-Return of the King and the Hobbit--Because I should have read these by now. (I read the Hobbit for 9th grade, but want to again before the third movie. But first I need to read King; I just finished The Two Towers in December.

About time you read em. (Not that I should be saying anything, I haven't read anything in ages.)

-Hitchhiker's Guide Books 5 and 6 (and Salmon of a Doubt)--Again, why haven't I read these?

WAIT there's a sixth one??

Yeah, Eoin Colfer wrote a sixth book in the trilogy called "And Another Thing" a few years ago. I guess I haven't been motivated to finish the fifth book (I started once!) and read this is because I'm not an Artemis Fowl fan.

-CF

"And Another Thing" is actually closer to the tone and style of the original than the others are. It's like my second favorite XD

The Fault in Our Stars

legit

The Fault in Our Stars

 

legit

It's fantastic! I'm going to reread it before the movie.

-CF

I finished And Another Thing... just a few weeks ago. It was... okay. Nothing particularly bad, but nothing that good either. You're really not missing much if you choose to skip it.

Dune is a fantastic book, one of my favorites. If you like it then definitely check out the sequels, but do yourself a favor and avoid the books written by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert, they are terrible.

There are a number of books I still ought to read. Three that I've been putting off reading are Out of Oz (fourth and final book in The Wicked Years), Inheritance (fourth and final book in The Inheritance Cycle), and Wonderstruck (the most recent book by the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret).

I don't know if I'll end up reading any of these books this year. Honestly, ever since high school (when I read such beautiful travesties as Of Mice and Men, Flowers for Algernon, The Scarlet Ibis, and The Great Gatsby) I've been squeamish about reading unless I feel absolutely emotionally secure. Books are powerful things, and therefore dangerous ones. It's very easy to enjoy a book, or think you're going to enjoy a book, up until you realize what it says about you or the things you take for granted. And then if you have a hard time turning against the book you end up turning against yourself.

The books I am most likely to read this year include the Ninjago graphic novels (there are at least three due for release this year), the My Little Pony chapter books, the My Little Pony Journal of the Two Sisters guide book, the My Little Pony Daring Do Adventure Collection, the new Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels, and maybe the new series that Lemony Snicket started last year or the year before.

There's a reason that a great deal of my time in bookstores anymore is spent in the children's section. It's a place of comfort. Books for children and young adults, especially if they're tied to a commercial franchise, are rarely depressing, and never soul-crushingly so. They tend use agreeable characters and agreeable stories to convey agreeable messages. Sometimes a children's book will tell a story that is maybe a bit sad, about people going through unfair or trying circumstances. Sometimes characters even die. That's reality. But generally, nobody's life is wasted, and nobody would be better off dead, and nobody will make a foolish decision that will haunt them in their every waking moment for the rest of their lives.

I suppose I'm not in a really good place emotionally right now (I just tried and failed to fill out a job application, which is enough to ruin any good mood, even one that results from seeing The LEGO Movie twice in two days). So maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic. But back in the day, reading was often an escape for me — it'd be what I'd resort to when I was feeling lonely or bored or frustrated or hopeless. If my classes were going particularly badly, I'd take refuge in the school library. These days, the only way I can use reading as an escape is if it's something I've read before, and beyond that, something that I'm confident will impart the exact same comforting messages it told me the last time I read it.

You're reading tastes are definitely very different than mine- I tend to stay away from a lot of science fiction stuff. S. sounds like it could be interesting, though, and I may look it up just to see how it's written.

As for myself, I'm currently finishing up The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen and plan to move on to Doctor Sleep from there. I'm generally not a huge fan of King, but I loved The Shining (book and film) so I'm really curious to see where he's taking the story.

That's as far as I've planned- but I also plan to read A Lion Among Men, and possibly (hopefully this year) follow that up with Out of Oz. Even though I felt Son of a Witch was a little unfocused, from what I understand it also received the weakest reviews. So here's hoping those two are a good (better) continuation of the story. I might as well add that I'd like to read the original Baum novels at some point, but wether or not that happens this year is up in the air.

I'd also like to read the original Peter Pan story(ies?), but I'm not sure where to start. Do I start with The Little White Bird or Barrie's adaption of his play? I have no idea.

And then there's The Art of Tangled and The Art of Frozen which I want to read if I can get my hands on them. I love reading about a film's production almost as much (if not more) than watching the movie itself so these should both be pretty good.

And finally there's Storm of Swords (George R.R. Martin), Fault in Our Stars (John Green), Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T.E. Lawrence), and The Terror (Dan Simmons) which I may or may not get to sometime within the next five years... what I want to read and when I want to read it changes quite rapidly. I guess if I want to set realistic expectations for myself, I plan to read everything in the previous paragraphs (not including this one) this year.

I finished And Another Thing... just a few weeks ago. It was... okay. Nothing particularly bad, but nothing that good either. You're really not missing much if you choose to skip it.].

