Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

Hello all! I have read 3 very amazing EPIC books. I'll do a little "report" for each in separate paragraphs.

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone.
This is truly a wonderful work of art!(that's why it's first). Harry potter was born to two wizards. But Voledemore killed them both when potter was a baby. Harry survived.(telling you how will give away part of the ending). Harry ended up going to his aunt and uncle dursley's house and had a horrible life. But then he went to hogwarts. And so the story began.

2. Fever 1793
This is one of the few school books I actually liked. I dnt have much to say without giving the story away. Mattie baker lives with her mom, grandfather, and Eliza in a coffee house. Out of almost nowhere, the yellow fever broke out. This chaos take mattie on many adventures.

3. The tower treasure(the hardy boys #1)
Frank and Joe Hardy are the sons of the famous detective, Fenton Hardy. But when the tower treasure is stolen, Frank and Joe are in a rivalry with their father.

I'm sure I read the Hardy Boys book at some point, but can't recall it at all now. It's been a few years, to say the least. They were never my favorites because after reading a couple, they were too predictable.

I really liked the Harry Potter series as did the rest of my family. We used to have fights over who got to read it first. I won since I bought them & read the fastest. I know with a couple of them, Amazon would deliver them Saturday morning & I'd finish them before I went back to work on Monday.

I picked the first one up at a school book fair with my daughter. She didn't want it, so I read it & after describing some of it to her, got her interested. She hated reading up until then because of her dyslexia. It was too hard to do & she was in a special ed class for it. After reading the first HP book, she became a voracious reader, though.

The audio books are really good, too. I really liked both the Stephen Fry (?) & Jim Dale versions. Can't say that I liked one better than the other, although they were different. Fry used to do a comedy wit Hugh Laurie, didn't he?

I didn't receive a Goodread's notification about Mike's new topic here. So it's a good thing Jim posted to the topic. I did get a notification about Jim's post. So that's how I found this topic. Otherwise it would have waited until I clicked on "unread".

Mike, thanks for the recommendations.

I'm wondering what is meant by "Epic books". I know what an epic is. (Good reads defines it as follows: "The story is centered on heroic characters, and the action takes place on a grand scale."
[ http://www.goodreads.com/genres/epic ]

However, does the word "Epic" have another meaning in this topic name? In other words, is it a new brand of books?

I haven't read any of the books Mike recommended yet. I have several old copies of the Hardy Boys books but I haven't read them. I'm not the fast and voracious reader that Jim is. I wish I were!

I think he meant 'really good', Joy. I agree with the HP books, too. The Hardy Boys, not so much. Good idea, but they were cranked out to a very specific rule set handed out by the publisher. Franklin W. Dixon isn't one person but a pen name used by many. That really limited their creativity & I remember being disappointed by that fairly quickly. The Tom Swift books were done by the same publisher & used Victor Appleton II as the pseudonym. You'd think Carolyn Keene, the author of the Nancy Drew series was too, but almost all of those books were written by Mildred A. Wirt Benson. She wrote 23 of the 30.

Still, Stratemeyer, the publisher, was the one that wrote the plots. He originally started with the Rover Boys & the The Bobbsey Twins. Later, his daughter took over & continued the practice. If you read the various series, you'll see a lot of similarities. Too many for me. I don't recall the specifics any more, but some of the books in one series pretty much just had some name changes made & were published as a new book in a different series.

Yes, Joy, in modern colloquial usage, "EPIC!" means really good. (My work puts me around college kids, so I know some of the lingo. :-) )

Mike, I haven't read Fever 1793, but I'll have to check out the Goodreads description for that one. The college library where I work has a collection of children's/YA books (since students studying to be schoolteachers have to take a class in children's literature). Do you think this book would be a good addition to that collection? (And of course, everybody in this group knows I'm a Harry Potter fan!)

As a kid, I read a few of the Hardy Boys books, and liked them better than Jim did, though I'd agree now with his assessment of some of their flaws. Back then, though, they helped feed my developing liking for the mystery genre. The Flickering Torch Mystery is the one I remember best; the imagery of the black-shrouded, mysterious silent figures in the dark caves carrying torches haunted my seven-year-old dreams, and scared the bejabbers out of me! :-)

Regrettably, I never discovered the Nancy Drew series (about a teenage girl who's a distaff version of the Hardy Boys) when I was younger; but if you're game to read a series with a heroine instead of a hero, you might find that one worth checking out, too. (A guy commenting on a blog I clicked on years ago remarked that as a young teen, he really liked that series; he had quite a crush on Nancy! :-) )

Oh, I liked the Hardy Boys, Rover Boys, Bobbsey Twins & Nancy Drew OK, Werner. I read quite a few of them as a kid because they were readily available & considered 'good' reading by librarians & my mother. I got them more often than I wanted & had the misfortune of reading pretty much the same stories a couple of times. I remember that because it caused me to learn what plagiarism was. I showed my father how similar two of the books were & he explained the concept. He didn't know about pen names, but I remember being severely disappointed in the books after that & avoided them, if at all possible.

