Reply With QuoteIts next in my "to read" list.Originally Posted by Ventura
I didn't know about it until you mentioned it here. I have it now, and am reading it on my extremely high tech, rowing machine entertainment system, which I have in my college rooms.
Best wishes,
Bob
Its next in my "to read" list.
And mine, along with Stonemouth. Banks is my favourite author in either guise by a mile.
ktmog6uk
marchingontogether!
alchemist paulo coelho
Has anyone read "Blue remebered Earth" yet?
The seige of Trenchers Farm is very good.
I'm reading a load of Scott Mariani's books at the moment, just finishing number 3 of 7. Ex-SAS kidnap & ransom specialist Ben Hope is a one man wrecking machine. When I've finished those I'll start some Harry Bosch detective stories by Michael Connelly.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Hi,
Has anyone read any of the David Wellington present day Vampire Series ? There is a remainder shop down the road that is selling all five dirt cheap
- Thirteen Bullets (2006)
- 99 Coffins (2007)
- Vampire Zero (2008)
- 23 Hours (2009)
- 32 Fangs (2012 ?)
I haven't ever read any horror books ( or if I have I have no recollection of them ), but quite liked Dusk till Dawn and I am Legend, and they are semi-vampirical. I've just finished "The Last Valley" about Dien Bien Phu,which was pretty hard going ( I'm still after a copy of Bernard Fall's "Hell in a Very Small Place", if anyone has one handy), and wondered if these Wellington books are a decent read with not too much hard going reading in them ?
Richie
OK, I think it was mentioned earlier in this thread, and I said I was going to put it on my Kindle...Hyperion. I read it on holiday, excellent book, and it's so long I am glad I saved it for holiday. Excellent. Such a lot of imagination that went into it, it's unreal. I hadn't realised it was the first part of 2 or 4 depending on how you look at it, so I will pick the others up.
I also finished Robopocalypse, which was entertaining enough, but not great. I am on Jack Reacher - Die Trying, and as ever, it doesn't disappoint.
I read Full Dark No Stars from Stephen King, and that was good too. Pretty dark/harsh which he admits to, but very good nonetheless.
Just finished reading the novella "Who goes there?" by John W. Campbell. I would guess that this is arguably one of the most influential Science Fiction stories ever written. Very much of it's time but you can see where "The Thing" and "Alien" and all the many derivatives of these films have their roots. A good, short read and I would imagine equally interesting for film buffs and Sci-Fi fans.
'the secret race' by tyler hamilton.
an excellent book,read it in a single sitting,one of the most interesting i've read for some time. i can't stop recomending it to people.
if you have even the slightest interest in cycling it really is a must read.i went into it thinking that i wouldn't like hamilton and it was just going to be a hatchet job on lance armstrong but i was totally wrong (apart from the hatchet job)
i've also heard him interviewed on the radio this week after winning sports book of the year and he came across really well,extremely embarrassed about the part he played in a shameful time for cycling
highly recomended
cheers,mick
Excellent news, I am just finishing 'Look to Windward' which I decided to skip when I initially read the Culture series but which is much etter than I had originally thought it would be - no idea why I ever had any doubt from such a top notch author?! Very much looking forward to the new one!
Look to Windward is very much 'Culture' and I think needs to be read after all the main earlier works of Mr Banks. I'm up to Matter, so a few more to go - but so far Excession ranks as my favourite with Use of Weapons a close second.
The Hydrogen Sonata has plenty of Ship/Mind interaction, I'm 2/3rd's in and really enjoying it.
Cold Days by Jim Butcher up next
I would agree completely, I read all of the others in the series and then came back to Look to Windward for reasons I was not quite so sure of at the time but glad I did as it is a cracking read but a slower burner than the others. If you are on Matter and are reading in order of release then you have Surface Detail to look forward to, in which case you are in for a treat, that pipped Excession as my favourite in the series - so far..!
I find him difficult going to begin with in all the books of his I've read save for Consider Phlebas which was easy to get into. Thing is if you stick with him for the first 50 pages you're always in for a treat.
Just finished reading Breath by Tim Winton - very enjoyable.
As a child I'd stay at my grandparents house from time to time, and read their books. They seemed to know their own tastes. Shelf upon shelf of thrillers, mainly Agatha Christie. Over time I think I read every one of them. By the time I was aged about 15 I was fairly sure I'd read everything Christie had ever published including all the short stories. True or not, I'd had my fill and moved on to Len Deighton and Le Carre, before abandoning the genre entirely.
