Books The BOOK thread

Jaybezia said:
:lol: I will give you that, I can take it...

I tried, you may remember, to get a tag-line and emailed modmin requesting so, at which point a thread was started....

....and I got temporarily banned.

Now I have lots of little things by name as its the closest I can fecking get :D
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You can't change this...?

About Jaybezia
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Football, programming, music, games, sport & pretty much everything
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Best United Moment
Treble '99

Actually since I was at Villa on 14 April 1999 you can feck off
 
JohnLocke said:
I read 68% of it before my kindle packed in, and I really couldn't be arsed trying to get back to where I was to finish it. I have the film so I might just watch that, but I feel almost compelled to read the rest of it now.



I read Dorian Gray a while back and thought it was decent. As Steve says it is a bit long winded and drawn out at times, but on the whole I thought it was decent. But I'm a fussy bugger.

I haven't read Ernest, but I might give it a try. I just finished Mort by Terry Pratchet and thought it was okay, started out good but didn't live up to my expectations - nothing ever does :(

So I've decided I might go for something more low brow to see if that pleases me any, and may go for Killing Floor by Lee Child.

Has anyone read The Passage? It's pretty monsterous so I don't want to read a big chunk of it to find out it's actually shit. I read the unabridged version of The Stand and then IT. Far too long for my liking, it almost put me off reading ever again, even though on the whole they were both good, especially The Stand. Just far far too long.
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You should definitely give it a try. It was fantastic and I read it in two nights, really really enjoyed it I must say.

Just read House of the Eye. Fair enough, it's "out there" but it's quite brilliant.

Bearknight have you read Gravity's Rainbow? Sounds right up your alley.
 
Jazz said:
You should definitely give it a try. It was fantastic and I read it in two nights, really really enjoyed it I must say.

Just read House of the Eye. Fair enough, it's "out there" but it's quite brilliant.

Bearknight have you read Gravity's Rainbow? Sounds right up your alley.
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I'll take your word for it and read it next. Went with Killing Floor - about 60% read so far, and it's an enjoyable read. Not much thinking to be done, but I haven't read a book like it since I read the Andy McNabb books about 10 years ago - shit I'm getting on a bit :lol:
 
Jazz said:
Bearknight have you read Gravity's Rainbow? Sounds right up your alley.
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I've been meaning to start Gravity's Rainbow for a while now. But I have either been told that it's a masterpiece or a pretentious piece of shit.
 
peterstorey said:
You can't change this...?

About Jaybezia
Gender
Female
Location
★★★★★
Interests
Football, programming, music, games, sport & pretty much everything
Occupation
Accounts
Favourite Player
Ryan Giggs
Best United Moment
Treble '99

Actually since I was at Villa on 14 April 1999 you can feck off
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In the semi's when Gigg's won it for us? Was a good year :) Saf Knighted... Bayern cried like babies.. all was right with the world... You only lost PL by 2 or 3 points didn't you? Very close that year...

And No, I can't change my avatar/tagline... so that's the next best thing :D
 
Moriarty said:
You've probably read "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" Steve, but that was my introduction to Wilde. It's still one of my favourite poems to this day. Have you ever read any of Wilde's works for children? I remember receiving a copy of "The Happy Prince" when I was a kid and I really enjoyed it, especially if it was read out loud to me.
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Only read a few, mate. I got the impression that Wilde enjoyed writing them every bit as much as he enjoyed writing "adult" work.
 
Jaybezia said:
This sounds really bad, but I haven't done any 'real' reading in about 5/6 years now... And I'm only 24. So, I have no real experience of what I like in terms of a book, I have read quite a few famous ones, such as Game of Thrones, Lord of the rings and a few others, as well as some 'crime/mystery' books. One about human trafficing and the other about random killings, both were quite good with how they kept you guessing the whole way...

But I'm looking to get some recommendations, I am open to anything in terms of Genre except paranormal (Vampires/ Zombies etc) as I generally don't like that theme, however if there is a particuarly good one, please mention it and I can give it a try.
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My first recommendation for fantasy is the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, it is a fast-paced book where the bad guy won, the ashes (from a volcano) fall, and where magic is done thanks to different metals.

For a classic one, the Count of Monte Cristo, if you haven't read it even if it's quite long.

Jaybezia said:
Are there any books which are generally considered 'NEED TO READ', I need an idiots catch up for titles of books for the last 5 years...
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I am not really sure what you are asking, since I feel like that "need to read" is kind of "what are the popular ones ?" even if they can be bad books or not that good. There is a craze by example for YA or children books (Hunger Games, Divergent, the Wardstone Chronicles...), especially shown by movies done or to come... or the infamous (and badly written) porn mommy 50 shades of grey. Or try the Nobel prizes ? Like Mo Yan ? Or the ones that never get it like Haruki Murakami ? I usually don't read nobel prizes but I am quite puzzled to understand how the works of Murakami can fit the nobel prize. You can try Kafka on the shore.
 
