I know this is a classic to many, but my introduction to The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings was the movies. Three action packed, gorgeous movies with incredible scores. Absolute cinema to a 11,12,13 year old.

Of course I was curious about the books after seeing them so I remember picking up the hobbit fresh off of seeing RoTK in theaters. Underwhelmed was an understatement. I wanted action and adventure and grand battles and I remember DNFing after the troll fight, unsure why there was 10 pages of a feast but only 1 page for a fight.

Fast forward to now and my toddler (3yo about to turn 4) and I read every night to bed. On a whim I bought a nice copy of The Hobbit with illustrations and started to read to her every night. It was a bit darker than I anticipated which required me to often have to subtly skip words or sections which were violent or scary, however overall it was the perfect book. It took us about 8 months of reading a few pages every night. Most nights it'd be the second book we'd read, her choosing the first. Whenever she chose it first was a night I knew she was just trying to fall asleep ASAP and she'd be out within a couple paragraphs.

She loved the picture of Smaug in the book, regularly having me swap back to the full page picture of him and then she'd gobble up all the gold on the page. She also loved the songs, frequently asking me to find one to sing which I was more than happy to oblige (I can't sing at all but doing a low 'dwarf' voice worked for every song in the book).

As we got to the last few pages she kept asking "how many pages did we read?" and I'd say "340 pages!" and she'd go "Wow, that's crazy!" Finishing it felt monumental and bittersweet. She really enjoyed the book. Loved Smaug and loved Bilbo. She started calling her brother Bilbo because he was short with curly hair and big feet.

Anyways, since then I've been trying to fill the void with another book and... failing.

I've tried Tale of Desperaux (this one seems great but she's not into it), Narnia (not nearly as fantastical so far, hard to get her into it) and I looked at Redwall (a bit too advanced). I was really taken aback by how well structured the hobbit is. She loves the songs, the supporting characters jump off the page (she was aware of Gandalf, Bilbo, Smaug, Bard), the songs were plentiful and really helped with engagement and lastly the illustrated version was just enough to keep her engaged without it being purely a 'just words' book. Also the narrative style worked super well with each chapter feeling self contained as a story. It made it really easy to recap events when we'd pick up after a hiatus. Finding something to replace it has been super hard. I didn't respect this book growing up but now I see it for the masterpiece that it is.

EDIT: Had a few people ask for the illustrated hobbit book. It's this title: The Hobbit: Illustrated Edition: An Illustrated Edition of Tolkien's Classic Epic Fantasy Adventure by Tolkien and Jemima Catlin (Illustrator). ISBN-10: 0544174224

Here was the most polarizing question: if an author runs their writing through an LLM to ask for advice on structure, does that make the finished work "AI-written"?

5/5. An absolutely fantastic, extremely thought provoking book. I've read four Cormac McCarthy books before this one, with two I loved (The Road and No Country for Old Men), one I enjoyed (Child of God), and one I felt mixed on (All the Pretty Horses). Good thing too because this was easily the most dense book by him so far, and unfortunately his artistic writing choices (not using typical punctuation) make reading Blood Meridian unnecessarily difficult at times. But, that being said, I think the book is well worth reading if you're able to handle the writing style, you're interested in the themes, or you can handle the violence in the story.

At it's heart, I think Blood Meridian spends the most time focusing on the ideas of war, violence, and the human condition. I don't even know where to start because there's so much to chew on in the book. Maybe the best place would be to address how the violence is depicted in the book to help determine if this is something you would want to read. The barebones story is that there is a 15 year old kid who joins a gang of men who are hunting Native Americans to scalp them and get monetary rewards for each one. Obviously, with a premise like that, there is some pretty gruesome material here. There are multiple depictions of murder, scalping, senseless violence against men, women, children, and even infants, people getting shot, stabbed, decapitated, set on fire, and basically anything that could have happened to a person in the mid 1800s. For the most part, the violence is graphic but not explicit. McCarthy writes everything very matter-of-factly but you won't be reading gratuitous descriptions like you would in an extreme horror novel (although arguably the base level of content here would fit in the genre). I could see people saying that the violence seems unnecessary and pointless, but I would argue that that's exactly the point McCarthy is trying to make and that it fits thematically.

