Book Snails Book Group discussion

For any Snails reading FALL OF GIANTS together, post your comments here.

Thanks Starman!

And Erin, I don’t really mind when to start the read, do you have any preference? I have to get it from the library but that won’t take long. (If it has to come from another library it could be about ten days)
It would be very nice to read it together (or perhaps with more snails?)!!! To me, it sounds so interesting and, like you, I like to go for a longer read.

I have a couple of books I need to finish this month, possibly into early February, but I’d be ready to start after that. I have 3 sources for ebook copies... currently there are 2 available and one that is checked out but has no holds, so I will hopefully have no problems accessing a copy for as long as it takes to finish (I’m guessing it will take more than the 3 week check out period!)

Great! Just let me know when you’re ready, I’m looking forward to it!!!

Will do!

If anyone is looking for a free eBook version to borrow,

Overdrive.com (if your library supports): https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=fa...

or rbdigital.com (which some libraries use instead of Overdrive):

http://rbdigital.com/#book/9781101543559

I’m just about done with the books I was reading and should be ready to start this one in a few days.
Do you need more time before starting?
How quickly did you want to try to progress through it?
I don’t have the time to read too much during the day, but I would like to try to do 1 big book per month this year.

The book will be available in my library in 7 to 10 days from now! I think I will need about six weeks for this one to finish, is that okay?
This is my first buddy read, have you done one before? Do we set time frames for book parts to be finished?
I’m a noob in this, my daughter would say (hoping in English this isn’t too bad, in Dutch I can handle it :-D )

I’ve done buddy reads with another group I’m in. It’s up to the participants to decide how they want to approach their book. Personally, I think it works better when reading at a similar pace than when one person plows through while the other trails behind.

I can check out a copy today and look at breaking it down into parts. Would you prefer daily break points or weekly? Weekly would probably be better for me in case there are days I get tied up with other things and can’t get any reading in...

Oh, and a six week timeframe works for me!

I just looked at the Cast of Characters... it’s intimidating!

Yes, weekly break points sounds good! And I’ve seen the list of people in a sample of the book... wow... Intimidating indeed!

Fall of Giants Weekly Reading Breakdown
*Week One: Chapters 1-5
*Week Two: Chapters 6-11
*Week Three: Chapters 12-17
*Week Four: Chapters 18-23 Part IV (Chapter 23 is long so we need to stop in the middle to keep the parts somewhat even)
*Week Five: Chapter 23 Part V - Chapter 30
*Week Six: Finish (Chapters 31-42)

We can do an "official" check in at the end of each week, though if there's content we want to comment on as we're reading, we can post about it using spoilers ahead of time.


Winter of the World Weekly Reading Breakdown
*Week One: Chapters 1 & 2 (145 pages - based on the Kindle edition I'll be reading)
*Week Two: Chapters 3 & 4 (121 pages)
*Week Three: Chapters 5-7 (152 pages)
*Week Four: Chapters 8 & 9 (108 pages)
*Week Five: Chapters 10-14 (156 pages)
*Week Six: Chapters 15-19 (143 pages)
*Week Seven: Finish (114 pages)


Edge of Eternity Weekly Reading Breakdown
*Week One: Chapters 1-11
*Week Two: Chapters 12-19
*Week Three: Chapters 20-26
*Week Four: Chapters 27-37
*Week Five: Chapters 38-42
*Week Six: Chapters 43-49
*Week Seven: Chapters 50-55
*Week Eight: Finish

Thanks for all the work you put in! It is quite a challenge looking at it, isn’t it? But a nice one too! (If the book is as interesting as I’m hoping for, that is)
For me, a weekly schedule will do, I think (hope) I’ll have five days a week where I get to serious reading.
Furthermore, I like your idea to have a once a week moment to discuss the book so far. How about fridays?

Fridays work for me. Since your copy isn’t available yet, should we aim for 2/1 for our first “discussion?”

I read the first 2 pages (of my ebook, so like 2 paragraphs) to check out the style of writing and it doesn’t look like it will be a difficult read language-wise (part of my struggle with The Count of Monte Cristo were the crazy long, hard to follow sentences).

