Carnie:: I don't know, but he basically said "Oh well, you're a boy, so take it." O_o Um, what?
Yeah, he was home schooled, but here you can't get a diploma if you're home schooled, so he dropped out after he turned 16 and he's going to get his GED.

LaVida:: Bullying is bad here, all through school. And no adult seemed to really care, and most of the time seemed to side with the bullies rather than the victems. :roll: Thankfully, I've been done with school for a while, so no worries for me. When I get to go to college, if there's people who make fun of me for something there, I can happily just blow it off and laugh at how immature they are for making fun of someone. :XD

Mary Renault is actually one of my favorite authors. I found The King Must Die very vivid, also liked The Last of the Wine, quite a lot. Not so much her other books, but I think they're all worth reading.

The Last of the Wine focuses on the players of the Peloponnesian War, which was the war of the comic/movie 300.

Hello everyone!

I have a paltry seven books finished. Feel free to motivate (re: chastise) me at any time, guys... :sleep:
Meanwhile, I'm on book 2 of The Belgariad, a fantasy series by David Eddings much loved by members of my family. Anyone read it? I'm a little frustrated at some points with the overuse of cliche (I completed the sentence that ended "a towering rage" in my head before even turning the page. Also, everyone wears tunics and boots and eats stew and has swords, etc...)

Meanwhile, though, I'm enjoying the book. Pretty sure "enjoying" is the word. The author doesn't leave fantasy-trope comfort zones, really, but I'm ok with that.

I am a little perturbed to realize how many of my little cousins on both sides of the family are named after characters from this book. So far, three: Garath, Barret and Garion.
Really, guys? :roll:

Knerd- The Persian Boy sound like a good read! *adds it to her to read list*

Colors- You can do it! I'm really behind on my challenge too, we can motivate one another. :lol:
GIT ON YER CHALLENGE AND READ SOME BOOKS :illgetu:
(That is me trying to chastise.)

I've been meaning to read The Belgariad books! I've heard good things from a few people.
Have you read The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones? Your talk about fantasy tropes made me think of it, I think you'd like it! It's an encyclopedia of fantasy-genre cliches, it's absolutely hilarious.
At least those are cool names! It's funny so many people in your family have named kids after the books, though. :lol:

Also, I love that you've got a 42 book, HGtG-based challenge, and the 'Books Which I Reread Because I Have Poor Impulse Control' made me laugh. :'D

Kitami - Not cool at all :no: But yea! I had to get my GED too! :yes:


Man I need to get going on my books... >.<!

Kitami>> well, over here there ain't much bullying because the victim always tends to know enough people that will gang up on the bully, so yea :P Plus, bullying is very frowned on upon over here :)

Originally Posted by LaVida

Knerd>> omg, sounds like a good plot, can you expand a bit more on that? :d

Here's a pretty basic plot of the book:

Bagoas is a young Persian boy from an upper class family who is captured, castrated, and sold to King Darius as a slave. His job is mostly entertaining the various court members. He is soon singled out as a very pleasant and desirable boy, so he's given to Alexander as a gift and followers the warrior throughout his many conquests and battle efforts.

Nothing is explicitly written about their love affair, but you get to see Alexander's marriage, wars, and death through Bagoas' eyes. It's a really nice read, even though it's not completely historically accurate. :lol:

Knerd>> oooh, sounds good XD I'll borrow it if I see it in the library :3 I'm currently reading this book called "A Discovery of Witches" and I only borrowed it because of this ad I saw on the subway and it's actually proving to be a nice read :3

@Iltu: Ooooh! Definitely adding The Tough Guide to Fantasyland to my list. And I'm glad you like the Hitchhiker's theme! :glomp:

My whole family reads a ton, actually. Every time we get together (pretty often, at my grandpa's house for dinner), at least 2 or 3 books exchange hands-- except when it's a Serious Day, in which case entire boxes of books can shuffle. I guess some children were bound to get caught in the nomenclature crossfire. It might be worse when my generation starts making little ones. I can just see poor little Hermione now... :lol:

:rawrmayor: Get to your book list, thou spleeny folly-fallen coxcomb!

(by the way, I have no idea what I just said to you, but hopefully it's motivating! :hug:)


@Knerd: you just taught me more interesting things about Alexander than my entire primary and secondary education! Book-to-list-now.

