publisher of Mockingbird, according to Burnham.
Burnham says the book was unedited and takes place in the 1950s. “Jean Louise, who is Scout as a grown woman, is a 26-year-old girl working in New York City who goes back to her home town of Maycomb and visits her father, strikes up old friendships, visits characters that we remember from Kill a Mockingbird,” Burnham says. “It’s the story of that particular visit and what happens on that visit.”
HarperCollins has printed over two million copies and with the strongest presales in the company’s history, Watchman jumped to the top of many bestseller lists. But the controversy over the book’s discovery was just beginning. Many wondered if Lee, then 88, deaf and suffering from macular degeneration, had agreed to the publication.
Sam Therrell, who owns Radley’s Fountain Grille in Monroeville and knew Lee for many years, is among those who are suspicious. “This so-called ‘discovery’ of the manuscript didn’t ring true to me,” he told Yahoo News. “As far as her ability to effectively give her consent, I have serious doubts that she did that either.”
A complaint of elder abuse was filed with Alabama’s Department of Human Resources. The Alabama Securities Commission was enlisted, as well, to look into whether Lee was able to consent to the book’s publication. Lee and others at the Meadows assisted living facility were interviewed. The agencies told Yahoo News they closed the investigation after finding she was coherent and wanted the book published.
Dr. Wayne Flynt, a professor emeritus of history at Auburn University, has met with Harper Lee more than 100 times since she returned to Monroeville, and continues to visit her regularly. “All I know is members of the family felt this is probably not a good idea. And, when they (asked Harper Lee), ‘Are you sure you want to do this?,’ five times in two days she said, ‘Of course. Yes’,” said Flynt.
The controversy over the discovery of Watchman ratcheted up a notch recently, bringing into question exactly when the manuscript was discovered. Sotheby’s confirmed to Yahoo News a report that rare books specialist Justin Caldwell went to Monroeville in October of 2011 to look at Lee’s literary documents, stored in a bank safety deposit box, for insurance and other purposes at the request of Lee’s agent at the time, Samuel Pinkus.
In a statement to Yahoo News, Pinkus says he, Caldwell and lawyer Carter were present when the documents were being reviewed. Pinkus wrote, “The review by Ms. Carter, me and Mr. Caldwell took some time and Ms. Carter fully participated.”
Tonja Carter wrote in a statement, “During my time in the meeting no one said, and it never occurred to me, that there appeared to be a manuscript of a second book in the safe deposit box.” She added there were no comments made about finding a second book in subsequent emails with Pinkus, and maintains that she discovered Watchman in August of 2014.
Meanwhile, the controversy has not put a damper on readers’ interest and booksellers’ promotions. Barnes and Noble, with 648 stores, is promoting Watchman by reintroducing Mockingbird, which has enjoyed a big boost in sales.
Will Go Set a Watchman burnish Harper Lee’s credentials as one of the greatest American writers of all time, or will it be a disappointing, unpolished story in need of the refinement that brought us Mockingbird?
Readers around the world will be able to judge for themselves on July 14.
She’s currently second in the all time record stakes for “the difficult second release” behind that carpenter bloke.
So I am about 250 pages into book 3 of the Wheel of Time series (as discussed a page back). It is not dragging at all. I think the secret to that so far is the fact the back story is told as a part of the actual story, i.e. there aren’t pages dedicated to the back story itself which is my complaint with LOTR.
Geez it’s a great read so far. Picked up books 1-11 plus the prequel New Spring for $35 off eBay on the weekend!
So I am about 250 pages into book 3 of the Wheel of Time series (as discussed a page back). It is not dragging at all. I think the secret to that so far is the fact the back story is told as a part of the actual story, i.e. there aren't pages dedicated to the back story itself which is my complaint with LOTR.Geez it’s a great read so far. Picked up books 1-11 plus the prequel New Spring for $35 off eBay on the weekend!
i think it was 4-9 that dragged on, I didn’t care it was my first foray into epic fantasy and without it I probably would’ve given up on the genre.
I did say after reading The Long Mars by Pratchett/Baxter that I wouldn’t be reading the final instalment. Well, my other half gave me “The Long Utopia” on the weekend. I haven’t started it yet but will probably read it in honour of the great man. The last one gave me the impression that Terry had little to do with it and, without even turning a page, I have that same feeling about this one. Looking forward to a lazy weekend.
Quitter.Sorry, I got half way through your post and got bored.Lol.
I got this far & laughed so hard I popped a rib…
“his efficiency and ability to paint indelible pictures with a few carefully-crafted paragraphs”Thats so the opposite to reality.
