05-09-2010, 12:36 | #601 |
Rocket Fuel
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Adrift in the Orca
Posts: 6,845
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I read that when I was about 14, I think it might be time to revisit it...
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06-09-2010, 13:27 | #602 |
Absinthe
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Mostly Oxford, Sometimes Bristol
Posts: 1,156
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I found Dune in a charity shop a few weeks ago and plan on reading it soon. I think I read Heretics of Dune back in my teens and it was a bit over my head.
I've just finished Twilight Watch. I'm always amazed at how Sergei Lukyanenko manages to go from fairly low-key and almost humdrum moments to pyrotechnic clashes within a few sentences. More than keeps to the standard of Night Watch and Day Watch. Before that was Cloud Atlas. Not David Mitchell's best and I can't decide whether his choice of telling half a story from a number of different protagonists and then returning later to finish the other half with a 'thread' linking one half-story to the next is really clever or really gimicky. Or maybe it can be both - a clever gimick.
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Get old, or die tryin' PSTEWREVIEWS - Chunks of Meaty Reviews, Mixed with Your Five a Day of News, Comment and Opinion, Floating in a Broth of Suspect Grammar and Seasoned Liberally with Mixed Metaphor. Tasty. |
09-09-2010, 01:36 | #603 |
Long Island Iced Tea
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Southampton
Posts: 211
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Just finished Awkward Situations For Men by Danny Wallace. More of a collection of his Shortlist columns up until fatherhood neared but still a damn funny read like I've come to expect from DW.
Also managed to read the entire The Children of Hurin on a megabus from London. Nice twist & really good way to get me into more of Tolkien's other Middle Earth stuff. Definitely buying a few more soon. The Silmarillion comes to mind. My **** Life So Far Frankie Boyle's bio is next on my list to start as I picked it up in Asda for £3m awesome!
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British by law, Scottish by birth, Highlander by the grace of God.............Alba gu Braith My Papa - 31/12/28 - 25/1/2011 Goodnight old man, I'll miss you |
09-09-2010, 02:47 | #604 |
Preparing more tumbleweed
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Hawaii
Posts: 6,038
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Dune is great. Frankly the rest rather much goes downhill. He lost track of various ideas, realised he certain ideas would kill almost any plot.. and then got extremely weird.
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Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"? |
09-09-2010, 06:49 | #605 |
L'Oréal
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Portsmouth
Posts: 9,977
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Currently reading Fire by Kristin Cashore - I had gone in to waterstones for 2 other books, seen this and read the back, but was "behaving" so put it back. Got to the counter to find they were doing a 3 for 2 on all fiction so went and picked it back up again.
Really loving it so far |
09-09-2010, 07:26 | #606 |
Preparing more tumbleweed
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Hawaii
Posts: 6,038
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I'm being rather geeky at the moment.
Learning Python and Algorithms in a Nutshell both from O'Reilly media. Former is a language I've been meaning to pick up, and mostly I'm just reading it rather than trying to actually use it. The latter is intended as a resource to give me something to do with the former by way of additional learning exercises. Its impractical to use python for stuff at work at the moment because it would take too long when I can do it far faster in perl.
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Mal: Define "interesting"? Wash: "Oh, God, oh, God, we're all gonna die"? |
09-09-2010, 17:41 | #607 |
Goes up to 11!
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 4,577
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Stephenie Meyer - The Host
I didn't realise until recently that this is the author of the twilight series. Well it starts off good, alien invasion with parasitic life forms that take over control of the host. We follow the story of one specific parasite and the conflicting emotions that the "host" gives to her. Well in a nutshell it starts off interesting and then rapidly descends into a full blown mushy love story. At this point the story stops, nothing about the rest of the planet is explored at all. Granted there are a few little tiffs but considering the whole planet has been bloody enslaved, it's rather pointless. Never read a book of hers before and certainly won't bother reading another. Could be your thing though if you are after a mushy book. 2/10 |
02-10-2010, 11:35 | #608 |
Provider of sensible advice about homosexuals
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: London
Posts: 2,615
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Forgotten to update this for a while but the last three I can remember were:
Status Anxiety by Alain De Botton - it's an interesting book, well written, clearly and coherently put together with some lovely quotations yet I found it was a slight disappointment - I suspect because I was hoping for a different perspective on life or at least a slightly different way of thinking, it didn't really offer anything that I hadn't already thought myself so I suppose in a way I should be glad to have some of my opinions validated by being held by another but it's a bit of an anti-climax really. Still worth reading but maybe my hopes were a bit high for the book. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - very good book, the idea of displaced gods fighting against modern distractions isn't perhaps an especially novel idea but the way it is narrated is what makes the story enthralling. It's certainly now one of my favourite books written over the past decade or so along with Kavalier & Klay which I mention earlier in the thread. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - I enjoyed reading it and it was entertaining but it felt like rather lightweight fluff, I get the feeling that maybe was the intention though as there are some heavier themes about social class and attitudes to race within the book but dealt with by a feather touch really. Currently starting The Fist Of God by Frederick Forsyth for a change of pace.
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"Your friend is the man that knows all about you, and still likes you." - Elbert Hubbard |
05-10-2010, 13:21 | #609 |
Reverse SuBo
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: London
Posts: 8,673
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I AM READING THIS NOW!!!!!
And omg its the most :S book of the lot and I'm not even halfway through yet. There is a lot of mind talking so not sure how this is going to represented in the film without looking silly. Also read: The Lovely Bones Obviously the book is better than the film. Really good book. Its about a girl who is murdered and how she is watching over her friends and family before going through the pearly gates. BB x |
12-10-2010, 09:42 | #610 | |
Vodka Martini
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 946
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I'm reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians - The Titan's Curse. I watched The Lightning Thief with my little un and we both really enjoyed it so I'm going to read the books to him, want to know how gruesome they get, he's only 6.
Read the first two books in a week, they're simplistic but difficult to put down. The Unfinished Tales might be a better bet for you, the Silmarillion is more of a history tome than a storybook.
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