There are a number of books I still ought to read. Three that I've been putting off reading are Out of Oz (fourth and final book in The Wicked Years), Inheritance (fourth and final book in The Inheritance Cycle), and Wonderstruck (the most recent book by the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret).I don't know if I'll end up reading any of these books this year. Honestly, ever since high school (when I read such beautiful travesties as Of Mice and Men, Flowers for Algernon, The Scarlet Ibis, and The Great Gatsby) I've been squeamish about reading unless I feel absolutely emotionally secure. Books are powerful things, and therefore dangerous ones. It's very easy to enjoy a book, or think you're going to enjoy a book, up until you realize what it says about you or the things you take for granted. And then if you have a hard time turning against the book you end up turning against yourself.The books I am most likely to read this year include the Ninjago graphic novels (there are at least three due for release this year), the My Little Pony chapter books, the My Little Pony Journal of the Two Sisters guide book, the My Little Pony Daring Do Adventure Collection, the new Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels, and maybe the new series that Lemony Snicket started last year or the year before.There's a reason that a great deal of my time in bookstores anymore is spent in the children's section. It's a place of comfort. Books for children and young adults, especially if they're tied to a commercial franchise, are rarely depressing, and never soul-crushingly so. They tend use agreeable characters and agreeable stories to convey agreeable messages. Sometimes a children's book will tell a story that is maybe a bit sad, about people going through unfair or trying circumstances. Sometimes characters even die. That's reality. But generally, nobody's life is wasted, and nobody would be better off dead, and nobody will make a foolish decision that will haunt them in their every waking moment for the rest of their lives.I suppose I'm not in a really good place emotionally right now (I just tried and failed to fill out a job application, which is enough to ruin any good mood, even one that results from seeing The LEGO Movie twice in two days). So maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic. But back in the day, reading was often an escape for me — it'd be what I'd resort to when I was feeling lonely or bored or frustrated or hopeless. If my classes were going particularly badly, I'd take refuge in the school library. These days, the only way I can use reading as an escape is if it's something I've read before, and beyond that, something that I'm confident will impart the exact same comforting messages it told me the last time I read it.

You're reading tastes are definitely very different than mine- I tend to stay away from a lot of science fiction stuff. S. sounds like it could be interesting, though, and I may look it up just to see how it's written. As for myself, I'm currently finishing up The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen and plan to move on to Doctor Sleep from there. I'm generally not a huge fan of King, but I loved The Shining (book and film) so I'm really curious to see where he's taking the story. That's as far as I've planned- but I also plan to read A Lion Among Men, and possibly (hopefully this year) follow that up with Out of Oz. Even though I felt Son of a Witch was a little unfocused, from what I understand it also received the weakest reviews. So here's hoping those two are a good (better) continuation of the story. I might as well add that I'd like to read the original Baum novels at some point, but wether or not that happens this year is up in the air. I'd also like to read the original Peter Pan story(ies?), but I'm not sure where to start. Do I start with The Little White Bird or Barrie's adaption of his play? I have no idea. And then there's The Art of Tangled and The Art of Frozen which I want to read if I can get my hands on them. I love reading about a film's production almost as much (if not more) than watching the movie itself so these should both be pretty good. And finally there's Storm of Swords (George R.R. Martin), Fault in Our Stars (John Green), Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T.E. Lawrence), and The Terror (Dan Simmons) which I may or may not get to sometime within the next five years... what I want to read and when I want to read it changes quite rapidly. I guess if I want to set realistic expectations for myself, I plan to read everything in the previous paragraphs (not including this one) this year.

-S. by J J Abrams--I'm 100 pages into this too.

Just curious, how'd you decided to read it? I started by going page-by-page, but after I finished the introduction I decided to follow the advice of someone's review on Amazon, and read a chapter at a time, then went back and read the notes in the margins (the black/blue ones, anyway); once I finished the whole book, I went back and read the green/orange and red/purple ones. But that's really one of the things I love about this book, 'cause it's completely up to you how you read it, and there's no real "right" way.

-Return of the King and the Hobbit--Because I should have read these by now. (I read the Hobbit for 9th grade, but want to again before the third movie. But first I need to read King; I just finished The Two Towers in December.)

Nice! I'm pretty sure I'd have to call King my favorite of the trilogy, as there's a couple pages specifically that just really stood out to me.

-Good Omens by Neil Gaiman--I'm making my way through Neil Gaiman's bibliography, and I plan on reading this with a friend.

Haha, same here @ making your way through his bibliography. I'm really looking forward to reading Fortunately, The Milk; and Sandman vol. 1 (as you know) soon, as I recently acquired them...and of course all his others at some point, too. =P

-Dresden Files--I should really start this series soon.

Yes! I always fear overselling things, but...that series is really amazing haha. Hope you enjoy it!

-The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson--I own all three. Hopefully I'll read them all in one month. Soon.

Planning to do the same! My sister had two of them and I found the third a few weeks ago, so I should really get around to reading them. Hoping it lives up to all the hype, haha.

-The Harry Potter series--It's about time I reread these. I'll probably buy the movies and watch each one as I finish a volume. (I haven't read books 3, 4, or 5 again since they first came out.)

I want to do this too...I was going to re-read them last semester, but my sister stole the third book and took it to Chicago with her. =P Then again, it's probably good that I didn't, since there's so many other books I need to read...hope to reread them at some point soonish though.

As for me...I'm mostly just hoping to make a good dent in my to-read pile without adding too many more to it. =P Specifically, there are a few I'm definitely looking forward to, though...Skin Game, by Jim Butcher, when it comes out is by far the book I'm most excited for. I also hope to finally start the Wheel of Time series, as I've had the first book since Summerish. Also hoping to make a significant dent in the complete Sherlock Holmes stories.