Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Joe and I have very different tastes when it comes to what we read.    He leans toward fantasy/science fiction kinds of books which are not my favorite.  Long ago he got me to read The Lord of the Rings series along with a few more that he was just convinced that I would like.  He, for the most part, has been right.  My major beef with most of the books in these genres are the endless characters that have really weird names are in setting that require me to suspend a lot of reality.  I am fast reader...too fast most of the time...so I have a hard time following things in fantasy/science fiction books.

When we were in college Joe signed up for a book of the month club (think Columbia House only for books) where he got a bunch of books for a penny just for signing up and then they sent him a book every month and charged him full price.  One of the books they sent him one time was A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin and I would say that it became one of his favorites instantly.  There are now 5 in the series and it has been made into a show on HBO.  (I won't even get into how giddy he got when he found that out!)

I read the first two years ago and finally decided to pick the third one up after finishing Season Two on HBO.  I do have to say that being the visual person that I am, it helped so much to have the characters from the t.v. show in my head while reading this 3rd book.  And...to Joe's credit, it was really, really good.  It is just a little over 1000 pages, so much longer than the books that I usually read.


One thing I do have to say is that I am learned a lot of words as I made my way through these books...two of them being (for last week's word and this week's word)...

craven: cowardly
and
leal: loyal; true


The next one in the series is lined up on my iPad, but I have been warned by Joe that it will not be my favorite one of the series.  So, I am finishing up the 100 pages in the other book that I am reading first and then will dive into number 4 (which is 1100 pages) so I can get to number 5 (which is over 1200 pages) which Joe has said will be worth it!