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An old favourite fantasy world, and a volume of fiction I had been missing in my collection.

Game fiction, but not too terrible.

@seanbala I think you are onto something about the nostalgia. I know they are often presented as YA, but they are quite grim, and even though she later felt they needed some balance from her later view of the world, they are still not childish.

@agafnd Those old Chinese novels are some undertaking all of them. I've read Water Margin, 3 Kingdoms and I have Stories of the Stone and Journey still to come. I can't do more than one a year. I really don't know why they all are so long!

@seanbala @loppear I'm sadly behind on Butler. I need to take some tie to read her stuff. I have not yet dived into the Hainish cycle, but expect it to be as pleasant to read as the Earthsea stuff.

@sifuCJC did he really use the n-word? Really? I need to re-read it again.

I remember last time I read it, I was amazed old Arthur was such a decent writer after all. It was a really good read.

If you are interested in the art of xingyiquan, this is the book you should seek out. The translator, Andrea Falk, now also sells the book in three paperback volumes, which I strongly recommend.

Di Laoshi covers the art from all angles in his book, with the five element fists, the animals and also weapon training and teaching methods and forms. It's the complete deal.

Naturally, you can not learn the full art from a book, but with this book you have a very solid foundation as a reference. It's a true treasure, and one of the martial arts books I most often consult.

Interesting for historical reasons, but there are way better books on the subject available.

His book on taiji quan is better.

I haven't read any Biggles books for 40 years or so, and kind of expected something really cringe worthy. I wasn't half as bad as I expected.

But, the characters are really wooden, and there are some racial slurs and clear signs of the "white man's burden" in it. That being said, the plot is deftly told, and even though we know this is a story about airplanes and pilots, Johns only dwells on the flying when it's meaningful, and then only describes the flying back and forth in passing as the plot picks up pace.

I don't think I will read another Biggles book soon.

@seanbala this is probably a very hard, and maybe unfair, question. But, if I watched the first half of the movie, found it meandering, turned it off and then never got back to it, would you think I'd still enjoy the book? The concept sounds interesting.

@seanbala would you consider this a good primer on Bonhoeffer's ideas?