Last Book You Read....

[Half A Person]

Jeffrey Archer - The Prison Diary Volume One: Hell.

Yes, he really does compare himself to Dante.

I read this book in 2 hours and 17 minutes. In it, Lord Archole tells us how all the inmates at Bellmarsh loved him and how he had an epiphany about crime or something like that. He also regales the reader with tales of eating Frosties.

Self serving garbage, and I don't believe a word of it. -666/10

Haha, I think I would like to read that, in the same way that I like to watch Jeremy Kyle or read the Daily Mail.

[Thundermonkey]

The Incredible Adam Spark by Alan Bissett.

I loved it, largely due to being able to place all the locations etc as it's set in Falkirk (like his first book Boyracers). I used to stay in Hallglen as well so it's a novelty to read a book based there. It's also, again, written in the local dialect. It took me a few pages to get used to this but after that it makes the book incredibley easy to rip through.

I have encountered many a biff in Falkirk that speaks exactly like Sparky.

Adam Spark is a fantastic character (funny, loveable yet intensely creepy) and I suppose the highest compliment I can pay is I hope Bissett revisits Adam Spark, Judy and Bonnie sometime in the future.

[H_B]

What's a "biff"?

[Thundermonkey]

What's a "biff"?

A 'bam'

[chico]

The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo.

superb.

[banterman86]

The Incredible Adam Spark by Alan Bissett.

I loved it, largely due to being able to place all the locations etc as it's set in Falkirk (like his first book Boyracers). I used to stay in Hallglen as well so it's a novelty to read a book based there. It's also, again, written in the local dialect. It took me a few pages to get used to this but after that it makes the book incredibley easy to rip through.

I have encountered many a biff in Falkirk that speaks exactly like Sparky.

Adam Spark is a fantastic character (funny, loveable yet intensely creepy) and I suppose the highest compliment I can pay is I hope Bissett revisits Adam Spark, Judy and Bonnie sometime in the future.

I read that a few years back, was good stuff if I remember.

Last two I've read

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz which follows three generations of a Dominican American family, switching perspectives and timelines throughout, "tragicomedy" may be about right

7/10

Boomsday by Christopher Buckley - A blogger suggests that to save the econmony, members of the soon to retire "baby boomer" generation be given financial incentiives to kill themselves, this causes a bit of a stir in Washington with a sitting president, the christian right and and ambitious senator.....

Very enjoyable and interesting, might find myself picking up more stuff by Buckley

8/10

[The Trainbairn]

I have read that Buckley one as well banterman and went back and read his older stuff including the excellent Thank You For Smoking which I can recommend.

Started to read the latest Bisset book but gave up after about 80 pages. Pretty mediocre stuff.

[Thundermonkey]

I have read that Buckley one as well banterman and went back and read his older stuff including the excellent Thank You For Smoking which I can recommend.

Started to read the latest Bisset book but gave up after about 80 pages. Pretty mediocre stuff.

Death of a Ladies Man?

I've just started it, OK so far.

[banterman86]

I have read that Buckley one as well banterman and went back and read his older stuff including the excellent Thank You For Smoking which I can recommend.

Started to read the latest Bisset book but gave up after about 80 pages. Pretty mediocre stuff.

Ah yes think it was the Thank You for Smoking on the back cover that made me buy it eventually, despite having neither read the book nor seen the film!

He seems to have some interesting stuff mind, a trip to Amazon awaits.

Ther new Bisset book, something about a ladies man Uni lecturer or something? I

[The Trainbairn]

That's the one yep. Started off okay but just didn't seem to go anywhere.

[Loki]

The Lost Symbol Dan Brown

Read in three days.

Will be interesting to see what others think, as I'm surely not the only one to read it. Entertaining as always, Brown's knack of making the reader read on, is again in abundance. I got the twist about three paragraphs before it was revealed, and the ending Felt a bit like Return of the King, in that the logical ending was followed by a massive final chapter that didnt really do much.

Interesting since the movies that Langdon is now Tom Hanks in my eyes!!!!

A solid 7/10 but I have reservations if they make a movie i that the twist will be too hard to accomplish on film.

