I don't think the thread got resurrected.....please merge if I missed it :)
Well, over Christmas I've read a variety of utter trash. I decided to work my way through the kindle 'bestsellers' list in order to hopefully find something new and interesting. All it actually did was confirm I don't like popular books.
1. Follow you Home - Mark Edwards. Really awful thriller story with an even worse ending. It was oddly gripping though and I did read it very quickly so the pain was at least short.
2. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr. A novel set in WW2 about a blind girl and a young German. It was fairly decent and again very easy to read but I just felt it was about 200 pages too long.
3. Mr Mercedes - Stephen King. Probably one of the better King books and again very quick to read so worth it if you have an evening to kill.
4. The Last Letter from Your Lover - Jo Jo Moyes. Now I'd heard of JJ Moyes as she's very popular but why oh why.....utter trash, dull, mindnumbing, easily the worst book I've read in a while.
5. The Lady in the Van - Alan Bennet. This was actually an entertaining little read, very short and am unsure how they've got enough material from it to make a film. It has made me want to see the movie to find out though.
6. Someone to Save You - Paul Pilkington. Awful - don't even bother. Actually I take it back, the JJ Moyes one wasn't the worst. This was. Awful story, badly written and very predictable.
Nothing high-brow here. My latest book is James P. Hogan's Mission to Minerva. I didn't like it as well as I did some of his earlier books. He needed an editor.
I'm starting James S. A. Corey's Leviathan Wakes. It's also low brow entertainment, but I realized that I need to read some contemporary science fiction to help with my own novel. I won't be stealing, but just getting an idea of mood and action and how they explain (and use) technology is important.
I got a load of books for Xmas and am slowly working my way thru them, in between fighting a miserable cold that's apparently going around everywhere.
So far I've read:
The Natural History of Selbourne, by Gilbert White. Not part of the Xmas haul, but finished during this time. It's a wonderful book, charming and fascinating even tho it took me 2 and a half months to finish.
If on a winter's night a traveler, by Italo Calvino. Possibly the strangest novel I have ever read, but funny and brilliant. I plan to start reading his other books.
No Man's Nightingale, by Ruth Rendell. Mystery about a CoE vicar who is found strangled in her home. I didn't care for this, which surprised me because I used to be very fond of Rendell's novels but this one I found tedious and the various characters unbelievable.
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, by Karen Russell. A collection of short stories, not as interesting as those in her earlier "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" but very readable, esp. the more fantastic ones, like a minotaur's family heading west during the great migration, and the title story about nuns trying to humanize the children of werewolves.
Recently finished one of Colin Dexter's "Morse" novels. I've watched the TV series on and off since the early 90s, but had never got one of the books. A rather different feel to the book, since at least some of the time the reader gets a peek into what Morse is thinking. If I had to explain the difference, I suppose I'd say that the Morse character seemed a bit less dignified. I liked Dexter's writing style, though.
Last book I read was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I really enjoy his books and talks as he has a view of the world that is highly analytical and interesting.
Latest trashy instalment: 'How I Lost You' by Jenny Blackhurst. Another 99p bargain book from the kindle bestseller list but this one is actually quite good. It is a genuine page turner and I had to read it in one sitting last night, the story is a little odd and not very believable but she has mastered the art of writing a decent creepy thriller.
I just read Stealheart and Mistborn, both by Brandon Sanderson, I liked both of them.
Just read an interesting thing about tensions between Iran and UAE and the escalation thereof. Granted, it wasn't exactly a book or anything of the sort, but still... Interesting reading in this doomed world of ours.
Finally read The Invisible Man -- had no idea it was so funny.
I just finished : Voices In The Ocean. A journey into the wild and haunting world of the Dolphins. More than we ever imagined about Cetaceans is in the book. Their brains are larger than ours, they are emotional animals. They are brilliant, co-operative tacticians, their radar/sonar systems make ours look like kiddy toys. They have some traits that mirror human ones, not the least of which is that the males are constantly horny. Fascinating stuff.
Finished Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro. Ishiguro is the king of sad -- this is the third book of his I've read and the others both deal with lost chances and wrong turns in life, but this one is about people without even the ability to make their own mistakes, people whose grim life and early death is determined by others with nothing they can do to change or escape it. Having written that, it is a good book and I found it hard to put down regardless of the sadness.
