What have you been reading? - Book Discussion Thread

I ended up bailing on the Malcolm Gladwell book. It was fine but it felt like after a couple hundred pages he was just retreading the same points over and over. It was decent but like many pop nonfiction books I've read, it probably could have been 100 or 200 pages shorter and have got the same points across. I want to enjoy this genre of books but so many of them seem like they are not for me. Had he picked one or two of the situations discussed and instead talked about those in-depth rather than doing a shotgun approach of talking at the surface level about a bajillion different things, I think it would have been a better read.

I instead switched to R.O. Kwon's "The Incendiaries" after I saw it recommended in a list of books the musician Julien Baker put out that she related to songs on her new album (her album is incredible by the way). I enjoyed "The Incendiaries" a lot. It's a book written from multiple perspectives about someone being sucked into a cult, one perspective being the cult leader who, as is made clear very early in the book, is not who the people in the cult think he is and is not in it for the reasons they believe him to be. The author's writing style is quite different from any I've seen but once I got used to it, I liked it.

I’ve recently finished reading “Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire” by Roger Crowley. It tells the story of 16^th Century Portugal’s efforts to control the Indian Ocean and divert the highly lucrative spice trade towards its own ports, and how such a small country managed to punch way above its weight class against the local powers in the process.

Currently, I’m slowly making my way through “H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction”, which contains exactly what it says in the title. Not all of them have been particularly great up to now, but I’ve enjoyed the stories that deal with characters living alternate lives in their dreams, like Polaris and The White Ship. I’m pacing myself by reading a single story per day which means I’ve still got almost two months of reading to do (today’s story is Celephäis, 20^th out of 75).

Lastly, my main book for the moment is the 7th Witcher novel, “The Lady of the Lake”. To be frank, I haven’t really liked books 3-6, even though I loved the first two (they have a very different writing style), but I want to read through the whole series in order to better be able to compare Book Geralt to CDPR Geralt and Netflix Geralt. For now, CDPR Geralt is winning, but Netflix Geralt’s way of saying “…fuck” cracks me up every time.

@enchaunter: I love the two collections of short stories to death, but I found the first two novels (Blood of Elves and Time of Contempt) to be a real slog. The last 3 novels I found much more enjoyable as Geralt gets his posse together and there is a more concrete narrative throughline. The framing device for that last book though... I really did not care for.

@enchaunter: "Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire" sounds like it is exactly my shit. I have some unused Audible credits lying around so I just went and purchased it! If you're looking for something along the same lines, I highly recommend William Dalrymple's "The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company." It is a fantastic narrative history of what the British did in India. I haven't finished it yet but it is very good so far.

I've been trying to get through The Witcher books as I replay the games (with the intent of finishing the third game this time) and I've found...I kind of don't like the books? The early ones at least are super boring.

@nophilip: For me it's the opposite. I loved reading those short stories as a way to learn more about the world, the monsters, and the unique way witchers deal with them, piecing together all sorts of information to try and find out exactly what they're up against, then doing everything in their power to prepare and stack the odds in their favor. The other novels started reading like a more standard kind of adventure, especially as Geralt started using his powers and potions less and less, even in situations where they could've been useful. I'm enjoying The Lady of the Lake, though. It reveals new details about the world which barely appear in the games.

Edit: Re-reading your comment, I just realized I misunderstood it. Sorry! Yeah, I also enjoyed the later novels more than Time of Contempt and Blood of Elves for similar reasons. That process where Geralt finally stops pushing everyone away and accepts their friendship was great. I do wish the author leaned more on the unique details of the series, though.

@bladeofcreation: Ooh, nice. I'll be sure to check it out when I have the chance. Thanks for the suggestion! Also, if you'd like, hit me up when you finish Conquerors. It would be nice to hear someone else's take on it.

Currently reading The Cost of these Dreams by Wright Thompson and In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. Really enjoying both of them.

Does anyone have a good book recommendation about different Wild West Outlaws? I am looking for something in the vein of Public Enemies by Bryan Burroughs (my favorite book!)

Thanks in advance.

Samantha Kolesnik's True Crime was fantastic. A really brutal, sad take on the long reach of abuse, so I recommend it only if seriously dark content isn't going to turn you away. But well worth a read.

