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Originally posted by Hectorjelly View PostI read two great books recently:
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
I really enjoyed this, I think I got about 80% of the plot, there were a few dream like sequences that went on for pages and pages, I was never quite sure what was real and what wasn't. Whenever I read a Russian novel I always feel like there is at least one part of the book designed to put off readers. That said, it's pretty funny, there are great lines about Jazz and Poetry. The central premise is that the devil comes to fiercely atheist Moscow, and the interplay between the supernatural Devil (and his cat) and the overly bureaucratic city.
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Anybody read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville?
Started it last night and a couple of chapters in am finding it very weird indeed, but strangely compelling!
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Originally posted by Hectorjelly View PostThree stigmata of palmer eldritch
A scanner darkly
Ubik
The man in the high castleOriginally posted by Hectorjelly View Post
Cheers HJ, especially since I was too lazy/forgetful to ever send that PM! That should keep me going for a while.
I since finished 'A Scanner Darkly', really loved it, so light hearted for most of it and yet so utterly bleak. I'm lead to believe most of what happened in the book is pretty much straight from his life, too."In the world, there are many kings but there is only one God. I am God, I am El Tren" :{)
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Originally posted by Sledgejammer View PostCheers HJ, especially since I was too lazy/forgetful to ever send that PM! That should keep me going for a while.
I since finished 'A Scanner Darkly', really loved it, so light hearted for most of it and yet so utterly bleak. I'm lead to believe most of what happened in the book is pretty much straight from his life, too.Turning millions into thousands
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Originally posted by Keane View PostAnybody read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville?
Started it last night and a couple of chapters in am finding it very weird indeed, but strangely compelling!
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Think I've mentioned author Mark Billingham and his DS Tom Thorne books before.
Very much like a London based Harry Bosch, the lead is a total fuck up but a tenacious copper, working amidst an under-resourced, inefficient and corrupt Metropolitan Police force. Recommended (warning thats it a set of books that should be read in order).
******
Billinghams latest has branched away from Tom Thorne for a standalone book.
3 happy and successful English couples have met at a holiday resort in Florida and had a fun 2 weeks together only slightly marred by the disappearance and subsequent death of a teenage girl in the holiday resort on the last day.
Back in Blighty one of the women has the always terrible idea of meeting up with the holiday friends. There follows a hellish Come Dine With Me setup, and we find out over the three meals that none of these three couples are quite as happy or successful as they made out in Florida, all have dark secrets and vices, and at least one may know quite a lot about the death of the girl.
Intriguing concept and 100 pages in I'm finding it very enjoyable in a 'not a lot happening but very tense' way.
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Originally posted by liz:) View Postoh no you have a kindle!!! i couldnt bring myself to read books on one,i love the whole,bookmark,smell of the paper,turning the page thing! i just realised im starting to sound like my mother
I didnt read all the jack reacher books in order,i started at 61 hours but didnt make a difference really.But i really wanna know when is he gonna get to feckin Virginia!!!
here , here and here but honestly, they are fucking brilliant.People say I should be more humble I hope they understand, they don't listen when you mumble
Get a shiny metal Revolut card! And a free tenner!
https://revolut.com/referral/jamesb8!G10D21
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Originally posted by 5starpool View PostAnyone here read the His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy? It's ostensibly a children's series, but meant to be good for adults as well. There was a (bad) film made of the first part recently, The Golden Compass, but it was not meant to be anything near as good as the book. I'm not sure why I'm contemplating reading it, but I saw it on a list somewhere and thought it looked somewhat interesting.Originally posted by eamonhonda View PostWhere you downloading your ebooks from?
I used to read loads before I had kids. And since I got my Nexus 7 and downloaded FBreader I have started reading books again. It all started with ebooks when the 50 Shades books came out and went on from there.
I have a decent enough library at the house, I was like Liz and swore I hated kindles etc. But since I now have loads of books I loved in the one place and can read where I want, I changed my mind.
I would have read Horror to Fantasy. Loved John Saul, Dean R Koontz etc and I decided to revisit the books from my childhood...
The Dragonlance books.
I loved them. I read them as a teen. They are adult fantasy. I did not know other books had been written since. I discovered there are loads. On one of my downloads there was a book called The Doom Brigade by Don Perrin and Margaret Weis.