I'm halfway through reading evermore: the immortals by alyson noel. :) It's pretty good and easy to figure out too.

Alice in Sunderland is fascinating so far and I'm not even up to the Alice-y bits yet. I am from Sunderland though so I might be a bit biased. XD

I've actually been reading a lot of Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut recently. I'm seriously wanting to read all of Terry Pratchett's books before he can't write anymore. Maybe I should be concentrating on those. ^.^;;

Palahniuk and Vonnegut! That is an excellent pairing.

The difficulty with reading all of Pratchett is that he writes a lot. I didn't get through the Discworld series because I didn't get hold of all of the books in an orderly and timely manner-- so I have a very scattershot knowledge about them.

Meanwhile, here's a very helpful Discworld reading order chart.

That will probably help. I'm always a little lost on where to start on his stuff. Currently I own the following:

The Color of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Going Postal
Small Gods
Soul Music

In addition I have the movies for both The Color of Magic and the Hogfather. But I may take that list with me when I go pick out books to "rent" from the library. (I say "rent" instead of "barrow" because I always find myself keeping books past their due date, unfortunately.) I won't need to barrow anything for a while because I actually still need to read the end of The Light Fantastic, and Going Postal. I haven't even started on the others yet. I'm gonna see if the used book store has them first. It'll be easier to read them at my leisure if I own them.

My uncle was a big fan of the Discworld books (not so much now) and my dad is particularly fond of the Guards books so I think I read most of those first. The Witches books have caused me some trouble because I always forgot which order they were in and have since left my unread copy of Witches Abroad at my parents house. -_-

There's a TV adaptation of Going Postal too.

Ooh! I may have to look into that. I really like watching movies based on the discworld series.

Yes! I officially have ten books to go and I'm finished with my challenge ! W00T!

Congrats Taiyo. ^.^ I'm not certain I'll ever have enough time to finish the challenge. T_T

Holy Monkeys Taiyo! :shock: I still have like 25 books to go :gonk:! *is jealous*

Originally Posted by colorsbold

@Iltu: Ooooh! Definitely adding The Tough Guide to Fantasyland to my list. And I'm glad you like the Hitchhiker's theme! :glomp:

My whole family reads a ton, actually. Every time we get together (pretty often, at my grandpa's house for dinner), at least 2 or 3 books exchange hands-- except when it's a Serious Day, in which case entire boxes of books can shuffle. I guess some children were bound to get caught in the nomenclature crossfire. It might be worse when my generation starts making little ones. I can just see poor little Hermione now... :lol:

:rawrmayor: Get to your book list, thou spleeny folly-fallen coxcomb!

(by the way, I have no idea what I just said to you, but hopefully it's motivating! :hug:)

I hope you like it when you get around to it! It's one of my favorite books. :) The Darklord of Derkholm, by the same author, is a satire of fantasy cliches as well, just in novel form. It's about a fantastical world that's being forced by a man from our world (or one very like ours) to mimic a stereotypical fantasyland so he can make money off of sending people from our world on tours there. And the natives of the fantastical world are sick and tired of it and are out to put a stop to it, because all the fantasy tropes are proving to be rather ruinous to them.

What a fabulous family you have! I have a few family members that enjoy reading, but our tastes are vastly different. :no: Except my oma, she and I both love the same sort of tales. Every time she comes over she brings back the last book or books I lent her and asks for new ones! I think she's only ever not liked a book I recommended to her twice. :lol:
Oh goodness, ALL my little ones will be named after book characters, or perhaps authors. :XD Just yesterday I was asking my friend if she thought it was acceptable to call a girl Peregrin and nickname her Pippa instead of Pippin!

Haha, it's a very motivating name, thank-you!

The Peregrin -> Pippa/Pippin thing made me think of Pepper (Pippin Galadriel Moonchild) from Good Omens. There's another option. XD

@ Carn: I started my challenge last August. My mom says I'm gonna end up finishing early! :XD

Yea you probably will :( *is jealous* I couldn't remember when I started mine so I just looked. And I was wrong in thinking that I had started in September. I only have till the middle of August!! :gonk:

Yay, I finished reading Evermore: The immortals. :) Now, on to my next book. :)

Beauty - Yay! Way to go! Speaking of books I think I'll go read a bit before work!