I didn’t really know what was meant by this one, normally you get a bit of a prompt to give you some clues. I was going to do recommendations based on a single books, but I hate seeing things like that, you know when you see on book descriptions and you see the phrase ‘fans of… will love this’. I don’t like people saying I will like one thing based on the fact I liked something else. Sure, there is a chance I will, but it is not guaranteed. So, then I decided I will pick a topic and give recommendations based on that.
I recently read Catching Jordan, and it reminded how much I love football in books, and sport in general, and so I’ve decided to give you ten (or as many as I have) book recommendations for fans of sport in books. I’m talking about those who love sports films but the ide of watching on actual game of anything fills them with dread in reality. So, basically, they’re for the ones who like the idea of sport, as long as it comes heavy on people and other things or romance.
(American) Football
All Lined Up – Cora Carmack And all the Rusk University series, these books are great because they have spot in them, but I am obviously reading them for the romance.
Rush Me – Allison Parr For those who want romance but are going in with a cynical and negative view of football and it’s players, because this book is very good at changing your mind.
Catching Jordan – Miranda Kenneally And the rest of the Hundred Oak series, because I hear there are other sport type books in the series. These are for the YA fan who wants less of the romance, but more of the high school people drama.
Shut Out – Kody Keplinger For those who want some sporting rivalry between the football and ‘soccer’ team resembling West Side Story but don’t actually want to read too much about actual sport.
Nowhere But Home – Liza Palmer For those who loved Friday Night Lights and want an adult perspective of living in a football town when football holds interest only in the fact family is involved.
The One & Only – Emily Giffin Another recommendation for Friday Night Lights fans (or I’m guessing) because this is on my TBR list too.
Dancing/Gymnastics/The Circus?
The Hit List – Nikki Urang For fans of Step Up, because it’s a good film okay and dance school drama is always fun.
Amour Amour – Krista & Becca Ritchie For those who love gymnastics and dancing and dreamt about joining the circus until they realised how totally impractical that is.
Those Other Sports Like Football (Soccer For You Heathens) And MMA and All that Jazz
Scoring Wilder – RS Grey For those who have lusted over their coach, that sexy guy on the football team, or any sports player really.
The Year We Fell Down – Sarina Bowen For those who know about set backs in life, also on my TBR list.
And that’s my list of books. It’s a bit eclectic, I know, but hopefully those interested in a good sports related romance novel will find something to interest you.
I know most of you probably won’t appreciate this, but we have had some of the nicest weather in the past couple of days here in the Midlands. It actually felt like spring yesterday when I went down town. It may not sound like much, but it has felt like winter has lasted oh so long here. For a glimpse of spring to finally arrive has been refreshing. It also motivated me to do some spring cleaning yesterday, I gutted my bedroom, dusted, vacuumed, finally got a round to putting my mountain of clothes away. I even went so far as to get rid of unnecessary things, like clothes I’ve not worn in over a year, and books I’ve probably not looked at since returning from university. I felt like it was a very productive afternoon, even if it is not really the thing you expect someone to be doing when it’s nice out, but I would totally be a hermit if at all possible.
I have been in less of a reading slump the past week, my read count has gone up, although that was probably helped by the fact I read a couple of graphic novels. It’s been nice, though, when I wasn’t reading much I didn’t feel like blogging much because I had no new books to talk about, but now I’ve read a bit more I want to talk a bit more, so I’m hoping to get a couple of posts up this week. It’s strange how when you’re not reading it can affect your blog a bit, but that is a discussion for another time.
Anyway, not only have I been reading, I’ve also been buying books, so please see below for my reading and buying adventures.
New To Me
The Book Of Life – Deborah Harkness
Catching Jordan - Miranda Kenneally
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin
Lessons in Love – Clarissa Carlyle
More Than Music – Elizabeth Briggs
The Body Electric – Beth Revis
What I’ve Been Reading
The Wicked + The Divine – Kieron Gillen, Jamie Mckelvie, Matt Wilson
Serenity: Leaves on the Wind – Zack Whedon
Catching Jordan - Miranda Kenneally
And that is me for this week. I will see you next week with some new posts.
I know it sounds like a stupid thing to say, it appears to have such an obvious answer after all. It is common knowledge that the film never has anything on the book. You can often achieve a very decent adaptation which fans of the book can respect and enjoy, but due to the time constraints of a film, inevitably they miss out one of your favourite scenes as it is not essential to the story, even though it may have been essential to you enjoyment of the book. When this happens, it stops you from enjoying the film as much as you want. There is also he issue of casting, whilst casting choices can be good, they never completely match your won minds creation, someone is always left disappointed.
I think some of my favourite book to film adaptations are Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit, and I think that is only because they are far easier to watch than reading the books. The Hobbit was an amazing adaptation as throughout the three films it keeps your attention, and due to it being adapted into a trilogy it managed to keep all the significant details of the books. Lord of The Rings on the other hand edited out a lot, but we managed to avoid the excruciating detail of the books that was really unnecessary, even if a lot of events got missed.
TV shows, on the other hand, have every chance of doing a book justice, simply due to fact they are not limited by time, they can explore a world, it’s characters, and various storylines. This is perfectly demonstrated by The Outlander TV show. I only have half a series to base this opinion on, but there is pretty much the entire first half of the book there for the taking, very few things were missed out in the adaptation. There are some liberties taken, but as a whole it has been done well.
