Ooh, megan - that sounds very interesting.
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Is there any particular English translation of Les Miserables that's supposed to be good?
I joined Good Reads about this time last year, because I had resolved to keep track of my reading. I then did nothing with it all year. As people were listing their "best of 2012" books, I realized once again that I could only call up the names a few, even though I read at least 150.
Some of you may have noticed that I've been adding GR friends, in the hopes that it will keep me more motivated. I fear it may turn into another time suck, though. As with everything in my life, I am searching for the elusive happy medium. Anyway, if I've missed you and you're interested in the omnivorous reading of an sf-mystery-fantasy-science-history reader, my user name is ginger-k. (They wouldn't let me use gingerk, even though there isn't another one. I don't have the hang of Good Reads yet, though.)
Ginger, feel free to message me with any Goodreads questions. As an active librarian, I'm on there quite a bit.
Hil, I can't recommend any particular translation, but I can suggest that you avoid abridged versions. Hugo does overwrite (I'm still not sure why he included a hundred pages centered around the Battle of Waterloo), but abridged versions tend to lose something vital.
(And apropos of nothing in particular, not to mention that I've probably said this before, but never, ever read an abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo if you're older than, say, 12. Abridged versions are less abridged than bowdlerized.)
The first book in Gillian Bradshaw's Arthurian trilogy is one of the Kindle Deals of the Day - $1.99. (Apparently, the trilogy has a name- I was unaware of that.)
Oooh, Hawk of May: I loved that when I was younger. I shall snap it up.
Almanzo Wilder's homestead claim: [link]
That's nifty, Ginger!
That is neat! However, I don't think The First Four Years sounded like a "happy period"! With the illness, the death of a child, losing their crops and money, moving in with Ma and Pa, and then trekking back east