I wouldn't even give it a 3. It follows the same formulae as his other novels, where he leaves a mini cliff hanger which encourages you to read on. Ultimately it comes to the end and you feel you have wasted your time. The "twist" is absurdly obvious and any person that has watched a Scooby Doo cartoon will and should get it long before it is revealed.

I take it the major cliffhanger he used in this book, he stole straight from Harry Potter.

I have recently read a few books starting with Le Tissier's autobiography, which doesn't reveal much at all. However it is hilarious in some points. Only read if you are a Le Tissier fan. 6/10

The Damned United was a great insight into the mind of a football manager. Although it is fiction loosely based in fact, it certainly gave a good insight into the complexities of a football manager. Particulalry self doubt. 8/10

Why England Lose... by Kuper and Symanski made very interesting reading. Topics covered racisim in football, scouting methods, England under performing etc. There is large scale statistical analysis and if you don't like reading that you might not enjoy this book as much as I did. It is very similar to how a poker book reads, with the theory explained and then how they prove that theory. 9/10

Edited November 11, 2009 by Loki

[Thundermonkey]

The Damned United was a great insight into the mind of a football manager. Although it is fiction loosely based in fact, it certainly gave a good insight into the complexities of a football manager. Particulalry self doubt. 8/10

I await Skyline Drifter's reply in declicious anticipation.

[GypsyTillIDie]

Might start to read Kidnapped tonight by R.L. Stevenson - anyone on here read it?

[Sergeant Wilson]

Might start to read Kidnapped tonight by R.L. Stevenson - anyone on here read it?

Aye, it's about John Stape and Rosie Webster.

[Thundermonkey]

Aye, it's about John Stape and Rosie Webster.

Sad fucker

Hold on...

[Loki]

I await Skyline Drifter's reply in declicious anticipation.

I never said it gave an insight into Cloughie though. Just self doubt in management as a whole.

[Thundermonkey]

I never said it gave an insight into Cloughie though. Just self doubt in management as a whole.

Should still be good.

[Gnash]

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

6/10

Another utterly bemusing novel from the pen of Bret Easton Ellis. A vacuous model leaves his party-centred life in New York to go to Europe, where he gets caught up in a terrorist cell. At times it's brutal, a times extremely sexual, always bizarre. Why is everywhere so cold? Why does everything smell of shit? Why do people keep thinking they've seen him somewhere when he wasn't there (or does he just not remember for some reason)? What is the deal with the film crew?

[bullywee]

catcher in the rye, for the third time. it's pure cooshtie.

[Mak]

Finished The Dogs of Riga. Good book.

Not able to read anywhere as much now as I could before, but have managed a few more since this.

The next two books in the Wallander series, The White Lioness and The Man Who Smiled. Enjoyable reads, but the way in which each book seems to end in some kind of shootout is starting to grate a bit. They're set in small town Sweden!

Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol. Only read this book because someone bought it for me, it was enjoyable enough but not one that I'd consider re-reading. It's the little things that annoy me a lot of the time in this kind of book, for instance people seem to wink at each other much more than actually happens in real life. Also, he writes like this:

The one who called himself Mal'akh shaved off the remnants off his moustache.

I must be clean shaven for my dinner date tonight.

As he did so, he contemplated his imminent possession of the lost knowledge of the ancients.

I am about to be re-incarnated as a God to rule above all men.

The thing with the italics really, really annoyed me for some reason. There were also just a few parts of the plot which destroyed the suspension of disbelief, the twist was obvious and the ending was just...boring.

I'll give it a 6/10 overall.

I've also now finished Boris Akunin's She Lover of Death, which is the latest Erast Fandorin book. They're good fun, like a cross between a Russian Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. I'd give it an 8/10, despite the fact that the main female character is extremely annoying. Fandorin keeps trying to stop her from killing herself: good for him, but I'd probably have just let her do it.

Now started another book which was bought for me, called The Covenant of Genesis. Only really reading it out of a sense of duty because my granny got me it, but it's enjoyable enough so far, putting to one side the absurd plot and thriller by numbers title.