Tag: Ramblings: Eclectic Ponderings

Eclectic Ponderings #4

Posted 20 June, 2016 by Lianne in Books / 10 Comments

Eclectic Ponderings is a new feature here on eclectictales.com in which I pose questions to readers and fellow bloggers on a variety of subjects (hence its eclecticism) that I can’t fit in any other blog post.

2 ponderings posts within a month? I am shocked! Haha, but no, really, I come with questions 😉

Who are some of your favourite poets or poetry books? I’m looking to pick up some Rilke after reading The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge lately but I’m keen to read more (to date I’ve read mainly Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Byron, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, some T.S. Eliot, Poe, Neruda, Shakespeare) 🙂

On the subject of classics, what are some of your favourite plays? Who are some of your favourite playwrights? It’s been a while since I’ve read a play now that I’ve finished reading Shakespeare’s body of works and some other classic titles.

This summer is shaping up to be a summer of reading historical fiction (summer TBR list to be posted next week). Some of the titles included are Hannah Kristin’s The Nightingale, Kate Williams’ The Storms of War, and Priya Parmar’s Vanessa and her Sister. Have you read any of these? If so, what did you think about it/them overall?

I also have Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries on my TBR that I think I will be tackling at long last this year. However I did start reading it a couple months back and I dunno, I’m not exactly gripped by the story. It’s also a long one, so to those who have read this title I pose the question to you: is it worth reading through it?

To reiterate from my last post: To those who have read Elena Ferrante’s standalones, which book was your favourite: The Days of Abandonment, Troubled Love, or The Lost Daughter? I plan on reading all three eventually but I’m debating as to which one to check out first…

And another question to re-hash from my last post: when travelling outside the city/outside the country, would you rather bring a chunkster of a physical book or an eReader?

And that’s about all the thoughts I have for this Eclectic Ponderings entry! If you have any input about the above questions, I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Eclectic Ponderings #3

Posted 2 June, 2016 by Lianne in Books / 8 Comments

Eclectic Ponderings is a new feature here on eclectictales.com in which I pose questions to readers and fellow bloggers on a variety of subjects (hence its eclecticism) that I can’t fit in any other blog post.

Oh, hey, look, another one of these posts 😛 I was initially going to post these questions in my latest Bookish and Not-So-Bookish Thoughts post but decided to place my questions here instead 🙂

I’ve been in a crime mystery/drama kick lately and whilst I have a few sitting on my TBR pile–Robert Galbraith/JK Rowling’s The Silkworm and Career of Evil, Donna Leon’s Death at La Fenice–I was wondering if you guys could recommend me any other authors/titles to check out? I’ve read the spectrum, I think (Scandi noir, historical mysteries), so the sky’s the limit!

Repeating this question from last time: I haven’t read anything by Eloise James yet but I heard great things about her books. I have The American Duchess on the wishlist but I as wondering where else to start…Which book(s) would you recommend I start with?

To those who have read Elena Ferrante’s standalones, which book was your favourite: The Days of Abandonment, Troubled Love, or The Lost Daughter? I plan on reading all three eventually but I’m debating as to which one to check out first…

Has anyone read Kristin Hannah’s Winter Garden? I almost picked it up but decided to wait on it and think it over. Yay/nay/no rush?

And finally: when travelling outside the city/outside the country, would you rather bring a chunkster of a physical book or an eReader?

And that’s about all the thoughts I have for this round of Eclectic Ponderings! If you have any thoughts about the above questions, I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Eclectic Ponderings #2

Posted 20 February, 2016 by Lianne in Miscellaneous / 9 Comments

Eclectic Ponderings is a new feature here on eclectictales.com in which I pose questions to readers and fellow bloggers on a variety of subjects (hence its eclecticism) that I can’t fit in any other blog post.

It’s been a long while since I’ve done one of these, lol (see inaugural post). Strangely enough not very many questions have been running through my head these days to warrant these posts but at last a few thoughts I’ve been pondering about have come my way that I’d like some input about, please 🙂

So I’ve been thinking for some time now that I really should get around to picking up Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance, book 2 in his Stormight Archives series. But now the question is: do I pick it up as a mass market paperback or an eBook? Pros for the paperback: I can flip back and forth with the maps and the appendix, included illustrations are right in front of me almost like a physical aspect of the novel. Cons: space is an issue (and this book is a doorstopper). Thus pros for the eBook is the saving space bit, but cons would be that lack of ability to flip back and forth between maps and the appendix (which is needed in this case. And let’s not get started with how troublesome my Kobo can be at times. I’ve eyeing a new one. Totally off-topic but we’ll see). What do you think?

