I finally finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia. Now I have begun reading [i]The Fellowship of the Ring[/i].

[quote="Blank"]Now I have begun reading [i]The Fellowship of the Ring[/i].[/quote]
I had to read that for a class in high school. It bored me to tears. I loved The Hobbit, but I could never get into the LOTR trilogy. I've got all of the books somewhere. Maybe I should give em another whirl.

[quote="Lesser_Hamster"][quote="Blank"]Now I have begun reading [i]The Fellowship of the Ring[/i].[/quote]
I had to read that for a class in high school. It bored me to tears. I loved The Hobbit, but I could never get into the LOTR trilogy. I've got all of the books somewhere. Maybe I should give em another whirl.[/quote]
Those are pretty much my thoughts laid out right there.

The Hobbit is more or less all story. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is where Tolkien fleshes it out into an entire universe and it becomes a mix between a story, something akin to a traditional Icelandic saga (like the beginning where it's detailing all the Hobbit types and families) and a place for him to make his languages come to life. I still have yet to read through all of the trilogy. Read through Fellowship a bit before the movie, if I recall correctly, then half of the Two Towers after that. I got through half of the Fellowship again recently, but it's hard to keep up with it. It gets more interesting as it goes, but the beginning is just so sluggish.

Also, protip: if you're bored during the Fellowship, do not ever read the Silmarillion. If you can't make it through the Silmarillion, do not ever touch the histories of Middle Earth. I haven't read either, but I hear they're the most boring, as Silmarillion is akin to actual mythology so if you're not into that, it's not going to be interesting. Then the History of Middle Earth series, if I recall correctly, is just sort of different versions and rough drafts of what was in the Silmarillion and even most hardcore Tolkien fans can't make it through that.

I just finished 1Q84 and I'm going through the after-Murakami-blues.

Finally started the Hunger Games trilogy. Blew through the first two. It was hard to stop reading during the second one, to the detriment of my sleep schedule. Fortunately the books are fairly short. Not that they did a bad job with the movie, but the book is much more interesting since you get to see all of Katniss' motivations and feelings. I suppose I should re-read Battle Royale to make a fair comparison since I read it so long ago, but right now I'd say it's pretty distinct in execution.

I think I looked at the Silmarillion once and couldn't get past the first couple of pages.

Finally started Mishima's [i]Sun and Steel[/i]. It's pretty awesome.

Crime and Punishment is really, really long, so I'm glad I waited until now to read it. Pacing starts of rather slow, but everything starts coming together around halfway through with increasing speed. Got like a quarter of the book left.

Working my way through The Elephant Vanishes by Murakami. Why is this so difficult to read? I'm stuck on the story about how the little people and the TV and the man's wife is a bitch and stuff.

War and Peace

[quote="ChubbyRaccoon"]Working my way through The Elephant Vanishes by Murakami. Why is this so difficult to read? I'm stuck on the story about how the little people and the TV and the man's wife is a bitch and stuff.[/quote]

I love that collection. The Second Bakery Attack!

I shared this short film on Facebook, but nobody fucking noticed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkxdYEeF ... plpp_video

It "gets" Murakami like no other adaptation of his work I've seen thus far (granted, I haven't seen Norwegian Wood yet). Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did!

Oh my that was good! I loved how they included a Murakami staple, a cat hehe.
I've been trying to watch Norwegian Wood as well but i don't want to be disappointed. I've heard so many bad things.

My favorite story from Elephant isthe one aboutthe little green person that comes to ropose to that woman and she's like Nope. Also the one about the woman who can't sleep and has all those night adventures.

I think 1Q84 would be an amazing movie.

I'm about 130 pages into [b]A Storm of Swords[/b]. I've already had important shocking plot points spoiled but it's still a lot of fun. Also started reading Berserk recently. Since I'm writing a fantasy book I thought it would be a good idea to immerse myself in as much of the genre as possible to show me what does and doesn't work. So far it's been a success and kept me motivated.

[quote="ThinlineTele"]I'm about 130 pages into [b]A Storm of Swords[/b]. I've already had important shocking plot points spoiled but it's still a lot of fun. Also started reading Berserk recently. Since I'm writing a fantasy book I thought it would be a good idea to immerse myself in as much of the genre as possible to show me what does and doesn't work. So far it's been a success and kept me motivated.[/quote]
Good luck on the novel. I've been working on another myself. Keep at it-- completing a novel is extremely satisfying.

Berserk is awesome; both the anime and the manga. I've been borrowing volumes of the manga from a friend of mine for some time. Good, good stuff. Are you writing something similar to Berserk?

I wouldn't say it's all that similar. The way it's influenced by something like Berserk goes like this: "Huh, the people in this comic talk a lot about fighting for their dreams. That's an interesting theme. So maybe I should write a character who lives his entire life in pursuit of a single-minded dream, only to discover it's a total lie or something." Not so much "Ooh, a goat demon! I'm putting one of those in my story. And giant swords!"

I opted for a fantasy story with virtually no magic and realistic fighting, to give you an idea of the flavor of it. There are three viewpoint locations - one is similar to renaissance Europe, another Arabia/India-esque, another similar to East Asia. I won't claim to be the most original person in the universe, since let's face it, everything has been done before, but I'm happy with how it's progressing so far. I'll post something in the future when it gets farther along and I've fine-tuned what I've already written.