Read Hemingway's Sun Also Rises recently and loved it. I'd only read The Old Man and the Sea before and hadn't particularly thought much of it; Hemingway's style felt quite jarring, but it was much more suited in this one, and his dialogue (which isn't really on show in TOMATS) was very witty and on point. Whole thing made me want to kind of take a tour around Europe as well.
Books The BOOK thread
- Thread starter Livvie
- Start date
Try A Farewell To Arms if you haven't already.
Yeah, I think that'll be next on my list. Will probably try For Whom the Bell Tolls at some point too, but Farewell to Arms will probably come first.
There's a good Falkner discussion here somewhere, can't remember who I was talking with, but Faulkner is like nothing else.
For Whom the Bell Tolls is his best book in my opinion. A masterpiece.
Yeah, from what I can see by the read time etc on my Kindle it looks longer than most of his others so I'll maybe set it aside for when I've got plenty of time to get into it.
I'll be interested to hear what you think, it's one of those classic novels that everybody recommends that I ended up really disliking.
It is a bit longer, mostly because the narrative is so less straightforward than it usually is in Hemingway prose. Worth it though.
For Whom The Bells Toll is so fecking good.
Old Man and the Sea is my favorite book. It's what turned me on to Hemingway.
Read A Moveable Feast before a trip to Paris. It was awesome following it around some and seeing some of Ernest's old stomping grounds
Awesome. I'll try and dig it up
It does seem very polarising in that sense, people seem to be unimpressed by it or absolutely love it.
I fish all the time, so it was right up my alley.It does seem very polarising in that sense, people seem to be unimpressed by it or absolutely love it.
Yeah, I imagine it'd be a really fascinating read if it's your hobby.
He describes the scene immaculately.
Yes he does. I can close my eyes after reading some of his descriptions in that book and I'm there in the boat. It's amazing.
Hemingway is also almost single handedly the reason why I support the US opening up relations and travel with Cuba.
Any good books on the American Revolution?
Revolutionary Summer
https://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Summer-Birth-American-Independence/dp/0307946371
The Struggle for Sea Power
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobil...power-sam-willis/1121986310?ean=9780393239928
The Men Who Lost America
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/mobil...son-oshaughnessy/1113215492?ean=9780300209402
Just reading XPD by Len Deighton, decking brilliant crafting of characters as always.
Cheers, going to start Revolutionary Summer tonight.
Read Conrad's Lord Jim last week, only the second book of his I've read. Found it a tougher read than Heart of Darkness, too much philosophizing on Marlowe's part and Jim himself I didn't find a particularly engaging character. The actual stories binding the two parts of the book were just about intriguing enough to keep me interested - fascinated to learn that Jim's abandonment of the Patna is based on a true incident. Overall, not my cup of tea.
Anyone know a good site to download free ebooks from?
No problem! I hope you enjoy it.
If you download the kindle app they have a lot of the classics for free download, I got crime and punishment recently for free. Or do you mean more recent books?
I'm starting to believe the amazon reviews are completely fraudulent. Read a book (or half of it) that had near enough 5 out of 5 stars. It was awful.
When I looked at the reviews all the 1 star ratings were long and detailed and all 5 star reviews were really short and generic. Makes me wonder if the publishers pay people to write false reviews.
When I looked at the reviews all the 1 star ratings were long and detailed and all 5 star reviews were really short and generic. Makes me wonder if the publishers pay people to write false reviews.
User reviews should never be trusted.
Fairly sure there's been cases of 5 star reviews being paid for with Amazon.
An acquaintance of mine self published a horror book. A load of his friends and family (some in Ireland, some in US) bought it and all rated it 5 stars. The sudden upsurge must have gotten some sort of notice for fans of the genre and it was, for a few days, the best selling book in a horror sub-sub-sub genre (something like Books > Fiction > Horror > Fairies > Folklore) before reverting down to the rank of 500,000 overall.
I read it, its terribly written, grammatical mistakes all over the place and like something you might see in a primary school writing assignment. Not to knock the chap, its great he's putting himself out there but now he is doing book signings and referring to himself as an international best selling author.
The point being, this is a 5 star book on Amazon but when I looked at it on goodreads.com its 1 star. I'd always take Amazon's ratings with a pinch of salt, its too easy to manipulate the system!
Reading 2666 from roberto bolaño at the moment. Brilliant book. It might become my all time favourite.
I read it earlier this year. It's second only to Blood Meridian on my favourites list.
Currently reading Pandora's Star which is book #1 in the Commonwealth saga by Peter F. Hamilton. One of the best scifi books I've ever read. Hamilton surely must be one of the best descriptive and world building scifi authors around. A lot of stuff to keep tabs on though since he jumps from planet to planet and storyline to storyline with each chapter.
Read A Farewell to Arms and it was excellent. Think I preferred Sun Also Rises overall; there were stretches of this one where I wasn't completely into it, but a great novel overall that manages to evoke plenty of emotion towards the end.
On a lighter note, also read Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest recently which was incredibly funny and witty. Had a very modern feel to it with the fast pace, despite being written late 19th century.
On a lighter note, also read Wilde's Importance of Being Earnest recently which was incredibly funny and witty. Had a very modern feel to it with the fast pace, despite being written late 19th century.
Wilde, talking about the pace of the play during rehearsals, said that "It must go like a rifle shot."
That's a brilliantly funny play from Wilde. With his amazing one-liners, imagine the potential for t-shirt quotes and memes if he were present now.
Half way through this book on holiday and loving it, thanks for the review.
I can imagine.
Wouldn't mind seeing a live production of it actually, I imagine it'd be very enjoyable.
It is a brilliant book. One of the best Scifi books I've ever read. And I have read a lot of Scifi books. This one is edging close to "old man's war" and "the forever war" levels.
Don't bother with the second book in the series or the third though. The author fails to recreate the magic from Spin in both sequels.
@PedroMendez how are you finding 2666? Have you reached The Part about the Crimes yet?