Reading List Completists discussion

Discuss Part II - Jonathan Strange - This may contain spoilers so proceed with caution!

Made it to part two! Really loving it so far!

I am getting close!

"Waste no time, I implore you, in pursuing any other course, but apply yourself constantly to reading! No sacrifice of time or pleasure can ever be too great!"

I made it there as well. I can't say I'm loving it, but I like it alright. I find the writing style a little tedious tbh ...

Agreed - so far, nothing is blowing me away about this book.

Okay - so, so far it seems to be two stories: 1. Stephen Black and Lady Pole and the mysterious parties. 2. Strange and Norrell - Norrell grabs up all the books and Strange wants to read them.

I feel like there is rift between Norrell and Strange forming - I suppose things could get ugly.

I loved the visit to the king. Who do you think was calling them into the woods?

I wonder who the third magician is? Someone is impersonating Jonathon and now Walter wants him to disappear into a mirror...

I know the book is slow going but I really like it every time I pick it up. :)

I'm still (theoretically) reading it, but haven't made any progress lately. So much for my plan of reading 1 chapter a day. I'm hoping to find a few hours this weekend to give it some proper time which I feel might help me get into the story a little better. Hopefully, I'll be back on track afterwards.

Kirstin wrote: "I loved the visit to the king. Who do you think was calling them into the woods?

I wonder who the third magician is? Someone is impersonating Jonathon and now Walter wants him to disappear into a ..."

I am in the middle of this section now - will comment when I get through it!

Matthew wrote: "Kirstin wrote: "I loved the visit to the king. Who do you think was calling them into the woods?

I wonder who the third magician is? Someone is impersonating Jonathon and now Walter wants him to d..."

It's a great part! Some stuff gets answered right away.

The mysterious character causing trouble for the King and Strange, as well as encouraging Stephen Black to be the King of England must be John Uskglass - the Raven King himself!

Jonathan Strange likes to move things around - I enjoyed the part about a new group of people being established in America because he moved an entire European city there!

Has anybody seen the BBC miniseries? I watched the trailer and it looks pretty cool (actually it made the story make a little more sense), but I don't know if I want to pay $2 per episode or $13 for the whole season on Amazon & Google Play. It's not on Netflix or Hulu, and not available on BBC's website.

I didn't know it existed. I've watched the first episodes and it seems like a wonderful realization of the book .. I actually enjoyed the series much more than the book .. which still feels more like a chore than enjoyment (and luckily, I've made it to 80%). I'm tempted to just stop reading and to watch the series instead ...
I don't know how to say it differently .. I like the story, but I hate the writing style and I think the book would have been much better, if it had been cut in half. I don't think the style adds anything to the story except to make it less accessible. But, that's just me .

so, thanks for the tip .. I'm looking forward to the rest of the episodes and maybe they'll motivate me to tackle the remaining 200 pages I have left.

Janina wrote: "I don't know how to say it differently .. I like the story, but I hate the writing style and I think the book would have been much better, if it had been cut in half. I don't think the style adds anything to the story except to make it less accessible. But, that's just me ."

I am not sure I would go so far to say that I hate the writing style, but it definitely is the one thing I don't care for. While I like to story, I do feel like I am trudging through the chapters and I tend to get easily distracted because I am not enthralled.

For example, I believe it took me 45 minutes the other day to read 4 pages because I kept daydreaming about other stuff while I was reading.

Hating is probably too strong of a word ;)
It's just hard to read without adding to the story for me. I'm sure others love the book because they love the style ..