CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Just bought Star Wars Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber. I plan to start reading it tonight.

I'm now reading "The Republic" by Plato, "The Journal of John Wesley" by John Wesley, and "Hope For the Troubled Heart" by Billy Graham. I like all of them so far.

Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb - I knew I was going to love this book, because Robin Hobb is one of my absolute favorite authors ever, and this is the first book of the trilogy that serves as a sequel to the Farseer Trilogy, so...I was already biased towards it And it did not disappoint! I didn't know what to expect, since the conflict of the Farseer Trilogy seemed pretty well wrapped up, but even though this happens fifteen years later, it somehow manages not to feel tacked on, and - hopefully - promises to answer some of the questions I still had about the Fool. I always liked him in the Farseer Trilogy; he's a weird, quirky character that really sets off the more serious cast of characters (especially the big wad of angst that is Fitz). But this book made me love him. Probably because I finally realized just how much he loves Fitz, which makes me love him even more.

I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells - I'd had this on the shelf for a long time, but only now have I found time to read it. And it is so good. It's so exciting, and a really good page-turner. The plot and dialogue are really snappy, moving everything forward quickly and smoothly, and it's just such an interesting and different premise than anything I've read before. (Basic premise: A sociopathic teenager obsessed with serial killers is the only one who can save his town from one.) I highly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in serial killers, sociopaths, or other kinds of mental disorders, as well as thrillers. The main character is messed up, but that's what makes him such a fascinating, compelling character. He'd definitely creep me out if I met him in real life, but the book makes him very sympathetic.

the_wolfs_howl wrote:...
I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells - I'd had this on the shelf for a long time, but only now have I found time to read it. And it is so good. It's so exciting, and a really good page-turner. The plot and dialogue are really snappy, moving everything forward quickly and smoothly, and it's just such an interesting and different premise than anything I've read before. (Basic premise: A sociopathic teenager obsessed with serial killers is the only one who can save his town from one.) I highly recommend this to anyone who has an interest in serial killers, sociopaths, or other kinds of mental disorders, as well as thrillers. The main character is messed up, but that's what makes him such a fascinating, compelling character. He'd definitely creep me out if I met him in real life, but the book makes him very sympathetic.

A very good book but, yes kinda creepy. For example the main character helps his mother run the town mortuary, where all the interestingly deceased wind up eventually.

scribbledreamer wrote:Just finished Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay. It's told entirely in letters, a technique I've always loved, but is difficult to pull off. I started it thinking it was going to be a pretty fluffly book, but it was so much more. The characters were strong, the emotion raw, and the writing beautiful. For a lot of it, you could forget it was told in a letter. It was such a great technique, though, because the author brings it back at just the right moment, as a reminder that the only reason the main character is disclosing certain information is because of the letter. So, yeah, it's a book I'd definitely recommend.

Something about this piqued my interest so I looked it up. The plot seems to have been lifted straight from Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster.

I sped through Fangirl, then The Castle of Dark by Tanith Lee and now I'm reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, which even if I could speed through it would take forever, this book is a monster.

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov - This is every bit as amazing as the first book of the Foundation Trilogy. It's full of political machinations and even though you could count on one hand the number of shots that are fired "on-screen"...this book is epic. Some parts were really exciting, the entire conflict is really unique and interesting, and the twist ending had me going

I recently started Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. This'll be the first time I actually read/finish a Jane Austen book. I've skimmed bits of Emma but not enough for it to count.

Adie wrote:I recently started Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. This'll be the first time I actually read/finish a Jane Austen book. I've skimmed bits of Emma but not enough for it to count.

Awesome! I'm a huge Jane Austen fan ^_^
Now I'm reading 'The Portrait of a Lady' by Henry James (kind of like Jane Austen but not as good)

Starting Steelheart, a new book by Brandon Anderson

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. The faster I finish this book I can move onto City of Heavenly Fire.

Finished Diary of a Russian Priest by Alexander Elchaninov. Although I said in my last post that I didn’t agree with everything he says, and that remains true, the book was still extremely good (fascinating, excellent, edifying, by far the best thing I’ve read in the past two months or so).

Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy: A nice little light fiction read that successfully juggles multiple genres. It is not the kind of detective fiction that sets up a puzzle for the reader to solve, but it is magical realism, and a love story, and it has enough crime, stealth, and violence to give it that extra edge of tension and excitement. Pretty enjoyable overall; I think I read it more or less in one sitting.

Started to read (but do not intend to finish) God in the Machine, a book by Liel Leibovitz, a self-styled video game scholar. The book is about the spirituality of video games; the premise was intriguing, but the execution left a lot to be desired. For one thing, I thought that his premise about the similarities between religion and games was poorly constructed. For another thing, while saying that he is a scholar, he is writing this book which is not really scholarly at all but is more on a popular level, but he doesn’t do a good job of explaining what is actually significant about the theories and things he talks about, and the writing style is awful. Basically, it doesn’t really succeed either as a scholarly work or as a popular work. Not recommended.

