What readest thou?

[elanorelle]

Well I've been reading (and enjoying immensely) the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories but I haven't been able to finish all of them (it was a library book that was long overdue...) hopefully I can get myself a copy and soon!

Over Christmas I gas gifted the Space Trilogy which I began right when I got them but because of schoolwork I wasn't able to get very far but I'm hoping to finish them by next week.

[Ajnos]

So I've been rereading [i]The Silmarillion[[/i] for some time now, but towards the end, I've been reading it in conjunction with the related passages in [i]Unfinished Tales[/i]. I read [i]Unfinished Tales[/i] many years ago, but a lot of it makes much more sense - especially when Christopher Tolkien quotes bits from some of Tolkien's Philological essays/passages. I went all geeky reading his section on the dialectal variations of Silvan elvish from Sindarin.

I've been rather unsuccessful visiting second-hand bookshops lately - hardly ever finding something I want. But yesterday, on the way home from our family holiday, I went into one shop and found four books I wanted - all at really good prices: Tolkien's [i]First Book of Lost Tales[/i] (I rather have my own copy of [/i]Unfinished Tales[i], but it's so hard to find any Tolkien books, besides the popular ones, second hand I'll take what I can get), [i]Swallows and Amazons[/i] (which I have yet to read, and I really need to read now that I've been to the Lake District myself), a book by Rosemary Sutcliffe I don't know (called [i]The Armourer's House[/i]) and [i]The Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics[/i]. Combined they cost me the equivalent of $14 - so I'm very happy

[aslie]

I am working on two books right now. A bio on Dietrich Bonehoffer (if you don't know who this Faith Hero is, I strongly encourage you to look him up) and another bio of Ji-Li Jiang who grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China. Both are deep set reads and are taking up some time.

[lilliandil]

I had to read the book Variant for English. It was such a good book, I couldn't put it down! If you like the Hunger Games, you will love this. Two more books I would strongly recommend Heaven is For Real and Heaven Changes Everything. I've read them both about five times, and still can't stop reading them!

[Eva of Cair Paravel]

I've just finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry, and it was very interesting. Though it was about children, and written for children, I had the feeling it was meant for adults.
I've also lately read the Book Thief, which was a bit hard to start, since it was long too, but by the middle of the book, it got really interesting. And it's way better than the movie.
Now I'm reading Percy Jackson, which is quite a good fantasy book, and Ana Karenina (which I actually started months ago, but is so long, I always put it aside. :p ).

[narniagirl11]

@Eva I've heard the The Giver and Percy Jackson are really good. I haven't read them though.

Well, I don't really keep up on what is popular in teen fiction, but some of my friends do, and my one friend specifically was pestering me to read the 'Divergent' trilogy. I finally did. It was pretty good, aside from one scene in the first book that did not need to be in there, or did not need as much description as there was. The writing style was good, but was a little lacking. The third book especially was poorly written. I didn't get bored with the story, but I got bored with the main character repeatedly making the same stupid choices over and over. I wanted the story to follow her boyfriend or her brother. They were much more interesting characters.

Dilly recommended 'Variant' (see her review above). It was a really fresh book. I really enjoyed the main character and reading a book with a male main character was nice after The Hunger Games and Divergent. After reading Variant, I started The Maze Runner which has a sort of similar idea to Variant. But both stories take an exciting twist right away and end up completely different. Very original books. I think of all the distopian fiction books I've read in the last couple months I have enjoyed The Hunger Games trilogy and The Maze Runner trilogy the best.

Now I've turned back to reading fantasy because Tenny gave me the first Wingfeather Saga book. I can't say anything about it yet because I'm not very far in. This summer I have plans to read Eragon, Percy Jackson, the second book of Lewis's Space Trilogy, and more Wingfeather books. We'll see how much I get read.

[Ariel.of.Narnia]

I almost bought The Book Thief today (PluggedIn got me interested, though I've not seen the movie). Almost bought Lewis' Space Trilogy too (but it was so expensive... that and I found a couple other books I wanted a little more).
I've not read anything all the way through yet, but I bought Boxen (stories Lewis and his older brother made up when they were kids) and started reading the script for a play called "The King's Ring". Funny to see what Lewis did and didn't know (ie: subject matter and words-no-longer-in-use vs spelling) when he was eight.

[Esprit]

I think I've mentioned somewhere before that I love the fantasy series Tales of Goldstone Wood. Well, I finally read the newest Tale that released in March and LOVED IT. I'll try not to rave too much. But, *sigh* it was the best one yet!
First off, behold the gorgeous cover:

Shadow Hand has the most complicated plot yet (time-travel-- whoa!), and it also got quite creepy or strange at times. BUT there was some good humor to lighten things up and strong Christian undertones. The characters are the greatest part, though. They're always the last people you would expect to be the heroes. Stengl's narrative can feel almost lyrical and her created worlds have a depth that reminds me of LotR. And the... I could go on for hours, discussing this.
Ok, I feel like I've presented an ad instead of just telling you what I'm reading. But, gah, I love this book!

[ShiofNarnia]

Always and I just started reading "To Kill a Mocking Bird" last night. I've never read it but have seen the movie with Gregory Peck in it, and enjoyed that. So we'll see how it goes Anyone else read it?

[The Happy Islander]

@Shi: "To Kill a Mockingbird"! Ooh, that's a good one! I think I've read it two or three times--once in Spanish. (It was about the only good book in Spanish our high school library had while I was preparing for an AP Spanish test.) It seemed really long in Spanish, took me forever to finish. I've seen part of the movie with Gregory Peck, but it's been a while since I've read the book so I don't recall how they compare.