Books

Book 548: The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower #3) – Stephen King

I am now, with a lot of stretching of my imagination and film maker interpretation, starting to see where they may have gotten the screenplay for The Dark Tower.

Tentative doesn’t even begin to cover it. If you cut all of the books into paragraphs throw them in the air and then pick just enough to make a script you might get the same thing the directors and writers got for that adaptation? Even with that, I feel like they changed so much to “make it fit” (it doesn’t really) that I’m still not 100% sure where they pulled things.

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Books

Book 543: The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

We moved last month and I had to shuffle books around and needed to pull one of a certain size off my shelf and this one was it so I figured might as well read it and I’m glad I did! I honestly thought this was on my Classics Club list, but apparently it wasn’t when I went to document it on my lists.

Apparently, I picked it up as part of my re-read books from high school that you didn’t like to see how they/I have changed after attending a panel at the 2012 Boston Book Festival. Although I didn’t read this one in high school, I read Ethan Frome, which of course I was disgruntled about because it wasn’t Star Wars or fantasy. Now I am again interested in the retelling that I mention, so who knows I might revisit this sooner than I think. Continue reading “Book 543: The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton”

Books

Book 537: The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2) – Stephen King

I’m starting to see why people really like this series. I’m only two books in now (with pretty big gaps between the books), but I get it. And even with that crappy film adaptation—so far nothing in the first two books was in the film really—I’m being drawn in.

I’m struggling to write reviews of this as I’ve taken to heart what King writes in the forward that this is one long book/story broken across quite a few books. It’s some how barely moving forward but taking massive steps at the same time. This picks up not long after The Gunslinger and plows steadily forward. I’m still not sure I have any idea what’s going on, and I have no idea where it’s going, but so far I’m enjoying where King is taking me.

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Books

Book 534: The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) – Stephen King

After seeing the atrocious adaptation that was the film, I decided I should visit the source material to see if I might actually enjoy the story. I have minimal Stephen King interaction (outside of Cujo and Misery—both read for a Books into Movies book group) so I don’t have too many pre-conceived notions about him as an author.

However, now I’ve processed the book I’m torn. There were parts of this I enjoyed but knowing what’s coming and knowing how many books there are left in the cycle I’m not sure I’ll be able to stick with it. A large part of this had to do with it starting in medias res (Wikipedia link), but not like a bit, but like what felt near the end. Maybe it’s not and I’ll be surprised, but it really feels pretty late in the story.

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2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 105: Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Well I survived the slog. At points I honestly didn’t think I would get through the novel and really should have waited having just finished the five books of Martin’s epic saga, but I did and I didn’t. It took me nearly three weeks to read the novel (which, yes I know, isn’t a lot of time for some people – but it was never-ending for me), and they were three very long weeks.

Counting for the Back to the Classics Reading Challenge, the Tea and Books Reading Challenge and The Classics Club, I am definitely glad I read the novel (aside from the story of course) because it puts me that much closer to my yearly goals! Technically I’ve finished the Tea and Books reading challenge (my original goal was Earl Grey Aficionado, or six books) but I upgraded last month to the Sencha Connoisseur level which is eight books.

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