I have come across this with school librarians for years at my kids’ elementary school. We took our kids reading into our own hands. I read a ton as a kid so was able to direct them toward my old favorites depending on the kid and their interests and they now find their own books. Everyone gets new books at birthdays and Christmas such as a fancy illustrated Harry Potter for the youngest or a Steven King series for the oldest. My second grader reads at a 6th grade level and tests in the 99th percentile consistently on standardized tests. His teacher still put him in a mediocre reading group because she wasn’t satisfied with his “decoding” skills. My older kids were also forbidden to read beyond a certain level during elementary school but still tested into the gifted classes and thrived in them. I think elementary teachers can only do so much when they have more kids reading below grade level so it is our responsibility as parents to do what we can at home.

Hardback vs Paperback.

I’m a casual reader or normal books (not special editions etc). I want to read my books, not have them as investments, or decoration etc.

I notice hardback books are usually double the price of a paperback copy.

Is it worth the extra money for a hardback, for a reader who actually reads their books?

Surprised at all the other comments because I really enjoyed the book and finished in one day, I think what I liked most was the slight sense of mystery around which would die and then whether they both would die

I don't know if it helps that I haven't read the first book in a while

I haven't read it, but I did read Sentimental Education which I thought was some of the most gorgeous writing I've ever read

I was encouraged at the start of the second book, when Lauren is being criticized by her very own daughter, but >!by the end of that book you find out the daughter really never knew her mother and only met her once.!<

Butler’s character development is not as strong as her world building, although I had no such issues with either Wildseed or Kindred. As for the older man and teenage girl issues, I had a lot more problems with Clay’s Ark then the Parable series in that sense.

By the end of the Parable series, I was really confused: did Butler believe in Earthseed? Did Butler want us to believe in Earthseed or was Butler using it as a plot device?

Butler very clearly thought Christianity was problematic. Obviously a great deal of book 2 shows horrible things being done in the name of Christianity. But also in book one, there is the incident where the one woman looting the compound looks at the dead drug addict, and says to Lauren “she died for our sins” I remember that because it was so odd.

In the book to Lauren tells her brother, something like “most people are not allowed to publicly criticize Earthseed here, but I’ll let you do it” this is not a sign of a community that believes in its religion, not allowing criticism.

But I think what most convinces me that Butler does not want us to take Earthseed too seriously is that the books are titled with stories from the Christian Bible. Butler is literally framing Earthseed with Christianity, and showing how flawed Christianity is.

Although I thought it was hard to pick up, I think Butler is skeptical of Lauren and Earthseed. Maybe in book 3 she was going to reveal that.

I read that they have her notes for what she would have written in book 3. I think there was some talk of asking in NK Jemison to write it, and I would be buying that book so fast if it happened. But, I have seen a quote from NK Jemisin saying that she thinks Book 3 should exist in the imagination of the readers .

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>I actually enjoyed it, it was a puzzle, and it made me think and see things differently. I became more creative with my words.

How do you reconcile this with your claim that you get nothing out of reading it?

I have a question about the latest UK edition of Through a Window by Jane Goodall. For context, I own both the latest UK edition (1999, published by Orion/Weidenfeld & Nicolson) and US edition (2010, published by Houghton Mifflin) of its prequel In the Shadow of Man and noticed that they contain completely different introductions/forewards by different people, including Dr Goodall herself (UK: Stephen Jay Gould and David Hamburg, but US: Richard Wrangham).

Now I see that the US edition (2010, published by Houghton Mifflin) of Through a Window contains a new preface and afterward by Dr Goodall herself, and nothing by others. I am unable to find an online preview of the latest UK edition (2020, published by Orion/Weidenfeld & Nicolson) of Through the Window. Can anyone who owns this specific 2020 UK edition please let me know who the introduction/foreword/afterword sections are written by and when they are dated? (This UK edition is not available for me to browse at any library/bookstore near me in the US.) Thank you!

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Agreed. How is this being downvoted?! Don’t trust strangers esp. online!

Anyone supporting these bans is just ignorant beyond belief. Banning queer literature goes hand-in-hand with white supremacy which really shouldn’t be that much of a damn mystery since the first book they tried to ban Maus was about life inside Nazi internment camps. But in case you don’t know what I’m talking about maybe go google Magnus Hirschfeld and the pink triangle.

Throwing a temper tantrum about the books a library stocks is not only going to make their kids more curious and interested in the book themselves — HELLO DOES NO ONE REMEMBER REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY — parents are completely overlooking all of the gay pornography and fanfiction and forums and blah blah blah that ANY TWELVE-YEAR-OLD WITH WIFI can find within five minutes without their parents ever knowing it.

Ffs, learn to use the parental control settings and talk to your kids about internet safety and the media they consume. In other words be a fucking parent and let people read what they want.

Do what you want

It depends whether you lost track of a scene or you are still oriented in what's actually going on. It would not bother me if I zone out for a moment because I think it happen even unconsciously - sometimes you may be lost for a moment, but your brain follow the story anyway. Nobody has a full picture - it's impossible for human being to absorb every detail on the first attempt.

Well sometimes I wait until summer to read a certain book. Or any season. For example, I waited until winter until I read the shining and boy was that the right call. Just when they got to the hotel, we had a horrible blizzard where I live. It felt so right to read it then

I go back if I noticed I zoned out. The books I want to read will always be larger than my ability to read them so to the extent I can I just don’t worry about it. I’ll try to fully enjoy the ones I do get to.

Do whatever makes you feel like you're getting what you want out of the books you read.

Are you actually supporting this trash — and by trash I mean the book bans.

It depends on the story and the sentence in question. There are plenty of descriptive passages in most stories that can be skimmed, but if you're missing crucial dialogue or exposition, that could lead to confusion later on. It never hurts to re-read things, though. I'm a pretty careful reader and often flip back pages to re-read passages.

I read The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time while backpacking the John Muir Trail in CA! I felt like I was in the book every day. I would read the book at night, which was like, “then they walked a bunch,” and then get up the next morning and…walk a bunch. Magic.

I also read a book on that trip that was a true story about a ranger going missing the Sierras which was…unsettling. The book would be like “search-and-rescue teams were out at this location where he was last seen” and then I would walk through that location a couple days later…

four paragraphs about if you should go back and re-read a sentence or two. buddy do whatever you wanna do lol

I've never read it. Although as an UG I read Ulysses, and even then I felt that a degree in theology is essential just to begin to understand it. Although religion is only part of it all. Joyce wrote deliberately for people to study his works for ever and ever, amen.

But FW was a favourite of Robert Anton Wilson, who studied it for decades, and he believed it to be, IIRC, the greatest ever work of literature. And Wilson was smart, if a little eccentric. He's worth listening to on FW, if you can find the recordings of his speeches.

I didn't like it because the 19th century just doesn't do it for me. but I saw what he was getting at and I appreciated that. fwiw, mb was actually the only assigned college book (any language) I had a truly spontaneous and sincere essay idea about. The way Flaubert used dimensional space suddenly got hold of me and became fascinating.

I've read a few reviews in English mentioning the writing style being underwhelming. I read it several times in French and studied it in depth in class and the writing style in particular is one of my favorites. Very direct, and plain, but also delicate. Some pages feel more like poetry. I havent read it in English though, hard to say if the salt of it is lost in translation or not.

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The book that sent me to grad school. The narration is unlike anything I'd ever read -- lovely, precisely detailed descriptions of scenes, objects are attributed to Emma in the most indirect ways. The plot has never been more secondary.