6 posts tagged “50 in 365”
Book: 7
Author: Richard Bach
Pages: 127 (haha, I'm cheating with a skinny book)
This is a fantastic little story about a young seagull who dared to break away from the norm and find a higher purpose to life. Where other seagulls live to eat and flight is merely a way to get to the food, Jonathan lives to fly, pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It's a story about living a dream, finding a higher purpose, living for the joy of flight, freedom, and transcendence.
I had first picked up this book when I was probably around 12 and it stuck with me. I decided to pick it up the other day after running across the Neil Diamond soundtrack to the movie (Mom and I going through her record collection). I wasn't going to count this one originally since I read it in a morning and its few pages are interspersed with quite a few seagull photos but I'm falling behind and it really is a great book, so I'm counting it as my number 7.
Book count: 6
Title: Understanding Comics : The Invisible Art
Author: Scott McCloud
I found this book absolutely fascinating. It was so much more than I expected it to be. My husband had picked it up at the library (bit of a comic geek and is working on writing one right now) and suggested I read it. Scott McCloud really dives into the depths of comics; their history, future, story, art, development, their place in both western and eastern culture, their place in the art world, and a lot more. The best part is that he does it as a comic book! Honestly, if you have any interest in comics, whether it be as a reader of comics (books, strips, manga, any kind), an artist, or a writer, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this book. If you are a creator of comics (or wish to be!) then this would be a great reference book to pair up with Will Eisner's "Comics & Sequential Art" in your library.
I would definitely recommend this series.
The Old Kingdom, a world of Charter Magic where the dead walk, borders on Ancelstierre, a land very like our own (similar to maybe WW1 era?). They are separated by the Wall and guarded by soldiers that carry swords along with their regulation guns and wear chainmail over their khakis. Sabriel, an Ancelstierran schoolgirl, sets out to find and hopefully save her father Abhorsen, a necromancer who binds the dead back into death rather than raise it into life. Armed with a necromancer's seven bells and her father's sword she sets off into the Old Kingdom she can barely remember from when she was small.
(So I guess this would be books 3,4, and 5 for me...I'm behind...)
So, I'd really like to do this 50 books in 365 days, but I feel like I'm severely lagging behind. I've only finished two so far and February is almost done. The main reason I think I'm lagging is I'm currently reading:
Ok, so I feel this needs a little explanation, because who reads Tarzan these days? I was checking out the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card at the library and the Tarzan books on the next shelf up caught my eye. I mean, who hasn't heard of Tarzan? Apparently Burroughs wrote a whole lot of them too, along with other tales of Mars, inside the earth, and under the sea (popular topics among adventure writers of the time). I picked one up called Jungle Tales, full of short stories in Tarzan's youth, and read the first few pages thinking it would be funny. I actually liked it and borrowed the book. Then I borrowed Tarzan of the Apes (#1) and really enjoyed that too! So, since this is the second book, and I read Tarzan #1 last year, I'm going to talk about both of them but only count this one.
The first thing that surprised me was that the movies and books were very different. I guess this is to be expected, but I thought they'd be at least a little closer. The second thing that surprised me was how well written the books are! Having read my fair share of older books I was expecting it to be more formal and cold and to read very slowly. Boy was I wrong! Burroughs writes a very rich, exciting world with interesting characters. Sure there are quite a few things that mark it as a book of the times, but I found them funny and quaint, like Tarzan being of peak intelligence, morality, and a physical god partially due to him being of grade A English nobleman blood, and the ladies being so delicate and prone to swooning.
Basic plotline:
Book #1-Tarzan is raised by apes from infanthood after the death of his parents. He teaches himself to read and write English from the books he finds in his parents' cabin. He also teaches himself to hunt. Jane and her party are abandoned on the same piece of shore that Tarzan's parents were. Tarzan falls in love with Jane and after he rescues her from being kidnapped by an ape, Jane falls in love with Tarzan in return. Jane returns to America with her party after being rescued by a French ship while Tarzan is saving one of the Frenchmen from cannibals. The Frenchman teaches Tarzan English, French, and civilization on their way back to France. The Frenchman also discovers, through reading Tarzan's father's diary (which was in french, so Tarzan wasn't able to read it), that Tarzan is the real Lord Greystoke. Meanwhile Jane becomes engaged to the false Greystoke heir. Will Tarzan claim his true heritage? Which man will Jane choose? Will he return to his beloved jungle or remain in civilization?
