You were unfair toward my favorite book (A Tale of Two Cities)! :-) I concede that the beginning is difficult. It's one of those books that builds sloooooowly but relentlessly to a shattering finish -- you don't even find out who the hero actually is until about eight chapters from the end. I wish you could start at the end and see just how great (and non-stodgy) it turns out to be, but obviously that wouldn't work. Still, I hope one day, maybe even years from now, you can give it another try and get through it.
The world-building thing ... that's why I had to put Jasper Fforde's latest down. I loved Fforde so much back in the day, but his latest novel was all "line of dialogue/paragraphs of world-building/line of dialogue/paragraphs of world-building/line of dialogue." I couldn't take it. I can't remember now if he was always like that and I was just more patient back then, but I'm certainly not patient enough for it now.
Ooh I loved I Who Have Never Known Men - although it was kind of bleak. Thanks for reading (and liking!) my collection :) I think your reading year seems quite busy, really - good work!
My wife and I are working through 'Defiant' right now. We've loved the Skyward series overall, although we found 'Cytonic' to be laboriously boring. But it sounds like you think 'Defiant' is even worse than 'Cytonic'?
I don’t know if I’d trust my opinions, since, like I’ve said, I’m pretty lukewarm on BrandoSando, but my take is that Cytonic’s the weakest of the series so far, yeah. I could give you an elevator pitch for each of the first three books, but I’d have no idea how to summarize Cytonic. Lots of Hebdo, though. That guy’s a fun character.
No, listen, Dickens is good! He's so sarcastic and funny, way more than most people give him credit for. That said, yes, A Tale of Two Cities, as much as I love it (read it for high school and then went back to it twenty years later to read it again and enjoyed it both times) it is slow. Especially in the beginning where Dickens sloooooowly draws all the characters onstage for an introduction. It all pays off in the end, but that end is a long way coming. Maybe try starting with another Dickens, especially an earlier one that gets going faster. I recently read Oliver Twist, but that one was a little bit too soppy for me. I'm currently enjoying Nicholas Nickleby, or maybe one of his short stories? He wrote more ghost stories than just A Christmas Carol! Some of them are very nice and spooky.
If your daughter is still into bleak dragon books in 2025, maybe she'd like my childhood favorite dragon war series: Laurence Yep's Dragon series. That's Dragon of the Lost Sea, Dragon Steel, Dragon Cauldron, and Dragon War (not Dragonwings, that one's about the immigrant Chinese experience at the turn of the 20th century). I have no idea how available they still are, children's books go out of print constantly. But I loved them as a kid. (they can get pretty sad/scary, though)
Totally agree re 12 Shipwrecks! It is totally the Platonic ideal of a book I should love, but it often read like a bad Christmas card recounting an old person’s yearly vacations. I can’t believe it wasn’t edited better. There is a lot of interesting info in there- it’s a shame it’s miserable to get to those good parts. It did add a museum or two to the list of places I want to go (I did make it three or four chapters in before stopping).
I don’t really care for Brandon Sanderson either. I’ve read Mistborn and Steelheart and neither of them made me want to continue the series. I don’t get why he’s so huge.
My impression is that Sanderson got where he is via plain old hard work. The guy cranks out multiple novels a year and works the convention circuit *hard.* Plus he owns his own publishing house, so he keeps more of the revenue for himself.
You could maybe compare him to someone like Adam Sandler—he’s not going to win a ton of prestigious awards, but he’s very good at efficiently cranking out a ton of content that really appeals to a specific audience.
You were unfair toward my favorite book (A Tale of Two Cities)! :-) I concede that the beginning is difficult. It's one of those books that builds sloooooowly but relentlessly to a shattering finish -- you don't even find out who the hero actually is until about eight chapters from the end. I wish you could start at the end and see just how great (and non-stodgy) it turns out to be, but obviously that wouldn't work. Still, I hope one day, maybe even years from now, you can give it another try and get through it.
The world-building thing ... that's why I had to put Jasper Fforde's latest down. I loved Fforde so much back in the day, but his latest novel was all "line of dialogue/paragraphs of world-building/line of dialogue/paragraphs of world-building/line of dialogue." I couldn't take it. I can't remember now if he was always like that and I was just more patient back then, but I'm certainly not patient enough for it now.
Ooh I loved I Who Have Never Known Men - although it was kind of bleak. Thanks for reading (and liking!) my collection :) I think your reading year seems quite busy, really - good work!
I should definitely give IWHNKM another chance, sometime when I'm in a more patient mood
My wife and I are working through 'Defiant' right now. We've loved the Skyward series overall, although we found 'Cytonic' to be laboriously boring. But it sounds like you think 'Defiant' is even worse than 'Cytonic'?
I don’t know if I’d trust my opinions, since, like I’ve said, I’m pretty lukewarm on BrandoSando, but my take is that Cytonic’s the weakest of the series so far, yeah. I could give you an elevator pitch for each of the first three books, but I’d have no idea how to summarize Cytonic. Lots of Hebdo, though. That guy’s a fun character.
No, listen, Dickens is good! He's so sarcastic and funny, way more than most people give him credit for. That said, yes, A Tale of Two Cities, as much as I love it (read it for high school and then went back to it twenty years later to read it again and enjoyed it both times) it is slow. Especially in the beginning where Dickens sloooooowly draws all the characters onstage for an introduction. It all pays off in the end, but that end is a long way coming. Maybe try starting with another Dickens, especially an earlier one that gets going faster. I recently read Oliver Twist, but that one was a little bit too soppy for me. I'm currently enjoying Nicholas Nickleby, or maybe one of his short stories? He wrote more ghost stories than just A Christmas Carol! Some of them are very nice and spooky.
If your daughter is still into bleak dragon books in 2025, maybe she'd like my childhood favorite dragon war series: Laurence Yep's Dragon series. That's Dragon of the Lost Sea, Dragon Steel, Dragon Cauldron, and Dragon War (not Dragonwings, that one's about the immigrant Chinese experience at the turn of the 20th century). I have no idea how available they still are, children's books go out of print constantly. But I loved them as a kid. (they can get pretty sad/scary, though)
This is a great list! I just borrowed “Mania” based on your recommendation since I’ve heard good things from others. “Morning after the Revolution” also made my top books of 2024 list: https://open.substack.com/pub/ryanclarkself/p/my-top-10-books-of-2024?r=7y31d&utm_medium=ios
Totally agree re 12 Shipwrecks! It is totally the Platonic ideal of a book I should love, but it often read like a bad Christmas card recounting an old person’s yearly vacations. I can’t believe it wasn’t edited better. There is a lot of interesting info in there- it’s a shame it’s miserable to get to those good parts. It did add a museum or two to the list of places I want to go (I did make it three or four chapters in before stopping).
I don’t really care for Brandon Sanderson either. I’ve read Mistborn and Steelheart and neither of them made me want to continue the series. I don’t get why he’s so huge.
My impression is that Sanderson got where he is via plain old hard work. The guy cranks out multiple novels a year and works the convention circuit *hard.* Plus he owns his own publishing house, so he keeps more of the revenue for himself.
You could maybe compare him to someone like Adam Sandler—he’s not going to win a ton of prestigious awards, but he’s very good at efficiently cranking out a ton of content that really appeals to a specific audience.