Speaking of the themes, McCarthy has a lot of interesting ideas here. As addressed already, violence and domination are probably the biggest and also the central themes of the book. This is most heavily illustrated by Judge Holden, one of the most well written evil characters that has ever graced the pages of a book. Talk about an absolutely terrifying, creepy, and just completely unsettling character. The judge is this satanic, seemingly supernatural and immortal, charismatic, agent of chaos and warfare that is utterly compelling to read about. His ideas about how war is the only God, and how domination over creation is the most important concept make for great discussions. There are so many examples from the book to illustrate these themes that it'd be impossible to talk about them all here so, suffice to say, if that interests you just know that you will be well rewarded.

Tied into the ideas of violence and domination, we also get to see moments of mercy which, in this story, particularly stick out. The kid does a handful of things that contrast tremendously with the actions of those around him, and yet he himself is an incredibly violent individual. This brings us around to the good ol' free will versus determinism debate. Are the characters fated to the lives they have? Can they change things? The judge and the kid play off each other and ask these questions, but the reader is never given any definitive answer. Blood Meridian also tackles religion, the existence of God, racism, nihilism, knowledge vs wisdom, natural evils, identity, morality, and more.

I am not a prose snob by any means, but I just have to address McCarthy's writing style real quick. The prose is absolutely wonderful. There were multiple times while reading this book that I just took a moment and thought to myself, "Wow. That is some really well crafted writing." This happened especially in McCarthy's descriptions of the landscapes and weather; early in the book there is a scene where the host of characters is traveling and the descriptions of the mountains and the thunderstorms seen in the distance was just so dang good that it felt like I was transported to that time and place. It's not all good though; there were also times where I would read a sentence, reread it again, try to tackle it a third time, and then give up because it was so obtuse that I had no idea what it was trying to say. This is probably a personal problem and I'm not intelligent enough to decipher it, but I figured I'd address it anyway.

All in all, I think this is a really great book if you're looking for a lot of thought provoking material. Reading it was not always an enjoyable experience; in fact I think I'd give the reading enjoyment a 3/5, but the literary merit a 5/5, which more than makes up for the difficulty I had at times. The book is also only 350ish pages which makes it way more approachable. This is one I would reread, especially now that I am more familiar with the story and the themes, and I would recommend others do as well (with the caveats already mentioned above).

I'd love to hear your thoughts if you've read it, whether you liked it or hated it!

I don't say this lightly, I just finished E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia series (all six books) and I am bereft. In the best way. I need to talk about how good these are, because I feel like they don't come up nearly enough.

If you haven't heard of them, they're a series of comic novels written in the 1920s-30s, set in small, impossibly charming English villages (Riseholme, then Tilling) among a cast of "idle rich" characters whose entire lives revolve around social one-upmanship. Who hosts the best garden party. Who "discovers" the next fashionable fad first. Who can out-manoeuvre whom over a bridge table or a recipe for lobster à la Riseholme. That's it. That's the plot, for six books. And it is an absolute delight.

The comedy is razor-sharp but never mean. Benson clearly adores these ridiculous people even as he's skewering them mercilessly. Lucia (self-appointed queen of Riseholme, then invader of Tilling) is a monster of vanity, ambition, and reinvention, and you root for her anyway. Miss Mapp is her equal and opposite-- paranoid, scheming, endlessly plotting from behind her garden hedge. Watching the two of them go to war is one of the great pleasures in English comic fiction.

It's a peek into a world that doesn't exist anymore, and honestly, may never have quite existed the way Benson paints it. Small towns where everyone knows everyone, days structured around callers and correspondence and elaborate social rituals, crises measured in things like who got invited to whose bridge evening. It's nostalgic in a way that feels almost fantastical, and that's exactly the appeal. You get to live inside it for a while.

And it's just so cosy. For all the scheming, there's real warmth here. It's gentle in a way a lot of satire isn't; there's no cruelty underneath it, just people being magnificently, entertainingly petty about very small stakes, in a world that feels safe and enclosed and full.