Just started reading "Kiss" by Ted Dekker and Erin Healy. Just starting the fifth chapter. It's pretty good so far. I'm quite happy that I live near a library.

The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

I'd given up on Wheel of Time when I slogged through book 6 and realized that I didn't give a flying flip about any of the characters, nothing was happening, and even when a character died at the end, I didn't feel a thing. Since then, I've looked online to find out what happens in the later books, but when I got to book 12, I decided to pick them up again, because Brandon Sanderson had taken over the writing after Robert Jordan died. And I admire Brandon Sanderson like few other authors, so I knew I had a greater chance of liking Wheel of Time again. And what Sanderson has done is absolutely amazing. He took someone else's story, wrote it without trying to imitate Jordan's style, yet somehow manages to make this story feel, not only like what Jordan intended, but what WoT had the potential to be from the beginning yet never achieved until he took the wheel. He writes this story better than Jordan could write it himself. He's taken characters and situations that I found completely annoying and that I didn't care about at all...and I love them now. Characters that were annoying at best before are now my favorite characters. Characters who seemed bland and uninteresting now make me laugh and cry. Female characters maintain their same personalities and attributes, yet they're actually distinct from each other rather than annoying angry clones of each other. I'm riveted to the page. It took me the better part of a year to get through book 6, but I read book 12 in less than a month ._. Brandon Sanderson, you are the king of fantasy.

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

As if WoT wasn't enough, I also read the second Mistborn book, and of course I loved it. It was so fun, so filled with political intrigue and character conflict. And of course the battles were awesome. So many unexpected twists and turns, so many wonderful scenes. What became of Sazed, one of my favorite characters, by the end leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but I guess I'll see what happens in the next book. The Mistborn series is a really exciting read, and even though middle books of trilogies run the danger of being aimless and boring, I think The Well of Ascension successfully escaped that fate. I highly recommend this series to any fantasy and/or post-apocalyptic fan.

Wooo Brandon Sanderson party! Where's Hat'n'Clogs when you need him.

I've read his Warbreaker and recently finished The Way of Kings, the first in the Stormlight Archive. Despite what I said earlier in this thread, I read it in exactly 3 weeks, which is record time for me for something that's a thousand pages long. I also bought the first Mistborn book recently, but haven't had a chance to get around to it yet.

I liked Way of Kings a lot, and his world building is very good, although I couldn't help but think that maybe it's a bit too precise, almost clinical, everything is just so. I don't know if that even makes sense because being well put together is the point of world building, but it's the best way I've found that I can describe my problem with it. Of course it definitely won't stop me reading the next book in the series.

@the_wolfs_howl, you mentioned Robin Hobb before and I've been thinking of getting into her stuff, do you have any advice on where I should start?

After Way of Kings, I read Mister Monday by Garth Nix and the second Hunger Games book. I'm still debating on what to read next.

The City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments)
And waiting for The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus)

GeneD wrote:@the_wolfs_howl, you mentioned Robin Hobb before and I've been thinking of getting into her stuff, do you have any advice on where I should start?

Well, I've only read four of her books, but from poking around on Wikipedia, I think the Farseer Trilogy is the best place to start anyway. (Most of the books she's written under the name Robin Hobb - which is a pseudonym - take place in the same world.) So I'd recommend starting with Assassin's Apprentice, the first book of the Farseer Trilogy. It's an absolutely amazing trilogy, and that book comes the closest to what I want to be as a writer than anything else I've ever read. I'm currently working my way through the Tawny Man Trilogy, which takes place fifteen years after the Farseer Trilogy with some of the same characters. She's also written the Liveship Traders Trilogy and the Rain Wilds Chronicles, but I don't know anything about them except that they take place in the same world.

Also: Keys to the Kingdom series =


As for me, I recently read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It's a book of advice and encouragement for aspiring creative writers. Most of the advice is stuff I'd already read elsewhere, in better detail, but the encouragement was highly appreciated. It's written in a very enjoyable, easy-to-read style. I'd recommend it to anyone who dreams of being an author someday, or is trying to pursue that goal right now.

I've also been delving into Brandon Sanderson. I listened to audio book versions of Mistborn: The Final Empire, Mistborn: The Well of Ascension. Words of Radiance and The Way of Kings, with the exception of Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, which I listened to twice. I enjoy his worldbuilding but what I truly marvel at is his adept multi-volume plotting, which is why I chose to do Hero of Ages twice.

I also recommend the Farseer Trilogy as a way to enter the Real of the Elderlings.

Recently I just finished the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Probably the best. Nothing I have read, and I've read Sanderson, Jordon, Rowling, Burroughs, Lewis, Lawhead, and Duncan, not a huge variety of authors but authors who are known for creating worlds, none of them compare to Tolkien. It takes a master author to write about a legend and give the impression that the myth has been lost into the annals of history. None of these other authors give you the sense that what you are reading is ancient and that is what Tolkien does. He creates a story that is ever ancient and ever new. Brilliant.