With some surprise then, recently I found "And Then There Were None" aka "Ten Little Indians" was one I hadn't read. This despite it being the most published thriller of all time. No Poirot nor Miss Marple here. Just 10 people, each a possible suspect or indeed a possible victim, stranded on an island. Each trying to work out the others as the numbers dwindle. The island plays the part that the Country House would in other Christie yarns. The characters are the usual cross-section. The writing is as simple ( and dated, as the original title "Ten Little Niggers" suggests ) as ever, the plot just as unlikely.
But if you are in the mood for a basic old-fashioned mystery with a gently ratcheting tension, it's a good one.
Paul
Last edited by Tokyo Tokei; 30th November 2012 at 12:05.
I thought the Hydrogen Sonata was Banks on auto-pilot. Not much in the way of new ideas, a few good fights, hoping for something better next time. But what I mean by better and what everyone else means by better might be two entirely different things.
Someone above mentioned Hyperion, and I will say that books 2, 3 and 4 were disappointing for me, only because 1 was so so brilliant. The other three are good. Ilium and Olympos are also good.
I've just finished Patrick Suskind's Perfume, and am slightly embarrassed to say I am now reading Battlefield Earth. If you haven't read it, I do recommend.
Next on the list, and this is probably even more embarrassing, is Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Ahem.
Just finished Denis Lehanes new book
Live by night
really enjoyed it (and all the rest of his books)
also check out the John Connolly charlie parker series
If you can find a copy of I Am Legend, i recommend that heartily. It is a pulp book in the real sense (my copy has gone yellow), but a great apocalypse story. Ignore the film, which was all explosions, and didn't really follow the story.
In a similar vein, World War Z is worth a read, and since that is about to be 'Hollywood-ed' you might like to know why it was thought worthy of being a Brad Pitt vehicle. The book is pretty much until unfilmable, being episodic and without a hero, so god knows how it will turn out on screen.
I like Denis Lehane, and have read all his Kenzie Gennaro books.
I read the first Charlie Parker book, and although it's the 'kind' of book I should like, I couldn't finish it. He went around finding loads of clues, and trying to find things out. I just found myself not caring what happened so stopped. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood?
i found the parker books very engrossing, but would rate lehane better to be fair :)
Having recently reseen David Lynch's film Dune[1], I 've been rereading Frank Herbert's Dune series. Lots of psycho-babble, and pseudo-philosophy, but just enough of worth to keep one's attention.
[1] A better film on second seeing than first seeing.
Best wishes,
Bob
Did you enjoy "The Hydrogen Sonata," Bob?
Just about to finish "A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain" by Owen Hatherly. A thought-provoking journey around some of the major cities of Britain looking (primarily) at the post-97 generation of public and semi-public buildings, and the architects, developers, quangos, PFI-peddlers and parasites like Urban Splash who gorged on public money whilst damaging lives and cities (amongst some good things). Erudite but also funny - I'd worried at first that it would be a bit too psychogeographical, a bit too Ian Sinclair - I love Sinclair but taken to extremes, some of his writing is practically unreadable. I don't necessarily agree with all of his conclusions or why he comes to them (I suspect at times he takes a romantic and rosey-eyed view of things that are actually rather nuanced), but if you're interested in British cities, contemporary history, sociology, architecture or good writing, I'd give it a go.
I love finding these threads It always leads to some books I would never have found otherwise!
My contribution :
Shantaram by Gregory Davids Roberts
Marching Powder by Rusty Young
For years I have only read novels on holiday, this year was no exception. I bought 'Fallen' by Karin Slaughter (her 11th book) at the airport this summer and it was excellent. Whilst on holiday I purchased a Kindle and I am currently working my way through her Grant County Series books.
Dont get much time to read books but did just read Mr Nice it was an interesting read
I started The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom this morning It's the story of Laurence of Arabia from his own point of view , Anyone read it ?
Well Winston Churchill read it and felt that it ranked with the greatest books ever written in the English language. I have it, the 1935 edition, and it's a fantastic read. The history is fascinating, and Lawrence too. Though as others have cautioned, it's more autobiography than history, with some of the legend being exactly that, legend. Lawrence : "History is not made up of truth anyway, so why worry ?"
