Thursday, February 19th, 2009
Catch Up On My Reading List
It's been a long time since I've done any posting about what I'm reading... I figured tonight was as good a time as any to try to recall some of the tomes I've been consuming.
I read the entire King Arthur series by Jack Whyte. That was really wonderful. If they weren't so long and thick I'd read 'em all again. He's an amazing story-teller, and somehow manages to tie everything all in together by the last book so you realize it had to all be planned out from the start. I highly recommend these books if you're interested in the historical fiction genre, and if you like to actually learn something when you read. The tidbits of history, geography, language-- not to mention sociology, weaponry, and mythology-- that came out made my visit to "Camelod" a remarkable experience.
The book titles are as follows:
- The Skystone
- The Singing Sword
- The Eagles' Brood
- The Saxon Shore
- The Sorcerer Part 1: The Fort at River's Bend
- The Sorcerer Part 2: Metamorphosis
- Clothar the Frank (titled The Lance Thrower outside of Canada)
- The Eagle
After reading this series, I took a genre break to read a couple of recommendations from my dad. First, was "The Empress" by Karen Miller. This was a really entertaining page-turner as well. It covered the life of a young slave girl in a fascinating culture. She eventually became the high-empress, which sounds predictable but wasn't at all. There are a couple more books in this series, and I'll be keeping my eye open for them.
I simultaneously read C.S. Hornblower, The Happy Return, which was just okay.
I then started another book called "The Birthgrave," by Tanith Lee. I actually have another couple of chapters to read in this one-- it started off really strong but just doesn't hold me like some books do. Still, I will eventually make time to finish it because the storry is pretty neat.
Part of the reason I stopped in the middle was because I found another middle-ages historical-fiction book at the Sydenham library. Vagabond (The Grail Quest, Book 2) by Bernard Cornwell doesn't seem to be as well-researched to me as Jack Whyte's stuff, but great nevertheless. It's too bad I started with book 2. I always seem to do that!
And now I've just picked up Ken Follett's "World Without End," which continues from "Pillars of the Earth." I pretty excited to be starting this one, since I loved Pillars.
So that's what I've been reading lately! What have you been reading?
~Jason
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