I just added a daily breakdown for Week Two. You can ignore them if you don't need them, but I do like to have them to keep me on track so I don't fall too far behind.

Any update on wait time for your copy? Do you think you’ll be ready to start at the end of the week and have our first “discussion” on 2/1?

Yes, I ‘ll make that! I just picked up the book (wow it’s BIG) and only have to finish one more book! Looking forward to it! Have you started yet?

No, I haven’t started yet. I’m hoping it’s good (I just finished a book that was abysmal and picked up another that I’m not really enjoying) and I didn’t want to get sucked in and read too far ahead.
I picked up another book yesterday that I’m enjoying a bit more than the other two I mentioned so I’ll try to finish that by the end of the week and start this one Friday.

Too bad your books weren’t what you were hoping for. What was the abysmal one? You taught me a new word with that one!
I really hope Fall is very good, I’ve been quite lucky seeking out my last books, but I know these periods of ‘not very okay’- books... It’s frustrating isn’t it?

The abysmal one was Annihilation. I strongly recommend that you never read it :-P I gave it 1 star which is pretty rare for me. It wasn’t very long, otherwise it would have been a DNF.
I think I have fairly high standards for a book to impress me, so I find a lot of books I read are just ok. I only gave two books a 5 star rating last year (one of which was a re-read) and I had about a dozen with 4 stars (with 61 total).
I wish there was some way to know beforehand how much you’ll enjoy a book. That would be fabulous!

So you read 61 books last year? That’s a lot! I managed to read 27 and was pretty proud of that! I had three five stars, I think, but I think I’m also quite critical about books. But it’s an emotional way of scoring for me, not very technical.
Indeed it would be nice if the best books would just glow up or whistle when passing them in the library or bookstore... :-D
By the way, as you might already know, I’m not native English, and always a bit scared that my English is too direct or rude. If that happens, I promise I didn’t mean it that way!

Yeah, 61 books last year. It was actually the least I’d read in 3 years (which surprised me since I was pregnant with my daughter 2 years ago and was so sick for 7 months of the year that I barely read anything during that time). At this point in time, I exclusively read ebooks on my phone so I can read while I’m nursing my daughter and I can read myself to sleep at night without disturbing my husband. It’s very convenient!
So far your English has been perfectly fine, better even than some native English speakers I know (cough, my husband’s cousin, cough cough).

Reading with your phone! That’s so smart! But still, I think it’s amazing you can read right now! The first three years after I had my daughter I couldn’t get any further than short parts in a magazine! But, I didn’t really try. Having your books on your phone while nursing is an excellent idea!
I love to hold a ‘real’ book, but slowly getting used to ebooks now. It’s actually so much easier.

Initially, I hated the idea of ebooks. I was devoted to the physical copies. But after my son was born 3 years ago, I caved and gave them a shot. He was a lazy eater and had stomach issues so he nursed for hours upon hours every day and almost never slept (4 hours total at night was a lot). I needed something to occupy my mind while only having one hand free. I read 81 books that year! And now I prefer ebooks. ;-)

That must have been so tough! Hardly any sleep and nursing for hours...
This Ken Follet book is huge, it’s probably more comfortable to read it as an ebook. I’m thinking of buying it. The three parts together are on sale. But I’ll try with this one first.
I’m starting the read today. I often need some time to get ‘into’ a new book so it’s nice to take some time for the first part I think.

Definitely a good idea to start the hard copy and make sure you’re enjoying it before spending money on it. Does your library offer ebooks? I can actually get a copy of the ebook from 3 different library systems: my county, an adjacent county which has a reciprocal agreement with ours, and my mom’s in another state (she refuses to try ebooks and lets me use her account for them).

I plan to start this one Friday. Hoping to finish a shorter book I’m reading before getting into this one. Let me know how you like it once you get into it!

