The All-About Books thread

The Brothers Karamazov

I just picked up "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story" by Sean Howe today and started reading it. It's really good so far. I've only read the first chapter but it has covered the development of Timely/Atlas comics as a subsidiary of Martin Goodman's magazine publication company in the 30s-50s. I know some of the history of Marvel, but it's cool to read a well-rounded history of it. It's well written and engaging and I would recommend it.

Last year, I bought a limited edition cloth covered box set of LOTR and the Hobbit. They're beautiful. But now I really want a matching set of Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Children of Hurin. But they there isn't one.

Sigh.

Captain Canuck said:

Last year, I bought a limited edition cloth covered box set of LOTR and the Hobbit. They're beautiful. But now I really want a matching set of Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Children of Hurin. But they there isn't one.

Sigh.

Click to expand...

I recently bought hardcovers of Silmarillion, Children of Hurin, and Tales from the Perlious Realm by Tolkien. They're not the box set I wanted, but they're pretty and have gorgeous illustrations.

My wife and I read the Silmarillion, it was a difficult one to get through, but worth it as a LOTR fan.

We're also working our way through the Hunger Games. We just started the last book (Mocking Jay). They're well written and exciting, but pretty depressing.

I found the quality takes a massive sharp dive after the first one. Catching Fire had a great opening I felt, then quickly degenerated into nonsense once the Game actually starts.

Ultimate Houde said:

I found the quality takes a massive sharp dive after the first one. Catching Fire had a great opening I felt, then quickly degenerated into nonsense once the Game actually starts.

Click to expand...

Nonsense how? Like the thing being farfetched? I didn't mind that too much. The last two chapters were confusing though. I have no idea what happened with the tree and the wire except that Katniss .

The clock thing was actually brilliant I thought, it was the farfetched alliance that I didn't get. It's not like it came out of left field, it didn't at all, just something about it didn't sit right with me. The whole rescue scene was obviously rushed, and I had to read it several times to try to piece together what actually occurred. And then the third book was just complete tripe to me, I could see what the author was trying to do, and why she chose to do it the way she did, but I didn't like the final execution of it.

Ultimate Houde said:

The clock thing was actually brilliant I thought, it was the farfetched alliance that I didn't get. It's not like it came out of left field, it didn't at all, just something about it didn't sit right with me. The whole rescue scene was obviously rushed, and I had to read it several times to try to piece together what actually occurred. And then the third book was just complete tripe to me, I could see what the author was trying to do, and why she chose to do it the way she did, but I didn't like the final execution of it.

Click to expand...

Fair enough. I found it very frustrating how dense Katniss was all the way through. That she didn't pick up on the purpose of the alliance, or that Plutarch was part of the rebellion. And yeah, the chapter leading up to the rescue from the arena was a mess. I've only read one chapter from the third book, so we'll see where it goes.

So yeah, Mocking Jay was terrible. The first two thirds were just about her making propaganda movies. The last third was a mission that had no point or significance. It didn't accomplish anything at all. It's like Suzanne Collins just wanted to make the book as dark and gruesome as possible.

I was happy when she though. I figured she was going to do that.

There seem to be a few punny names in the book. Peeta, the baker's son. Castor and Pollux the twins (Roman mythology). Coin who seemed to be the other side of the coin to Snow. Maybe Gale, who is violent and stormy. Not to mention a lot of Roman names for people from the capitol who were connected to the games.

I got this for christmas https://twitter.com/ChrizAkaTheMole/status/679799357135286272 description = With stunning visuals and in-depth commentary, Undertaker: 25 Years of Destruction takes the reader deep into the darkness, where few dare to tread! Learn everything you need to know about sports-entertainment's mysterious grim reaper of justice with this massive hardcover tome. , Always loved Undertaker he's my favourite so cant wait to read and I flipped through, it looks great

I just finished reading Tolkein's Unfinished Tales. There was some interesting stuff in there. And a lot of detail I didn't need to know.

But I feel like I have accomplished something great.