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Many very good and important books are not page turners. They demand considerate and careful reading. Often, they are very interesting, but the reader cannot rush through the book and may stop to think about what is being said. Do we agree, do we disagree, have we experienced what the author is saying?
Other books are what I call page turners that cannot be laid down easily. I have read some books in a series almost as fast as I can turn the pages. I need to know what happened and I don’t realize how time is passing while I am absorbed in the story.
So many questions race through my brain as I read these adventure packed books.
- How will the problem be solved?
- How will the characters react to what is happening?
- How will they escape the trap?
- Who will rescue them?
- Where will they go next?
- Can they avoid a new danger?
- Who is the traitor?
The books of the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell are space operas and I found them riveting.
The Lost Fleet:
Dauntless
Fearless
Courageous
Valiant
Relentless
Victorious
The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier:
Dreadnaught
Invincible
Guardian
Steadfast
Leviathan
The historical fiction story Zemindar by Valerie Fitzgerald is interesting, but not a page turner in the way of Jane Austen’s stories. It takes place in India in 1856 and 1857 during the Sepoy Mutiny. It was very well researched and colorful. The heroine seemed cold to me, a Mary Sue of sorts, who is always right. At first I was glad that she was strong-minded and capable, but that wore off.
The book has been compared to Far Pavilions by Kaye and I have to say that I prefer Far Pavilions, but I learned a lot. There is a real attempt to show what caused the mutiny, also.
Small books can take a long time to read if they are painful. The Chimes by Anna Smaill was one of those. There was no need to rush so I read a little bit and then I rested. It hurt the heart to read about the people living without memories. They had no way to read or write anymore. Only a few people were memory keepers who tried to fight the Order.
Not a page turner and yet I kept reading because I cared about the main characters who were risking their lives trying to act, to fight back.
The non-fiction book The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is a hefty book, but it is a page turner. The true stories about real people are heart-breaking and very interesting. I highly recommend it.
I re-read The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. It had been so many years that it was new to me. Dr. Lori had mentioned doing the book here at DKos so I decided to get started. I had remembered years ago that it took me a long time to get into the story, but not so this time. I realized this time that I was meeting the suspects of the story and they are all very different monks.
Many people would not call this story a page turner and yet now that I am much older than the first time I read it, I found it fascinating. Mostly, I was intrigued by the narrator and the main protagonist. I really liked Brother William and Adso and I enjoyed listening to them talk with each other. I realized that the two characters were looking for different things in the story. Brother William was tasked with discovering a murderer and when he was told to stop looking, he continued on. William is so finely drawn earlier in the story that it does not surprise us in the least.
Adso, on the other hand, a novice of a different order than William, is trying to understand William and of course his own self and his place in the world of 1327 where Louis, the Holy Roman Emperor, is dealing with Pope John II residing in Avignon.
That the setting is an Abby with a labyrinthine library off limits to all is the clincher that kept me reading.
I have not seen the movie so I don’t know how much it sticks to the story.
I realize we may disagree about which books are page turners or even to the term. Gripping adventure might be better.
What are your favorite page turners?
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