Oh you’re very lucky with three ‘channels’ to get ebooks from! We have a national online library which is available to everyone who’s a member of a physical library, but it doesn’t have a great collection yet. If you’re just looking for something to read, there’s a lot to choose from, but when looking for a specific title, there’s little chance. At the moment they don’t offer anything of Ken Follet.
The book is nice! I like the atmosphere and the authors way of writing. Very good first impression!

It’s too bad the online library doesn’t have a good collection yet. I’ve been pretty lucky with my sources. There are definitely some I’ve looked for and haven’t found, but there are also very many I’ve wanted and been able to get.

Did you finish Chapter 1? I just did and so far it is quite good. It’s funny, my mom recently recommended I watch When Calls the Heart, a show made for Hallmark channel that’s now on Netflix. It’s about a mining town in 1910 and having watched a couple episodes, I could clearly picture the conditions and hazards described in the book having just seen them illustrated in the show!

And I knew exactly what Price was doing with the lamp, the a**hole. But Billy handled it so well! I’m certainly looking forward to reading more at this point :-)

Yes, that awful Price! I was feeling for Billy and his friend to be so young and then go into these scary mines, and then this! All that time on his own in the complete dark, on his first day there! Luckily the others know what happened and how tough Billy was. I was really quite angry!

(...)
okay are you noticing how hooked I am?! :-D
I’m starting chapter 3 now, chapter 2 was very nice too.
I agree it’s all easy to picture, even without seeing that Netflix serie; the harsh times, the filthy little towns, the political unrest... It’s not even that long ago, is it? But such a different time...

Just finished Ch. 2
I had a feeling from the very beginning of the chapter that something was going to happen between Ethel and the Earl. Do you think he’ll get her pregnant, since Bea has not given him an heir?

Now I’ve finished Chapter 4 and I’m pretty hooked too!

Would he make her pregnant? Wow, yes I think he will! But I’m shure with her just being the maid it will have to be kept a secret? So will a ‘bastard’ (is that the right word?) child become an heir?
I have to get back to reading after a pretty busy weekend, but it shocked me how the princess slapped that child in the factory. And then it was shocking that only the American was shocked!
Well, I’ll be reading this afternoon and let you know how far I’ve come!

Yes, that is the right word. Though that’s the harsher term for it, but more dramatic for literary purposes I guess.
Bea is definitely awful. I hope there’s a way for Fitz to get rid of her and make an honest woman out of Ethel so they can have a legitimate child instead of an illegitimate (bastard) child. But I don’t see how that’s possible given both their stations.
I don’t know how far you’ve gotten, but I think you’re in for something more shocking than the slap.
I should be able to finish this week’s reading today. But I can switch to reading another book so I don’t end up ahead.

I’ve finished chapter four now, and yes, that one slap doesn’t really stick anymore... ;-)
I feel so involved with this story! I hope I have time tomorrow to continue reading!
I don’t mind if you’re hooked and want to read ahead, I am a real snail you know...

I don’t mind taking a break - I’ve got a couple of projects in progress I can work on (stenciling and cross stitching) so I can focus on those a bit now too. :-)

Chapter 5 is finished! What a story. I feel for Maud and Walter, how will they ever be accepted? And the politics in the story is quite interesting. These political drawings in novels are often pretty boring to me, but with Ken Follet it really comes to life.

Would you like to go ahead reading? I would! This coming weekend and Monday I won’t get to a lot of reading but the other days I can.
How do you feel about the story?

How did I miss your latest post? I was just logging in to inquire about how you were doing! Ha!

I am definitely ready to get back into the story. I agree about Maud and Walter. I so hope they can find happiness together. It still boggles my mind how people could/can be so prejudiced.

The politics actually confuses me a little at times, haha! But I do the best I can with it. The discussion that occurred at the dinner for the king at Ty Gwyn was a lot for me to follow, but I think I got the gist of it. Politics just aren't my thing (especially now with the belligerent buffoon we have for a president here - I'm in denial!)

I was angered when the mining company issued eviction notices for the widows of the explosion. The same thing happened in the second episode of that show I mentioned before. And now I can't remember, was that resolved? I remember the miners went on strike and then everyone got turned out. Some found other jobs, some moved in with relatives. Was that where things were left at this point?

