Can I suggest the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, perhaps? There's a bit of sneaking onto alien spaceships and such in Only You Can Save Mankind.
You've got to be careful with this one because they've re-done the covers in a sort of goofy, Roald Dahl sort of "this will be jolly fine for a 8 year old" sort of way, and it may catch you out if you remember it from your childhood but have forgotten the jokey references to school education about AIDS*, and the fact that a side character has a sibling involved in a joyriding accident resulting in death. But it very much depends on your 10 year old.
I also enjoyed it more reading it as an adult but that's sort of besides the point. I hadn't seen Alien when I read it as a youth.
*The only time I've had to self-censor and completely elide a paragraph while reading a book to a child because I didn't feel up to explaining all that right at that moment.
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
And there's the subtext of Johnny's parents relationship failing with shouting arguments almost ever night.
I like the Maxwell trilogy because they don't shy away from how dark the real world can be whilst you're getting lost in some fantastical reality. They treat younger readers with the respect they deserve. Yeah, Yo-less lives in council housing and considers cars with keys in the ignition to be "free", and his older brother gets in a serious car crash whilst joyriding one of those "free cars" with his friends.
+3
GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
Johnny Maxwell might be good, thanks, I had forgotten about that. I will look into it.
I like the Maxwell trilogy because they don't shy away from how dark the real world can be whilst you're getting lost in some fantastical reality. They treat younger readers with the respect they deserve.
Dark is Rising trilogy is about right for that age, the main characters are preteens and it's age appropriate without being at all childish. Pretty also worth exploring the Dianna wynne jones back catalog.
I would absolutely not recommend Gentlemen Bastards for a 10 year old
This is probably good advice. My parents just never cared what I read, it was always just "whatever at least he is reading". I still stick by my Redwall suggestion, pearls of lutra being my favorite.
I finished Rhythms of War! I liked it ok but not as much as Oathbringer which I would call the easy best of the series. I didn't really notice any "people being constantly stupid until the end" that some criticisms in this thread mentioned. Everybody appeared to be acting more or less in a reasonable way for the people that they are. A lot of surprising turns in the lore of the world although we're mostly still reacting to Oathbringers "So WE'RE the asshole" reveals. I would say ultimately my main criticism is that the big scenes didn't really play. I didn't get the emotional catharsis that Brandon Sanderson books are often really good for. There are some moments that I wanted to be as big in my mind as(Mistborn spoilers) as Elend telling off his friend in the middle of a Kollos army, or Vin killing the shit out some Kollos launching herself into the sky and ending the entire plot in one giant sworded cut. They just never lived up to the reveal. Kaladin's climax especially left me flat.
0
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
edited December 2020
I recently finished Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, and let me tell you, if you're on the fence about reading this book, you should absolutely read it
I think that might just be advice to my past self, as I was initially put off by the memoir thing, as someone who isn't normally into memoirs
But holy shit it is an incredible piece of writing (pieces of writing, maybe??), absolutely stunning
I highly recommend it, although warnings for heavy topic as it is technically a memoir about an abusive relationship (it is also many other things, though, while simultaneously never not being that)
I think Bruce Coville would be good for a 10 year old. All kinds of books about aliens, ghosts, dinosaurs. I remember liking Space Brat and the AI Gang books.
@Grobian The NERDS series by Michael Buckley and the Spy School series by Stuart Gibbs are both right in that wheelhouse.
+1
DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
edited December 2020
I think I was about 10ish when I started reading the MythAdventure books, those are pretty good.
There's sometimes outdated references couched in fantasy wrapping but that's easily solved by context or maybe a short explanation
They never get too intense and they're funny
oh, way later on, the main character gets a drinking problem
Dark is Rising trilogy is about right for that age, the main characters are preteens and it's age appropriate without being at all childish. Pretty also worth exploring the Dianna wynne jones back catalog.
This, and So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane!
Someone forwarded this article around at work yesterday and boy I hate it and the person who wrote it. If I had a place to post a long angry reaction essay I would but I don't and it probably wouldn't be very interesting anyway but man. MAN.
Someone forwarded this article around at work yesterday and boy I hate it and the person who wrote it. If I had a place to post a long angry reaction essay I would but I don't and it probably wouldn't be very interesting anyway but man. MAN.
Looks like that's behind an account login, could you summarize?
Someone forwarded this article around at work yesterday and boy I hate it and the person who wrote it. If I had a place to post a long angry reaction essay I would but I don't and it probably wouldn't be very interesting anyway but man. MAN.
Huh. It loaded for me.