If you like Barbara Pym, Wodehouse, or just want something funny and warm and slightly wicked to disappear into, start with Queen Lucia and just keep going. You will not want it to end. I didn't.

I'll be honest; I entered this quest as a skeptic. After the first 100 pages, I assumed I knew that I've signed up for a disappointing, sloppy read of an author who is indeed in his 'eleventh hour'.

I've been — to my immense joy and pleasure — been proved wrong.

Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote boasts an influence on world literature as large and all-encompassing as Karamazov, War & Peace, or Ulysses (not considering the great Greek epics). To stand upon its shoulders and construct a world that seeks to look further, examine deeper, and ask harsher questions is challenging — to put simply.

But Rushdie has taken upon the challenge and come out victorious. There aren't many authors who are looking at the new, ever-changing world so closely and with such concern. His penchant for the 'magic real' puts us face-to-face with a world that is declining, becoming more extremist and uninhabitable.

As always, his literary genius binds together a tale as old as time with a world that is hyperfixated on social media, apathy, and extremism, and asks fundamental questions about the soul, the self. This, with the recurring theme of a father and a son (having read Midnight's and Haroun before).

Is there a simple synopsis that I can roll out (like a carpet, not flying for now) for the fellow review-reader? No. Go in blind. See if it works for you. It worked for me, but only after I was patient and surrendered to the text. Do I speak like the Don? Has he hopped out of the pages and inhabited my mind? We'll never know.

I devoured this book in two days (270 pages). I wasn’t expecting to like it so much, but I just couldn’t put it down.

We follow George throughout his 20s and 30s, spanning 2000-2020, mostly in Brooklyn. Privileged but troubled, your initial sympathy for him turns into intense frustration. Anyone who has read Stoner will recognise the passivity and inaction that makes the reader want to tear their hair out.

A lot of the Goodreads reviews say “we all know a George…” but I don’t think we do. I think we all have been George. George is what happens when we succumb to the most negative thoughts we have, if we don’t get up keep going.

The ending is what made this book for me. 10/10. Greathead’s prose is also excellent.

Up front, Messiah felt like it lacked depth. The conflict is there and in multiple directions, but it doesn't feel like it's actually gone into in any real detail. Character development feels the same way, moments are short, lacking fullness about them that you feel the actual development. The prose and style of narration are different. It feels less like a proper sequel and more like something convenient to write about.

I do want to take a moment and talk about a letter from Brian that's at the front of the copy I had. He talks about how people felt that Messiah is bad because it's not about Hero of Arrakis Muad'Dib, rather it talks about a lot of the negatives and darkness associated with Paul. He goes on to call out a few small moments from Dune about the problems to be had with such a Hero and why Paul shouldn't be seen as one at all. To me that felt apparent anyway, because while there's still a lot of "Hell yeah, get your revenge" in Dune Paul talks about the fear of his Jihad that he cannot stop, and it's also not terribly shocking you're not exactly a good guy if you hold the galaxy hostage in destruction of a major product to coerce your way to being Emperor.

It's still alright there's still parts and pieces that I did like, but it left me uncertain which side of the execution I'm getting with Children of Dune.

I'm trying to think of another novel that I've read where the main character is also the principle villain of the story, but none come to mind. While this story is couched in the framing device of it being H.H.'s retelling (so he isn't supposed to be the villain), obviously his thoughts and actions are vile enough to apply that label.

Anyway, the fact that the story starts out with H.H. trying to rationalize the evil that will come later is already a giant red flag. I've heard that people consider this book the pinnacle of the unreliable narrator, and I don't see it. Any story written from the first person is leveraging an unreliable narrator, and the fact that H.H. is aware of the criminality and immorality of his escapades shows that he at least isn't trying to sugar-coat the actual things he's doing and thinking. His attempts to justify this conduct is understandable from this vantage, as he is merely trying to explain how what happened ended up happening. Less unreliable, and more sleazy or duplicitous. He's trying to convince us of something, not trying to obfuscate it.

As an aside, I wish the author's note at the end of the book had come at the beginning, as it was the best part of the entire experience for me. Talking about getting the novel published, his intent, and some of the reactions to it made for more interesting reading to me than the majority of the word labyrinth I'd just completed. Not to mention his distaste regarding writing in English, as if it were a fun little exercise to write this nightmare fuel in (what he considered) a sub-par language.