Besides, my father's old pulp magazines spoiled me. Those short stories, mostly SF, were so dynamic & wild compared to the staid Stratemeyer formulas. And the Conan covers & books were just too cool. Actually, most of Pop's paperbacks & pulps had awesome, often garish, covers. Much better than Stratemeyer's.

Stratemeyer's stuff was what I'd call a candy read, today. They're books that are entertaining, but never really impressed me enough to stick. Most of the PNR or UF books are like that for me now. I love reading about Sookie, but the details tend to slip out of my head as soon as I finish.

Werner wrote: "Yes, Joy, in modern colloquial usage, "EPIC!" means really good. (My work puts me around college kids, so I know some of the lingo. :-) )

Werner, thanks for explaining. I had no idea. :)

Jim wrote: "I think he meant 'really good', Joy. I agree with the HP books, too. The Hardy Boys, not so much. Good idea, but they were cranked out to a very specific rule set handed out by the publisher. Franklin W. Dixon isn't one person but a pen name used by many. ..."

Thanks, Jim. I had vaguely remembered the information about the authoring of books like The Hardy Boys, but I couldn't recall the name, Dixon. It's an interesting part of pen-name history.

Also interesting is the influence of pulp magazines on you as a youth. I remember enjoying comic books well before I ventured into "real books". :) The "real books" seemed daunting to me as a kid.

Comic books are OK. For a while, I was really into Creepy, Eerie, Vamperella, & Heavy Metal, all comic type magazines. I still have a lot of them, but no regular comics. I find they bore me now. A lot of my friends are into 'graphic novels', basically longer comic books, but they don't do much for me. Neil Gaiman is a big name in them at the moment.

I see below I mentioned that I avoided Stratemeyer's stuff, if at all possible. Friends & relatives usually had his books & if nothing else was available to read, I'd read them. It is better to read than not to read. I'd read cereal boxes if nothing else was available!

Pulp magazines were great. The content was often over my head, but not always & there were often B&W drawings, too. While they came in a lot of different genres, my father was partial to SF & fantasy, so that's what I cut my teeth on. Remember, I grew up in the 60's when rocket ships were going from SF to reality. It was just too cool.

Speaking of rocket ships, during the late 50s, as a camp counselor, I was involved in a musical play in which the lyrics parodied the Davy Crocket song. We sang the "Davy Rocket" song. Yes, rockets were big in those days.

I've only read the 1st hardy boys so far so I can't agree or disagree that they're repetitive. But I liked #1. But it'll take me a while to get back to the hardy boys. Because I have so many books that I want to read. Because I am probably very very lucky that between my mom, my brother, and I, I can confidently say we have well over 500 books in the house. I feel very fortunate. Even if alot of them are second hand. So my conclusion to this is that I love reading!!!! Unlike alot of other kids my age

Most of my books are used. Nothing wrong with that. I get them at yard sales, swap them online, & with friends. A good book passed around is just spreading the wealth. I keep trying to keep our collection down, but several thousand seems to be our minimum. I gave away dozens of boxes of books when we moved 5 years ago, too.

Yes, Mike, you are really fortunate, both in liking to read (you're right that a lot of kids your age haven't yet discovered how much fun it is!) and in having so many books around the house to pick from! When I was a kid, we didn't have nearly so many books at my house (though my grandmother, who lived in the same town, had quite a few, and there was a public library a mile from our house, so that helped). So I pretty much read any book I could get my hands on. :-)

Jim wrote: "A good book passed around is just spreading the wealth." Well put! We've also had to reduce our book collections at times when we moved; but I'd say we've got at least 1,000 books here at home (counting Barb's many paperback romances, and Westerns), and a few hundred more in my office at work, where I have more bookcase space. Most of our books are used, too; we buy used books quite a lot, both for ourselves and as gifts.

It is a good thing to want to read & best to have a wide choice. We have so many books because it's a family affliction. Seriously, I started with a great collection I inherited from my father when he died over 40 years ago.

His father, my paternal grandfather, was a newspaper editor & had thousands of books, too. Besides an attic full, his bedroom had floor to ceiling, wall to wall bookshelves - just like I built into my current bedroom. I inherited many of his books plus he gave me many as gifts. When I'd visit him, we'd always go to a few used book stores & he'd buy me more, even though he detested SF & fantasy. I recently read a 2 volume set of the "Complete Sherlock Holmes" & a copy of Sir Walter Scott's "Grandfather's Tales", both of which he gave me. My grandfather has been gone for 26 years now, but I still think of him fondly & often, especially when I pull out such books.