I didn't think it was my thing, but gave it a bash anyway. I loved it. So much that I joined the local library for the second book Draconian Measures. It could not be got anywhere in ireland.
I ended up buying it through waterstones and thouroughly enjoyed it,.
For any fantasy lovers who did read the dragonlance books. This is a fantastic duology. Would recommend to anyone.
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Read Enders Game in the last few days. Good book but will be interested to see what they do with the film later in the year.
SPOILER
Half the book was like quaser in space, and since it was written so long ago but was set in the future the computing scenes seem clumsy by today's standards. I'd assume that will get changed quite a bit in the film.
Anyone here read the book thief? I'm thinking of reading that next.
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Giving this a look.
Madvertising: 1975-1985, the inside story of advertising wildest decade.
This is the book that gives you the naked varnished truth about the glamorous, cut-throat world of advertising in the 1980s, where the goals are money, sex, power, awards – and finding a great new place for lunch.
Everything is here, from the disaster behind the making of those familiar TV commercials to the bitchy in-fighting (‘The Orient Express leaves for Venice at noon. Be under it’); how to get in, how to get out, how to market Old Thames Water twenty-six classic ways; all the dark secrets of that strange trade, whose slogans and images are our modern myths. For, as Oscar Wilde said, ‘Only fools don’t judge by appearances.’
Plus! The slogans they couldn’t use (‘People are sticking to Kleenex’, ‘Hail Jaffa, King of the Juice’, ‘Fly to Bangkok and Phuket’), Great Hiccups and Cock-Ups, the Advertising Cost of Living Index, and much, much more can be found in this book from former ad man Martyn Forresterairport, lol
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Got around to reading the second Cicero book by Robert Harris - Lustrum. Actually liked it more than the first one which I thought fell off a bit towards the end.
I thought this one was going to as well and would have happily seen it end as a great novella at the end of theSPOILERCataline Conspiracybut it actually picked up again pretty well after a slight dip. Heartily recommended.
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I liked the book thief. Not light subject matter, but done very well imo. Currently reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep now as I've never read it before, or seen Blade Runner even (). Once again, a book written in the 60's and set in the future (2021 in this case I think) is ridiculously unrealistic in many ways. it'll be interesting to see though if the story in general goes the direction I think it will.
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Originally posted by ghostface View PostJust finished reading The Tiger's Wife, very well written but some bits were a bit over long.
Onto The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, really looking forward to it given some of his other stuff have read.
Just starting Elegy for April, one of the Dr Quirke series. I like them but don't think they have reached the heights I was hoping for after the debut.
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Originally posted by Pat Mustard View PostBack on night shift for 2 weeks. Need a couple of page turners to help me get through it. I've exhausted the Grisham, Patterson, Ludlum,W.Smith, King route ..some recommendations would be great. Thanks
Just kidding, based on that I'd recommend these. All of them are fast paced action books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_(novel)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_(novel)
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Originally posted by Pat Mustard View PostBack on night shift for 2 weeks. Need a couple of page turners to help me get through it. I've exhausted the Grisham, Patterson, Ludlum,W.Smith, King route ..some recommendations would be great. Thanks
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Finished The Player of Games by Iain Banks, thought it was good, borderline very good. Looking forward to reading more Culture stuff having only read Consider Phlebas up to now.
Also, finally got around to finishing the second Black Company book Shadows Linger by Glenn Cook. It's pretty damn superb.
Moved on to something pretty different for the moment, Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson which is pretty much a history of the English language. Only a couple of chapters in but so far it's up to his usual standard of engaging prose and is very enjoyable.
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Originally posted by Hectorjelly View PostI loved the player of games, have read it a few times.
I don't think i've read a bad culture book yet.
SPOILERDid anything of note happen after he got home?
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Originally posted by Keane View PostI think I didn't really pay attention at the end and it may have lost a bit of its punch. Still enjoyed it very, very much don't get me wrong! Would definitely recommend it.
SPOILERDid anything of note happen after he got home?SPOILERI don't think so, I don't even remember him getting home! I just remember him winning the game and destroying the evil empire
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Originally posted by ArmaniJeans View PostThink I've mentioned author Mark Billingham and his DS Tom Thorne books before.