I just read One Two Three Four - a collage of Beatles anecdotes. Genuinely funny, revealing, and surprisingly touching. I'd recommend even if you're not into the Fab 4.

I'm reading Transit by Rachel Cusk. The second book part of her 'Outline' trilogy. Really great so far. She has this incredible talent at presenting really believable, at times mundane, yet impactful vignettes into everyday modern life, usually in a big city. She also has an acute awareness of class and status but not in a way where she bashes you over the head with it. These little episodes usually end up being about how people are all fundamentally insecure and sad and lost, no matter what. Highly recommended.

Then I'm going to move onto The City & The City by China Miéville. Apparently this one was a huge source of inspiration for the Disco Elysium developers. Based on the premise alone, I can totally see that. Really enjoyed his book "October" on the Bolshevik Revolution. Will try and report back.

So I've been engrossed in my giant Malazan reread project, in which I reread the entire main Malazan series, as well as first time reads of all the other novels & novellas set in that world. That's (currently) 28 books, with a likely 29th out by the time I finish. I'm aware that I'm a crazy person.

Anyway, I just finished my reread of Book 5 of the core series, Midnight Tides. Man, what a spectacular read. Some notable standouts:

• This is easily the funniest fantasy novel I've ever read. YMMV, but if you enjoy gallows humor (not super edgy grimdark stuff, more just laughing in the face of dark absurdity), Midnight Tides is a masterwork.
• The book contains one of the more nuanced allegories/parodies of American capitalism I've seen. Very easy to read about the Empire of Lether, its incredibly self centered and greedy people, and see the parallels to current American culture. (Note: I am American)
• I don't normally go out of my way to seek media that involves body horror, but OH MY GOD this book contains one of the most effective ongoing depictions of body horror I've ever experienced. Not especially gory or anything, but very disturbing.

Anyway, I've probably prattled on enough about Malazan in this thread in the past. But if you enjoy fantasy and are looking for something more thoughtful than your typical trope-laden fare, but also a hell of a lot better written than something like ASOIAF (Game of Thrones), you should really give the core Malazan ten book series a shot.

Below: my crazy person reading order spreadsheet. I'm almost halfway!

I am essentially incapable of engaging with historical fiction without also choosing to learn about what I'm reading/watching/playing. So when I started Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, I picked up a book about Vikings. I just finished it.

The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings by Lars Brownworth, narrated by Joe Barrett, is an excellent primer on the Viking Age. Lars Brownworth tells the story of the Vikings in an engaging and narrative style that is easy to follow and entertaining to listen to. Although raiding was one of the major activities that defined the age, the peoples of Scandinavia were also traders, explorers, and settlers. Brownsworth makes sure to note that although the Viking Age spanned less than three centuries, the legacies that they left behind can still be seen and felt today. This is a great starting point for learning about the Vikings.

I have been reading/listening to a lot more lately, as I am trying to read shorter books this year. Last year was almost all 600-1200 page monstrosities, as I re-read the main Malazan series (@nophilip: The entire series is so good! I have not read all the other books in the series so far, but I have several of them ready to go) and also listened to the last book in Sanderson's Stormlight Archive.

Some of the books I have read so far: Gideon the Ninth, No Longer Human, Nutshell, Pride and Prejudice, Flights.
The one that really stuck with me though is the one I finished last week on audio. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
It's about a man living in a most likely infinitely large House, with large halls, corridors and vestibules. Every hall has hundreds of statues covering the walls. The middle floor are where you can live, the lower halls are submerged in water and provides food, the upper halls are open to the sky and provides rainwater to drink.
It stuck with me so that I am learning Blender just to make a picture from this House.

“May your Paths be safe, your Floors unbroken and may the House fill your eyes with Beauty.”

Right now I am reading the first From a certain point of view, and enjoying it a lot.
And I am listening to the first Senlin Ascends book, which is kind of a nightmare in a really good way.

I was just about to post and ask whether anyone has kept up with Terry Goodkind's recent books. Before posting, I Googled him to find his latest releases, only to discover that he died in September 2020.

I fell off the Sword of Truth series shortly after they became "Richard and Kahlan novels", although even before that I was becoming increasingly tired of Goodkind's writing style and preachiness. Was anything that he released in the last 10 years actually worth reading?