Other television network have taken a different approach, as shown by TV shows like The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl and The 100 where they have taken complete liberties with the book and it should really be said that they are inspired by the books rather than an adaptation. Yet, all of these book series I have read, and I actually prefer the TV series to the books! I’m not saying the books didn’t have their good points, but the television writers have managed to flesh out the basic storylines into a long and in depth TV series that are both addictive and entertaining. The premise of the books have been adapted and expended into something completely different.
Am I saying we should stop doing film adaptations of books and stick with making TV shows, hell no. I’m just saying I’ve a better experience with TV shows, but the flaw of TV shows is that the network is inevitably out to make money and will drag the show out for far longer than they should, they do not end it at a good point, they will instead carry it on too long until people lose interest. At least with films there is a definite end point to aim for, they cannot kill it by stretching it too far. It’s just sometimes a film adaptation can be pretty bad, as shown by the films Divergent, it was a good adaptation, but I was bored watching it. I felt nothing whilst watching it, and I couldn’t have cared less about the characters.
Basically, the entire point of all this is to say that I do think a TV show or film can really do justice to the book, can I claim that they are better? In some cases, but my default answer will still always be no, because whilst there are exceptions to the rule, the rule is that the book is always best.
The Broke and The Bookish have proposed a fairly easy theme this week, the most difficulty I will have is narrowing my selection down to just ten. It helps that we are going with books from the past three years, although I have read some of my favourite book in the past three years, I’m trying to go with some of my more recent reads.
Poison Study Maria V Snyder; Angelfall Susan Ee; The Winner’s Curse Marie Rutkoski; Graceling Kristin Cashore
Throne of Glass Sarah J Maas; The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern
Fangirl Rainbow Rowell; Just One Day Gayle Forman; Since You’ve Been Gone Morgan Matson; Maybe Someday Colleen Hoover
I’ve got more fantasy reads in my favourites than other genres, I know, but that is where my leanings lie, despite the fact I consume romance like nobodies business, those books I enjoy, but they are not the books I will always be thinking about, those are fantasy novels predominantly. Anyway, these are the books I kept thinking about after reading because I adored them.
It is time for round two of Author Appreciation with Kaja and myself. Please go check out Kaja’s blog, I’m sure her post will be more coherent as I am writing my thoughts on little sleep and after consuming vast amounts of chocolate whilst being harassed by on over excited dog.
This month Kaja and I are enthusing over the wonderful author Sarah J Maas and how how much we love her writing. Really, if you have not already fallen in love with her and her books there is still time to be get reading, especially since she has a new book out in May, which I’ve read! It is awesome, you should have A Court of Thorns and Roses preordered and read it as soon as you can because it is crazy good.
When did you first discover this author?
I discovered Sarah J Maas because of book blogs, this was before I started mine. I think it was from when I first discovered book blogs, in fact. I was looking for a new fantasy read, I think. I know I was definitely browsing for something to read and people were talking about this book, so I checked it out on Amazon and the first book was less then a £1 on kindle, that is always a dead giveaway I’ll buy a book, cheap is always a must buy for me. Anyway, I must have been going through a slump, I distinctly remember feeling book restless and couldn’t decide what to read, thus going to book blogs for ideas, I started reading and I feel like I just read the book solid with no breaks and it was beautiful. The second book was due to come out not long after and I bought all the little prequel novellas to get me through until it’s release and then devoured Crown of Midnight when that was released and then I have yet to read the third book because I feel like, at this point, I may as well reread closer to the next books release so I can read them all back to back, but we will see how that goes.
What's your favourite book by them?
I think it might have to be Crown of Midnight, because that’s when things really crack off in the Throne of Glass series (I mean, I haven’t read Heir of Fire… still, so I don’t really know if that one is even better). I almost said Assassins Blade, though, because it’s a collection of short stories that avoid some of the utter angst that happens in the Throne of Glass series is pretty fantastic, and back story is always good. But Crown of Midnight is fantastic because it reveals so much about the characters and the story truly starts to develop in that book, it’s where all the storylines really truly begin. Things only hinted at in the first book suddenly burst out and you finally realise Maas had such a good plan.Which book by this author would you recommend to others out of all their books and why?
I think I would have to say Throne of Glass, because you read that and think you’re getting a fun and easy fantasy novel that is not too difficult, and you do, but then you get so many hints to so much more that you find yourself committed and needing to read it all. And so you read the books and the little prequels and you commit yourself to this world, until you start raging because you were expecting a nice trilogy, because that is the YA thing, but it is in fact an actual series and you hate and love it in equal measure. Or that is how I felt.
I really would recommend Throne of Glass if you haven’t read any of Maas’s books, considering she has only done two series it is difficult to recommend anything else, but Throne of Glass is such an easy book to read, at least it was for me. I feel like A Court of Thorns and Roses was a more difficult read, it’s harder to connect with the characters, but if you like fantasy novels and fairytales, it is an excellent read.
And those are my thoughts on Sarah J Maas, a woman who is one of my favourite authors. I will forever be willing to read anything she writes because I know I’m guaranteed an exciting read with an original take on things. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this, and will read her books if you haven’t done so already. If you wish to join Kaja and I in our love for Maas please feel free to answer the questions and post a link in the comments because I would love to read about it.
Next month is a freebie week, whilst Kaja and I are very in sync with our author loving, without being the same person, we are not always going to share all the same authors to love, thus we allow ourselves a month to go wild and free with our own choices. Next month we shall be posting about any old author we fancy, so feel free to join in with your won favourite author as well.
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