But this leads into my next question - is the exceedingly-ornate prose of this novel supposed to be H.H. polishing his evil with a veneer of beauty, to lull the reader into a false sense of appreciation? Or is it simply Nabokov doing the same thing? I suppose this doesn't matter that much (since, in a way, it is always Nabokov doing it since he wrote it, and because of the framing device it's always H.H. doing it, too) but I still found myself wondering through the entire novel which it was supposed to be, which definitely affected my enjoyment. Maybe this was a blessing, as this definitely isn't the type of content I want to feel immersed in. The afterword is written a little more plainly, but I haven't read anything else by Nabokov to compare it to.

And that leads me back to that author's note at the end - as Nabokov (sort-of) states, this book is a "record of [his] love affair with the English language". I don't want to spend too much time wondering why THIS story is the form that that recording took, but I did wonder it quite a bit before hitting that little tidbit at the back of the book. I knew he was a Russian who had moved to the US and that this was one of his first works written in English. The fact that all of that culminated in creating this novel will probably always confuse me, as I don't think I can fathom the sheer gravity of artist-ness that would allow those feelings to result in this product.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling. I just needed to put some of these thoughts out into the world and you all are the ones I'm inflicting it upon.

Hi all! I wanna share my thoughts, feelings and everything I got in me. I need to express it somewhere, so I picked this subreddit. I start with a story of my own. 

I bought a “Shogun” book after I watched 1st episode of new FX tv show adaptation. It was when it premiere. I felt like I was robbed at 1st episode and I had a lot of questions and was interesting in the story. So I ordered book immediately.

By that time I was struggle how I wanna read it. I am not native English speaker, but sometimes I read books in English, so I started read it in English and in my own language back to back. But I wasn’t ready because it was huge and somehow manage to put the book away after 70-100 pages. 

Now in the beginning of July I got my leg broken, felt really depressed after that and just had boredom. So I remembered that I need to finish “Shogun”. And now only in my language and just that, I started to read it from the start again, handpaper book that I bought.

And you know when book and it’s story hit you in the right time. I somehow so connected to the world and characters that almost lived inside the story.

”Shogun” is amazing book, very immersive, big scale and so epic. 

-—— MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW ——-

Last chapters really broke me. John and Mariko story felt so great. I read posts now after finishing book and some people said romance was not so good. I can’t agree with that.

For me, it was a great love story and I am full grown man was cried like a baby at the end of the book and in the chapter where you know Mariko fate. 

i think it was interesting how these two people met in terms of circumstances by the plot story and somehow their souls felt so connected. It‘s great how Blacktorne learn many things from Mariko, how firstly he can’t understand some things but she explained everything so heartedly and with such patience and warm that you really understand why this woman so wonderful and can be loved. She changed him in a good way and brought him peace in his soul, that peace that he was looking all his life maybe. He wanted to find riches but find the most important person in his life. 

Also you understand why she fell in love with John too. He educated as she, knows many things and his different world inside of him felt captivate for Mariko. Despite of all he is very brave man, sharp mind (he saving Toranaga in Osaka was really bold move), his empathy to everyone so unique too. He always trying to save people , that impressed even Toranaga too. 

I think his empathy and how he can love, tell compliments and share his feeling openly really impressed and changed Mariko in a good way. It’s like she was in cage all the time and he made her free and showed what love is. 

Very beautiful story and how sad it was ended. Omg I want happy ending but somehow inside you know it can’t be in “Shogun” world. 

Her letter part and how John ”feel” her always around after tragic events really shattered me in pieces. That’s where men can cry I think. 

And I think James Clavell’s past Hollywood experience as a writer help him to make some “movie” scenes inside the book. For example, when Toranaga also admired by Mariko and sent his hawk to fly free in her name at the end felt so cinematic , beautiful and sad at the same time. It made me cried too. 

I can tell about other great things in the book. it was brutal, sometimes awkward, funny and had interesting intrigue parts and so on. But in this post I wanna shared these thoughts and feelings. 