Spoiler
Clones bred to be used as organ donors
is the plot, for those who won't read the book or don't mind spoilers.
Here's something interesting, tho I'm not sure I'd buy one: Murakami in 3D (https://www.thereadingroom.com/article/waterstones-brings-you-murakami-in-3d/1562)
I just finished Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, I've had it for a few years, but I've finally been working through my book queue this year. Read 22 books so far this year.
Waded through Rutherfurd's London (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92160.London). At over 1,000 pages of small type, like all his books it's rather formidable. I caught a few outright historical inaccuracies, which I hadn't noticed so much in previous books of his that I've read, but overall I'd rate it just below The Forest (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92159.The_Forest), which is my favorite of his books that I've read so far.
Into the middle of Elephant Complex. Travels in Sri Lanka. Fascinating stuff. Not so much about elephants as it is about the Sri Lanka culture, the Tamils and the other groups. A democracy with a lingering caste system.
So far this year, I have read 100 books. Now I am in the middle of The Big Book of Amber, all 10 books of the Amber Chronicles compiled into one volume. It is in the neighborhood of 1300 pages.
Finished Culloden (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/578884.Culloden). Though there is an excellent description of the battle, most of the book is about the aftermath. Both of the royals involved, "Charlie" and "Billy" come off very very poorly, but I don't think my opinion of either of them can get much lower. The details of the viciousness of the post-battle reprisals against the Scots were something I hadn't learned about before, but only knew of in general terms. Not a happy making book, except perhaps for a morbid hater of Scotland. However, on the whole it is very well written.
The book is well worth reading, and so is The Highland Clearances which deals with the next stage of the oppression. Prebble is Canadian and less obsessed with the military aspects, but there are many good histories of the lead-up to the rebellion.
Quote from: Velma on June 05, 2016, 04:41:30 AM
So far this year, I have read 100 books. Now I am in the middle of The Big Book of Amber, all 10 books of the Amber Chronicles compiled into one volume. It is in the neighborhood of 1300 pages.
Wow,that is a coincidence. I'm [re-]reading all Amber books as well on my Kindle. Roger Zelazny was an awesome writer.
Quote from: Tom62 on June 05, 2016, 12:18:52 PM
Quote from: Velma on June 05, 2016, 04:41:30 AM
So far this year, I have read 100 books. Now I am in the middle of The Big Book of Amber, all 10 books of the Amber Chronicles compiled into one volume. It is in the neighborhood of 1300 pages.
Wow,that is a coincidence. I'm [re-]reading all Amber books as well on my Kindle. Roger Zelazny was an awesome writer.
Yes he is, although I only just discovered him last year. I have no idea how I had not known about him before.
Stephen Baxter, he's rubbish, I don't know what Sainted Terry was doing consorting with him.
I read two of his Victorian era steam punk stilted ye oldie English turds.
I reread War and Peace, well it's been 35 years and your supposed to reread but I don't think you necessarily should, time is growing short. Napoleon wasn't such a genius, once battle starts it's who runs first. Lots of waste of space characters. I think it probably did mean something to me, it's contentions incorporated maybe, it's just dull now though. I got it from a book fair, Tolstoy is cheap per kg, I put the leaner Dostoevskys back, you can get them both from Gutenberg anyway. I've got Anna Karenina, I might, I most probably will reread her.
Patrick O'Brian, he's a modern writer, he is dead but he carked it in a recent decade.
He writes of Napoleonic era English sailors in a ye oldie fashion but he does it to perfection.
I'm not Old Git so I wasn't alive back then, I don't know if the language is quite right, it's gorgeous though.
Pratchet does clever funny things with the language, I love him for it. But once he get into the pages he gets a bit plain. Patrick's books are just the most completest thing.
I posted about O'Brian couple of years back, probably do it again in 18, once the Alzheimer's sets in it'll be every Thursday.
I've been reading Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay (that name CAN'T be real!!!) after reading The Lions of Al-Rassan this year and River of Stars last fall. He writes very well and maintains enough continuity between history and fantasy to keep the story interesting without seeming silly. There's just a touch of magic in each of his books I've read but it works well with the story.