My wife & I had many duplicates when we merged our libraries. It was one of the big ways we first connected with each other. I remember long discussions of McCaffery's Pern & Stasheff's Wizard books not to mention all the classics like "Black Beauty", "Bambi", & "Gone With The Wind". Thirty years later, sharing & discussing books is one of the central points of our marriage. I believe it is for Werner & Barb and Joy & Eddie too, but they've been at it even longer.

I was buying books for my kids before they were born & they all grew up with a love of reading. That's one reason we have so many books - it's hard to get rid of old favorites. As they've moved out & gotten their own houses, I've given them some of those favorites &/or bought new copies. We were just dealing with that with Erin over the Belgariad the other night.

Mike, you might really enjoy that, starting with Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings. There are 5 books in that series & it is followed by the Mallorean. A separate trilogy by him starts with The Diamond Throne. I might like that even better, but all of those had to be duplicated for the kids when they moved out because my wife & I wouldn't give them up, either.

No matter what I've read, it helps me expand my horizons & vocabulary. All my kids always had excellent vocabulary, reading & writing skills due to reading a lot. It's a great way to learn to think & it's the cheapest vacation I've ever taken.

Yes, Jim, for Barb and I, sharing and discussing books is one of our favorite things. We've actually read a lot of books as a couple --sometimes ones one of us had read before, but mostly things we've discovered together.

Great posts, Mike, Jim, and Werner.

Yes, a good book is like a good vacation. I agree!

Eddie and I don't usually discuss books because we usually read different books. Even when we read the same books, Ed does not tend to talk much about them. Actually, Ed doesn't talk much about anything. LOL But when he speaks, people listen. :)

I never had a large book collection since I get most of my books from the public library. However, I do regret giving away some of my favorite books. Many of the books I do have are quotation collections.

Yea... I always read more than one book at a time because I just can wait... I try to limit it to 3-4 because anymore I lose track of what's going on. And I do agree that reading has helped a whole lot with my vocabulary, an writing!!! Like joy I check Many books out of the library. But I try not to because I already own so many I have not read. I really hope to read them all. But I just have so many and then keep getting more LOL. Like today I just got a free book from the reading club for teens at the library. Oh well you can NEVER read too much.
One more thing is... People who read alot always seem to be the most happy and nice people. Kind of like you guys!!!!

Mike, you're sweet!

I grew up in the Depression and I was thrilled to get Used Books as Christmas presents; after all that way I could get two or three for the price of one new one. Also, I sometimes went without lunch so I could use my fifteen cents to buy a used book. I still have some of them and they are now worth more than the fifteen cents I paid for them; for instance, Through the Looking Glass and four of the Wizard of Oz books with the original illustrations; Tom Sawyer and many more.

Thank you, Mike. Don't worry about having too many books. They are like money in the bank. Always there when you need them. :)

Nina wrote: "I grew up in the Depression and I was thrilled to get Used Books as Christmas presents; after all that way I could get two or three for the price of one new one. Also, I sometimes went without lunc..."

They say that we shouldn't write inscriptions in books when we give them as a gift because it lowers their resale value. However, IMO, one of the sweetest moments in life is opening a book and seeing an inscription to me from an old relative who wrote it many years ago and dated it. What a great piece of memorabilia!

Mike, my son is old enough to be your father and he loved The Hardy Boys...so enjoy yourself; plus, like Jim says it will enhance your vocablulary. I guarantee it.

Joy, I almost always write a dated inscription in the books I give to family members (unless it's one I'm not sure they'll like enough to keep). And I know that Barb, at least, appreciates the inscriptions!

Werner wrote: "Joy, I almost always write a dated inscription in the books I give to family members (unless it's one I'm not sure they'll like enough to keep). And I know that Barb, at least, appreciates the ins..."

Werner, I now wish I had written more inscriptions on the books I've given to my Grands. What was I thinking of? The few pennies they'd get for the book if they sold it? Certainly they weren't first editions. Next time I'm going to write an inscription.

I used to inscribe books I gave to my mother. Now I'm glad because now I can look back and see what I wrote to her. (That is IF my sister didn't take those books for herself after Mom passed.) :-) Ah, sibling rivalry! :-)

If you do start writing inscriptions, Joy, I'm betting that your grandkids will treasure them!

Werner wrote: "If you do start writing inscriptions, Joy, I'm betting that your grandkids will treasure them!"

I would hope so, Werner. :) Thanks.

I remember giving them a child's Thesaurus several years ago. In it I wrote something to the effect that one of the most important words in the book was "kindness".

I wonder where that book is today. :)