He had a point.
Paul
I should possibly also mention this - Narcomania by Max Daly and Steve Sampson, as it's both a good read and co-authored by a friend. It's a very up to date look at the illegal and legal drug market in the UK. More of a state of the nation book rather than a campaigning one, although it does highlight the way that the UK is no closer to evidence-based policy than it was decades ago.
I got about 70 pages in & left it for a later date, great story & well written but a bit to heavy for me at the minute , I since started The Life Of Pi on my new kindle (Xmas pressie from herself)
I'll let ye know how it goes.
Read Tom Wood's The Hunter and The Enemy back-to-back over the holiday period and just finished David Baldacchi's The Innocent last night. All 3 are very good, especially if you like Reacher/Bourne et al
Looking forward to reading Andy McNab's Red Notice which is waiting on the bedside table........
John Harts books are very good, the last child and iron house
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/47072.John_Hart
May have been posted before but just finished the feather men by Sir ralph fiennes as I got an old copy for Christmas. Quite good with the premise that it was a true story. After reading it and a few of the characters are/were real people I don't believe it is a true story but a good one. I have just got to watch the film Killer elite now.
'The 100 year old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared' by Jonas Jonasson.
Fabulous. Funny, charming and as daft as a box of frogs. Simply delightful.
most of the books I've read recently are American football ones. if anyone is interested I'll do a list, otherwise they're just American football books
I know it's already been mentioned in this thread but I'm currently 100 pages into "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. It was included in a Gollancz collection I bought last year and I've picked it up and put it back down a few times because the type is so small but now I'm into it, the size of the type has become irrelevant.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
That's good, just splurged 20p on this (in Kindle form) from Amazon :D
I'm reading "Our Man in Havana" by Graeme Greene (in paperback form) at the moment, very enjoyable in a slightly silly way.
I read Seven Pillars of Wisdom and it's bloody hard going, imo. My advice is watch the film- More seriously, it provides a lot of background to the film (which seems rather sketchy having read the book), but I was about 50% of the way through before I adapted to the style of writing (Lawrence was a late Victorian academic really, for all his escapades!) and huge sections of the book pass with nothing of real significance (imo) happening.
Glad I read it, but I won't again - I enjoyed "Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia" more - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0...ls_o00_s00_i00 which debunks much of the Lawrence myth (without rubbishing him or his achievements) as well as providing more background to his character than Seven Pillars does.
M.
Last edited by snowman; 15th January 2013 at 13:30.
The Charlie Parker books are ok, though I found the Book of Lost Things to be on another level and much better. That and his book of short stories.
I've not read the whole thread - but I’d like to read the Dirk Pitt series.
Does anyone know the correct order?
Anyone else read/recommend these?
Dirk Pitt
1. Pacific Vortex! (1981)
2. The Mediterranean Caper (1973)
aka Mayday!
3. Iceberg (1975)
4. Raise the Titanic! (1976)
5. Vixen 03 (1976)
6. Night Probe! (1981)
7. Deep Six (1984)
8. Cyclops (1986)
9. Treasure (1988)
10. Dragon (1990)
11. Sahara (1992)
12. Inca Gold (1991)
13. Shock Wave (1995)
14. Flood Tide (1997)
15. Atlantis Found (1999)
16. Valhalla Rising (2001)
17. Trojan Odyssey (2003)
18. Black Wind (2004) (with Dirk Cussler)
19. The Treasure of Khan (2006) (with Dirk Cussler)
20. Arctic Drift (2008) (with Dirk Cussler)
21. Crescent Dawn (2010) (with Dirk Cussler)
22. Poseidon's Arrow (2012) (with Dirk Cussler)
Iceberg / Dragon / Deep Six (omnibus) (1991)
The Mediterranean Caper / Iceberg (omnibus) (1995)
Clive Cussler Gift Set: Treasure, Dragon, and Sahara (omnibus) (1996)
Dirk Pitt Revealed (1998) (with Craig Dirgo)
Flood Tide and Cyclops (omnibus) (2001)
Pacific Vortex!The Mediterranean CaperIcebergRaise the Titanic!