I have read books that I had to read during school but the only book I have read in my life with my own free will was Sun Tzu - the art of war, and I must say it was the best life lesson ever,

I totally recommend it, those tactics can be used in piking partners, cuisines strategies, war tactics, social relations, everything.

Good times

I'm very slowly (Like a chapter a month) getting through Sanderson's "Way of Kings". I'm listening on Audible, which means it takes a lot longer, naturally, as audiobooks are slow going.

I'm really into Kalidan taking charge as the Bridge Captain, and I love reading about him.

I'm also planning to read through LOTR with my partner over the summer, as she's never read them before, so we're gonna read them when we're off work over the summer holidays

I'm also kinda WRITING a book. I've had this idea for a story about a Ranger for....ages (I think Rangers are the coolest fantasy trope), so I'm kinda...writing my partner into a book. The protagonist is named after her, and looks like her. I'm about...5000 words deep out of a goal of ab out 25,000 words.

I'm writing it by hand, pen and paper, in a moleskin notebook, so that by about...the 1st of June (My expected finish date), I'll be able to present her with this one of a kind, handwritten, custom book that I've written just for her.

It's pretty exciting!

@sombre: That is going to be an AMAZING gift for your partner!

The Way of Kings is, IMO, too long. But it's also quite good and the world-building and magic system are so cool.

@sombre: That's a cool gift. Good luck!

The Welcome To Nightvale book, which so far is a pretty tough read in the best way possible. It's equal parts absurdity and horror, and sometimes you really have to reread a passage to understand what's happening, and even then, there's a lot of "just go with it" that you need to tell yourself a bit more when it's not Cecil's dulcet tones matter-of-factly telling the story.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman.

Well, it's hard to know what to make of this book. It's certainly rather unlike any other book I've read - although it's a fantasy, it plays a lot with genre conventions in rather interesting ways. Still, it is a bit frustrating.

The first half of the book is essentially Harry Potter with sex and f-bombs. If that's enough to intrigue you, check it out if you like. Otherwise, spoilers follow. I have a lot of thoughts about this book.

While the Harry Potter influence is the most conspicuous at first glance, he whole book is actually suffused with a kind of adoration and skepticism of Narnia, and CS Lewis is clearly the more important influence. The crux of the story is to explore what happens when disillusioned, cynical 20-something atheists visit Narnia, which here is called "Fillory".

This book belongs to the "post-coming-of-age" genre. That's a phrase I just made up, but it's one of these stories about what it's like to be in your 20s after college and not belonging to any kind of family or commitments or reason for existing, when a lack of purpose and drive starts to burrow into yourself and kill you from the inside, something I can relate to. Others in the genre I can think of include Fight Club, Garden State, Notes from the Underground, and the game Night in the Woods. (Yes, I like Garden State, screw you.)

It's clear to me that this is a story about depression, or at least about a lack of satisfaction in life. All of the characters are searching for the kind of meaning that comes to the characters in fantasy stories that they can't seem to find anywhere in real life. This is an interesting angle on the genre, and one I've not seen before. Even if you could live out that kind of story, the book argues, you'd still be just as unhappy. So you have to find the meaning in yourself and in your friends/relationships. This is not a subtext - the characters flat-out say this in dialogue.

There are some very memorable and even moving parts in this book. However, it's often undercut by the characters' incessantly joke-y and not terribly clever or interesting dialogue. At times I really wished they would shut up. It's also spoiled somewhat for me by just how unlikable the protagonist, Quentin, is. I really wanted to slap him at several points in this book. He's arrogant, smug, self-obsessed, and hateful, and not in an interesting way.

Another thing that really didn't work for me in this book was the lack of coherent world-building. I realize it's not trying to be a Game of Thrones or a Lord of the Rings, but in this book very weird things just kind of happen without much buildup or fanfare. Like, at one point the main character casually announces he's going to the Moon. I guess this kind of silliness sort-of works thematically in satirizing or deconstructing the fantasy genre somehow, but it also drains out some of the drama. If any wacky event can happen at any moment, why should I care when characters are in peril? It's very inconsistent about what powers the characters have, as well - for example, Quentin is able to walk naked to the South Pole with the help of heating spells, but later the characters have to waste a lot of time going back for cold-weather clothes they stupidly left behind. It feels at times like the author is running out of ideas and just making it up on the spot.

