^ Book one is waiting on the shelf at the moment :P

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A month or two later, and I'm finally starting the final novel of what has been a rather awesome read. For anyone remotely interested in fantasy, i would highly recommend it. I'd even recommend it to those who haven't tried Fantasy yet but like a complex read, or those who have tried fantasy before but found it either too predictable or too orcs & goblins epic-questy. It's a wonderful mix of a dystopian look at the way society could go and a fantasy epic, with very well drawn characters.

I'm still reading A Game of Thrones. At around page 420 (smoke weed erry day) now. I'm still trying to figure out what the main obstacle is.

I'm not sure how to explain it properly, but I'd have to say looking back is what counts the most (at least for me). The best books I've read have had me feeling undecided or unsure of my feelings for story, and then once I've finished it and had time to digest the entire thing, I'll wake up a few days later feeling completely different. It always hits much later, like an revelation. Like "Wow, why didn't I see how amazing that story was then? How could I have missed the importance of so-and-so's message, or this twist, or that turn?" Or what have you.

I guess it doesn't have so much to do with the ending itself, but just comprehending every bit of the story and building an appreciation for it after being able to ponder it for a while, as a whole.

Have just started book four and only a few chapters in, see that some older characters Brienne and Cersei have their own chapters now, as well as some chapters not being named after a character. Yer Jaime is great, especially after he got his own chapter in the last book. Will keep an eye out for the faction that you are referring to.

I take it you're referring to book one here, by the end of the book and in book two everything falls into place, as there are a hell of a lot of characters etc to all take in initially.

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William Gibson has always been one of my favourite sci-fi authors, so when I heard he put out a book of non-fiction essays and prose, I was intrigued. So far it's pretty good, I like the layout and how he writes. It's easy to follow, flows quite naturally and gives a lot of insight to the mindset of how he was around the time he was writing The Sprawl trilogy.

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I have a thing for Jewish literature and I'm not sure why.

Anyway, I really like short stories and I enjoy Englander's writing even though he's not the most concise author. He's gotten a lot of **** for his choice in title (it's a paper thin rip-off of Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, and he's been accused of using Anne Frank's name for promotional reasons), but I think it's a decent collection. I won't be buying anyone copies as gifts or anything, but I'll recommend it.

I finished it a couple days ago and I'm about 150 pages into Clash of Kings. GOT pretty much just set the stage for the following books, as far as I can tell.

They do, A Clash of Kings expands on the overarching story, while A Storm of Swords wraps up several of the dangling subplots so new ones can begin in the 4th and 5th books. I'm assuming the 6th book will wrap up several of those, and the 7th book we will see the whole picture play out.

I am reading "The Old Man And The Sea". This novel is amazing, I read the book when I was in middle school and I am now reading the book at age 17. The book seems so much better, it might be because I am really grasping Ernest Hemingway's writing now.

Just finished Catching Fire, the second Hunger Games book. Very good premise. The writing, again, isn't awful. It's about what I expected of a Young Adult book...vastly superior to the Twilight saga, short of Harry Potter, but about equal to the Percy Jackson books.

Having a 13-year-old sister apparently puts a lot of YA books into my hands. They tend to take a few hours to read, and aren't a horrible waste of time.

As soon as I finish Mockingjay...which I'll start and finish today, I'd imagine...I'm going on a Thomas Pynchon read-a-thon. I really wonder how my brain will cope with Thomas Pynchon after being pumped full of young adult books...