H_B Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 Is Never let me Go good stuff? I;ve seen it praised to the hilt on here before, and conciously avoided the film so I could read the book, but I'm not big on sci fi I enjoyed it.. but a few months later, I can't say it's ever come back to me. I loved One Day incidentally. Just finished the latest John Connolly book... he really is awesome.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wug Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Recommend reading The Life of Pi. Just an absolutely brilliant read. It's about the lone human survivor of a ship which sank in the Pacific - a 14 year-old boy stuck on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Great story, well written. 8/10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullywee Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Recommend reading The Life of Pi. Just an absolutely brilliant read. It's about the lone human survivor of a ship which sank in the Pacific - a 14 year-old boy stuck on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Great story, well written. 8/10 i did my personal study on that and can only agree that it's a great read. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calum_gers Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Matterhorn by Karl Marlentes?? It's basically the story of a young Havard/Yale graduate who ends up in Vietnam, the book only covers about a year and is quite graphic. I enjoyed it. 8/10 I read another 2 that i can't remember, i was left them by relatives and i've since seen them both in Waterstones. Neither were as good. Stalking Horse by Terence Strong Bit of a page turner really, but not bad and again i thought it was OK. 7/10 Fatherland by Robert Harris Top book, It's based on the premise that Hitler won WW2 and centred around a detective in 1960s Germany, very good. 8/10. There's probably more, but not that i can think of at the moment. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwififer Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 World War Z - Max Brooks. 7/10. Not the kind of book I normally go for but I quite enjoyed it. The film will be pants. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saint dave Posted October 15, 2011 Share Posted October 15, 2011 World War Z - Max Brooks. 7/10. Not the kind of book I normally go for but I quite enjoyed it. The film will be pants. I like the way he wrote it , as a UN reporter/recorder , interviewing survivors, soldiers and leaders etc. Same as you, not my usual kind of book, but, very enjoyable and worth a 2nd read through. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savage Henry Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 since my last post on this thread months ago i've read.... spring snow by yukio mishima: the first part of mishima's sea of fertility tetraology. it's set in 1912 tokyo and is about a schoolboy japanese aristocrat falling in love and trying to find his way in the world. it takes place during a time when japan was opening up to the world and western values and ideas were beginning to take hold and it's interesting seeing the last days of the traditional japanese way of life. mishima was a complete loonball and staged probably the most spectacular public death of the 20th century for himself so i'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series to see how it progresses. That sounds absolutely fabulous. I'm going to buy it and put it third on my to do pile, after One Minute To Midnight by Michael Dobbs and Crime and Punishment. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THE KING Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Last book I read.....How to commit sui.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jojo Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 i just finnished the wanderer byt knut hamsun. fantastic story, i would thouroughly recommend it . It about the guy who goes about the norwegian countryside looking for work here and there, but theres other side storys and other Knut hamsun seems an interesting charachter. It says on wikipedia he had anarchist leanings as a young man but supported germany and the nazis in the first and second world war, as he was very against the british, was there during the second boar war. He also believed mans only fulfillment was in the soil. 8/10. now on to the sirens of titan by kurt vonegut. I might kind of read the communist manifesto at the same time though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nessies long lost ghost Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 Tudor and Stuart Britain - Roger Lockyer - 6 / 10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lex Posted October 16, 2011 Share Posted October 16, 2011 It's Your Time You're Wasting - Frank Chalk Fantastic and hilarious account of a teachers experiences working as a supply in a rough inner city English school. Loads of laugh out loud moments and definitley well recommended for an easy read. 8/10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMDP Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 I thought One Day was pretty poor, a bit Hornby-lite. A definite ** novel Over the past while, I've also read The Color Purple(*****), which gripped me from the first page. Incredible writing in a truly believable voice. Russell Brand's Booky Wook 2(***) was readable with a couple of laugh out loud moments. Norman Mailer's The Fight(***) chronicling the Ali-Foreman fight was interesting, but a bit smug for my tastes. I really enjoyed Becoming Holyfield(****) though, interesting to get Evander's take on his fights with Bowe, Lewis and Tyson. Going to buy Murakami's 1Q84 Books 1 & 2 tomorrow. Excited. -2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave258 Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 Just finished Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes. A gripping read althoug quite hard on the stamina at times as he likes his long passages of descriptive prose. It was about a 1st world war captain torn apart by the conditions he existed in and by a lost love with a parallel story set in the 70s about his grand daughter trying to figure out her grandfather's past. Striking ending as well. 9/10 in no small thanks to some brilliantly descriptive war and battle scenes. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T_S_A_R Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 (edited) Going to buy Murakami's 1Q84 Books 1 & 2 tomorrow. Excited. i'm off work all day tomorrow and if my postman appears sans my pre-ordered 1Q84 he will be getting his balls booted. edit - just checked my amazon account. delivery estimate 21st october. god damn you free super saver delivery Edited October 18, 2011 by T_S_A_R 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banterman86 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Finished Happy Hour is for Amatuers earlier thisn week, a good example of blog turned book, and of the "fratire" genre geenrally. Little "story" actually happens, but the narrator is engaging, so all in it's good times I'm currently roughly a third of the way through Moneyball and finding it enjoyable, despite my ignorance of baseball lingo and slang 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullywee Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 i've been reading a lot of short stories recently, mainly by Kafka and James Hogg, and i've found that i'm enjoying it a lot more than i thought i would. there's something very skilful about being able to convey an entire story in a relatively small number of pages. planning to give 'the republic' by Plato a go now, but i imagine it could be a real struggle in places. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
11thHour Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Lemmy - White Line Fever. Really enjoyed it. Guy doesn't give a f**k and I love that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H_B Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 i've been reading a lot of short stories recently, mainly by Kafka and James Hogg, and i've found that i'm enjoying it a lot more than i thought i would. there's something very skilful about being able to convey an entire story in a relatively small number of pages. I've read a number of books where I've thought "You know, cut out the filler and this could easily have been 150 pages and a better book for it". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealMaroon Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 relentless by simon kernick. Been reading alot of his books lately and they are all fucking awsome. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Idiot Bástard Son Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 i've been reading a lot of short stories recently, mainly by Kafka and James Hogg, and i've found that i'm enjoying it a lot more than i thought i would. there's something very skilful about being able to convey an entire story in a relatively small number of pages. If that’s the case then I’d thoroughly recommend any of the collections by George Mackay Brown. Some very fine material indeed. Also James Kelman’s Not Not while the Giro has got some great stuff. There’s one short story a mere half a page long that knocks you flat on your back. I read it then re-read about five times and was open mouthed. Won’t give it away but it a short story described as a “swift punch in the stomach” which it definitely is. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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