"The Shadow of the Wind" and Paulo Coelho's biography found their way onto this list just a few hours ago. Whether I read them or not, and in which order, will largely depend on how / if /when I will get my hands on them. Plus, my intersts tend to change abruptly, so I might end up throwing myself into a completely different genre. But I will be leaving fantasy behind after I finish "First Law". And I shall not return until Robin Hobb writes another Fitz/Fool novel! *storms out and slams the door*
"We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged." Heinrich Heine.Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It's enough to make a torturer want to run – if he could even walk without a stick.
Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem – he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.
And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters. If they didn't hate each other quite so much.
Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven – but not before they are hanged.
"Last Argument of Kings." Inscribed on his cannons by Louis XIVThe end is coming.
Logen Ninefingers might only have one more fight in him – but it's going to be a big one. Battle rages across the North, the King of the Northmen still stands firm, and there's only one man who can stop him. His oldest friend, and his oldest enemy: it's time for the Bloody-Nine to come home.
With too many masters and too little time, Superior Glokta is fighting a different kind of war. A secret struggle in which no-one is safe, and no-one can be trusted. As his days with a sword are far behind him, it's fortunate that he's deadly with his remaining weapons: blackmail, threats, and torture.
Jezal dan Luthar has decided that winning glory is too painful an undertaking, and turned his back on soldering for a simple life with the woman he loves. But love can be painful too – and glory has a nasty habit of creeping up on a man when he least expects it.
The King of the Union lies on his deathbed, the peasants revolt, and the nobles scramble to steal his crown. No-one believes that the shadow of war is about to fall across the heart of the Union. Only the First of the Magi can save the world – but there are risks. There is no risk more terrible, than to break the First Law...
Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out LA SOMBRA DEL VIENTO by Julian Carax.But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from LA SOMBRA DEL VIENTO, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.
"The incredible story of Paulo Coelho, the boy who was born dead, flirted with suicide, suffered at mental asylums, dove into drugs, tried several varieties of sex, met the devil, was arrested during the dictatorship, helped revolutionize Brazilian rock, rediscovered his faith and became one of the most-widely read writers in the world. Paulo Coelho de Souza was born in the rainy wee hours of August 24th in..."Fernando Morais, the author that helped establish the biography as a literary gender in Brazil centers his investigative verve on the Brazilian personage that has become the great myth of Brazil's recent history: Paulo Coelho - a universal writer that reached the astronomical mark of 100 million sold books and the achievement of being the most translated living author in the whole planet. A Warrior's Life is the eletrifying path of the popstar that is requested by princes, sheikhs, queens and presidents. A story that not even the most creative screenwriters would be able to dream of.
Ayn Rand’s masterpiece. It integrates the basic elements of an entire philosophy into a highly complex, yet dramatically compelling plot—set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists. The theme is: “the role of the mind in man’s existence—and, as corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest.”Should have read this ages ago. Problem is, when everyone you know keeps talking about a book and keeps recommending it over and over, you kind of get put off. Still. I suppose these days I'm feeling masochistic enough to read it.
I actually walked past this book a hundred times in my local bookshop. THe cover is very eye-catching and so is the oversized format. Having read a few reviews, I'm finally interested in reading it.
An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time. On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him – that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. She remembers vividly when they met, in another hospital ward at a convent in medieval Germany, when she was a nun and he was a wounded mercenary left to die. If he has forgotten this, he is not to worry: she will prove it to him. And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he'd never uttered: love.
Review from here:
The nameless narrator is a drug-addled pornographer who accidentally crashes his car into a ravine, suffering life-threatening burns to most of his body. He goes through unspeakable agonies in hospital for many months as they scrape at his dead flesh, use blades to slice off fresh skin and scrub him until he bleeds and begs for morphine. He looks and feels like a monster and is only playing at being the perfect patient so that when he is finally released from their care, he can kill himself. He feels no religious awakening or regret at his past, telling us that, “Heaven is an idea constructed by man to help him cope with the fact that life on earth is both brutally short, and, paradoxically, far too long”.
One day, Marianne Engel, a sculptor and psychiatric patient, walks unauthorised into his highly-sterilised hospital room and tells him that they were lovers in mediaeval Germany. Like a modern day Scheherazade, she continues to visit and regales him with inventive and engrossing tales of their past lives and shares the tales of other lovers and their travails throughout history.
Eventually, the hospital doctors can see what a positive influence Marianne is having on their long-term patient and he is released into her care. Is she a manic-depressive artist being exploited by a gallery dealer or someone with a far deeper spiritual connection? Has she adopted The Monster as her own challenge, to show him that beauty and truth lie further within? Is he only using her to pay for his addiction to painkillers?
Whatever your thoughts, this is a truly wonderful read that reveals an extensive imagination and somehow manages to read like a modern, flowing sonnet but remains accessible. Buy this book for a long flight and you’ll not only be able to finish it but will feel enlightened and privy to something beautiful instead of feeling dirty and cheap afterwards.
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