Reading

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• 2023 Reading #5

  • Book: Night Watch
  • Author: Terry Pratchett
  • ISBN-13: 9780857525048

  This is one of my favourite books. I love Pratchett. I love his insights into people, and especially in this book how crowds and mobs and The People think.

  His views on politics and change are evergreen. Night Watch was published in 2002, but everything feels completely relatable, in spite of how much has changed politically in the last 20 years.

  —

  This exchange has stuck with me ever since I first read it. I love it:

  'I’d be very worried if I saw a man singing the national anthem and waving the flag, sir. It’s really a thing foreigners do.’ 'Really? Why?’ 'WE don’t need to show WE’RE patriotic, sir. I mean, this is Ankh-Morpork. We don’t have to make a big fuss about being the best, sir. We just KNOW.’

  —

  Overall, Night Watch is just a great premise for a story. Sam Vimes has the chance to revisit a defining moment of his youth, with the benefit of the experience he has now. Who doesn’t want that?

  And then Vimes has the chance to stay in that moment, and live his life again from that point, but better. Rather than going home to the life he had built with that initial inexperience, and being happy with who that made him: the man he is now… that’s a really interesting idea which is handled really well by the way Pratchett gets you into Vimes’s head.

  

  1 January 2024

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  • 2023 reading

• 2023 Reading #4

  • Book: The Rise
  • Author: Ian Rankin
  • ISBN-13: N/A (can’t find it, probably because it was a Kindle Prime deal and it’s not technically out yet.)

  A short story by Ian Rankin, famous for the Rebus series set in Edinburgh. Still a detective story, but set in London this time. A nice easy read, even if I’ve already mostly forgotten the outcome of the mystery.

  22 October 2023

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  • 2023 reading

• 2023 Reading #3

  • Book: The Two Towers
  • Author: JRR Tolkien
  • ISBN-13: 9780547928203

  The Two Towers, like the other volumes of The Lord of the Rings,is split into two books (Part 3 and Part 4, I'll refer to them, to reflect their place in the overall story). And they are two very different books. I blasted through Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli's orc chase, Rohan, Helm's Deep and Isengard in Part 3. I took months to read Frodo, Sam and Gollum's journey in Part 4.

  I've always disliked this split. (I've completely ignored Part 4 more than once in previous readings.) I wish the two stories, ultimately Frodo's story and Aragorn's story, were intertwined. It would be nice to see what was happening in a linear timeline, as I'm constantly trying to figure out what Tolkien is obliquely referencing in Frodo's story.

  And the pace of the two books just don't match up at all. Three things happen in the whole of Part 4: they fall in with Gollum, they meet Faramir, and they go into Shelob's lair. And it takes as long as all of Part 3, when: - Aragorn and co chase down the orcs, Merry and Pippin; - Aragorn and co meet Gandalf and Eomer; - The hobbits meet Treebeard and the Ents; - Aragorn and co have a confrontation with Wormtongue to save Theoden; - There's an entire battle at Helm's Deep; - Then they all meet up at Isengard and have a confrontation with Saruman.

  All of the action is rushed through at the start of The Two Towers, and it's really great, but then the second half really drags. Mixing Frodo's journey in with the rest would really improve the pace of the book. The movie struck that balance perfectly.

  I love the pace of Part 3. I love discovering Rohan, Fangorn and Isengard. I love the mystery of the Ents, of Gandalf and of Saruman. And I love the hope. This is the resistance, the heroes drawing together to fight an impossible fight.

  ---

  Some favourite quotes

  Book 3, Chapter 5: "The White Rider"

  I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.

  Book 4, Chapter 4: "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"

  He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace.

  

  4 May 2023

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  • 2023 reading

• 2023 Reading #2

  • Book: Casino Royale
  • Author: Ian Fleming
  • ISBN-13: 9781612185439

  The First James Bond novel. Violently misogynist, mildly racist too. Which a shame because the story itself is quite fun.

  If you want to read the first Bond novel, purely because it's the first, then read this. Otherwise, the 2006 movie does a far better job at telling this story than the 1953 novel does.

  One quote I did like, when Mathis and Bobs are discussing the merits of Bond's role as a spy:

  Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.

  

  4 March 2023

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  • 2023 reading

• 2023 Reading #1

  • Book: The Fellowship of the Ring
  • Author: JRR Tolkien
  • ISBN-13: 9780547928210

  When I was a teenager, I read the Lord of the Rings every year. I haven't read it in at least a decade now, and it felt like time to go back to it. Reading it felt like a warm hug.

  I've always had a strange relationship with Fellowship, because I enjoy the story best. I like that all the characters are together, rather than split across multiple locations. It has the most time in the Shire, my favourite location, and with Elves, my favourite kind of character. But I also find it the most slow-going (Bombadil, all the Elvish songs) - none of the other stories have parts like that where I just want to rush through to get to the end.

  This time around, I really enjoyed Tom Bombadil's part in the story. It's the first time I've ever appreciated it, and I don't know why or what's changed in how I'm reading it. But this is one reason I like re-reading my favourite books; it still feels different each time.

  

  30 January 2023

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  • 2023 reading