Book recommendations!
Don't think we've had a thread like this in a while! If ever!
So what are some of the books that really made an impact on you and you'd like to recommend to others?
From the ones I've read recently, A Prayer for Owen Meany comes to mind. It looked super thick and at first it didn't look like there was anything special about it. But then it turned out John Irving writes in a very easy to read way, so it really take as long as I thought it would. And the book itself ended up impacting me much more than I expected. It's a really beautiful tale about a friendship between two men, it's about love, faith, loss, and finding meaning in all of those things.
Currently reading The Witcher saga and I'm at the seventh volume, The Lady of the Lake. This is another one that took me by surprise. Initially, I started reading it because I heard the English translation was notoriously terrible, so I thought I could kinda make my break into translating literature by providing better translations for the books that hadn't been released in English yet. Sadly, school and a crapload of other things happened, and I took way too long to read the books, so that opportunity was lost.
The saga consists of seven books (plus one more that Sapkowski wrote way later but apparently it's kind of a side-story rather than a sequel), the first two of which are short stories about the Witcher Geralt's various tasks and most of them are deconstructions of classic fairy tales. The other five books form a more cohesive novel, and some minor elements from the shorts actually end up being huge plot points in the novel. The books are mostly dark fantasy, though not quite to the degree of ASoIaF, but you can still expect a more realistic take on medieval-ish societies, with all the dirt and grime and political intrigue and stuff.
That said, Sapkowski does some things I really don't like, with the fourth book being particularly egregious (there's an incredibly poorly explained Gambit Pileup with Loads and Loads of Characters involved, and the end of the book features one of the most, uh... sexually distasteful things I've read), but it's really just one weak book in a really good, involving series that otherwise just gets better and better with every book. It's got interesting characters, including some very complex, believable, and likeable female characters (very surprising, considering Sapkowski is a pretty raging sexist irl), as well as a really nice world building with an original setting that combines elements of Slavonic and Anglo-Saxon folklore. So yeah, definitely recommended if you're into that stuff.
Also, a little heads up, if you haven't played the games yet and want to some day, I highly recommend you read the books first. While the first game actually uses a clever device to not alienate players who haven't read the books, it's actually a sequel to the books, with multiple allusions to them throughout the whole saga. So you'll get huge book spoilers (and miss out on a ton of amusing shout-outs) if you play the game first.
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