Book #2- Tarzan gets involved in a little international intrigue, several women swoon over his magnificence, he rescues Jane again in the wild African jungle, discovers an ancient temple that is all that remains of the lost civilization of Atlantis, and finally gets the girl.
Check out Tarzan... They really are an entertaining read. Burroughs knew how to write a good adventure tale and if you can overlook the period racist and sexist views I think you might be as pleasantly surprised as I was. I'm definitely going to keep reading more Tarzan.
Ok, so I'm not really trying to race the clock on my books, I'm just curious whether I'll end up reading 50 in a year. And I'm going to be good and not going to count the ones that overlapped from last year.
First book of the year was The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks (pub.1977, 726 pages). I have this battered old copy I got from a friend years ago. I remember loving this book (so much so that I've had to tape it back
I thought that reading this book would be a nice little jaunt down memory lane. This was one of my favorite books, right? I've reread old favs of mine and still loved them (like Earthsea, Valdemar, and Pern) so this one should be similar, shouldn't it?
Man, was I disappointed. I had to force myself to finish it. The writing style wasn't great and rather melodramatic. The characters were rather stiff and stereotypical. The descriptions were repetitive and dull. The author felt the need to reiterate the same description over and over...he really really needed to pull out a thesaurus and try some new words out. At one point I counted basically the same description of a character three times in six pages. All the landscape descriptions make it sound like there is no place in this world where life exists...all the places are dark, foreboding and full of bad, nasty things that can kill you as well as only withered dying plants and no sign of wildlife unless you count bog monsters and ravenous wolves. There also seems to be no moon. Every night scene was pitch black. The book was incredibly similar to Lord of the Rings as well. If you took the major plot points from both books they run awfully close together. I would like to point out that I read LotR after I had read Shannara.
Plot Summary (spoilers if anyone is planning on reading this) - Two young men, Shea and Flick, have their blissful existence in a happy hamlet shattered when a tall, dark, foreboding druid arrives to tell them that the evil Warlock Lord is rising again to take over the Four Lands in a horrible war. The last War of the Races was several hundred years ago and unfortunately the Warlock Lord was not truly destroyed as everyone had thought. Shea is the only one who can wield the magical Sword of Shannara and thus defeat the Warlock Lord and save the world. The two friends flee when a big, black, winged servant of the Warlock Lord arrives looking for them. They are later joined by a multiracial troop including other humans, a dwarf, and some elves who protect them and help them search for the sword. The group arrive at the druid keep, Paranor, only to discover that the sword isn't there and are attacked by another of the black servant things. The druid fights the servant (red and green fire bolts...fun) and both go down into a fiery pit ala Gandalf and the Balrog. Druid survives and pops up later unharmed. Crossing a mountain pass, Shea is lost and must travel on on his own. He meets up with some unlikely companions and they make their way to the dread Skull Kingdom in pursuit of the Sword. In the meantime, the remainder of the band of heroes help defend the border against the invasion of the Warlock Lord's insanely huge army while the druid continues to search for Shea and the Sword. Right when all looks lost for the defending army Shea manages to get the Sword and meets face to face with the Warlock Lord. As Shea's will is crumbling, the druid somehow feels that the Warlock Lord is winning and has an Obi Won Kenobi moment, sending his voice into Shea's head, telling him to believe himself and trust in the Sword's power. Shea stabs Warlock Lord. Bad guy dies. Evil kingdom crumbles. Elven army sweeps in to save defending border army and everyone is saved except for a few honorable self-sacrifices of the buddies for the sake of their friends. The end.
I'm not sure if I'll want to try reading any of the sequels. I'm hoping that they get better but I'm afraid that they wouldn't.
Thankfully I've been reading two other books as well that I'm really enjoying: Sabriel and Return of Tarzan.
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50 in 365 Updated: Yesterday
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