I feel heavy post-book depression (or someone called it book hangover) and actually never cried behind the book before this one. I read for example Erich Remark books, they are very sad too, but I don’t express my emotion in tears.

But ”Shogun” story really clicked with me. 

Also I found some Clavell’s interview insight from some person on Reddit. He wanna make a story about Mariko from the start but he was advised that it can not interest many male viewers so he rewrite a story in different angles and characters perspective. And you can see in the end chapter John and Toranaga thinking a lot about Mariko and what a person she was and how important she for them, how much respect and love she deserved. I think Clavell gave her character a lot of credit In the book.

Thank you all who read my post. Please share your feelings and thoughts too. Ready to discuss)

Author Adam Johnson criticises Waverley council saying ‘reality is often upsetting’ while Palestinian group says libraries should hold ‘challenging’ books

A Sydney library has removed a book critical of Israel called How to Sell a Genocide, following a complaint reportedly from a survivor of the Bondi beach terror attack.

Waverley library at Bondi Junction is in the same council area as Bondi beach.

A Waverley council spokesperson said: “The book has been removed from library shelves for review, and council will further consider processes to ensure closer oversight of book selection.”

The Jewish news outlet JWire last week reported it had approached the council after a survivor of December’s antisemitic attack at Bondi, during which 15 people were killed, saw How to Sell a Genocide on the “new release / hot item” shelf and wrote on Facebook that the display was distressing for survivors and bereaved families.

How to Sell a Genocide critiques what it claims is the US media’s “complicity in the destruction of Gaza”.

The decision to remove the book was criticised by its author, Adam Johnson, who said calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide was not “a fringe or radical position”.

“They seem to be objecting largely based on the title using the word ‘genocide’,” Johnson said.

I recently ordered all three volumes of Peter Weiss’s novel The Aesthetics of Resistance from Thriftbooks. All three of them arrived as cheap, pulpy, print-on-demand editions from Lightning Source LLC, the bane of my book-collecting existence. Even worse, Volumes I and II are printed on acid-free paper, so they‘re pure white, while Volume III is not, so its pages are bronze.

Since these were published by Duke University Press, I assumed they had legit printings. And since they were only available new, they were $25 each. I paid $75 for books that won’t hold together for one reading, let alone a lifetime of ownership. In my view, these POD editions are no different than bootleg rips of CDs or DVDs, and they should not be sold without some kind of disclaimer.

The author Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote this biography of cancer after a patient asked “what is cancer?” It was originally published in 2010, and has been updated with four major new chapters in 2025.

I read this book because I waged my own battle with cancer last year. As of today, I am considered free of cancer. Does that mean I have won the war? I’m not sure because the same cancer might recur in the future or perhaps I will be stricken with a new form.

Cancer has been found since ancient times, but we think of it as being a modern disease. In the last 15 years, there’s been great strides in cancer research and new treatments as described in the book. So, there is hope.

But, there is some thought that cancer is actually a chronic illness, that it has become a “new normal”:

“… as the fraction of those affected by cancer creeps inexorably in some nations from one in four to one in three to one in two”.

If cancer becomes more and more common, and those who are afflicted either die or are deemed “cancer for life” and eventually die from it anyways, are we winning the war?

Or, are we winning because screenings, prevention and new treatments are helping to potentially “cure” some cancers or prolong the life of a cancer survivor?

These are not easy questions to answer. The author wrote this book as a biography of cancer, but it is also a biography of ourselves and our fight against cells in our own body that go haywire.

This was a difficult book to read at times because of my own experience with cancer, but I feel it was a masterpiece of storytelling, history, science writing and possibilities for the future.

10/10 rating

Welcome readers,

Have you ever wanted to ask something but you didn't feel like it deserved its own post but it isn't covered by one of our other scheduled posts? Allow us to introduce you to our new Simple Questions thread! Twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday, a new Simple Questions thread will be posted for you to ask anything you'd like. And please look for other questions in this thread that you could also answer! A reminder that this is not the thread to ask for book recommendations. All book recommendations should be asked in /r/suggestmeabook or our Weekly Recommendation Thread.

Thank you and enjoy!