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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 04:43 PM)
I am reading a translation of the Dead Sea scrolls now, then The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies by Jared Diamond. I already read Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel by him.

 

http://www.amazon.com/World-Until-Yesterda...asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

yeah i got that in audio book, since my health issues, i can't read anymore

so i use audio book. a little slower for me, but i still get to read so to speak.

 

let me know what you think ok.

 

 

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 15, 2015 -> 03:43 PM)
I am reading a translation of the Dead Sea scrolls now, then The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies by Jared Diamond. I already read Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel by him.

 

http://www.amazon.com/World-Until-Yesterda...asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

i just got done with that book. it was a hard one to follow. but i like it. everything in

what the Gnostic religion talked about.

 

whew. believe me, it was really hard to keep track.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

after seeing the movie the "unbroken". and reading all i can on the internet. i decided to go and read the book.

 

wow, the guy in real life, he was really tortured during WW2 as a japanese pow. the story in really life does have a happy ending by finding God and his attempts to do good with billy graham as his helper. the japanese guard, in those camps were the sadist of japan who couldn't work in real life, was the top 7 war criminal from ww2.

 

the story of his family and closeness is great. now as a youngster, i thought i was a hellion but this guy may have beaten me in some things that he got into trouble for.....

 

good reading.

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Is the 5th book of the GOT series worth reading?

 

After watching the all 40 episodes last week, I decided to read the books.

 

 

Struggling with #4, especially the parts about Lady Brienne searching for Sansa Stark. The book really is dragging without much mention of Bran, Jon Snow, Tyrion or Danaerys.

 

Personally, I think Terry Brooks is still the best fantasy writer alive today. He botched his Star Wars "moment in the sun," but I've never read a series like the Shannara books in the 1980's that could go on for hundreds of pages and I wouldn't even want to put it down once. Perhaps being in middle school and high school made those particular books more impactful?

 

I guess others favor JK Rowling, then there's Robert Jordan fans out there as well.

Edited by caulfield12
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The 5th book gets the series back on track, and if you watch the show then I definitely recommend reading it before the season starts as it will go heavily into it (at least according to the trailer preview).

 

The 4th book is much slower than the rest of the series, but I really enjoyed it the 2nd time around. The hardest part is book 3 ended with such a bang that almost anything following it was going to be slow, so then to put the 4th book with most of the boring characters was a tough read to follow book 3. Once I read it again (and not worried about story progression) I found it really enjoyable and had a lot of details on characters/story development that initially went unnoticed/under appreciated.

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QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 9, 2015 -> 03:39 PM)
Is the 5th book of the GOT series worth reading?

 

Absolutely.

 

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 9, 2015 -> 03:39 PM)
Struggling with #4, especially the parts about Lady Brienne searching for Sansa Stark. The book really is dragging without much mention of Bran, Jon Snow, Tyrion or Danaerys.

 

Happens to everyone. Crows is filled with a lot of characters most people don't like. Dragons has a lot of Jon, Tyrion, and Dany. It's still not as good as the first three books, but definitely a step up from the fourth.

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When is the 6th GOT book supposed to be published?

 

I was just finishing the fourth and he signed off saying it (the 5th) would come in a year or so and it ended up being almost five years.

 

Was the book series originally planned to end at 6 or is it getting extended as well because of the success of the HBO series?

 

 

EDIT: Guess it will be anytime from 2015-2017...The Winds of Winter, with A Dream of Spring following hopefully when everyone is still alive and interested in the series.

 

They're really going to have to show down the t.v. series and stretch it out while waiting for WofW.

Edited by caulfield12
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QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 10, 2015 -> 10:57 AM)
When is the 6th GOT book supposed to be published?

 

I was just finishing the fourth and he signed off saying it (the 5th) would come in a year or so and it ended up being almost five years.

 

Was the book series originally planned to end at 6 or is it getting extended as well because of the success of the HBO series?

 

 

EDIT: Guess it will be anytime from 2015-2017...The Winds of Winter, with A Dream of Spring following hopefully when everyone is still alive and interested in the series.

 

They're really going to have to show down the t.v. series and stretch it out while waiting for WofW.

 

The book's ETA is anyone's guess at this point. His publishers said about a week ago that it would NOT be in 2015. However, they then retracted that and said it is not currently planned for 2015. I think Spring 2016 is a realistic possibility.

 

The books began back in the mid-1990's, so nothing is being drawn out because of TV. His first three books came out quickly and then he ran into his problem and everything has been severely delayed since then. An additional problem is that GRRM does so much else - the Dunk & Egg novellas, his editing of several anthologies, the World of Ice and Fire, until this year he's written an episode per season for the show, numerous tours and appearances etc...

 

He's released or read 4 or 5 chapters from The Winds of Winter so far and was said to have had 100-200 manuscript pages done at the time of Dance with Dragons release, so hopefully he's almost done, but with George you really can't know when he'll get it done.

