As a former employee of several Indie bookstores, some of which aren't around anymore, this rings very true.

Before you will drown in Russian literature I would recommend to start with classic French literature.

Alexandre Dumas

Honoré de Balzac

Victor Hugo

Emile Zola

George Sand

Guy de Maupassant

Gustave Flaubert

Where's that reference from? The Big Bang Theory?

It's a lot of work to set a target number of books or count pages read.

I'm going to try keep up reading as I am currently, reading when I can, for however long that may be and enjoying the journey.

Yeah my mind is blown that he wrote with such detail that a geographer could create an atlas, and even show the daily itineraries of people on their journeys. And I agree it really does make an amazing reading companion to have these super detailed maps along with you as you read.

It delivers the audiobooks as DRM-free mp3 files. Publishers do not like that.

I wouldn't necessarily discourage it, but it might be a tough read. Many people read and consume the silmarillion because they are motivated to continue living inside middle earth after finishing the Lord of the Rings and absolutely loving it. If you don't have that motivation, you may have difficulty maintaining interest in reading these ancient myths of a world that you don't have a connection to

Bookshop.org is fantastic however check who you're supporting by shopping there. The first few times I ordered my money was going to Reedpop, which isn't a giant Amazon conglomerate but not what I would call a small local business. Iirc you can specify through your order who you're supporting.

Alibris.com is another wonderful site for used or hard-to-find books!

I did too, rereading this made me feel dumb. I really struggled with the way it was written. the archaic english style was tough. I missed so much in the council of elrond for some reason. I think the quotes in side quotes confused me.

As someone who lived through the era that was desperately trying to be recreated in the story, I found the entire experience pandering. However, I thought the dialogue was an attempt at a new leet speak or future way of talking.

Slightly cringey reference is my guess. Bazinga.

What’s the problem with OverDrive?

I kept waiting her to die too… I’m not sure why.

I am all for unliked characters (I loved Gone Girl for example) but this book just… didn’t click?

In TTT I always skip the second half.

You say this like it’s a bad thing. Why is it a bad thing?

Right! I don’t understand why this book was so hyped up? Sure, it was a quick read but mainly because it was so bizarre that the main character was such a wreck.

Logically, the book doesn’t even make sense. How can someone go 6 months only drinking water every 3 days? Wouldn’t you, idk, die? Lol

Also her drug use is wild. I’m really surprised she didn’t overdose.

The only thing I can get from this book is, don’t take your loved ones for granted. She obviously took Reva for granted, then she dies.

No. I'm not interested in putting narrators and authors out of business because I don't like Amazon. For many self-published authors, in particular, they're on Audible because they can't get on other platforms.

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There's not really a "point" to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, although I have read an annotated copy with some interesting facts about it: apparently the story was partly inspired by Lewis Carroll's hatred of modern algebra, which was new at the time. Most of the stuff about Alice changing size was him poking fun at how ridiculous the idea of things like imaginary numbers, multiplying negative numbers, etc.

Betterworldbooks is also good!

I read it years ago and thought it was okay. It occasionally touched on potential themes that I think would be very timely in an increasingly online world, but I don't think Cline wanted to write any of that. I feel like he just wanted a textbook Hero's Journey narrative. It's not the worst book I've ever read, but I feel like I could have just rewatched Star Wars, and not missed out on much. Or Tron.

I'm a manager at an indie bookstore and I agree, Bookshop.org is wonderful! It honestly helped keep a lot of smaller indies alive during the pandemic.

I'd also encourage folks to checkout their local indie's website. It may promote things like free in-store events, indie-exclusive editions of new books, locally self-published authors, or signed bookplates. Plus a lot of them are unionized!

Thank you so much for supporting independent bookstores and have a wonderful new year. 💕

Its one of my favorite books of all time, and the audiobook(the book itself as well) is one of my comfort books. I think part of it is the nostalgia, though I was young during the 80's a lot still resonates with me. But just the adventure of it all. The flawed protagonist. The threat coming from a corporation who wants to monetize everything. I just have always found it both fun and relatable.

I never claim its a master literary work, but I love the book. It means a lot to many of us, and I am always disheartened when I hear people knock it.

I’ve read this book 2 days ago, and cannot recall anything from it. It didn’t leave anything with me… which is sad for a book that deals with depression. I don’t know why, something didn’t sit right with me about it.