I keep starting it and not making it even halfway, and Tolkien is by far one of my favorite authors. That's a book he wrote for himself more than for the public from what I've heard.
Yeah, it wasn't something he ever thought was going to be released. He wrote it as something of a backbone for his world. He created his elven language and then decided to create a world around it, and what you get in the Silmarillion is sort of a compilation of notes, and small stories that he made as the pillar of his world. I suspect if he had thought it was going to be published the end result would have been different, but as he didn't....well...that's what we got.
(I never read Dune, so I can't comment on that)
So...what books DON'T you like?
06/09/2009 04:57:28 AM
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I have a couple I really disliked
06/09/2009 05:28:38 AM
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Some examples
07/09/2009 08:25:37 PM
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You think Battlefield Earth is bad, try reading his Mission Earth series. *NM*
08/09/2009 02:09:22 AM
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I read those in high school. I liked them. Stupid comic escapism. *NM*
08/09/2009 02:18:31 AM
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I read them when I was in high school too...at least the first 3 or 4
08/09/2009 02:47:12 AM
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Re: I read them when I was in high school too...at least the first 3 or 4
08/09/2009 04:18:07 PM
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Re: I read them when I was in high school too...at least the first 3 or 4
08/09/2009 06:26:00 PM
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No, thanks. I think all my masochism got spent on Terry Goodkind
*NM*
08/09/2009 07:25:41 PM
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Political polemics, for one. Utopian novels, for another.
06/09/2009 05:29:54 AM
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I don't have enough hours in the day to detail this or something even worse
06/09/2009 05:45:35 AM
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Oh, a lot of things. But I wonder.
06/09/2009 07:00:34 AM
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Re: Oh, a lot of things. But I wonder.
06/09/2009 07:05:51 AM
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Oh plenty
06/09/2009 09:37:23 AM
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I hated Wuthering Heights more than Jane Eyre, but I hated Jane Eyre, too. *NM*
06/09/2009 02:54:49 PM
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I like all books I have ever read.
06/09/2009 12:09:51 PM
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Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. In Ye Olde English, it's harder to translate than ancient Greek. *NM*
06/09/2009 05:07:49 PM
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The Canterbury Tales are not Old English. They are Middle English.
06/09/2009 05:59:59 PM
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Indeed, translating old english, and reading middle english are very very different
06/09/2009 07:11:13 PM
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As I'm translating some ancient Greek right now, I call bullshit on that. *NM*
06/09/2009 08:45:46 PM
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I was going to, but I felt I had already been pedantic enough. *NM*
07/09/2009 02:34:04 AM
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The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
06/09/2009 05:58:39 PM
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Catcher in the Rye and Heart of Darkness, among the "classics." *NM*
06/09/2009 08:15:12 PM
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Vellum by Hal Duncan and The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
06/09/2009 08:16:12 PM
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Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
06/09/2009 08:24:07 PM
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I liked a Portrait of the Artist, personally, though the (lack of real) punctuation grated *NM*
07/09/2009 12:18:50 AM
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I didn't mind Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog...I mean Man
07/09/2009 02:40:14 AM
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What?
06/09/2009 08:28:17 PM
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Oh, and maybe it was lost on me, but I never got much joy out of War and Peace
07/09/2009 12:22:48 AM
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Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell.
07/09/2009 12:54:41 AM
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Don't flame me for saying it....
07/09/2009 04:49:40 AM
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One last one: Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley *NM*
07/09/2009 07:44:48 AM
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Have you ever seen the mini-series?
07/09/2009 05:42:45 PM
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Never have I seen such good acting in such a dreadful movie/mini-series.
07/09/2009 05:44:47 PM
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I love really really bad TV movies sometimes....they make for lots of laughter
07/09/2009 06:06:38 PM
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Actually, you might like it. As in, think it's good.
07/09/2009 06:11:14 PM
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I had a couple of issues with the book that I could easily see being removed from the movie
07/09/2009 07:01:40 PM
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A Confederacy of Dunces.
08/09/2009 06:13:59 AM
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Crap. That's two people now.
09/09/2009 01:42:40 AM
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Hitchickers guide to the galaxy and The Good earth by Pearl S. Buck
09/09/2009 01:07:01 AM
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