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I just read the Tom Bombadil part and enjoyed it since he is such a mysterious character (I wish it would have been longer but I think Tolkien wanted to keep his identity a mystery). I am skeptical about giving up on reading the songs because I did this while reading the King Killer Chronicles and the songs turned out to hold clues to the events unfolding during the novel. However, KKC were different types of books and I get feeling that the songs in LOTR don't hold the same purpose.
You're more patient than I am and I'm glad you enjoyed it. If you got through that part, you're going to love the rest.
"The lovely bones" by Alice Sebold. It is finally getting more interesting a little over halfway through. It almost reads like a young adult book except for a few parts.
I read that a few years ago, and thought the same thing (that it felt like YA), but over all, I was satisfied with the story. The movie was disappointing; don't bother with it if you've read the book.
I just found another book by Alice Sebold, The Almost Moon, for 50 cents at a library sale. I was surprised at the people online who complained about how horrible the protagonist is. They don't "get" that it's a dark satirical story about a woman's internal reactions to a lifetime with a harshly critical, narcissistic, histrionic mother. Probably the same people who thought American Psycho was about a guy who actually murdered people.
I've had When Breath Becomes Air on my kindle for a while now but hadn't gotten around to it. We all have "round tuits", right? I will read it next. Thanks for the reminder, cloven.
I just discovered that When Breath Becomes Air has a forward by Abraham Verghese.
Verghese wrote Cutting for Stone. A great book.
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Originally Posted by fromupthere
Excellent book. I highly recommend!
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Originally Posted by pinetreelover
As do I. Sweetly sad and beautifully written.
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Originally Posted by phonelady61
I have heard from some of my pen pals that the "when breath becomes air ' is very good I hope you enjoy it .
"When Breath Becomes Air" by the late Dr. Paul Kalanithi was a quick read, started & ended it in one evening/overnight.
It truly was one of those "hard to put down" books. Reminded me of (the late neurosurgeon & author) Oliver Sacks' writing style somewhat. Full of quotable lines-
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“Throughout college, my monastic, scholarly study of human meaning would conflict with my urge to forge and strengthen the human relationships that formed that meaning. If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining ?”
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“In other words, I could study meaning or I could experience it.”
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“Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process.”
Managed to finish both books in under one week, plus I took notes
"Smarter, Faster, Better" by Charles Duhigg was pretty good,
I did skip over some of the anecdotes because I was interested in the underlying principles/concepts being illustrated (about motivation and cognition).
It helps that he sums things up at each chapter's end and provides a short version of outline of points in the appendix.
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“Motivation is triggered by making choices that demonstrate to ourselves that we are in control. The specific choice we make matters less than the assertion of control. It’s this feeling of self-determination that gets us going.”
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“…why are we so good at forecasting certain kinds of things-and thus, making decisions-when we have so little exposure to all the possible odds ?”
“At the core of Bayes’ rule is a principle: Even if we have very little data, we can still forecast the future by making assumptions and then skewing them based on what we observe about the world.”
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“This inability to take advantage of data as it becomes more plentiful is called “information blindness”. Just as snow blindness refers to people losing the capacity to distinguish trees from hills under a blanket of powder, so information blindness refers to our mind’s tendency to stop absorbing data when there’s too much to take in.”
I have just finished "We were Liars" by E. Lockhardt. It's a very slim book and you might be able to finish it in 2 days since it's a quick read. At the beginning it seemed to be nothing than a short story about the perfect life of rich teenagers. However, it has a very unexpected twist and I nearly wept at the end. Very good and moving!
When on vacation I read Kate Morton's "The Forgotten Garden". This was slow moving at the beginning but got better and better.
Now I'm reading a German Crime series which will take me a few weeks since it's 5 books.
I am reading The Last Star: The Final Book of the 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. Just came out today and I was lucky enough to be 1st on the list at the library for the eBook.
Let me know what you think about it. I wasn't impressed by the second book and figured I wouldn't bother with the third one but I can't remember what I didn't like about the second one.
I finished The Fireman by Joe Hill. I read his first book of short stories and was impressed by it. I wasn't very impressed by this one although until the 67% mark it kept my interest.
Spoiler
At the 67% mark, you knew he was his father's son as a character started some self-indulgent rambling about how real writers don't need outlines for their stories. I figure Joe ran out of ideas at that point and I wish I had quit reading then. It became drawn out and cartoonish.
Now I'm on Justin Cronin's last book in his trilogy. So far so good but I'm only a 1/4 through.
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