Billinghams latest has branched away from Tom Thorne for a standalone book.
3 happy and successful English couples have met at a holiday resort in Florida and had a fun 2 weeks together only slightly marred by the disappearance and subsequent death of a teenage girl in the holiday resort on the last day.
Intriguing concept and 100 pages in I'm finding it very enjoyable in a 'not a lot happening but very tense' way.
It had me turning pages fairly quickly, I think I finished it in three or four sittings over a few days but I wouldn't be rushing back for more.
I'm not sure was it supposed to be a whodunnit? it was mostly structured as one, I thought it was a poor enough effort on that score
SPOILERIt was only ever going to be him until the twist at the third dinner from which point the outcome was obvious to anyone yet only the Cop in the car suspects it and he doesn't even say anything
It seemed to be a script ITV 80 minute one off drama (trivial to cast the stock character actors for each part) more than a novel.
If I was making for it TV I would tone down the whodunnit element by leaving in the narrative bits in the voice of the killer and then the tension will be in having the audience wondering how the hell that came about. Then the really important twistSPOILERthat there was no daughterworks a lot better.Turning millions into thousands
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Originally posted by TomD View PostJohn Connolly's Charlie Parker series is worth reading.Jayzus, Sheila! I forgot me feckin' trousers
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Originally posted by Strewelpeter View PostWas looking for a page turner for a bit of light relief after reading Cormac McCarthy's The Crodssing so I tried this.
It had me turning pages fairly quickly, I think I finished it in three or four sittings over a few days but I wouldn't be rushing back for more.
I'm not sure was it supposed to be a whodunnit? it was mostly structured as one, I thought it was a poor enough effort on that score
SPOILERIt was only ever going to be him until the twist at the third dinner from which point the outcome was obvious to anyone yet only the Cop in the car suspects it and he doesn't even say anything
It seemed to be a script ITV 80 minute one off drama (trivial to cast the stock character actors for each part) more than a novel.
If I was making for it TV I would tone down the whodunnit element by leaving in the narrative bits in the voice of the killer and then the tension will be in having the audience wondering how the hell that came about. Then the really important twistSPOILERthat there was no daughterworks a lot better.
The unnamed 'cop in the car' is Tom Thorne, who is the lead in most of Billinghams other books (books I'd still recommend btw for anyone who likes Harry Bosch, Jack Caffrey, Charlie Parker stuff). Why he didn't say anything
is very minor spoilerSPOILERloss of self-belief, general lack of confidence after previous 'gut instinct' disasters.
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Originally posted by skpmn View PostIve just finished The Professor,the Banker,and the Suicide King by Michael Craig.A detailed insight into the biggest poker game ever played in Vegas.Compulsive reading.I started,and couldnt put it down until I finished.X can be anything, any number, that is what’s CRAZY about X.
Because X doesn’t roll like that, because X can’t be pinned down!
$ Free Travel Credit with Airbnb $
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Just finished reading a series of crime novels that are probably now my favourite of the genre.
They are the Jack Irish novels written by Peter temple.
I'd previously read the Broken Shore by Temple which was superior crime fiction and had queued these up but it was only recently when I heard they were being made as a TV series that I decided to have a go at them before that came around.
The protagonist is a semi practicing Melbourne based lawyer who spends most of his time operating more like a PI for a dubiously connected businessman, as a bagman for an ex Jockey and his associate whose business is organising horse racing coups. He also cooks a lot, enjoy's fine wine, goes to Aussie rules games with a bunch of 'oul lads. and in his spare time is serving an apprenticeship to a geriatric cabinet maker.
Like the best crime novels the plot is just there to take us from scene to scene. He does let the plots get a bit over elaborate with a few too many characters but they are compelling and carry you along nicely. The writing is really excellent full of sharp Australian wit and a really sharp modern take on character and location. He even manages to make Melbourne sound as cold, miserable and wet as Ireland in winter!
The biggest failing i found with the books is that reading them one after another you quickly realise that they are closer to re writes than new novels. This wouldn't be nearly such a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that I read them one after another and in just a few weeks. I did think though that having all four plots revolve around corruption in property development was a weakness and that he may have been able to develop the series further if he'd explored other angles, these were all written between '99 and '03 and he's only published two other novels since.