Ultimately, while the book was interesting and certainly memorable, it doesn't quite pack the emotional punch I hoped it would, and I probably won't read the sequels. Still, I have a feeling I'll be thinking about it for some time. I kind of wish I could read the actual Fillory books the characters all love so much, which seem more intriguing than what Grossman actually wrote.

i finished A Game of Thrones pretty recently

it was pretty good i think

really liked Jon Snow hanging out at the wall

the plight of the Starks is very tragic to see unfold, with Bran and Ned

Tyrion Lannister somehow managing to get out of life or death situations with his dumb megamind is fun to watch

the Danerys chapters are pretty sad but it's nice to see Viserys get his just desserts, fuck that guy

it was a fun read, i wanna go straight to A Clash of Kings but with school coming up, that'll probably be on the back burner for a lil

Just finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I liked it quite a bit. Same author as The Martian, which I never read but sounds a bit similar so if you like that you might like this one, too. In a nutshell and without spoiling anything, guy in space tries to use science to save the day. I thought it was well written and actually had a lot of fascinating scientific experimentation in it without feeling pedantic. Overall I'd recommend it to just about anyone interested in stories about space and science.

Masters of Doom. I'm up to Wolfenstein 3D and I'm really liking it so far. I get a bit narked by the constant refrain of, "The gamers" when referring to id but, aside from that, it's good stuff. I didn't expect it to get too technical but all the talk around John Carmack and his engines does help put it across in specifics. You get a good sense of the personalities involved, as well. Adrian Carmack might be the only one close to being normal.

I don't know how much further beyond Doom this goes (Don't tell me, I prefer the surprise) but it would probably be a longer book if it really, really got into Quake.

Speaking of that, it's really good at the "Oh, that's where that name comes from" moments that spring from the D&D sessions. It's also striking just how much could happen within a year back in those days. In the span of a modern game's development, they're rattling off dozens on magazine discs and shareware.

Anybody's welcome to throw some more books about game development at me. I've got my eye on Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar

Black Box from Shiori Ito. It's a powerful book about the abused state toward women have to go through, particularly, what she went through.

Anyone re-reading or reading for the first time Dune?

I searched my library catalog for an unabridged, single narrator audiobook so I could listen to teh book in full again. It has been over 40 years since I read Dune -I was twelve? I read some of Frank Herbert's other books, but I think the first Dune book is the only one that really felt compelling. That said my opinion was formed form a 12 to 13 year old's perspective.

So has anyone tackled the book recently?

@monkeyking1969: I had planned to re-read it (along with audio narration) before the movie, but dint get a chance to. I'm gonna make it one of my reads over the holidays.

@monkeyking1969:

I read it a few years ago (maybe 5 or so) and loved it. Read most of the series right after finishing it. The first book is very compelling and is 100% the best of the series, that being said, I love Children of Dune.

But a friend of mine just finished about a week before we saw the movie and he really enjoyed it. So I think it still holds up pretty well.

Just started The Expanse - Leviathan Falls really looking forward to how James S. A. Corey wraps the series up.

I recently finished House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds. It's my first time reading one of his books, and I loved it. I'm really fascinated by the concept of deep time. The book takes place six million years in humanity's future. Humans have spread throughout the galaxy, have evolved into countless new forms, and countless civilizations have "turned over" in the words of the story's protagonists; in other words, these civilizations have come and gone in a seemingly endless cycle. Despite this expansion and advances in every conceivable form of science, travel is still restricted by the speed of light. The difference of traveling at .99 c versus .999 c is a difference of decade in real time at 1,000 light-years.

If humans are still around and colonizing the galaxy in six million years, it's hard to imagine that we'll even remember the Old Place, as our solar system is referred to. Reynolds suggests a future in which we might remember it, and posits a believable scenario for that happening. This is a story with events that span tens of millennia, yet the human characters at its center are believable and flawed and fundamentally human in ways that we can relate to today. The story is a mystery that is also about civilization, history, memory, and what it means to be a responsible member of a society, no matter how vast or complicated that society is.

