Lit ► KHI Book Club - What are you currently reading?

[Chuuya]

Yeah, I think it was Gathering Blue that I saw my friend read. I wanted to borrow it after her at the time but didn't get the chance to. Tomorrow I'll check at the library for it. After I read the book, I found the movie on Netflix and decided to watch it. There was a lot of changes like *spoiler* Jonas kissed Fiona in the movie yet in the book they never did if my memory serves me right. The movie showed more of a relationship between Jonas and Fiona and Jonas escaping the community was more challenging than in the book where he and Gabriel escaped quietly and quickly.

 

[Max]

I still haven't watched the movie. I have such a painted picture of that book in my mind still that I feel like it would be a shame to watch the movie.

 

[Chuuya]

It is a shame, because the book is better than the movie lol, but not like the movie was bad or anything, but it left out key things from the book that didn't make the movie feel like it was the story from the book in particular. I can see why it is preferred to read the book because you can get a mental image of how the story is played out and achieving certain moods and feelings of the story by visualising it in your own way.

 

[VoidGear.]

I just started reading "Sons of Dust" by Arnaldur Indriðason. It's kinda refreshing during workout at the gym and it's quite interesting so far, although the main character's name (Palmí) irritates me because it sounds/looks like what I, as a german, would use as a diminutive for "palm tree". So...yeah. xD

 

[hemmoheikkinen]

Finished the book about Vietnam and then picked up another book from Englund. The book`s name was Letters From The Zero Point, likely referring to the point where the atomic bomb landed when it was dropped to Japan. Englund is writing about similar themes like in his last book, about war, it`s horrors and that we should not forget them. The point of this book is to remind us about the horrors. While the last book I read from Englund was mostly about the first world war, this book deals with that, art that was produced during WWI, the second world war, the bombing of Dresden, art in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and etc... Englund refers to this book more as a collection of essays than a more traditional academic work, and that it is. He deals with facts, but I think the way he writes would not fit in a scientific text. I don´t really have a problem with it, since his way of writing is entertaining. Sometimes I feel thou that some sentences are a bit too long, and a few times it took some time for him to get to the main point, but those were my only complaints.

Reading stuff about the art that was done by Nash and Dix after WWI was pretty interesting.

I then planned to read some book about Soviet Unions history, but the one I was searching for was a bit too thick. So instead of that I picked up Anna Larina`s memoir. She was the wife of a famous Bolshevik leader Nikolai Bukaharin, and in the book she tells about the horrors when Stalin`s terror in the Soviet Union, among other things began.

 

[Chuuya]

YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!
I finally got my hands on Maze Runner by James Dashner! I long awaited to read this because I never was able to find it!
I'm now on chapter 13 which the story is quite interesting and still mysterious due to the main character Thomas not remembering his life and how he has so many questions yet most of them aren't answered.
I've been reading it in my spare time and so far I'm enjoying it!
I've also finished a touchy book called Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm.
It was a nice read I won't forget, it was about a 10 year old girl named Sunshine Lewis who must go the her grandfather to stay at Florida due to her older brother becoming violent and does drugs, which would be getting professional help.
Sunny is miserable due to being around old folk and wanting to go to Walt Disney World (who wouldn't?), till she meets a boy named Buzz. Buzz introduces Sunny to comic books which they both soon begin collecting and reading.
This book is heartwarming and I would want to read it again.

 

[Hania22]

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]I started The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho yesterday. While it's an enjoyable read so far, I'm not blown away (yet?). I understand that this book is more about the philosophy presented than the actual story, but for me the balance between storytelling and promoting the author's view on life could be better.[/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[Chuuya]

Finished Maze Runner! Before my 2 week winter school break started, I managed to get the sequel, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. It'll be awhile till I go to a library cause the roads are icy and pretty dangerous outside. I'm happy I got the next book when I did to read during the break.

 

[KingdomKey]

Here's what I've been reading for the past week or so.

Tangled Webs by Lee Bross - A solid book that has a beginning and an ending. I really like the Victorian era, including the way the protagonists handles information and sets about trying to get out of the crummy life that she's in for. I won't deny it got gross once or twice, but it was nicely paced for a story.

