Axis Mundi X discussion

Look at your list of books finished since January 2008. Pick out your favorite three. Post them here and we can see if any of our picks overlap.

Mine are:

The Other

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Okay Char, Rusty is going to go with:

Dune

Salem's Lot

What a great question. My picks:

The Good Soldier Ford
Invisible Man Ellison
U.S.A. The 42nd Parallel 1919 The Big Money Hardcover Dos Passos

Hmmm I've read some great books this year so far:-

The Talisman

The curious incident with the dog in the night-time

City of Bone - The Mortal Instruments

Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by Hunter S. Thompson

The Tale of Despereaux (diCamillo)
Chocolat (Joanne Harris)
Curse of the Giant Hogweed (Peter something-or-other)

The Tale of Despereaux (LOVED)
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
My Brain is Hanging Upside Down by David Heatley

I... I can't read or write.

For an illiterate person you spell remarkably well.

Mine:
The Good Soldier, Ford Maddox Ford
Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith

Dodie Smith wrote 101 Dalmations....is I Capture the Castle adult or kids fiction?

I Capture the Castle is adult, or young adult.

The Tale of Despereaux

I'm seeing a trend here. Isn't that the story about the mouse with a rapier? Isn't that a movie coming to theatres soon? Should I read the book or see the film?

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Power & The Glory by Graham Greene

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.


I would say see the movie of Despereaux first, then read the book, Charissa. Very few movies can live up to their books.

I would say read the book and forget the movie altogether....it looks very 'cutesified' from the images I have seen. Yeccch!

LOL!! Thanks a lot gals. Now I have two more warring voices in my head about this book/film. Equally matched!!

The book itself is pretty cutesified, in my opinion...

"Reader, there is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing."

Cutesified? That?

The tone feels artificial to me, Debbie. I wish it didn't, I wish I loved it.

I didn't care for the treatment of the character Miggery Sow, either.

The way she was treated or the way she was 'drawn'?

Both, I guess. She was used by the author who made her into a villain, and by the other characters in the book. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

The thing is...the world is full of Miggery Sows; passive, ill-starred victim-types. This one gets to play a pivotal and ultimately happy part in this tale. And authors create their characters for the sole purpose of using them to one end or another......

Oh my gawd, I love that book. I just read it to 2nd and 3rd graders and it was magical.

Jackie, Miggery's hands weren't clean. Just like Roscuro, being badly treated can cause one to make hurtful decisions.

I loved the Miggery/Pea relationship.

:::shrugs:::

I just don't like it very much. Sorry, Sarah!

I can deal!

...and let's face it....it wasn't written for us anyway! The intended audience certainly love it, and they all get Miggery because they all know one.

Here is my unlikely overlap able three:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Barbarians at the Gate by Brian Burrough
The Great Getty by Robert Lenzer

Hmmmm I guess these would be mine:

The Tao of Physics
Wicked the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Godel Escher Bach an Eternal Golden Braid
Garden of Beasts

Admittedly re-reads except Garden of Beasts which I found when bored and looooved. Seems an odd thing that when I can't find anything to read some semi-historical fiction lands in my lap that I wouldn't have read otherwise ("The Alienist" was another) Jeffrey Deaver would have to be my author of the moment though.

Oh, and I really liked Despereaux, but not as much as my ten year old...;-)