I started with The Buried Giant, but maybe I shouldn't have, lol. It wasn't bad but I didn't enjoy the prose that much. I definitely want to read more of his work though.

It's my civic duty to defend and extol The Unconsoled- for anyone who enjoys magical realism, this is the closest I've felt to dreaming while reading.

Strong disagree on when we were orphans

Dhalgren by Samuel Delaney is a good scifi example of this.

Same!

No, just the basics. Their name, gender and age.

Hi there. Per rule 3.3, please post book recommendation requests in /r/SuggestMeABook or in our Weekly Recommendation Thread. Thank you!

Thanks for this. I have read Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, and I intend to read more of his books. This is the kind of post that should be getting thousands of upvotes here.

House of Leaves was weird/creepy

My personal favorite:

“Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking Oromë himself was come; for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband’s gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And Morgoth came.”

I for one did enjoy When We Were Orphans, especially once I started to glompse beyond the narrators perception of things. Although I agree with some of your negative points about it. >!His mother's fate, seriously?!<.

In fact, I enjoyed it more than Buried giant, but that may be because I read that one translated and my complaints are mostly about language.

Glad to hear that the rest of his books are good though, will read them, eventually!

I agree, he definitely has his own approach to story writing, he kind of softly defies genre conventions and I'm very here for it. Emotional-driven stories is a great way to describe it, I read Never Let Me Go quite a long time ago and although I'm a bit foggy now on the plot the feeling of it has definitely stuck around.

I'm reading the Silmarillion rn and I think it's great it too! It's so epic and really fleshes out everything.

I stopped reading Two Towers half way through and never finished the trilogy, but decided to give Silmarillion a go anyway and I love it way more - it's really captured my imagination.

I feel like the writing also isn't as difficult as people say. It isn't necessarily easy but I was expecting waaay worse given the reviews on it's style.

Makes me want to try to read the trilogy again when I finish.

I think one of my favorite parts is Finrod's rap battle with Sauron.

You're right, Tolkien was certainly thinking of works like the Völsunga, along with various other sources!

But look at the names: Ungoliant, Amon Amarth, Fingolfin, Tol-in-Gaurhoth! His abilities as a linguist and student of comparative folklore really shine in his names. Each of them encompasses an essence, a history, a character.

If you're interested in this sort of thing (modern attempts at fictional cosmogonies and creation myths) Dunsany's Gods of Pegana is another seminal work. What it lacks in Tolkien's meticulousness and painstaking, life-long development, it makes up for in sheer power of imagination and entertainment.

Im not sure if you'll be able to answer this question but i was wondering if i took some scrap fabric (cloth material) and hung it over the books that are exposed to the sun, would that protect them? Or would it do nothing at all?

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue.

My recommendations for anytime you want to think about life or anything of the sort...

I’m just amazed your able to stomach all that

If you want more, you should check out the Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth

"Those who want some science fiction with their devastation" truer words have never been been spoken. I had no idea what never let me go was about when I picked it up. I was mentally complaining halfway through thinking "nothing's happening", was in tears by the end of it.

An aperitif read before a "real meal" of such a book might be the kindle The Very Minute Manager that is a comedic spoof of self help books, of the "success" sort. Again, it's an irreverent take on such books so might not be your thing, but it might...(it certainly doesn't sound like a college lecture)!

Once in a while, you simply don't want to be "electronic."

so true that’s why i love writing out stuff instead of typing. i do almost all of my uni work online but i love to write or print out my notes and annotate them haha

I will! I’ll be done with it tomorrow! I was trying to finish tonight but it’s gotten too late. I’m on Chapter 50…she’s agreed to give Shane a ride to the farmhouse 👀

I got my brother Never Let Me Go this past Christmas too, what a crazy coincidence! XD (he loved it)

DON'T READ THE ALCHEMIST!