That's crazy--I also teach high school English!  We're on The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged), but we do a Lord of the Flies unit earlier in the year, as well.  It's always a good time but yeah, pretty disturbing at times.  Seniors do a good job with that one (when they read it, and not the summary ?) and it's a pretty good unit.

Also, update!  I'm headed towards the halfway point of The Path of Daggers--it feels crazy to be past the halfway point of the story and it's still so rich and deliberate, and the building of the subplots towards the Last Battle is really fun to track.  Some surprises, too!

1 hour ago, Jeannaisais said:

Getting a Master's in English Lit took some time away from enjoyable reading - I've read so much 16th/17th century British Lit now, enough for a lifetime lol

It's tough to read for pleasure or escapism when you're reading for work or education.  The same thing happened to me when I did the M.A. thing in English (medieval lit) and it took a while to get back to feeling like I wanted to make time in a chair reading when, well, that's what you do when you study lit!  Fantasy was particularly tough because it's all sourced--to some extent--from Tolkien, which was all sourced from stuff on those syllabi...

1 hour ago, Jeannaisais said:

New paperback editions....*rushes to google this news* My hubby bought me the last three books as a Christmas gift in hardback, but the rest are in paperback. I need to remedy this soon.

They're very minimalist and uniform in their design, I thought very Game of Thrones-inspired with a solid color for each and the serpent wheel logo in varying locations, but altogether (the five I've finished at any rate!) they look super slick on the shelf.  I suppose it'd be nice to have all 15 of them in that new design, but the classic fantasy art is pretty amazing, too.

Also: I can't imagine wanting to wait for the June 30th ship date for the last box set to read the last two books...

22 hours ago, Jeannaisais said:

At this pace, you'll probably finish the series by the time quarantine's are fully lifted (if they ever are...?). Glad to have you here!

I'm reading the new paperback editions, and the fourth box set is out next week some time.  The last set isn't due until early July, so I ended up collecting all of the Sanderson books in HC as they'll go nicely on my shelf with the rest of his novels!  At this rate I can just keep going...and I'm enjoying them so much, that is the plan!

After years of hearing about The Wheel of Time with one my my closest friends, and being a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson (especially The Stormlight Archive) I suspended my entire reading list when my state went into social distancing (and stay-at-home) and decided that now is the time for this huge adventure.

It's going well, to say the least!  I'm clocking between 100-150 pages a day, and crossed the 350-page mark of Lord of Chaos this morning.  With each successive volume, my interest, investment, and the time I spend thinking about the world, characters, and plots when I'm not reading increases.  Aviendha is my favorite character thus far and I love the overall structure of the novels, with bunches of characters getting some good time before Jordan moves on to the next group and spins it forward.  The level of detail, and the fullness of the world, are astonishing.  While I was maybe expecting "slow" or "boring" or "dry" sections based on what I'd heard, and disclaimers that others have offered having read it (or bounced off), I haven't found that to be the case at all.  There's a fullness here that is unlike anything else I can remember reading.

I've read a lot of fantasy, like everybody here I assume, and I like it so much I got an M.A. in medieval literature about a decade ago.  I also like literary fiction and games of all kinds--especially KeyForge, which my wife and I are playing a lot of while at home for these months!