Books discussion

[thespaceinvader]

Golden Compass

Is that the one with daemons and Lyra? If it is I found it a good read, I think it was made into a film but I avoided watching it, didn't look all that good.

Gah. The book is called Northern Lights. The Americanised title of the book, and the title of the movie, bug the crap out of me. It's not a compass!

That being said, it's a reasonable trilogy, albeit one I haven't read in some time.

[Aura]

The movie of the Golden Compass/Northen Lights, personally, was not great. There were bits I liked, but the ending in the lab place was a little non-flowing and didn't make an incredible amount of sense tacked on like that. Haven't read the books though so can't comment on them. Same with the film for Eragon, come to think of it (the guy who played Brom was great but the other actors were lacking).

The new Percy Jackson film release also dissapointed me. Not because it was a bad film (it was actually pretty enjoyable) , but they chopped and changed various bits for little reason I could see, rewrote a large part of the plot missing out various parts that would have been nice to see on film, and cut most characters/events that set up sequels even though apparently one is already in production. I read the books when they first came out and even though I might be a little old for it now I still really like the series. I would probably say it was my favourite book series.

At the moment I am reading The Last Legion, about 1/3 of the way through (maybe a little more). Quite a good book, although not as good as Empire of Dragons (another book by the same man, which whilst good had some silliness involving ninjas). I also dip in and out of D&D and Warhammer rules books like Monster Manuals etc (nerd alert) and have them from various editions of the game, and am interested in cryptozoology (bigfoot, yetis, stuff like that) and read any infomation books I can pick up on that.

[Hulavuta]

Is that the one with daemons and Lyra? If it is I found it a good read, I think it was made into a film but I avoided watching it, didn't look all that good.

Gah. The book is called Northern Lights. The Americanised title of the book, and the title of the movie, bug the crap out of me. It's not a compass!

That being said, it's a reasonable trilogy, albeit one I haven't read in some time.

WELL SORRY I DIDN'T KNOW BECAUSE I LIVE IN AMERICA!!!!

But anyway, I have never even heard of it besides the movie, and I only started reading a few days ago. Personally, I don't see the point in having different names for something for different countries.

[thespaceinvader]

Nor do I. That's why it bugs me - that they feel the need to dumb down names because people mightn't get the reference, or whatever. Northern Lights > The Golden Compass. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone >HP& the Sorcerer's Stone. It doesn't only go that way across the pond, either - Live Free or Die Hard > Die Hard 4.0.

It really irritates me. But that's not particularly important. I wasn't getting at you, I was commenting in general.

[Cloud]

Gah. The book is called Northern Lights. The Americanised title of the book, and the title of the movie, bug the crap out of me. It's not a compass!

Ah that's why I didn't recognise it.

Actually to be honest, it's as much about the Aethlometer (sp?)/Compass as it is about the Northern Lights.

Spoiler:

Actually the aethlometer plays a bigger part in the whole trilogy than the Northern Lights, they're just a gateway to the next book. I'm the book is taught(/set to be read) in American schools as it slanders God quite a lot, I know not all American's are zealots, but when they were formalizing the teaching of the Theory of Evolution there was a lot of fuss, if I remember rightly.

[thespaceinvader]

Alethiometer, IIRC. It's not even remotely a compass, aside from the fact that it kinda vaguely looks like one. It's a truth-reading/fortune-telling device.

The weird thing about the trilogy is that when i read it (admittedly, I was quite young at the time) I found it to be quite a pro-monotheism book, especially towards the end. I don't really recall why, any more.

[Frogger5]

Just finished The Lord of the Rings. Great books. And I am currently reading the Fire of Heaven series.

[Issyl]

Just finished The Lord of the Rings. Great books. And I am currently reading the Fire of Heaven series.

I would bet that you may be the only person ever to have not read Lord of the Rings before playing Wesnoth.

[artisticdude]

I don't know, I've read them all several times (and watched the movies and the behind-the-scenes of the movies more that in good for me), but I'm not sure the average kid reads that kind of material (my (tech addict) cousin claims he doesn't read much anymore, so I asked him how he read his email, and he was stumped ). Books are being replaced by tech in most kids' lives, which I think is sad.

I'm currently reading the hardback Cabella's catalogue, which counts as a book in my mind since it's got a binding, a hard cover, and nearly 600 pages. Nice guns.

[HomerJ]

Just finished The Lord of the Rings. Great books. And I am currently reading the Fire of Heaven series.

I would bet that you may be the only person ever to have not read Lord of the Rings before playing Wesnoth.

Soooo not true!

Greetz
HomerJ

[Bellerophon]

*sigh* I'm stuck at about halfway trough The Last Argument of the Kings :/ After reading trough the the chapter in which Ninefingers and Fenris duel(like you didn't see that one coming) I've kind of lost the motivation to continue, I feel like the author can't possibly surpass the awesomeness the chapter contained.

On a sidenote: how do you guys feel reading books on a computer screen as opposed to reading a a genuine paper book? Doesn't feel a bit awkward for me personally.

[Hulavuta]

Just finished The Lord of the Rings. Great books. And I am currently reading the Fire of Heaven series.

I would bet that you may be the only person ever to have not read Lord of the Rings before playing Wesnoth.

No, my brother too. And, the fact remains that Lord of the Rings is for mature readers, which are usually teens and adults. (I mean like they are developed/strong readers, not the other kind of mature) Wesnoth is a game, and like most games, you only need a basic reading ability. So people will probably play Wesnoth before reading LoTR. I also plan to read it too XD


(Also Lord of the Rings is more popular than Wesnoth, so it would be read by people who have not played Wesnoth)

Anyway, has anyone here read The Alchemist? it got me thinking about it when thespaceinvader mentioned Harry Potter and the Philosipher's Stone.

I kinda personally prefer a hard copy of a book, but reading online doesn't bug me. I like actual books because they're kind of like my trophies. I can have a big book on my shelf and I can say to someone, "I read that."

[artisticdude]

I'm currently reading Common Errors in English Usage. And no, it isn't a school assignment. Call me a geek , but it's actually rather informative. For instance, next time your teacher says to 'compare and contrast' two things, you can call her on redundancy, because 'compare' means to note the similarities as well as the dissimilarities. You don't need 'contrast', that makes the phrase like saying 'the big huge man.'

I don't think I'd have a problem reading a book in the digital form, and it's more practical as far as storage and organization go, as well as the fact that you can't lose, rip, or spill anything on a digital book. On the flip side, there's something... fake, I guess you'd call it, about reading books digitally. BTW, has anyone here ever read The Count of Monte Cristo? Now that's a big book; over 1,200 pages (all of which I read in about a week and a half).

[Blarumyrran]

I thought the redundancy in cases like that is intentional - eg for Cease And Desist, ceasing and desisting aren't meant to be some separate actions, but just a phrase for writing it out longer so it can not be confused with the sounds of other words, like Cease individually can; and for some aesthetic value.

[Hulavuta]

And Stand Up, and Sit Down. I also believe that some amount of redundancy is needed to emphasize a point.

There was a big, huge, giant, gigantic, humongous, gargantuan spider.

(Plus I always knew that compare means that, )