Ardentli.Net

I’ve been reading a decent amount in the past few months and I just thought I’d share some of my recent favorites:

• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I think Katy mentioned this book in one of her posts a few months back and I saw it at the bookstore and decided to pick it up. It’s wonderful! The story takes place over many, many years following the life of a family in the 12th century in England. The story starts following Tom Builder, an architect who has a passion for designing and building cathedrals, and his family. The story continues with Tom’s adoptive son, Jack, and his love interest. The storyline continues with many great characters whose stories are all intertwined. The best part about this book is that it follows the lives of normal, everyday people rather than kings or queens and nobility. It really makes you feel for the characters and their struggles to survive and just how outright crappy life was back then. It’s a really long read, but I really couldn’t put the book down.
• World Without End by Ken Follett. After reading the previous book I had to pick this one up. This book is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth and takes place two centuries later. Many of the characters are related to people you read about in the first book. The story centers around Caris, a descendant of Jack Builder from the first book, and her love interest Merthin. Like Tom, Merthin is also interested in architecture; specifically cathedrals. The second half of the book also deals with the Black Death that plagued Europe. I don’t think this book was as epic as the first, but it’s still certainly good and it’s fun reading about what became of the descendants of the people you read about in the first book.
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I won’t lie when I tell you that the first couple of chapters are really, really boring. I had trouble getting through them since the beginning of the story tends to drag, but once it gets going it’s a pretty good book. The story starts in the years after WW2 in Scotland. Claire is a nurse who worked for the British Army and is married to a man who’s incredibly interested in genealogy. One day she is transported back in time 200 years and encounters her husband’s predecessor; a ruthless man named “Black Jack” Randall. She escapes from Randall by being captured by a clan of Scottsmen and eventually falls in love and is forced to marry one of the clan, Jamie. I haven’t completely finished the book yet, but I am aware that this book became a 7 book series though the first book can stand alone as a work on in on itself.
• The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. I’ve read a great deal of her books since falling in love with The Other Boleyn Girl a year or two ago. This book isn’t one of her bests, but I did enjoy it regardless. The story takes place before The Other Boleyn Girl and deals with a woman who fell in love with the then rising King of England, Edward. The story goes through their love, marriage, and fight to keep the crown in spite of the rising Tudors (who eventually DO take over England as we do know). The story is quite nice because of the love between the two characters, but lacks a lot of details and ends at a really bad spot. I know that Gregory intends to write a second book about what happens after, but still, meh. It’s still enjoyable if you like historic fiction about the royal family of England!

I’m kind of bad at keeping up with what I’ve been reading as I promised myself I would, so I’m making a quick blog post about what I’ve been reading this summer – specifically this month.

• Howl’s Moving Castle – Finished this in a few days since it’s really a short childrens’ book. I loved the movie by Hayao Miyazaki and was happy to find out it was adapted from a novel.
• Mortal Instruments: City of Bones – Ughhh, I don’t know why I picked this up. It was suggested upon by a few friends, but since I didn’t like Twilight I don’t know why I thought this would be any better. It’s honestly just poor writing and a pretty boring storyline. Sorry to all my friends who like this series… It’s just not that good. Bleh, I’m almost embarrassed I own this book.
• My Sister’s Keeper – Well, this was my first book by this author so I really had no preconceptions about the writer’s quality nor did I know much about the storyline beforehand. I just kept seeing people reading this book during my commute to work so I picked it up. It was decently good, though the ending is really a cop-out. Yes, I know this book’s movie was just released and no, I haven’t seen it.
• The Pillars of the Earth – Out of all the books I’ve read this month, this is by far the best. It’s a great read and I’m really happy I decided to pick it up! I can’t wait to pick up the next book, but I’m going to hold off till I finish more books on my reading shelf.
• Pride and Prejudice – Seen a few movie adaptations of Jane Austen’s book, but haven’t read the book. I really like Austen’s writing style. It’s so witty for the time period it was written. I’ll be sure to read more of her books (probably Sense and Sensibility next).

Currently reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! Woot, so excited to read this after years of hearing about it and not. Too bad the movie a few years back was awful.

I’ve felt pretty unmotivated to make any sort of update since arriving in Boston. My days consist of my 8 hour workday plus a 45 min commute morning and evening and then whatever I end up doing in the afternoons and weekends. I’ve just been drained and unwilling to post updates.

My boyfriend is coming to visit this weekend which is probably going to result in a plethora of new pictures of the Zoo, Boston area, etc. So, hopefully by then I’ll have something of merit to post here.

By the way, can any of you guys suggest me up some good romance/sci-fi or fantasy novels to read? I’m oddly in the mood for that genre as of late.

My boyfriend bought me two new books for my birthday which adds to the never-ending pile of books “to read”. I figured I’d make a list of books that are on my to read list:

Currently Reading:

• The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
• The Elegant Universe – Brian Greene (been reading this over a year now and haven’t had time to finish)
• The Ancestor’s Tale – Richard Dawkins (been in progress for a long bit also, but I think I’m going to restart it)
  

Books in Queue (that I own):

• The Extended Phenotype – Richard Dawkins
• Punctuated Equilibrium – Stephen Jay Gould
• Dune – Frank Herbert
• Fabric of the Cosmos – Brian Greene
• Pandora’s Star – Peter Hamilton

I recently finished Flowers for Algernon which was an awesome book. I’m also greatly enjoying The Count of Monte Cristo and I’m starting to see how much different the book was from the movie that came out about 10 years ago. I didn’t think I’d really enjoy Dumas’ style (I know it’s translated) but I actually quite enjoy it. I probably will pick up more of his books after I finish Monte Cristo, but hopefully I’ll get through my queue list of books first.