It was probably in old old blitz when I spoke on JRR, but I read the Hobbit as a kid, & went on later to LOTR, at maybe 12 - 13?
Remembered getting into it but not finishing it.
So when the movies are coming out a mate gets it & reads it & I borrow it to do the same. I get halfway through & it all comes back to me why I didn’t finish it the 1st time. It was like deja vu.
I’d put money on it that I stopped & consigned it to the bin on exactly the same page. A more long winded, unending, unmitigated borefest I’ve not encountered.
Fantasy is hard enough, but 10 15 pages describing some hollow they camped in o/nite in a forest was beyond ridiculous. I’ve never been back to the genre in books movies or TV, life is too short to waste on such things.
Lightweight SFF just gives me no reason to invest in the story.
Someone recommended the hunger games books to me. “There was a girl who was poor and everything was hard then she went in a competition against people better prepared and won and all the bad guys got what was coming”. Plastic characters, no weight to anything, predictable action, conclusion. Guessed the whole story from the first chapter, and was right. Eye roll.It’s the depth & detail that builds the attachment to characters. The craft of Tolkein (or any great fantasy writer) isn’t in the story, it’s in the back story, the world.
If you were picking up a 1200+ page book expecting to knock it off quickly, then that’s on you.If you want an action book, pick up an action book.
It’s mainly non fiction nowadays really, but any book but fantasy mate.
Like I said, life’s just too damn short to waste on something not based in any semblance of reality.
Anyone that has the time to wade through so much long winded unimportant boring sludge just to get to the end of a fkn fairytale, I do not envy.
Rather create & live my own.
You just sound like a total wanker.
Lol, that’s ironic.
According to Amazon, Go Set a Watchman will be available on 14 July.
It will be interesting to see how it’s received. I’ve never actually read To Kill a Mockingbird (bought it today) and I’ll be interested to see whether it’s as good as the film, which is great. I’ll be surprised if Go Set a Watchman is much good.
point still stands, attribute all your points to footy and you dismiss everyone on this board. what does footy have to do with the reality of daily life? oh a bit off enjoyment? “… ■■■■ all those people would rather read a fictitious story because i have a holier than thou outlook on life and my head shoved up my ■■■■.”
So footballs not real?? Or do you mean fantasy footy? Coz no, I wouldn’t waste any time on that either, or bothering with trying to predict or call for someone in the team, I have things I much prefer to do, things I can actually affect.
I’m concerned you are so obsessed with what I find a pointless waste of my own time & choose to reject. It’s a bit weird, you seem to be a little unhinged.
Perhaps you should just worry what you do with your own eh?
How does Victor Svorinich manage to write a whole book about a single musical album? Well padding the opening with essentially irrelevant and pedestrian stories about Dylan and Elvis etc and then doodling on about the photography for far too long in the concluding sections helps. And at times “Listen To This” reads like a script from a shoddily put together history channel special, with lots of “never be the same again” type drivel. So why persist? Because the single album he’s writing about is Miles Davis’s “■■■■■■■ Brew”, that’s why and when he finally gets to the music it is ■■■■■■ fascinating.
As the text rightly notes “Nothing Sounds Like ■■■■■■■ Brew.” and even though it represents the beginning of the end of Davis creatively it’s one of those landmark moments in art that refuses to be ignored. The insights into the sessions and production of the album are revelatory and often hilarious. “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there” he told one of the many confused and frustrated musicians who were not even allowed to listen to their recordings. “If Miles had to explain too much, he had the wrong man for the job” says the drummer Billy Cobham. I think it’s Joe Zawinul who says that like the others he assumed the album was a failure in the studio. Bennie Maupin first heard the completed music in a record shop and was so impressed he asked the owner who it was and was shocked to learn it was the album he had just played on. Davis comes across as a paranoid genius and a Svengali who craved success even though he despised the musical genre he was entering, namely commercial rock music, which sounds about right.
Now I love Jazz (and even some Fusion) and there’s a risk I’m overstating the album’s influence so I’ll leave that to Thom Yorke, “Subterranean Homesick Alien was born out of listening to ■■■■■■■ Brew endlessly every time I drove my car…I felt sick listening to it. Then gradually there’s something incredibly beautiful…It was building something up and watching it fall apart…We’ve taken and stolen from him shamelessly.”
I’ve been relistening to both ■■■■■■■ Brew and it’s wonderful prequel, “In A Silent Way”, a lot lately, and for that I thank the author.
According to Amazon, Go Set a Watchman will be available on 14 July.It will be interesting to see how it’s received. I’ve never actually read To Kill a Mockingbird (bought it today) and I’ll be interested to see whether it’s as good as the film, which is great. I’ll be surprised if Go Set a Watchman is much good.