5/5, highly recommended for fans of sci-fi

Billy Summers by Stephen King, very enjoyable

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Book Summary.This is a book everyone needs to try to understand

I finished the 4th Foundation book (Foundation's Edge). Without giving away spoilers, I liked the first 3 a lot. This one has a major backstory that it kind of rushes through in a few paragraphs, then bases an all-new premise on this new backstory.

Summarizing complicated periods in history within a work of fiction is something I dislike, because you can easily transport the reader to that story and show, in detail, what you want the reader to understand. Otherwise, like in this book, I'm so focused on what happened specifically in that backstory that I lose focus on the rest of the story.

It's like an entire book was erased between 3 and 4, and you're supposed to piece the puzzles together based on different rumors and myths. But the entire time, the story is told at you, which just amounts to the reader being unconvinced.

I read it earlier this year for the first time after many false starts over the years. Previously whenever I tried to read it I would make it about 50 or 60 pages in before getting a little overwhelmed by the density of it, particularly in terms of the vocabulary and the world building of it all. Not that I found any of that stuff bad, per se, but it is deliberately very full on and has a sink or swim quality to it which always defeated me when I was younger.

This time around, I powered through and finished it in about a week and I loved it. The world is so captivating and the imagination that Herbert brings to the whole thing is really incredible. I'm really glad I made the effort to finally get through it, since I then immediately rolled into Dune Messiah, and am looking forward to working through at least the next couple of books to see how much more complicated the world gets.

Other than that, most recently I've been reading a collection of Agatha Christie's Poirot short stories, having spent much of the last couple of years working through her novels. I enjoy the longer novels more for the way they luxuriate in the upper crust settings and because the mysteries can be more complicated and twisty thanks to the added length, but there is a real punchy quality to the short stories that makes them fun and charming in their own way.

I've been on a Middle East kick lately for some reason, and I picked up Hisham Matar's memoir "The Return" from a bookstore, knowing nothing about it except what it said on the back. It's about the author's search for his father, a dissident against the Qaddafi regime in Libya, who was kidnapped in Cairo and spent many years languishing in the infamous (although I hadn't heard of it) Abu Selim prison in Tripoli. It's quite short and compelling. Mishar does an excellent job communicating the anguish of not knowing the fate of a vanished loved one. The whole book makes you feel the oppressive impotence of living in the shadow of a tyrant.

Just finished an old Elric paperback over the weekend.Haven't yet decided what to start next

A Brief History of NeoLiberalism by David Harvey - one of my professors mentioned this one to me so I've been slowly going through it. Provides an overview of the concepts regarding Neoliberalism, how its a modified form of capitalism whose main goal was shifting wealth back to the elite, as post WW2 gave rise to a stronger working party as well as socialism popping up around the world. Helps to know this stuff as it provides insight to a lot of things going on in the world, particularly whats going on in the video game industry. If you want to know what toxicity is allowed to persist--execs only responsibility is making profits for their shareholders. That's it.

Trainspotting by Irvin Welsh - the book is infamous for the heavy dialect that persists throughout, as well as the many, many characters that populate not only this one but also Welsh's other novels. But I think you get used to it after awhile, and so far its a pretty engaging ride into drug addiction during the 90s

@wollywoo: If you're on a Middle East kick, I highly recommend Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It's an autobiographical graphic novel in which the author details her life growing up in Iran in the years immediately following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It is quite moving.

The Illustrated Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Honestly, I bought it because of the Moebius illustrations throughout, but the book is actually a great quick read as well. It's about a young Spanish shepherd who sells his herd, travels to another continent, and crosses the African desert in search of the Pyramids and the treasure there that he sees in a prophetic dream.

The Alchemist is about having the strength to shake up your life in support of pursuing your own "Personal Legend". Incidentally, it's the exact story I needed at the end of a year where I felt particularly defeated and lacking in inspiration to try to fulfill some of my creative ambitions. 2021, amirite?

Oh, I have Persepolis, I love it and try to get my friends to read it :)

I actually really enjoy graphic novel memoirs/nonfiction in general. Another I love is Alison Bechdel's "Gone Home".