The Lost Hero & The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan - I pretty much read through the whole series in a week. I really liked the characters, cause you see new and familiar faces from the Percy Jackson series. I love mythology. And I was incredibly pleased by the way Rick Riordan handled three different character perspectives at once within each book. Including the plot. I still like Leo the best throughout the whole series.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed - My second time reading it was still somewhat enjoyable as the first time. Admittedly, I skipped certain parts of it whenever the book seemed to drag on its heels with describing things I didn't really need to know. However, it fills me up with wanderlust. I'd love to go on a journey. Don't know if I'd be brave enough to hike the PCT though.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

Reading Boris Vian's "Heartsnatcher", or "L'Arrache-cœur" in French. After "L'Écume des jours" or "Foam of the Days" I expect nothing but thrilling meaningful non-sense from this wonderful writer <3

 

[Max]

Reading Boris Vian's "Heartsnatcher", or "L'Arrache-cœur" in French. After "L'Écume des jours" or "Foam of the Days" I expect nothing but thrilling meaningful non-sense from this wonderful writer <3

I don't think I've ever read a French book. Definitely British and Japanese, but never French. I'm interested in if their may be anything significantly different in their writing.

 

[DarkGrey Heroine]

I don't think I've ever read a French book. Definitely British and Japanese, but never French. I'm interested in if their may be anything significantly different in their writing.

Oh gosh, I recommend this author if you love spontaneous mixtures of reality and fantasy, I find his writing a delicacy to read, he just happens to be ... a surreal French writer, so I wouldn't say that all French literature ever has his atmosphere, though you may recognize - he's definitely no Brit or German to write, as every nation does indeed have their own feel
I recommend, of course, Foam of the Days if you want to dig in, it might surprise you what you will find ^^

 

[Max]

Oh gosh, I recommend this author if you love spontaneous mixtures of reality and fantasy, I find his writing a delicacy to read, he just happens to be ... a surreal French writer, so I wouldn't say that all French literature ever has his atmosphere, though you may recognize - he's definitely no Brit or German to write, as every nation does indeed have their own feel
I recommend, of course, Foam of the Days if you want to dig in, it might surprise you what you will find ^^

Foam of the Days, I will definitely look into it! Thanks!

 

[Chuuya]

Oh gosh, I recommend this author if you love spontaneous mixtures of reality and fantasy, I find his writing a delicacy to read, he just happens to be ... a surreal French writer, so I wouldn't say that all French literature ever has his atmosphere, though you may recognize - he's definitely no Brit or German to write, as every nation does indeed have their own feel
I recommend, of course, Foam of the Days if you want to dig in, it might surprise you what you will find ^^

That sounds cool! I like fantasy mixtures with reality in stories. :3
I'm interested in this as well!

 

[Pandymint]

Now that I have possession of it again, I need to get back to reading Kurt Cobain's Journals. It was the last thing I started reading a year ago...


Last novel I read was Horns by Joe Hill. It was a really interesting and different book.

 

[Annoyance]

Now that I have possession of it again, I need to get back to reading Kurt Cobain's Journals. It was the last thing I started reading a year ago...


Last novel I read was Horns by Joe Hill. It was a really interesting and different book.

Horns fucked me up and now I'm struggling to push through Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Murakami likes to focus on every minute detail of the focus's life and so it gets slow when a lot of Horns was "he thought about doing the thing then did the thing" rather than mulling it over during an entire lengthy morning routine.

 

[Pandymint]

Horns diddlyed me up and now I'm struggling to push through Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Murakami likes to focus on every minute detail of the focus's life and so it gets slow when a lot of Horns was "he thought about doing the thing then did the thing" rather than mulling it over during an entire lengthy morning routine.

See this is why I can't get into books like, for example, Great Expectations or The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne and Dickens, as well as other authors, just spend so much time drilling on all these small inconsequential details that it's hard for me to get into. It's not bad writing, it's just not my style. Horns, on the other hand, suits me well. It actually feels similar to how I write so I find it really easy to read and get into.

 

[Chuuya]

What's Horns about? The title sounds very familiar.

 

[Max]

Horns was amazing! It was my introduction to Joe Hill.

Horns is about a guy who wakes up one morning with, you guessed it, Horns on his head. They cause people to compulsively do and say exactly what they want. The story is a bit of a murder mystery as you jump back and forth between the protagonists past and present as he tries to figure out what happened involving the death of his girlfriend and why these horns were placed on his head. It was a brilliant novel.

Great Expectations and The Scarlet Letter, hell no! I really disliked both of these books. Not only were they boring, but they didn't have much of a payoff either (especially Great Expectations). If anything, the only good thing Great Expectations spawned was the South Park parody of it.

Currently for school I'm reading Shakespear's Othello and Robinson Crusoe. Othello is not fun to read, although honestly I've never been a Shakespear guy. Caesar was okay, but meh, I wouldn't read it again. Robinson Crusoe isn't too bad, it's the basis of pretty much every stranded island story that followed.

 

[Chuuya]

Horns now sounds REALLY familiar, I may look into that! I'm currently reading a true story called The Pact for my English class. So far I've read into it and it's about 3 friends who have had rough lives want to become doctors. So they all help each other and in the end they all become doctors. I'm in the middle of the book so I can't really be more specific, but it's really a heartwarming story about friendship.