Yes! Not with King thank goodness! I’ve read some historical non-fiction recently and just a few nights ago I had a dream, inside a second dream, inside a third dream. I’ve had lucid, dream in a dream before but never experienced this. I’m still in a shaky mode about it because IF time travel is possible I did it in my first dream. I was a young girl, probably 11-12 years old and it was either 1903 or 1908 as I remember seeing it on a newspaper, but when I woke up completely I couldn’t figure out if the circles were closed (8) or open as a 3. . I remember my father (banker), mother, everything in the house (which checks out accurately for time period), my clothing, the street in front, the yard and a general store. We were moderately well to do. I also kept a diary and my hand actually ached when I woke up. The weird thing is the middle dream I told the young girl (me) that she was dreaming and needed to come back because something bad was about to happen. She (me) turned, looked up at the corner ceiling of her room and said, “I can’t go back. This is history and I can’t change the future.” Her dream continued as I watched on and her father was shot in a bank robbery about an hour or so later. I was there when the mother was told at the front door. My third and last dream was me, present day, reality. I told the middle dream (also me) that I had to come back because the girl was just a dream. Middle me looked up at the corner of the bedroom ceiling where I was asleep in bed and said, “Just another moment. I need to stay with (her).” First and second dreams continued simultaneously while third me watched on.
REALITY, CURRENT TIME: I (we) must have been talking out loud in my current bed, because my dog woke me up scratching and whimpering at me which he does sometimes when I’m in the middle of a nightmare. I tried to go back to sleep and continue the dreams, which I can often do if I am in in a very drowsy, deep sleep. There was another moment or two in the dreams, but then I was fully awake and my brain was in shock and awe trying to remember everything so I didn’t forget the dreams and experience. It was so cool, but also a little mind boggling because I REALLY feel like I was that young girl! Just freaky feeling… I know probably impossible, but my mind won’t stop thinking about it. Sorry so long.

This sounds unbearable.

Give me literature that MEANS something.

I get over a sad ending by realising it's a book.

Once I realise it's a book I get this thing called perspective.

Once I get perspective I know a book can't ruin my day, let alone my life.

Interestingly I think it’s because Tolkien and Collins were pioneers for their genres. Tolkien is widely considered the forefather of modern fantasy and Collins work spearheaded the wave of YA dystopia which wasn’t as huge a market as it became. In trying to be those writers the ones that came after actually cemented the tropes in the genre. Most of the YA dystopian writers that came after Collins focused on the wrong things, for example YA dystopia went all in on the love triangles, liked how badass Katniss could be making their characters wish fulfilment, and overusing the chosen one narratives. It’s like they were trying to emulate Suzanne Collins but fundamentally misunderstood her work and what she was trying to say

Unless the author publishes a detailed paper on what they wanted to communicate in their work, you never really "get" a book.

You only get your subjective perception of the book. Now, I'm not saying that the author can't communicate a message to the reader, but not all authors try to do that.

Some authors just want to write a a bunch of characters and events and stories and don't really care if the reader understands the point or meaning. Some works of art don't have a true meaning.

Just because a book doesn't have an understandable meaning, however, doesn't mean that it's bad or unenjoyable. Goodness and enjoyability are just subjective to the reader.

Dark Tower and Hyperion are two of my top three series of all time. You definitely need to read it. I recommend reading all four of the Hyperion books though. The second set are farther in the future but they really complete the story.

It took a decade before Katniss was willing to have the first child.

that's literally anything. "Is this book fun?" "Yeah, if you're into it"

literally how likes and dislikes work. Entirely subjective

>James Baldwin is such an efficient writer, he always seemed to convey exactly what the scene needed and no more

Couldn't disagree more. I know I'm in the minority, but I really struggled to get through even 30 pages of Giovanni's Room.

So many of Baldwin's sentences seemed to spill into the next, and the next. There was constant reiteration and repetition. Like he was always grasping to say something profound. Occasionally he would.

Apparently, he was heavily inspired by the rhetoric of gospel preachers. The whole church-pastor-delivery doesn't sit well with me.

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>Then, perhaps, life only offers the choice of remembering the garden or forgetting it. Either or: it takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.

I just can't see this as 'efficient writing'. I can understand how other people enjoy it, don't get me wrong. But yeah. Not for me.

Same. Unless YouTube counts, but I don't really interact.

That's awesome! I didn't know :)

Who cares? If it is trash and you say it is trash, then you did your part. It sounds like you also got some attention, for better or for worse.

Hey, I learned something new! Thank you :)

Desperation is terrifying! I had a hard time getting through that one. Scary and all together just really fucked up. I have yet to read its sister novel The Regulators (published under King's alias Richard Bachman.

It’s a book

Yes also true, didn‘t mention it because it doesn’t influence you personally in the short term at least

Dan Simmons is one of the rare writers who is great in more than one genre. Hyperion is fantastic science fiction/fantasy and I highly recommend it and Fall of Hyperion as they are essentially one book. If you like horror, don't miss Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. One of my all time favorite horror novels, up there with The Shining for me.

I can honestly believe it. Reading about him, he seems like he would be mischievous enough to do this.

I read the golden compass while on a cruise to Alaska

I believe there is a kind of art that attempts to be obscure and opaque just so that those who manage to make sense of it can claim to be superior. Yet in reality, no one has made any sense of it because it's nonsense. It's like the modern works of art where the artist splashes paint on a wall and critics and pretentious people praise its deep metaphorical meaning. Or have you ever known the kind of person who just throws out french phrases just to impress people?

I acknowledge that I could be completely wrong. Maybe if I got a Ph.D. in literature and spent a few years studying Joyce that my eyes would be opened to how brilliant Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are.

"Simplicity of language is not only reputable but perhaps even sacred." -- Kurt Vonnegut

I have a faint feeling Joyce’s trolling us with this book …

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Oh, I can assure you that reading Finnegans Wake aloud is genuinely a lot of fun. But it takes some practice because Joyce’s neologisms will trip you up.

big +1 on Tamora Pierce. I've always been a fantasy reader and her + Patricia Wrede were so important to me when it came to re-inventing female stereotypes. Age gaps are a persistent issue with a lot of Pierce's protagonists and it def hasn't sat well with me and think back on power dynamics (re: Daine and Numair being student-teacher and my younger self having a huge crush x_x). there's been a lot of discussion on that in reader groups though and there's interesting nuance as Pierce has been able to express her changing viewpoints with her fan community e.g. Alanna's gender presentation.

if the environmental themes seen inconsistent to you it might be a matter of personal politics. I'm of Buddhist heritage but have always had an open mind when it comes to plant-based diets and meat since I was raised by a fisherman. The Immortals was set in a time period where hunting was the norm + Daine was a child of a hunting god(? spirit? whatever the specific fictional ideology was). even as a child, it made sense to me for her to compartmentalize her values when it came to sustenance as hunters have a v particular relationship with the land/nature and don't let life go to waste. For her to not want to eat ones she's transformed into also makes sense as her morals continued to develop as she got older which is how ethics are for all of us.

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