I got about four paragraphs in and noped out. It seems to be about "yeah it's nice that libraries have books that we can borrow, but that's so DULL and not the like the EXCITEMENT of having a BRAND NEW BOOK in our hands and so I almost don't want to even read this book because it's OLD and NOT MINE" and that's when my eyes rolled out of my head and I clicked X before I imploded.
Huh. It loaded for me.
I got about four paragraphs in and noped out. It seems to be about "yeah it's nice that libraries have books that we can borrow, but that's so DULL and not the like the EXCITEMENT of having a BRAND NEW BOOK in our hands and so I almost don't want to even read this book because it's OLD and NOT MINE" and that's when my eyes rolled out of my head and I clicked X before I imploded.
Maybe you should read literally one more paragraph of a short essay before complaining about it?
And in dispelling my fantasies of permanence, the library does more than save me the cost of a paperback — it provides me with a template for navigating the great sea of longing and disappointment that is life. Imagine a library of expensive clothes, in which you could see the shirt you’re considering spending $98 on as it will look once it has got an ineradicable oil stain on its chest. Or a library of potential cities in which you might live, where each one is forced to display not just its tree-lined block on an April Saturday, but also its roasting Publix parking lot, its ginkgo-mashed sidewalk squares, its February bus stops. The library, in addition to its many civic duties, can function as a great engine of personal clarity, of facing facts, of recognizing that life is not, in the main, a pristine hardcover with deckle edges; it is a threadbare thing from a few decades ago whose binding is barely hanging on and in which someone unstable once went to town with a lime green highlighter.
Library-induced realism is a great thing, one that can do much to increase your happiness. Because the world in which you are perpetually under the impression that the next book purchase, the next apartment, the next significant other will be the one that finally delivers the goods is not a life of happiness. It is a life of perpetual dissatisfaction, a life of thin and sugary highs followed by long and unenlightening lows. The library is, with its careworn and temporary offerings, as lovely and as poignant a reminder of our actual human condition as the tides or a forest in fall. To quote Penelope Fitzgerald (whose books are well worth owning): “Our lives are only lent to us.”
There is no novelist alive who dislikes libraries.
0
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I get where he's coming from, fetishization of the book-as-artifact aside. Buying stuff is a quick sugar rush, and it's a bit of a downer to realize that you should delay gratification for the sake of fiscal responsibility.
Then again, libraries are the only ones who still subscribe to newspapers, so screw him anyhow.
Huh. It loaded for me.
I got about four paragraphs in and noped out. It seems to be about "yeah it's nice that libraries have books that we can borrow, but that's so DULL and not the like the EXCITEMENT of having a BRAND NEW BOOK in our hands and so I almost don't want to even read this book because it's OLD and NOT MINE" and that's when my eyes rolled out of my head and I clicked X before I imploded.
Maybe you should read literally one more paragraph of a short essay before complaining about it?
And in dispelling my fantasies of permanence, the library does more than save me the cost of a paperback — it provides me with a template for navigating the great sea of longing and disappointment that is life. Imagine a library of expensive clothes, in which you could see the shirt you’re considering spending $98 on as it will look once it has got an ineradicable oil stain on its chest. Or a library of potential cities in which you might live, where each one is forced to display not just its tree-lined block on an April Saturday, but also its roasting Publix parking lot, its ginkgo-mashed sidewalk squares, its February bus stops. The library, in addition to its many civic duties, can function as a great engine of personal clarity, of facing facts, of recognizing that life is not, in the main, a pristine hardcover with deckle edges; it is a threadbare thing from a few decades ago whose binding is barely hanging on and in which someone unstable once went to town with a lime green highlighter.
Library-induced realism is a great thing, one that can do much to increase your happiness. Because the world in which you are perpetually under the impression that the next book purchase, the next apartment, the next significant other will be the one that finally delivers the goods is not a life of happiness. It is a life of perpetual dissatisfaction, a life of thin and sugary highs followed by long and unenlightening lows. The library is, with its careworn and temporary offerings, as lovely and as poignant a reminder of our actual human condition as the tides or a forest in fall. To quote Penelope Fitzgerald (whose books are well worth owning): “Our lives are only lent to us.”
There is no novelist alive who dislikes libraries.
My bigger problem was the pretension of the writing. These quotes do not dispell that at all. This guy is definitely not writing for me in the head space where I am today.
Someone forwarded this article around at work yesterday and boy I hate it and the person who wrote it. If I had a place to post a long angry reaction essay I would but I don't and it probably wouldn't be very interesting anyway but man. MAN.