I think Murakami is really shit. Literature for wannabe cool cnuts who don't really read books
 
Conrad was a Pole. Marquez is another useless cnut with his bollocky unmagical realism.
 
Leg-End said:
The Day of the Jackal any good?
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The best thriller I've ever read. Part one will keep you highly interested with the vivid and intricate details of the Jackal's plans for the assasination. Part 2 is completely un-put-down-able once Forysth introduces the perfect foil to the Jackal.
 
So hard to know what to read... I think I'm going to spend my life choosing before I actually get round to it.... at the moment, based on recommendations, I am between

- Heart of Darkness/ Any Human heart (Peterstorey)
- the Count of Monte Cristo (Celia)
 
Conrad is masterful and Heart of Darkness is an astounding read. Only short too.
 
Finished Under the Dome by Stephen King last night.

Only the 2nd King book I've read (the other being the majorly underwhelming Christine, when I was about 15, which put me off King) and even though the reviews are fairly mixed, I really enjoyed it.

A huge cast of characters, most of which are well rounded. The dialogue gets a bit sloppy now and then, but for a book of such girth that can be forgiven.

The end was a let down though, but the journey there was brilliant.

So, I've decided to go on a bit of King kick now, and am reading The Stand.
 
The Dome was rubbish. Christine was odd but a bit better. The Stand however is great (if a tad biblical) but not as good as The Shining which IMO is a brilliant novel.
 
redspoony said:
Finished Under the Dome by Stephen King last night.

Only the 2nd King book I've read (the other being the majorly underwhelming Christine, when I was about 15, which put me off King) and even though the reviews are fairly mixed, I really enjoyed it.

A huge cast of characters, most of which are well rounded. The dialogue gets a bit sloppy now and then, but for a book of such girth that can be forgiven.

The end was a let down though, but the journey there was brilliant.

So, I've decided to go on a bit of King kick now, and am reading The Stand.
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loved The Stand, great characters and paced very well for such a long novel.

just finished The Life of Pi, really enjoyed it, now for the movie :drool:
 
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg

Excellent read.
 
Anyone ever read a book by Brian Tracy (Motivational speaker), a guy round the local suggested I read one based on the phoenix seminar, as it helped him before when he was down and out, and thinks it could do the same for me.

However, a quick search and there are a billion books by this guy.

I'm thinking http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maximum-Ach...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363204914&sr=1-1 might be the one my mate was talking about but not sure as it's nearly 20 years old now. So was wondering if anyone had read any, and if so which / and if it was useful.
 
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Having exposed a group of fraudulent spiritualists, investigative journalist Joanna Cross is intrigued by the claims of psychologist Dr Sam Towne that paranormal phenomena do in fact exist.

Accepting his challenge to enter into a scientific experiment to 'create' a ghost, Joanna, Sam and six volunteers bring to life 'Adam Wyatt' - a young American living in France after the American War of Independence. Associated with the great minds and mystics at the close of the eighteenth century, he dies tragically in the French Revolution. The experiment is a great success, with poltergeist activity and disembodied messages all scientifically recorded.

Sam's theory appears conclusive - that ghosts are created by the people who see them. But a series of inexplicable and ominous events force Joanna and Sam to realize the ghost they have brought to life can also cause death...
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A really thought-provoking book. Not the best of novels, but at least it's one that makes the reader think. Leaving aside the dramatic devices natural to a fictional story, it begs the question: even if ghosts & 'the spirit world' are merely the creations of human minds alone - in effect, we make our so-called phantoms - why then do these creations sometimes take on a negative aspect?
 
SteveJ said:
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A really thought-provoking book. Not the best of novels, but at least it's one that makes the reader think. Leaving aside the dramatic devices natural to a fictional story, it begs the question: even if ghosts & 'the spirit world' are merely the creations of human minds alone - in effect, we make our so-called phantoms - why then do these creations sometimes take on a negative aspect?
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Must look out for that one, I have read his book 'Coincidence' and found it to be very good.

"A train of seemingly random events - coincidence? Or something much more sinister? A wrong number here, a case of mistaken identity there, a chance meeting with a stranger who knows your best friend. Most people dismiss such things as trivial, unimportant. Mere coincidence. Or could there be a hidden pattern in these seemingly random events? George Daly's life has been as unremarkable as most people's, until the day he finds himself going through his dead father's possessions. He discovers a photograph of himself as a boy, but he has no memory of where it was taken, nor does he recognize the people with him. As he investigates further, he experiences an increasingly bizarre chain of coincidences that soon threaten to unravel his whole world. Before long he finds himself fighting for his sanity and even his survival."
 
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