Doesn't it make you crazy when you find a book that no one has read, or maybe a lot of people have read but aren't really talking about, and you DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY because it makes your HEART SING and you just want to snuggle it and throw it at people and chase them down until they begin reading it on the spot?

Ahem. I know that feel, bro.

Anyway I'll put this on my to-read. It definitely sounds good! Thanks for bringing it to our attention. :D

What an excellent pile of fantasy! :D Good luck with the Bout!

Good luck! I love Gayle Forman. The Book Thief has been on my TBR for so long, haha!
My recent post Bout of Books 6.0 (main post)

I know how you feel. :( I keep trying to write a post in memoriam but just coming up with nothing, or too much. There aren't proper words.

Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: http://bahnree.blogspot.com/2011/02/weir-of-hermi...

Wow, um, this post is FANTASTIC! I completely agree!

From my own perspective, now that I'm in college, I would love to read some fiction about peeps my age. I love YA and adult stuff but there really is a dearth of college age protagonists.

Hey there,
Sorry I totally bailed out on the read-a-long discussion. School got really crazy and I just didn't have the time-management skills to make it happen. I really enjoyed the first half, though, and am planning to finish it as soon as possible. It's creepy and disturbing, but in an interesting "what-if" way. I definitely agree that other dystopian books prepared me for it! I hadn't really read any dystopia until this year.

Super ditto on Syme.

I think the girl will turn out to be a good sort, but that might be too optimistic for this book. :P

Did I mention I love his journaling? It seems like his journal is the only piece of "truth" we get in Winston's world. Besides in his journal, he acts so impassive and subservient, and everyone else too, just to survive.
It's kinda weird, I'm also reading about the French Revolution right now, and it's reminding me a LOT of the Revolution in this book. Most of the original revolution leaders eventually get executed for treason, the revolutionaries begin to create more of what they just destroyed, etc.

The children disturb me. I'm curious about Winston: what was HIS childhood like? It sounds like the entire society is getting progressively worse.

Greetings! I haven't done a read-a-long with you before, mostly because I'm trying to just read books from my shelves...but 1984 is one of my TBR so I'm going to join in! I'm excited about this book because I've heard so much about it (of course) and it's kinda the classic English dystopian novel.
About me: I'm a junior English major, I like reading sci-fi/fantasy when I'm not reading "litracher!", I'm addicted to root beer, and I love living in Oregon.

So on to the book! This book just jumps RIGHT in on the creepiness, doesn't it? I wasn't expecting it to be as creepy as it is so far.
I think the things I've found most disturbing is Winston's job in the Ministry of Truth and Syme's comments on Newspeak. Winston's job is editing and revising any written records that put any negativity on Big Brother. The fact that he's working in the Ministry of Truth, and yet even the "original" texts he's given don't have anything truthful, and when he changes them, they don't have less or more truth, just a completely different sort of lie. "And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain." (ch 4)
Here's Syme's disturbingly awesome view on language: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself." (ch 5)
I think the things that make me like Winston most is that he disagrees with Syme, and also the way he writes in his journal: that's where we see the "real" Winston.
Sooo this comment is really long so I'm going to stop there?

Hmmm....
-my Bible (to keep me sane)
-lembas-bread! one bite is enough for an entire day.
-MP3 player (I'd listen to it until the battery gave out)