I have literally no idea why this upset you
I'm a long-haul public librarian, so that affects how I feel about it, but I've summarized my thoughts below:
Unflattering summary of the essay: "I got excited to buy a new book, but then a familiar dreary obstacle (fuck you very much) arose: the large beautiful well-curated library that's literally 3 blocks away and had the gall to have every book that I want available. I somehow turned that non-problem into a reflection on how life is full of little disappointments and I live in perpetual dissatisfaction, despite my obvious spectacular privilege."
That's such a remarkably spoiled and unappealing outlook on life that I want to go find that cunty twatwaffle and drive him to a food pantry and make him work a 12 hour shift, and then take him to an Emergency room and make him mop those floors for 12 hours, and then take him into the parking lot and slap him silly until he promises not to write any more awful self-involved essays.
+4
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Eh, as someone who hasn't used a library since college, I get where he's coming from.
I want to like libraries, but they've never fit the way that I enjoy books. If I need something specific for a reason, they can be great, but my reading habits are based more around having a half dozen new books sitting on the shelf and picking up the one I want based on how I'm feeling at the very moment I need a new book. Putting in holds and setting a schedule around what I'm going to be reading for pleasure makes it feel like just another chore to me.
And like, I'm comfortable enough financially that none of this is an issue on that front. I like having my shelves and shelves full of books, because I like being able to pull something down to reference in conversation or lend to a friend or whatever. They are a thing which the mere presence of gives me pleasure. If those things aren't the case for you (or potentially even if they are), then of course the library is a better option.
It's not a David Brooks column, Jesus Christ take a chill pill
I get to feel how I feel, you can feel how you feel. This idiot's inconsequential opinion really bothered me, where I am right now.
0
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I kind of hate buying a book that I'm probably only going to read once or twice and having it sit there on my shelf reminding me of my selfish consumerism forever. So libraries are great.
Apologies for continuing to rant but Straightzi's point of view is completely fair and the way a lot of people feel and I don't have any problem with it at all. Libraries aren't for everyone (although I will argue that there's something for everyone at the library and that if you haven't been in a while and especially if you haven't checked out what your library is offering online you may very well be missing out), but don't describe them as dreary and their books as careworn objects of existential sadness because then I will fight you.
But like seriously check out what's happening at your library, the pandemic has accelerated a lot of changes at public libraries that were probably coming anyway. Mine (DC Public) has gotten rid of overdue fines entirely and we auto-renew everything on a patron's account unless someone else wants it and we offer 10 renewals so you can have a book out goddamn near forever before we want it back. My wife's had a rotating pile of 10-12 books on her nightstand since March and that could be your life too! Probably!
+6
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Apologies for continuing to rant but Straightzi's point of view is completely fair and the way a lot of people feel and I don't have any problem with it at all. Libraries aren't for everyone (although I will argue that there's something for everyone at the library and that if you haven't been in a while and especially if you haven't checked out what your library is offering online you may very well be missing out), but don't describe them as dreary and their books as careworn objects of existential sadness because then I will fight you.
But like seriously check out what's happening at your library, the pandemic has accelerated a lot of changes at public libraries that were probably coming anyway. Mine (DC Public) has gotten rid of overdue fines entirely and we auto-renew everything on a patron's account unless someone else wants it and we offer 10 renewals so you can have a book out goddamn near forever before we want it back. My wife's had a rotating pile of 10-12 books on her nightstand since March and that could be your life too! Probably!
But everything is an object of existential sadness
+1
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
edited December 2020
The reason I didn't use my local library is that my current residence is technically in a neighboring town, but I am on the outer-most southern edge of it.
Because of this I am not allowed to get a library card for the library next to the grocery store five minutes from my home.
And I'm petty and lazy and spiteful enough to refuse to have to drive to the actual library I'm permitted at as its at least 30 minutes away.
Zonugal on
0
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
The reason I didn't use my local library is that my current residence is technically in a neighboring town, but I am on the outer-most southern edge of it.
Because of this I am not allowed to get a library card for the library next to the grocery store five minutes from my home.
And I'm petty and lazy and spiteful enough to refuse to have to drive to the actual library I'm permitted at as its at least 30 minutes away.
I know this feeling as my current home in [Directional Town] is about 30 feet away from the line with [Town], but I would need to pay a fee to get a library card from the much more well supported [Town] library. Fortunately, while [Directional Town] library is much smaller, it has access to the state online book subscriptions.
Posts
You've got to be careful with this one because they've re-done the covers in a sort of goofy, Roald Dahl sort of "this will be jolly fine for a 8 year old" sort of way, and it may catch you out if you remember it from your childhood but have forgotten the jokey references to school education about AIDS*, and the fact that a side character has a sibling involved in a joyriding accident resulting in death. But it very much depends on your 10 year old.