May I ask for recommendations for (adult) fantasy titles? I still have a few series sitting on my TBR pile waiting to be read but I’m looking for more titles to check out at some point.

Question for those of you who read romance/historical romance: One of the big authors in the genre that I haven’t read a book from yet is Eloise James but I heard great things about her books. Which book(s) would you recommend I start with?

On a related note, may I ask for recommendations in the historical romance genre please (19th century; I’m not so interested in romance novels set in the contemporary)? To date I’ve read books by Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, Courtney Milan (well, 1 book anyway), Vivenne Lorret, Caroline Linden, Tessa Dare, Sarah MacLean, Elizabeth Boyle, and of course Georgette Heyer. I don’t think I missed any authors…Anyway, any recommendations would be much appreciated 🙂

I was going over my masterlist of books that I own (yup, I keep a spreadsheet :3 ) earlier this week and I noticed I don’t have any authors with last names starting with U and X. Could you recommend me authors that have these last names and wrote books that you enjoyed? I’m curious 😀

Not really a question, but I’ve been pondering about this anyhow lately: I’m doing a bit of cleaning out the bookshelves again and there’s this tetralogy that I’m not sure whether to put on the get rid pile or to keep. I remember enjoying it and have been meaning to re-read it straight (as I read it in parts as the books were released) but then I look at my TBR list and the other books I want to re-read and I feel a little exhausted at the prospect =/ Hmm…

And that’s about all the thoughts I have for this round of Eclectic Ponderings! If you have any input about the above questions, I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Eclectic Ponderings #1

Posted 18 September, 2015 by Lianne in Miscellaneous / 16 Comments

Eclectic Ponderings is a new feature here on eclectictales.com in which I pose questions to readers and fellow bloggers on a variety of subjects (hence its eclecticism) that I can’t fit in any other blog post.

So yeah, like the blurb says, this is something new on the blog. I suppose I could just make a random discussion post here on the blog like I normally do if I have a question to ask (e.g. What To Do With ARCs Afterwards?), but sometimes I have a question or two to pose to readers/bloggers/browsers of my blog that aren’t quite so specific. Sometimes I would post it in my monthly Bookish & Not-So-Bookish Thoughts but not everyone reads those posts, I think, and they can easily get lost in the shuffle. So in the name of keeping things organised, I made this little “feature.”

Alrighty, without further ado, I have questions (“Questions that need answering” as Gandalf would add–please tell me you also watched FOTR a ~~hundred~~ dozen times over? 😛 ). Conveniently enough, there’s a little theme running in this entry:

To the Julia Quinn fans/readers: is it worth checking out the last four books of the Bridgertons series? I read the first three books (reviews to follow, suffice to say I love them all) and I have the fourth on pre-order (the re-issued paperbacks, what can I say? They’re pretty), but I’m a little hesitant to check out the last four in the series because much as I love the Bridgertons, a) the last four siblings barely make an appearance enough for me to be interested in them, and b) Lady Whistledown is no longer a plot point, which is unfortunate as her columns at the start of each chapter are very amusing. So yay/nay? Convince me otherwise? 🙂 I’m in no hurry anyway since the new re-issues won’t be released until next year.

On a related note: is the last book in the Smith-Smyths quartet, The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy worth checking out? And Ten Things I Love About You? The reviews seem mixed….

At this point I’ve read 6 of Susanna Kearsley’s books: Mariana, Season of Storms, The Rose Garden, The Winter Sea, The Shadowy Horses, and The Firebird. By the looks of her bibliography, there are four books by her I haven’t read: The Splendour Falls, A Desperate Fortune, Named of the Dragon, and Every Secret Thing. Any thoughts on these books (e.g. your favourite/which to check out first, etc.)? Or no rush on them?

My review of the book won’t be posted until the end of November (yes, my scheduled posts are that deep into the year now), but suffice to say I really enjoyed Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. How does the rest of the series fare, is it worth checking out/bumping up the wishlist?

Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015, I’ve read nothing but amazing things about this book but I’m still feeling sort of on the fence about it for some reason. Convince me otherwise if you’ve read it?

And (partly) because I now have a new snazzy byline thanks to a conversation with someone here recently (“Adding books to your TBR queue since 2007”; I think you can only see it if you’re viewing my blog on your mobile), I’m turning the tables here: book recommendations please? Anything I should be checking out? (and if you reviewed it, feel free to point me to it!) I’m pretty much open to most genres, though lately I’ve been reading especially a lot of historical fiction, literary/translated works, historical romance (hence the Julia Quinn question), and a bit of fantasy/sci-fi (how did that happen? I usualy read a lot more from those genres) and mystery novels. Oh, and plays. Lots of plays from classic literature 😛