@wollywoo: Awesome! I read Persepolis years ago, and then I just picked it up again because I had a class this semester about modern literature from around the world and Persepolis is the last work we read!

In another class we read Mendoza the Jew, which is a nonfiction graphic novel about a British boxer in the late 18th century. If you're into graphic nonfiction, it's really cool. The first part is the graphic novel/nonfiction story itself, and the subsequent parts of the book cover the primary sources and how the book was made. It's a really neat look into how history can be told through new media such as comics.

@bladeofcreation: Oh seems interesting, thanks for the rec!

A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology by Toby Wilkinson, excellently narrated by Graeme Malcolm, is a riveting overview of the so-called "golden age" of Egyptology. As with any "golden age" the question is, "a golden age for whom?" The answer, of course, is for European (and later, American) business and state interests.

For the better part of 20 centuries, the language of the pharaohs was dead, unknown even to scholars of antiquity. That changed in 1822 with the decipherment (this is apparently a real word) of the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. Thus begins a rush of "scholars and scoundrels"--as Wilkinson puts it--to uncover the secrets buried under the sands for ages. This golden age lasts for a century, until Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922. The intervening years are a great drama played out in the halls of academia, the conference rooms of diplomacy, and in the streets of Egyptian cities. Wilkinson provides political and historical context for how and why certain countries got involved in Egyptology when they did.

The books ends in the 1920s, as European and American interests begin to get locked out of an Egypt that is newly independent. This is really my only gripe with the book--the torch of Egyptology has not gone out, but has been picked up by present-day Egyptians who uncover the history of their land on their own terms. That is certainly a topic worthy of its own book, though.

Countless books about ancient Egypt have been written. A World Beneath the Sands: The Golden Age of Egyptology is unique because its focus is on those who conducted the study of Egyptology, rather than being about ancient Egypt itself. This is well worth a read for anyone interested not just in history, but in how and why history is studied.

5/5, highly recommended

I read Dracula. The first 70 or so pages are quite gripping as Jonathan Harker explores Castle Dracula. Unfortunately, that's the only place where Dracula appears much as a character with dialogue - after that he's more of a phantom. Too bad, because he's rather interesting.

The middle part becomes a bit of a slog. Even though the book is only 300 pages or so, it seemed a lot longer at times. There are quite a lot of mundane details about London bureaucracy as our protagonists try to track down all of Dracula's coffins. There's also a couple unkind ethnic stereotypes. But overall, I definitely enjoyed the read.

The most striking thing about the novel was the religious element. Dracula is much more menacing here than vampires I've seen in movies/TV because he is clearly demonic. Most modern vampire stories push this element to the side, probably because it's too alienating to non-Christian audiences. But it makes Dracula seem genuinely scary. I'm not religious, but I grew up in a religion, so I know the power that these ideas have, and Stoker makes pretty good use of it. I used to think that vampires were not scary at all, since they have so many weaknesses - crucifixes, daylight, garlic, etc. But now I see that that's kind of the point. Ultimately it's a spiritual battle, not a physical one.

I finished The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan. A good start to this trilogy)

I'm not a big fan of crime fiction (which slowed me down a bit in the first half), but I was intrigued by the characters and the story. The plot was well-paced and unpredictable. Another thing is Marvel and his comic books. It's amazing, especially Star Wars. Fantastic artwork and a decent story.

I decided to try re-reading Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (or at least the first three books, since those are the good ones), as I hadn't read it since before the HBO series was a thing. I'm most of the way through the first book and it's been... fine? Some of the differences from the show that I had forgotten are interesting, but altogether it seems less fun now that I pretty much remember all the major plot twists. I think I'll probably finish that first book and then move on to something else rather than continue it.

Was thinking after that I'd re-read Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain. They're ancient children's/YA fantasy novels based on Welsh mythology, written way back in the 60s. My dad read them to me as a kid and it's what got me into fantasy in the first place. But I haven't read them in a very, very long time. Would be interesting to try them again, and the entire five-book series together is shorter than just one of Martin's books, I believe. Anyway, I'd definitely recommend the series for kids, it sure worked on me.

@atheistpreacher: thanks for your opinion. I was just wondering if I should start reading or not Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. I think I'll choose for something else