With the horse racing, the football fan elements and the droll humor this lad would fit right in in our BBV and there is a lot about these that I expect will appeal to the likes of us!
I'm looking forward to the TV series which stars Guy Pearce as Irish.Turning millions into thousands
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Been reading City of Bohane by Kevin Barry.
Tl;Dr
Just read it.
On the surface as a novel there doesn't seem a lot to it, I'm not great at deconstructing these things I'm not sure where exactly but we have all read this story before. Gangster leader under threat from young guns plays at war and politics dealing with a matriarch, the media and civil society all the while struggling to prove and retain the love of his woman. The structure and plot isn't all that far from what you'd expect from a cowboy story or an Elmore leonard yarn.
Civil society! Is there even one going on here? Where are we and what sort of a world is this? We are told that the year is 2058 and the location is a city in the West of Ireland. You'll not get anywhere trying to locate it on the map. Other towns vaguely exist but they are distant, across the big nothing which seems only to be traversed by foot. If its science fiction or fantasy its not as we know it, the only reference is to the lost time somewhere between now and then. There are record players and records, films and some imported goods, there is at least some electricity but no hint of a transistor in any way shape or form. There are trams maybe even trains but no cars.
None of this future as nostalgia matters a jot except to give permission to the author to improvise a dialect, a sort of bog patwa that is a virtuoso concoction of Hardy Bucks meets a traveller bare knuckle fight call out video meets Burgess's Droogs with a decent shkelp of Tom Waits and Flann O'Brien thrown in for good measure. Some of it is hilarious some beautiful, each character has their own tone and every voice works brilliantly.
Its not just in the dialog that Barry's writing shines he moves the action along punctuating it with wry observations as he fleshes the central characters out into recognisable forms that we can to varying degrees find sympathetic.
It is a mad concoction of slang, visceral violence, opium dens, weed and hoors as currency with characters dressed in a dazzling array of clothes including all manner of boots, mink fur coats and goatskin caps.
Here we meet Fucker Burke
Fucker wore:Silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin. He was tall and straggly as an invasive weed. He was astonishingly sentimental, and as violent again. His belligerent green eyes were strange flowers indeed. He was seventeen years of age and he read magical significance into occurrences of the number nine. He had ambition deep inside but could hardly even name it. His true love: an unpredictable Alsatian bitch name of Angelina
Black patent high-tops, tight bleached denims with a matcher of a waistcoat, a high dirk belt, and a navy Crombie with a black velvet collar. Wolfie was low-sized, compact, ginger, and he thrummed with dense energies. He had a blackbird’s poppy-eyed stare, thyroidal, and if his brow was no more than an inch deep, it was packed with an alley rat’s cunning. He was seventeen, also, and betrayed, sometimes, by odd sentiments under moonlight. He wanted to own entirely the city of Bohane. His all-new, all-true love: Miss Jenni Ching of the Hartnett Fancy and the Ho Pee Ching Oh-Kay Koffee Shoppe
Having just put it down I realise now that it took an age to finish because I tried to savour every paragraph. Its the kind of book that makes it hard to start another one, I think maybe the only place to go now is to the audio book version read by the author.Turning millions into thousands
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Originally posted by Hitchhiker's Guide To... View PostA new Bill Bryson book out!!! Could barely hold the breadth while amazon was taking its few seconds wirelessly delivering his latest bit of genius: http://www.amazon.com/One-Summer-Ame...=UTF8&sr=&qid=
At the moment I'm reading:
- The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux (first book I've read of his, after he was recommended here, am halfway though and enjoying it)
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (2/3rds through this, easy read but am not really impressed so far, the narrative style seems very simplistic, almost more like a 'young-adult' book than anything else)
Recently finished:
- At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (was worthwhile reading this, but I wouldn't do it again - some passages were a bit of a slog. A Confederacy of Dunces really lifted a lot of ideas from this as 'inspiration'!)