I also enjoyed it more reading it as an adult but that's sort of besides the point. I hadn't seen Alien when I read it as a youth.
*The only time I've had to self-censor and completely elide a paragraph while reading a book to a child because I didn't feel up to explaining all that right at that moment.
I like the Maxwell trilogy because they don't shy away from how dark the real world can be whilst you're getting lost in some fantastical reality. They treat younger readers with the respect they deserve. Yeah, Yo-less lives in council housing and considers cars with keys in the ignition to be "free", and his older brother gets in a serious car crash whilst joyriding one of those "free cars" with his friends.
Absolutely.
Beware for when the kid starts demanding scones and candied chestnuts.
Don't give the kid Gentleman's Bastards.
This is probably good advice. My parents just never cared what I read, it was always just "whatever at least he is reading". I still stick by my Redwall suggestion, pearls of lutra being my favorite.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
I think that might just be advice to my past self, as I was initially put off by the memoir thing, as someone who isn't normally into memoirs
But holy shit it is an incredible piece of writing (pieces of writing, maybe??), absolutely stunning
I highly recommend it, although warnings for heavy topic as it is technically a memoir about an abusive relationship (it is also many other things, though, while simultaneously never not being that)
There's sometimes outdated references couched in fantasy wrapping but that's easily solved by context or maybe a short explanation
They never get too intense and they're funny
oh, way later on, the main character gets a drinking problem
edit: wait, ANIMORPHS
This, and So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane!
Ohhhh shit yeah, get Patricia C. Wrede in there.
It's YA but doesn't like talk down to anyone.
He could learn rather more than you want him to know
Looks like that's behind an account login, could you summarize?
I got about four paragraphs in and noped out. It seems to be about "yeah it's nice that libraries have books that we can borrow, but that's so DULL and not the like the EXCITEMENT of having a BRAND NEW BOOK in our hands and so I almost don't want to even read this book because it's OLD and NOT MINE" and that's when my eyes rolled out of my head and I clicked X before I imploded.
wish list
Steam wishlist
Etsy wishlist
Then again, libraries are the only ones who still subscribe to newspapers, so screw him anyhow.
My bigger problem was the pretension of the writing. These quotes do not dispell that at all. This guy is definitely not writing for me in the head space where I am today.
wish list
Steam wishlist
Etsy wishlist
I'm a long-haul public librarian, so that affects how I feel about it, but I've summarized my thoughts below:
That's such a remarkably spoiled and unappealing outlook on life that I want to go find that cunty twatwaffle and drive him to a food pantry and make him work a 12 hour shift, and then take him to an Emergency room and make him mop those floors for 12 hours, and then take him into the parking lot and slap him silly until he promises not to write any more awful self-involved essays.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
yes but those are war crimes. Or should be.
I want to like libraries, but they've never fit the way that I enjoy books. If I need something specific for a reason, they can be great, but my reading habits are based more around having a half dozen new books sitting on the shelf and picking up the one I want based on how I'm feeling at the very moment I need a new book. Putting in holds and setting a schedule around what I'm going to be reading for pleasure makes it feel like just another chore to me.
And like, I'm comfortable enough financially that none of this is an issue on that front. I like having my shelves and shelves full of books, because I like being able to pull something down to reference in conversation or lend to a friend or whatever. They are a thing which the mere presence of gives me pleasure. If those things aren't the case for you (or potentially even if they are), then of course the library is a better option.
I get to feel how I feel, you can feel how you feel. This idiot's inconsequential opinion really bothered me, where I am right now.
But like seriously check out what's happening at your library, the pandemic has accelerated a lot of changes at public libraries that were probably coming anyway. Mine (DC Public) has gotten rid of overdue fines entirely and we auto-renew everything on a patron's account unless someone else wants it and we offer 10 renewals so you can have a book out goddamn near forever before we want it back. My wife's had a rotating pile of 10-12 books on her nightstand since March and that could be your life too! Probably!
Coinage secret NYT columnist confirmed?
We're rolling out a curbside app on Monday!
Because of this I am not allowed to get a library card for the library next to the grocery store five minutes from my home.
And I'm petty and lazy and spiteful enough to refuse to have to drive to the actual library I'm permitted at as its at least 30 minutes away.
I know this feeling as my current home in [Directional Town] is about 30 feet away from the line with [Town], but I would need to pay a fee to get a library card from the much more well supported [Town] library. Fortunately, while [Directional Town] library is much smaller, it has access to the state online book subscriptions.
https://www.paypal.me/hobnailtaylor