[Ter]

I have started on War and Peace from Tolstoy.
It is long overdue and since my cataract surgery I can read small letters again.
It is also meant to keep me away from my computer and my smartphone, something my youngest son and I have decided recently.

[Sivad]

I have started on War and Peace from Tolstoy.

War and Peace and Buddenbrooks are the two gayest novels I've ever read twice.

[Ter]

Which reminds me of Woody Allen who invited the press to demonstrate "fast reading" as he had just followed a course in it.
The journalists sat there and he leafed through the whole War and Peace volume, all 1,300 pages of it, and when he finished he just said "It is about Russia"

[ThirdTerm]

The key to fast reading is identifying the key sentences in a paragraph and skip the minor details. In this way, you can follow the storyline quickly. Each paragraph has a sentence or two that captures its main point, called “a topic sentence”, which is usually the first sentence of the paragraph.

[colliric]

I have started on War and Peace from Tolstoy.
It is long overdue and since my cataract surgery I can read small letters again.
It is also meant to keep me away from my computer and my smartphone, something my youngest son and I have decided recently.

Speaking of monstrous-length book "Been meaning to read it" projects... I may try again soon.

Then I'll probably watch the musical(either 2012 film or third time on Stage) or the Gerard Depardieu starring Mini-series, then give up again.....

[Wellsy]

The Real Venezuela by Iain Bruce

[Drlee]

"The Greater Journey, Americans in Paris." David McCollough.

About Americans visiting Paris around 1830 - 1905 or thereabouts.

Really good.

[Heisenberg]

A not-too-crappy modern vampire novel that was highly rated by my public library ebook app.

It is good when I want to watch an action movie in my head.

Thank you for asking. And yourself?

Edit: it is called The Passage by Justin Cronin.

I just finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, from the First Law trilogy. It's basically a fantasy in the Game of Thrones mould, but the author has managed to keep it under control and not turn it into ten 900-page volumes with no end in sight.

Now I'm making a start on Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, which was a Christmas present from my girlfriend's mother. The writing is sophomoric drivel (case in point: "I was thinking about another type of river, one that runs through any one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It’s the river of the heart, and the heart’s desire. It’s the pure essential truth of what each one of us is, and can achieve.") and it's cheesier than a deep dish pizza, but I'm enjoying it so far.

[Potemkin]

I just finished The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, from the First Law trilogy. It's basically a fantasy in the Game of Thrones mould, but the author has managed to keep it under control and not turn it into ten 900-page volumes with no end in sight.

Now I'm making a start on Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, which was a Christmas present from my girlfriend's mother. The writing is sophomoric drivel (case in point: "I was thinking about another type of river, one that runs through any one of us, no matter where we come from, all over the world. It’s the river of the heart, and the heart’s desire. It’s the pure essential truth of what each one of us is, and can achieve.") and it's cheesier than a deep dish pizza, but I'm enjoying it so far.

What else do you expect from a novel that girls like, Heisenberg?

[Heisenberg]

What else do you expect from a novel that girls like, Heisenberg?

But it should be all manly and hardcore. Aussie armed robber breaks out of jail and joins the Bombay mafia before going off to fight alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan? Why all the "rivers of the heart" sappiness? I demand answers!

[Potemkin]

But it should be all manly and hardcore. Aussie armed robber breaks out of jail and joins the Bombay mafia before going off to fight alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan? Why all the "rivers of the heart" sappiness? I demand answers!

The writer is clearly presenting a girl's idea of what an Aussie armed robber who breaks out of prison to join a vicious mafia gang before going off to fight alongside anti-communist terrorists in Afghanistan would be like, Heisenberg, as a cynical ploy to sell more copies of his crappy novel. Lol.

[Heisenberg]

The writer is clearly presenting a girl's idea of what an Aussie armed robber who breaks out of prison to join a vicious mafia gang before going off to fight alongside anti-communist terrorists in Afghanistan would be like, Heisenberg, as a cynical ploy to sell more copies of his crappy novel. Lol.

I suspect you may be right.

I'm going to persevere, because it's an easy read in spite of its obvious flaws, but Christ does he have a patronising view of life in the slums of Bombay. It's riddled with "noble savage" tropes. To think that I was recommended this by an Indian woman from Kerala!

[Ter]

Shantaram is an easy read.
I had it recommended by the owner of a bookshop in New Dehli..
I also bought his other recommendation, a three volume work on Alexander, by an Italian author called Manfredo.
Johny Depp bought the filming rights of Shantaram but nothing came of it (so far).

[Wellsy]

I like the first law seties by joe abercrombie a lot although I dont unnderstand why so many of his northmen characters are so morally torn between principles and the realities of being brutal bastards.

Anyway reading russia's war by richard overy

[fuser]

I have started on War and Peace from Tolstoy.
It is long overdue and since my cataract surgery I can read small letters again.
It is also meant to keep me away from my computer and my smartphone, something my youngest son and I have decided recently.

Surely the plan is failing....

[Ter]

Surely the plan is failing....

Haha no it is not failing.
Tolstoy is a magnificent author. I am enjoying reading every page although admittedly I haven't reached far in the book.

[Potemkin]

Haha no it is not failing.
Tolstoy is a magnificent author. I am enjoying reading every page although admittedly I haven't reached far in the book.

Once you've finished War and Peace, I strongly recommend that you read Anna Karenina. It's an even better novel. Seriously. Tolstoy was the greatest of the realist novelists of the 19th century. No-one else even comes close.

[JohnRawls]

Once you've finished War and Peace, I strongly recommend that you read Anna Karenina. It's an even better novel. Seriously. Tolstoy was the greatest of the realist novelists of the 19th century. No-one else even comes close.

War and Peace was a horror to read when i was at school Anna Karenina was much better probably because it was smaller but not by much.

[Wellsy]

Heard it said that it was Russia that first kicked off with “big novels”.

Curious to art and culture in Rusdia now that also seen it said how poetry was popular across all parts of society. Something amazing if true when compared to my experience of modern australia and usa

[Heisenberg]

I like the first law seties by joe abercrombie a lot although I dont unnderstand why so many of his northmen characters are so morally torn between principles and the realities of being brutal bastards.

I mostly can't understand why Jezal doesn't get slapped more.