Book Thread, v2...[]

My AP US history book(APUSH) is pretty terrible. The trouble is, US history is written by patriots, so I'm only on the first chapter and I'm reading about people justifying what happened to the Native Americans when the Europeans came over. It's not the main point, but it's a pretty strong undercurrent.

I've been reading America: Empire of Liberty by David Reynolds, and it seems to be a little more balanced if that's any help.

Oooh, maybe I'll read that. Do you ever read Stephen Ambrose? He's a great writer and historian.

My APUSH book was pretty striaghforward with how it told us about how the Indians got fucked over (Including how coionists would get Indian tribe A to help get rid of Tribe B, and then use Tribe C to help us get rid of Tribe A.)
If you can find it, then I'd advise you to get "American Colonies: A History." Just be warned, it's a damned long read.

Dewmann wrote:My APUSH book was pretty striaghforward with how it told us about how the Indians got fucked over (Including how coionists would get Indian tribe A to help get rid of Tribe B, and then use Tribe C to help us get rid of Tribe A.)

Did you know, China did the same thing with the various kingdoms in Korea, but then one of the kingdoms was all 'all hell naw' and kicked China's ass outta there. Later they opened up relationships on their terms.
Big ups to postclassical Korea y'all.

I like to read, I really do. It's the note-taking that gets me down.

Lady Stardust wrote:It's the note-taking that gets me down.

THIS. SO MUCH THIS. ALL OF THE THIS.

I finished reading the first Ciaphas Cain novel the other day; it was pretty great. It's funny and witty and lots of guns and stuff.

I was two-deep in my book queue yesterday...this morning, however, The Woman Who Died A Lot (new Thursday Next Novel) and This Book Is Full of Spiders (sequel to John Dies at the End) were delivered automatically to my Kindle Fire....so now I'm four books behind with about 10% of Atlas Shrugged still to go... >_< []

The Furnace series... it's great. I wish I could dress up as a wheezer for Holloween.

Just finally finished Atlas Shrugged. Now for more Thursday Next. []

I used my birthday funds to buy most of the Sword of Truth series. Despite a tendency to repeat himself when describing things, I liked the other books I read by the same author (one being the first book to the series and the other being a follow-up that's sort of disconnected from the original story) I've finally received confirmation that they've been imported (I refuse to read Dutch translations), so I'm pretty happy about that. Finally I'll have something to do on my daily 1.5 hour of train rides.

I'm still waiting to get the Wheel of Time series until I can get them as one set. It bothers me when books of the same series don't all look the same.

Gorgro wrote:(I refuse to read Dutch translations)

Translations in Dutch or translations from Dutch?

He lives in Belgium, sooo I think it's the former?

BUT MAYBE NOT

We can't know for sure.

It's translations to Dutch, NOW YOU KNOW

What if the book was written in Dutch?
Are there many Dutch authors?
What does a Dutch bookstore look like?

sweetie colon wrote:Are there many Dutch authors?

there are quite a few, but hardly any of them are interesting to read
After Dutch classes in secondary school I decided I will not read Dutch literature again any time soon, probably not the point they were trying to teach me...

Dutch novels need to be really damn good before I want to read them because I don't think Dutch is a very good language for storytelling. (This is also why I hardly ever watch Dutch movies/tv series)
Dutch translations are always worse than the original. I read the first four Harry Potter books in Dutch and then switched to English ones. This was such an enormous improvement that I have since (I was about 14 at the time) never read any other translated books if I could avoid it.

There are a lot of Dutch authors, most of them, in my opinion, not very good. Especially the modern ones.

A Dutch bookstore is usually focussed on crime novels, have a very tiny fantasy section, never have book one of a series, but always book 2, 5 and if possible, 12 (unless these happen to be the ones you're looking for, then they're out too). 95% of the books are (of course) translations, and the ones in English are always hidden away on an unmarked shelf somewhere in the back. Since one of the tv stations here has begun showing Game of Thrones, it's now possible to find actual good books displayed prominently in the stores. They are, however, all tainted with the Dutch language which means their awesomeness has been severely crippled in every way.

I have yet to find a bookstore that deals in English books around here so I have to buy all my books online since this is the only way I can find what I'm looking for.

Gorgro wrote:

I'm still waiting to get the Wheel of Time series until I can get them as one set. It bothers me when books of the same series don't all look the same.

Wheel of Time yes!

My third favorite book series.

Some people say they don't like it because it's cliche, or whatever, but I don't agree with them. Sure, the whole "Farmboy-to-hero" thing is really cliche, but the world he made is quite unique, especially the magic.

Packie wrote:there are quite a few, but hardly any of them are interesting to read

Gorgro wrote:There are a lot of Dutch authors, most of them, in my opinion, not very good. Especially the modern ones.

What are some of the better Dutch authors?

Gorgro wrote:A Dutch bookstore is usually focussed on crime novels, have a very tiny fantasy section, never have book one of a series, but always book 2, 5 and if possible, 12 (unless these happen to be the ones you're looking for, then they're out too). 95% of the books are (of course) translations, and the ones in English are always hidden away on an unmarked shelf somewhere in the back.

Laughing so hard
Over here it's ten shelves of autobiographies, ghost-written about people who can't write by people who can't write, two shelves of cookbooks by Masterchef contestants and one shelf of books for women who don't get enough sex (read: Fifty Shades and Oprah's Tell-All Guide to Being a Bitchy Feminist - vol.XVI)

It's hard to find a dedicated bookstore around here; most of the main shopping hubs don't have one.

There's like a million "Stores" here, that just kind of sell whatever crap they have (Sort of like a pawnshop, except much, much more hippy.)

Anyway, most of the stores here sell books (The dump sells books) but none of them are worth a passing glance. I bought the Canterbury tales for $6, but that's about it.

I mostly just download books. I prefer physical books, but they're expensive, so I just pirate them, mostly.

There used to be an awesome bookstore at a nearby shopping centre. It was roughly the size of a small country, they had an amazing amount of good books, along with a decent selection of music and dvds, had a cafe as part of the shop that sold cheap, delicious food/drink and had comfortable chairs so you could just buy a dozen books, a coffee and a sandwich and live in there for about a week, and so on. Marvellous place. And somehow, SOMEHOW, it just...died. I have no clue why.
Now the only bookstore in that area is about the size of a fridge, along with about as much decent reading material you'd expect from a fridge.
I am saddened by this.

Bowen wrote:There used to be an awesome bookstore at a nearby shopping centre. It was roughly the size of a small country, they had an amazing amount of good books, along with a decent selection of music and dvds, had a cafe as part of the shop that sold cheap, delicious food/drink and had comfortable chairs so you could just buy a dozen books, a coffee and a sandwich and live in there for about a week, and so on. Marvellous place. And somehow, SOMEHOW, it just...died. I have no clue why.

Sounds like a Borders; was it?

Yup.

sweetie colon wrote:What are some of the better Dutch authors?

Louis Paul Boon and Hendrik Conscience are the only ones I can think of right now. (Okay, they're Belgians, but language-wise this is a valid answer)