Been reading a lot lately. Well, three re-reads and one new book, specifically.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - It's certainly a page-turner which is a bit of an accomplishment for a book which is obviously aimed at a much younger reader than I am. I'd say that someone should study these books and figure out what quality they have makes them so good at grabbing hold of a reader, but I'm sure it's been done given the books' stature. They lose a little knowing the key mystery but still fun.
Nineteen Eighty-Four - I haven't read this book since I'm in high school which is terrible since I would consider it easily one of my favourite books of all time. Anyway, no shock to anyone here, the book is still wonderful. The description of Oceania's tyranny, propaganda, and philosophy remains truly frightening. I love how even the dusty, gritty details of the setting which at first appear to be nothing more than there for mood are in fact an essential part of how The Party operates. I also really like how the book avoids going the cliched resistance-fighter route and instead turns the tale into a look at The Party's handiwork firsthand. I have lots of love for most things in the novel, but my favourite is probably the sequence with O'Brien in Part 3. "Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to became sane." Chills, man.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - When I first read this book it put me off the series and I never read past this one. I actually liked it a bit better this time though. It's still significantly worse than the first, the opening is still terrible (the Dursleys worked as a fairytale-level exaggerated rotten family once, we didn't need to start a second book with them), and Tom Riddle, aka the interesting thing about the book, needed to appear more than twice. But maybe because I went in with lower expectations I was able to get past the weak parts and by the end it had adopted that page-turner thing the first had, so this time I have the momentum to go further.
City of Dragons - Third book in Hobb's Rain Wilds series. Fun fact, I actually thought the series was a trilogy, because all of Hobb's recent works were. It was only when I got to around a hundred pages left and I thought "wow, there is no WAY this is getting finished by then" that I actually glanced at the start of the book and noticed that it was called "Rain Wilds Chronicles" instead of "___ Trilogy" like all the rest. So yeah, it is four books apparently. Anyway, I continue to like these books, even though they're a bit different in terms of storytelling than most. There's a lot more emphasis on small-scale interactions and characters' internal struggles. Most of the "big" conflicts which usually dominate fantasy are resolved shockingly quickly (e.g. Malta is kidnapped by bad guys, but resolves the situation over the space of a few pages). I was a bit leery about the book since it felt like most of the key conflicts had been resolved by the end of the second but there's enough left, and the big overarching problem comes to the fore a bit more in this book (some good scenes there). Also one of my favourite characters from the Liveship Trilogy returns in this one, yay.
Next up is Prisoner of Azkaban; I'm intending to alternate Harry Potter (which I've been meaning to read for years) and other stuff for the next few months.