The Wheel of Time: Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Another wonderful example of Sanderson's skill. This book was so exciting, which I haven't been able to say about any of Jordan's writing since book 2. It was wonderful to see Perrin really come into his own in this book, and watch everything ramp up for Tarmon Gai'don. The last section, focusing on Mat, was freakin' awesome too, though I totally called SPOILER: Highlight text to read: that Moiraine was still alive as soon as she fell through the twisted red doorway. Another astounding thing that Sanderson has managed to do is take Jordan's lolwut romantic pairings that he just decided were going to happen regardless of whether they made any sense at all, and explained them all in such a way that you could really believe these characters actually love each other rather than just randomly falling in love because the plot requires it (except that it rarely does). Sanderson continues to amaze!

GeneD wrote:

scribbledreamer wrote:Just finished Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay. It's told entirely in letters, a technique I've always loved, but is difficult to pull off. I started it thinking it was going to be a pretty fluffly book, but it was so much more. The characters were strong, the emotion raw, and the writing beautiful. For a lot of it, you could forget it was told in a letter. It was such a great technique, though, because the author brings it back at just the right moment, as a reminder that the only reason the main character is disclosing certain information is because of the letter. So, yeah, it's a book I'd definitely recommend.

Something about this piqued my interest so I looked it up. The plot seems to have been lifted straight from Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster.

Oops, forgot to respond to this. In the author's note, she does mention that she took inspiration from Daddy Long Legs. I've never read it myself, so I can't say how much the details of the story are similar, but I do plan to check it out at some point. Despite that, I still really enjoyed the book.

Recently finished Three by Ted Dekker. I don't read too many thrillers, but this was so good. Also reading the fifth book of the Mitford series by Jan Karon. It's either love it or hate it, I guess, but the characters are fantastic.

Currently have 3 books in rotation: Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare, Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, and Sins of the house Borgia by Sarah Bower.

I finally finished reading The Book of Mormon (including Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price), which I've been slowly working my way through for the past year. I've been curious about the Mormon faith for a long time (a dear friend of mine is LDS), so eventually I decided I might as well read their book, hoping to understand it better in their own words, rather than all the vague rumors and impressions I'd heard from other Christians. It's certainly been enlightening. I can see some major problems with it, but it's not as...weird as I was given to believe before I read it.

Still plugging away at Black in my Circle series by Ted Dekker

Working on a new book called Prime of Life by P.D. Bekendam
It's about senior care home, and a doctor that chose to be a caretaker instead, I'm enjoying it, but so far, I haven't got into anything super intense. Good reviews on the book, and it's a nerdy book for Christians, so I'm there! (Main character is obsessed with prime numbers)

And I was thinking of reading The Tattooed Rats again.

Recently finished "Till We Have Faces" and "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis.

Now starting "Partners in Independence" --a book about assistance dogs that I'm reading for an online book club I'm participating in.

The Wheel of Time: A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

I'm finally finished with WoT!!!!!!!!! I've been slogging through this series for the better part of ten years, and FINALLY it's over! As much trouble as it's been to get to this point, this last book was freakin' epic. It's basically just one ginormous battle through the entire book. Lots of death, lots of magic explosions everywhere, lots of heroism. A wonderful end to the series.

2,000 to 10,000: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron

Just what it says on the tin. The author shares her experience with trying to increase her efficiency with writing, and gives recommendations for writing in general. It's not possible for me to write 10,000 words a day like she can, because of work and school, but I'm still going to try some of her methods to become more efficient and systematic about the way I write. Discipline is the only way to go from being an amateur to a professional.

Watership Down by Richard Adams. Nostalgia...

Reading a book called "Seeing Through the Fog" --about living with a serious illness. It was written by a pastor who has ALS. I'm a little over halfway through and I've found it very encouraging so far! It's real (no hokey inspirational poster-type stuff), but it points to Christ and hope throughout.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

This book is amazing. I think I still prefer his Mistborn books to this one, but it was a very fun read. There are so many vibrant, interesting, hilarious characters whose motivations are all clashing against each other. And naturally, a really unique magic system that just makes sense and is really fun to watch. My favorite character was Lightbringer; I absolutely loved his scenes with Llarimar. SPOILER: Highlight text to read: I loved them from the first scene they shared, and when the revelation that they're actually brothers came at the end, it suddenly all made sense. I love brother relationships, so it's no wonder I instinctively latched onto them! Perhaps best of all, Sanderson is actually offering the entire novel on his website for free, so it didn't cost me a dime to check it out. And it really worked as a marketing strategy, too, even though that seems counter-intuitive. As soon as I finished reading Warbreaker online, I went out and bought a physical copy of my own. It's just that good.

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

I'd read this before years ago, but when you're in eighth grade a lot of the subtler nuances of this story just go right over your head. I loved revisiting it now that I understand stories, literature, and allegories so much more fully. I'm sure I still haven't understood all the little allusions Lewis has put into this gem of a story, but it was amazing to read it again. Now that I understand it so much better, it brought tears to my eyes at the end.

Matter by Ian M Banks.

Funny thing though I was looking for a Sanderson book at the used bookstore when I found this book.

I am reading 1 Corinthians, but I'm sure I'll be in 2 Cor soonish...