Vixen 03Night Probe!Deep SixCyclops
TreasureDragonSaharaInca Gold
Shock WaveFlood TideAtlantis FoundValhalla Rising
Trojan OdysseyBlack WindThe Treasure of KhanArctic Drift
Crescent DawnPoseidon's ArrowThe Mediterranean Caper / IcebergDirk Pitt Revealed
Flood Tide and Cyclops
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Just finished Tom Clancy's "Without Remorse" during my recent holliday. Started on "Rainbow Six" for the 2nd time a week ago... Both books absolutely great!!!
Just finished "HHhH" by Laurent Binet. It's about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. It's also about the difficulty of writing about the assassination of Heydrich. It's also about memory and being and death. I really liked it. It presents a very different way of thinking about historical novels and asks questions about the gap between narrative history and fiction. It's also a very moving story about incredibly brave men. I think you'd enjoy it if you like books like 'The Star of the Sea' by Joseph O'Connor or 'The March' by Doctorow.
Before that I read 'One Shot' by Lee Child to see what the state of modern thriller writing is. I guess this series has adherents here as its now popular enough to be franchised by Hollywood. So I apologise about the following but I'm just expressing a personal view not commenting on anyone's taste. It struck me that it was poorly written with a regulation cliché per paragraph. I'm not normally susceptible to twisted plot lines and I'm normally happy enough to read to the end and let the author surprise me, but even I saw the end from a significant distance away and I wasn't even trying. At one point the backstory of the main Russian antagonist is laid out which it appears to be a description of the opening sequences of the film 'Enemy of the Gates'. I couldn't quite believe it - so I looked up the dates and the film was released in 2001 and the book in 2005 so it's not the film referring to the book. I've never seen this sort of thing in a book before. Reacher himself is a strange mixture of capricious and pointless contrariness mixed with a strange streak of teenage rebellion which has him say 'Whatever' repeatedly through the book. For my money, if you want to read about a selfish sociopath who's catnip to the ladies I'd suggest Fleming, at least he was capable of an interesting observation and could phrase a witty comment. Or better still I'd opt for world weary cynical Harry Palmer.
I couldn't agree more about Child/Reacher. I read the first book on the strength of the support for the series in this very thread; I am not a demanding reader - I do my reading on public transport and so am easily satisfied with a simple good-guy/several bad-guys/girl/plot twist at the end scenario. But Reacher was so implausible and the story so badly put together I am still amazed that Child ever got a contract for a second book.
I've just finished a couple of very different books.
The first was SS/GB by Len Deighton, a dystopian story of Britain under German rule in 1940 following the inevitable invasion after the loss of the Battle of Britain. Quite imaginative and I suppose well researched (to understand the divisions and jealousies between the Wehrmacht, SS and Gestapo) but I never felt attachment to any of the characters and found the story unnecessarily long, with a rather unconvincing denoument.
I also read John Steinbeck's Russian Journal. In 1948 Steinbeck and Robert Capa set off for Russia to disover ordinary Russian people for themselves: the former to write about them and the latter to photograph them. Of course Steinbeck's writing is flawless but his humour shines through, making it very light and enjoyable reading. I now have a burning desire to visit Tbilis in Georgia; Steinbeck's description makes it one the most magical places I have ever read about - I just hope it has retained some of its charm 50 years later.
I have to say that I was surprised when I first read Deighton - I had not expected him to be as readable as I found his earlier work - which is prejudice for you. If you found SS/GB interesting you might like 'Bomber' (if you haven't already read it). It attempts to show a single day in the war from all sides and I found the various stories and fates of the characters compelling. I believe that there was a Radio 4 dramatisation of the book that played in real time over the course of a day. I missed it unfortunately, but it's an intriguing thought.
Another Agatha Christie. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. A classic country house murder written in 1926. The ending is famous, even notorious. It's a good caper. As Poirot notes, acting as cipher for Christie, "Of facts, I keep nothing to myself. But to everyone, his own interpretation of them." It's almost a plea for leniency on the author's part. A declaration that you, the reader, have been given all the information necessary to solve the mystery. That the author has played fair. You may disagree when you finish the yarn, but you will have enjoyed having the wool pulled over your eyes by an expert.
Paul
The Damage Done is one of my all time favorites. Also Marching Powder is a up there to if you like that kind of subject matter.
I am reading The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn which is awesome....
I've just finished Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. I'm really warming to her work. Excellent crime drama without a policeman at it's centre. Made more interestingfor me as it's set in Wales.
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