05-20-2011, 05:01 PM | #106 | |
Is that a sandwich?
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However, I have started to post a short message as to why I abandoned these books. Goodreads allows you to do so without giving it a rating. Despite my best efforts, I still abandon more books than I finish. |
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05-20-2011, 09:14 PM | #107 | |
Can one read too much?
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Vampires, zombies, wizards, etc. aren't really my thing either, although I do read a couple of mystery series featuring sleuths with ghostly "assistance", as well as one featuring an attorney who "inherits" an appeals practice in the "celestial courts" for the departed who feel they've been unfairly sentenced. |
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05-20-2011, 11:20 PM | #108 | |
whimsical
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I think reading 100 years of solitude when I was still in teens didn't have anything to do with "cool" 'cause I actually didn't have any clear idea what Marquez was trying to imply in his novel Just a vague idea, yes, but I must admit that I didn't understand it thoroughly. Maybe the fact that I could put up with such a painful boring book* until the end is "cool" (*: it is, in my humble opinion) If I have the nerve, if I can bring myself to, if I finish many other good books out there, I will reread "100 years". |
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05-21-2011, 12:05 AM | #109 | |
It's Dr. Penguin now!
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I don't rate anything I didn't finish, but I do give a review. I comment on anything I did like, and why I couldn't finish it or whatnot. I decline to give it a star rating. I'm comfortable with that. I feel like I spent some time on the book, so I want to acknowledge that and offer any readers my own thoughts about what I did read. I read one that I just couldn't get into at all (and I really, really try hard!) *but* I actually thought it had some merit and was well-written, etc. I just couldn't get into it. A few weeks later, the author mentioned that the book had been picked up by a publisher. I think that's awesome. The book wasn't bad at all, it just wasn't for me. |
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05-21-2011, 12:19 AM | #110 |
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I never used to rate 5 stars, but I changed my mind more recently. One reason was because there are no .5 ratings on places like Amazon and Goodreads so I feel like I need to go up or down.
Also because I tried to realign my thinking somewhat to how other people were rating. I noticed that 5 star was a very common rating and my history of no 5 star ratings made me feel a little stingey. So I compromised a little and rounded some marking up. One more reason was that I wanted to help encourage independent authors a little via ratings if I liked the book. I tend to mark up independent novels slightly as my small investment into their ongoing marketing/advertising effort. |
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05-21-2011, 01:31 AM | #111 |
Is that a sandwich?
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05-21-2011, 04:40 AM | #112 | |
SF/F book blogger
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I still enjoyed reading a badly translated RTK for the battle tactics, excessive/awesome gore and battle heroics, and the unfolding politics. I feel pretty bad for Zhou Yu. Luo Guanzhong had to write him as a prissy jealous man to create rivalry between him and Zhuge Liang, and so people still remember him that way instead of the skilled strategist that he was in history. A man dying out of jealousy? Pfft. I'm only really proficient in English. I know Tagalog but there isn't a lot of literature/media/cultural products produced in Tagalog, so as a consumer of culture, I feel locked into the English speaking world. Language acts like a DRMed device and it limits what cultural products I can check out. Sometimes translations aren't good enough or aren't available. Sometimes, I do get sick of reading about American characters all the time, or reading sword and fantasy worlds based off ye olde western Europe. There's other cultures out there that are vibrant and interesting. It's really cool that many folks from Asia have the shared cultural product of RTK--a 700 year old book of both history and fiction. I can't think of an equally engrossing war epic in Western culture with that kind of reach. Or have as many comic books/TV shows/movie spinoffs. (John Woo's Red Cliff movies were awesome. Yes, thankfully I had access to copies without the American edits). I can safely say Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a 5 star book, although it trails a bit off after Zhuge Liang dies :P |
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05-21-2011, 05:52 AM | #113 |
Author
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Non-fiction - Tupaia: Captain Cook's Polynesian Navigator by Joan Druett. It's a fast-paced and engaging tale of adventure that's also the result of painstaking research. Tupaia was an amazing man who's barely touched on in the official accounts of Cook's first voyage, but Druett has uncovered a surprising amount of detail from a multitude of sources, both written and oral. This story has special significance for New Zealanders, Australians and other peoples of the south Pacific, but I'd recommend it to anyone interested in seafaring and exploration.
Fiction - Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight, the final (almost certainly) book in his "Tiffany Aching" series. Touching, funny, occasionally very dark, but ultimately uplifting. Pratchett's affection for his characters lends a real warmth to this tale. |
05-21-2011, 08:38 AM | #114 |
Literacy = Understanding
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05-21-2011, 08:45 AM | #115 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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My feeling is that most books will be three stars. Four is for excellent and five is for blown away and/or for love (and love tolerates some faults), but lately I've been bumping up some 4½-star efforts. Two is for worthwhile but seriously faulty, one is for total failure in execution or an overwhelming flaw. A few factors that will skew my ratings up include that I'm adding in memorable books I've read in the past and those tend to be four stars or better and that I can usually tell if something's going to be terrible (by my standards) and don't bother. One star is when I've been blindsided. Thus I give a book one star if/when I abandon it. I saw someone on Goodreads had a category called too-crappy-to-finish and I borrowed it. I'll give a reason for the one star, but I think it's legit to rate an unfinished book in that circumstance. I'm not going to waste my time finishing something dreadful just to justify a ranking and in general, I find poor reviews more helpful than good ones. Too many people too easy to please out there. Despite the pressure upwards, my overall ranking at Goodreads is about 3.6 or 3.7, I think, which seems reasonable. |
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05-21-2011, 12:50 PM | #116 | |
Can one read too much?
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05-21-2011, 01:41 PM | #117 |
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The Sex Club by LJ Sellers
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05-21-2011, 02:30 PM | #118 | |
whimsical
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First, I like the background of the story. It is set in a period which is familiar to us Vietnamese folks, with the familiar names. (to tell the truth, we are familiar with every detail of Chinese history! Scary huh. Of course that excludes me, I was never good at history at school.) Second, I don't like it because it was twisted by tough hands. Therefore it isn't precise, the author's perspective affects it all. Of course it's a history novel, not a chronicle, and the fact that it praises those whom the author liked best makes the definition of "bad guys" and "good guys" really distinctive. For instance, Cao Cao is considered evil. He's bad, just because he opposed Shu Han. Zhuge Liang is treated differently because he's considered "good". Therefore he defeat Zhou Yu. Nonsense. Zhou Yu was dumb-lucked, that's all. Third, some details are pretty over limit. Like when Liu Bei said goodbye to his "beloved" general Zhao Yun, he cried like a woman - consider his status as a warlord at the time, this is unacceptable in my opinion Overall... I quite liked it the main reason for this isn't listed above: I love the battle of Red Cliffs it was awesome! (Gee, I have to google all these names :| I hate Chinese names :|) |
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05-21-2011, 08:49 PM | #119 | |
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The actions attributed to Zhao Yun were probably done by a bunch of separate and different nameless footmen, but it makes for a better story if it's done by the same guy. The fact to fiction ratio is probably more like 60:40 than the frequently cited 70:30, but I think it works well as war epic (why else are we talking about it now in 2011?) as long as people see that most details about events and people are sensationalized, exaggerated, and so on to tell a better story. |
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05-22-2011, 06:38 AM | #120 |
Literacy = Understanding
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