I'm very much enjoying the story, though I'm glad we set a somewhat slower pace for it. I've got some stuff coming up that's going to eat into my time. Right now I have no trouble keeping up, but it might get difficult in a couple weeks!

I've actually already checked my libraries for copies of the other two books in the series and found that both are available as ebooks. If we continue to enjoy this one, would you be interested in continuing the series together?

Hi Erin! I feel the same about the mining. (Well, it would be quite shocking if I agreed with them pulling people out of their houses!) But it’s unbelievable one can be that cruel, especially because the widows husbands were killed at their job. Unbelievable...
It’s not resolved yet, the last thing that was written about it I think was that Billy’s family were almost the only ones that could stay because they have their own home.
All the others were put out on the street.
The political discussions are a bit hard to understand, I agree. I think the most difficult is, that they all react from another political perspective. And there are kings, emperors, presidents, parliaments, they all have something else.
I know a bit about WW1 but the start of it has always been confusing to me, all those countries with allies and their own reasons to go into war... perhaps with this book it will get clearer.
I get why you’re in denial... ;-) I think the whole world has gotten crazy (we have our neighbors trying to get out of the EU with the brexit and my own country gets into a conflict every year because of a children’s celebration).
It would be nice to read them all together! Let’s just keep up with whoever is the slowest one then, and perhaps have another book on the side when we have to wait a bit. I’m on a holiday in a few weeks (for a week) which sometimes means I read a lot and sometimes I don’t at all.
For now, chapter 6 - 11 for next Friday?

I actually know very little about WWI (I've read quite a bit regarding WWII, but not so much WWI), so I'd very much like to learn more about it here.

I'm on board with the plan to keep pace with each other and have other reading material on the side. I'd just like to try to avoid any big hang ups if possible. If I put a book down too long I start to forget what was going on (like I did with the miners' situation!) I did kinda get sucked in and finished last week's reading in just several days, haha! So I'll try to pace myself better. Chapters 6-11 sounds good for next Friday. Though I did read chapter 6 yesterday evening (it's very tense at the beginning!)

Yes I agree with keeping a pace in reading, I don’t want to lose the feel of the story either.
Nice!

I’m getting a bit ahead again - just finished Chapter 8 - but this book is so good!!! It’s so hard to tear myself away from it!

I just launched a book club, so I do have another book I need to finish by the 22nd. And I agreed to another buddy read that is supposed to start on the 9th, so I’ll have that.

But I really just want to read this one :-P

Have you gotten any more reading in?

How nice you launched your own book club! Is it in real life or on (something like) goodreads? And do you have some sort of theme for the book club?
I’m halfway chapter nine and, like you, how much I love this book! I’ll sit down and read some more now :-)

My book club meets in real life, once a month on a Friday evening. There's no theme. Members get to suggest books and then we vote on what we'd like to read. Our first meeting is the 22nd and we currently have 9 people who plan to attend, which is more than we ever had at a single meeting of the book club I formerly attended (which ultimately went defunct - hence my starting a new one.) I'm excited, but also a little nervous. I hope the members enjoy it!

I'll go ahead and read Chapter 9 at some point today. I started my book club book a couple days ago so I wouldn't read too far in this one :-)

I’ve finished chapter 11!

I’m still working on Ch 9. I’ll be caught up by Friday though!

There’s so much information about the politics leading up to the war. I feel like I understand it as I read it, but it’s so complex that I don’t retain it very well. I tried making a list to keep it straight, but didn’t get too far. I think I’d have to go back and search the text to fill in some holes, but that’s a pain :-P

Your book club sounds nice! I’m shure everyone will enjoy themselves.
It was pretty complicated to me too, I didn’t get everything either. But knowing that war is coming anyway (although I found myself wishing it wasn’t!) I let some remarks and politics that I didn’t understand go...
I can’t wait to hear what you think of the last chapters of this first part! I’ll be reading something else until then. :-)

Just finished Ch 10. Almost caught up!