 

Also, the show runners know the ending in broad strokes, they are not going to slow the show down. They are planning on finishing in in 7 seasons (although I personally think they need 8 to do it justice) and by then there is probably less than a 1% chance GRRM has released A Dream of Spring

Edited by ChiSox_Sonix
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QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Feb 10, 2015 -> 12:15 PM)
The book's ETA is anyone's guess at this point. His publishers said about a week ago that it would NOT be in 2015. However, they then retracted that and said it is not currently planned for 2015. I think Spring 2016 is a realistic possibility.

 

The books began back in the mid-1990's, so nothing is being drawn out because of TV. His first three books came out quickly and then he ran into his problem and everything has been severely delayed since then. An additional problem is that GRRM does so much else - the Dunk & Egg novellas, his editing of several anthologies, the World of Ice and Fire, until this year he's written an episode per season for the show, numerous tours and appearances etc...

 

He's released or read 4 or 5 chapters from The Winds of Winter so far and was said to have had 100-200 manuscript pages done at the time of Dance with Dragons release, so hopefully he's almost done, but with George you really can't know when he'll get it done.

 

Also, the show runners know the ending in broad strokes, they are not going to slow the show down. They are planning on finishing in in 7 seasons (although I personally think they need 8 to do it justice) and by then there is probably less than a 1% chance GRRM has released A Dream of Spring

 

 

Thanks. Currently enjoying A Dance With Dragons a bit more because I skipped over the first three books as I'd just watched all the shows together.

 

For that reason, it doesn't feel quite so slow/repetitive/redundant as some critics have pointed out.

 

By June 2010, Martin had finished four chapters for The Winds of Winter from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, and Arianne Martell.[5] In July 2010, he added an Aeron Greyjoy chapter that had been moved from A Dance with Dragons to The Winds of Winter, accumulating around 100 completed manuscript pages.[8]

 

By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had been written, although Martin considers only the first 200 as "really finished", the rest still needing revisions.[26]

Supposedly the last two books will both be 1500+ pages.

 

 

 

 

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QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 10, 2015 -> 10:02 PM)
Thanks. Currently enjoying A Dance With Dragons a bit more because I skipped over the first three books as I'd just watched all the shows together.

 

For that reason, it doesn't feel quite so slow/repetitive/redundant as some critics have pointed out.

 

By June 2010, Martin had finished four chapters for The Winds of Winter from the viewpoints of Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, and Arianne Martell.[5] In July 2010, he added an Aeron Greyjoy chapter that had been moved from A Dance with Dragons to The Winds of Winter, accumulating around 100 completed manuscript pages.[8]

 

By October 2012, 400 pages of the sixth novel had been written, although Martin considers only the first 200 as "really finished", the rest still needing revisions.[26]

Supposedly the last two books will both be 1500+ pages.

 

I would highly recommend going back and reading the first three books. They are, in my opinion, the best 3 of the series and provide so much back story, history and additional characters and intrigue that it will be very worth your while.

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QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Feb 10, 2015 -> 10:33 PM)
to get an understanding of why a lot of people really were unhappy with AFFC, consider that people reading the books as they came out had to wait 12 years for the plot lines of Jon Snow, Tyrion and Daenerys to continue.

 

Yeah, I didn't start reading the series until just before the show, so I only had to wait a short time for aDwD and now tWoW. I can't imagine being a reader from the beginning and having to wait that long.

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I have been reading/enjoying Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. Show has been decent, but sometimes I get really confused by show and then book clarifies. They kind of introduced people/plots in show for no reason other than they happened in book, but if you weren't reading book they aren't explained enough to know what the hell is going on.

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QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jul 13, 2015 -> 05:54 PM)
I'm reading a Steve Berry novel right now, King's Deception. He's an historical fiction writer who I really enjoy.

 

the snippet i read sounds very good.

 

i am going to find it and read it. many thanks

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I have a Half-Price Books Outlet near my house that has different sales all the time. A few months ago it was everything in the store was $1. Just last week they had a deal where you fill a bag with as much stuff as you could for $30. Between my wife, myself and a couple of other people we filled up a bag and paid less than $1 per book.

 

So lately I've been buying a bunch of books that everyone says are good but I've just never gotten around to reading.

 

I picked up the first two books of the Hunger Games trilogy (they didn't have the 3rd one for some reason), all three of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, Gone Girl and quite a few of the Odd Thomas books by Dean Koontz.

 

I also found a biography about Charles M. Schulz (the creator of Charlie Brown/Peanuts Gang). I never even knew it existed but I've always been a big Charlie Brown fan.

 

I still have Finders Keepers by Stephen King sitting at home as well.

 

Just haven't found much time to read lately. Currently I'm about halfway through Say It's So by Phil Rogers. It's about the 2005 White Sox.

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I finished Killing Patton the other night. Far from an in-depth research biography but interesting nonetheless. I knew he died shortly after the war in a pretty unlucky accident. I did not know that a lot of people seem to think it was an assassination, and there's some compelling facts supporting that claim.

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