- The Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaimen (enjoyable enough)
- Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by Jon Ronson (as recommended by Hitch, really enjoyable stuff)
- Strumpet City by James Plunkett (Dublin's book of the year, it was a great read, can't believe I left it so long)
- Civilization: The West and The Rest by Niall Ferguson (some good stuff, but as I've studied a lot of history myself I can see where he was just lazy and went with the simplest (or worse, more convenient) assumptions)
- The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (nice easy read, as much fun as the previous two in the series)Last edited by ionapaul; 25-10-13, 08:40.
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Originally posted by ionapaul View PostCould you recommend your favourite Bill Bryson books please? I've only read A Short History of Nearly Everything.
At the moment I'm reading:
- The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux (first book I've read of his, after he was recommended here, am halfway though and enjoying it)
- Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (2/3rds through this, easy read but am not really impressed so far, the narrative style seems very simplistic, almost more like a 'young-adult' book than anything else)
Recently finished:
- At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (was worthwhile reading this, but I wouldn't do it again - some passages were a bit of a slog. A Confederacy of Dunces really lifted a lot of ideas from this as 'inspiration'!)
- The Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaimen (enjoyable enough)
- Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by Jon Ronson (as recommended by Hitch, really enjoyable stuff)
- Strumpet City by James Plunkett (Dublin's book of the year, it was a great read, can't believe I left it so long)
- Civilization: The West and The Rest by Niall Ferguson (some good stuff, but as I've studied a lot of history myself I can see where he was just lazy and went with the simplest (or worse, more convenient) assumptions)
- The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson (nice easy read, as much fun as the previous two in the series)
. Also the lost continent about america. Also have neither here nor there where he retraces his travles in europe as a student 20 years before he wrote the book.
Books are in galway but ill be home in next two weeks.
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I've gone back to yet another re-read of Gardens of the Moon.
This will be possibly my fifth time reading it, definitely planning on getting through the entire Malazan series this time!
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I finished The Fall of Hyperion last night - Keane, was it you who recommended it here?
It was AWESOME! One of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read, can't recommend it (and the first book in the series) highly enough, I usually take a big break between books in series but am really thinking about diving straight into Endymion.
Also reading Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Only 90 pages in so far, the 'story' is a little slow to get going but enjoyable none-the-less. Mainly vanilla history and natural science so far.
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Originally posted by ionapaul View PostI finished The Fall of Hyperion last night - Keane, was it you who recommended it here?
It was AWESOME! One of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read, can't recommend it (and the first book in the series) highly enough, I usually take a big break between books in series but am really thinking about diving straight into Endymion.
Also reading Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Only 90 pages in so far, the 'story' is a little slow to get going but enjoyable none-the-less. Mainly vanilla history and natural science so far.
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Originally posted by Keane View PostI've gone back to yet another re-read of Gardens of the Moon.
This will be possibly my fifth time reading it, definitely planning on getting through the entire Malazan series this time!
Originally posted by ionapaul View PostI finished The Fall of Hyperion last night - Keane, was it you who recommended it here?
It was AWESOME! One of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read, can't recommend it (and the first book in the series) highly enough, I usually take a big break between books in series but am really thinking about diving straight into Endymion.
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Re Endymion, they're very different in pace, story, even feel if that makes sense, but it's difficult not to love everything about them due to the characters and even more phenomenal planets and settings in this incredible universe.Last edited by shrapnel; 25-11-13, 19:39.
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Originally posted by Hitchhiker's Guide To... View PostSounds good. Was looking for a book so must give that a go. Isn't Hyperion the first book in the series, not Fall of Hyperion? (just based on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Cantos)
Originally posted by shrapnel View Postas previously said, this is one of my favorite sci fi series of all time. just incredible.
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Originally posted by ionapaul View PostYep, Hyperion is the first and is AWESOME
Maybe it was you who recommended it so - thanks so much, love the first two! Am really hoping the second two are as great.
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Originally posted by shrapnel View Posti've read 2 now and absolutely love the series, but it's a tough gig to get through them. will ge through the series but you definitely need breaks in between books.
Originally posted by shrapnel View Postas previously mentioned, this is one of my favorite sci fi series of all time. just incredible.
Re Endymion, they're very different in pace, story, even feel if that makes sense, but it's difficult not to love everything about them due to the characters and even more phenomenal planets and settings in this incredible universe.
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