But, WOW! I need to purge my thoughts before continuing.

First, let me backtrack a bit. I jotted some notes after earlier chapters because I didn't want to post spoilers.

Chapter 6: Grigori! I knew he'd end up giving his ticket to his brother, but the fact that Katerina is pregnant took me by surprise! And I had a feeling that Vyalov connection was fishy. I mean, what good can come from getting involved with a criminal gang? I hope we get a little bit more of that story line soon.

Chapter 7: More politics, but I think I made sense of it... Otto's confrontation with Maud at the end of the chapter was pretty intense.

Chapter 8: I love Billy!!! He's so wonderful for standing by Ethel and reading that passage from the Bible at church to put people in their place for judging her <3
Certainly not loving how Fitz handled the situation though!

At this point, I'm finding that the politics can get pretty overwhelming. There's so much involved! But it's also fascinating. I'm reading this on my Kindle app, so I've started highlighting passages containing key elements of the politics so I can keep it all straight more easily and I think that's helping. I'm pretty sure I understand most of it, despite the fact that it's so complex.

This book definitely has the potential to be my first 5 star read of the year!

Feel free to post your thoughts on everything up through Chapter 11. I may not get through it today, but I will almost certainly finish it tomorrow and I won't check in again until I'm caught up.

Oh I was so angry Lev got the ticket!! Grigori worked so hard for it, and I trusted him so much more to get the second ticket for his brother than I trusted Lev. And Lev just left his pregnant girlfriend like that, without a thought, or a message to her. Brrr very unfair. But, and I didn’t expect that at all, Lev seems to take his responsibility quite seriously so far.
The fact that he ended up in England was something I really expected to happen. Obviously the only role the Dutch have played so far is a criminal one... ;-)
(Do you know the Netherlands are West of Germany, east of Great Britain and North of Belgium and France? It’s unbelievable how invisible my country stayed during WWI. They were the only ones staying sovereign.
WWII ‘we’ were very much involved in. My husbands parents especially had a very hard time. But perhaps the Netherlands do come up in the story in a way I don’t know about yet.)
I’m very interested to see how Bea and Lev’s ‘relationship’ will develop (I do expect something is going to develop there) and if Bea disappears so Fitz and Ethel can get together... Or not, he isn’t such a great man anymore is he?! But he has the cash :-D
I love Ethel and yes, her brave brother!!! Actually everything you wrote I agree on. I hope Maud finds out about Ethel’s baby and the actual father soon.
But will it all matter when the war has started?
It’s a good idea to take some notes while reading, I’ll do the same.
Right now, I’m going to make dinner. And to be shure, I’m not going to say anything about ch 11 :-D

Finished Chapter 11 now.

I was pretty annoyed that Lev got the ticket as well. Girgori seems like such a nice, hardworking, honest guy. But I agree that Lev seems to be acting a little more responsibly than previously. Hopefully he continues on that path. And maybe it worked out for the best since Lev didn't make it to the US anyway.

I honestly didn't see him ending up somewhere other than the US. That was a surprise to me. I thought he'd get to America and then the job Grigori was promised would not be available.

Admittedly, my geography is pretty bad. I've actually pulled up maps online a couple times so I could more clearly picture what was going on between the various countries involved. It must be quite interesting for you, reading about this huge event that happened so close to home.

I'm wondering if Bea will ultimately lose her baby so Fitz will become even more tormented by how he treated Ethel and the knowledge that he has an heir but it's an illegitimate child he can't claim. I don't think he deserves Ethel at this point. And yeah, I really hope that Maud eventually learns that Fitz is the father. I'd love to see how she reacts to that information.

Regarding Maud and Walter, I'm so glad they were able to get married in secret, but I'm incredibly curious about how their marriage will play out since the war lasts for years, instead of months as people initially thought it would.

What does your upcoming week look like? Do you want to stick to chapters 12-17 for next Friday? I was supposed to be starting another buddy read in a couple days, but my buddy has been unresponsive about confirming a start date or reading pace so I'm not sure that she's still interested.