tonyh29 Posted February 17, 2008 Share Posted February 17, 2008 just finished Rigged about a Harvard student who got a job the Merc exchange and helped to make the Dubai version of the merc echange a reality not Ben Mezrich's best book , but still a good insight into the world of oil trading .. if you've nbot read his stuff then check out Bringing Down The House about to start secret diary of a U boat by Wolfgang Hirschfeld.. a true story about the battle of the atlantic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 18, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted February 18, 2008 OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go": Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth Justin Cartwright: The Song Before It Is Sung Chris Bayly/T. N. Harper: Forgotten Armies (Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan) James A. Goodson: Tumult In The Clouds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 deja vu (not a book, but this thread!) anyways, without naming the same books... yes, i read. seem to go in patches - won't read for a month... then stumble across a good book, and read everyday until the book is finished. i'm currently reading Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olejniker Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go": Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth Justin Cartwright: The Song Before It Is Sung Chris Bayly/T. N. Harper: Forgotten Armies (Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan) James A. Goodson: Tumult In The Clouds Ahh...Follett. I liked Code to Zero and The Third Twin. He uses plenty of expletives though ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 18, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted February 18, 2008 OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go": Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth Ahh...Follett. I liked Code to Zero and The Third Twin. He uses plenty of expletives though ...This is the first one of his I've read, and of course it's totally unlike the rest of his stuff, being mediaeval and all that. It's OK so far, but a bit erm, unchallenging. Don't know if I'll finish it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olejniker Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go": Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth Ahh...Follett. I liked Code to Zero and The Third Twin. He uses plenty of expletives though ...This is the first one of his I've read, and of course it's totally unlike the rest of his stuff, being mediaeval and all that. It's OK so far, but a bit erm, unchallenging. Don't know if I'll finish it. You shoud try reading The Third Twin. Plenty of twists and turns in the plot. As good as Ludlum at his best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 18, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted February 18, 2008 OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go": Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth Ahh...Follett. I liked Code to Zero and The Third Twin. He uses plenty of expletives though ... This is the first one of his I've read, and of course it's totally unlike the rest of his stuff, being mediaeval and all that. It's OK so far, but a bit erm, unchallenging. Don't know if I'll finish it. You shoud try reading The Third Twin. Plenty of twists and turns in the plot. As good as Ludlum at his best. That's a compliment, is it? Not my sort of thing, really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Didiersix Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Has anyone read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Light reading at the moment, Lord of the Bow which is the second in a fictional series about the life and times of Genghis Khan. He was NAILS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 18, 2008 Share Posted February 18, 2008 Lord of the Bow which is the second in a fictional series about the life and times of Genghis Khan read that the other week ... bit of a let down after the first one and not a patch on the Emperor series he did , i felt ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted March 31, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted March 31, 2008 OK, since we're obviously doing this all over again, I currently have the following "on the go": Ken Follett: Pillars Of The Earth Ahh...Follett. I liked Code to Zero and The Third Twin. He uses plenty of expletives though ...This is the first one of his I've read, and of course it's totally unlike the rest of his stuff, being mediaeval and all that. It's OK so far, but a bit erm, unchallenging. Don't know if I'll finish it.Bumped. I didn't finish it. I also started Iain Pears' "An Instance Of The Fingerpost", which was well-written but I got really bored with it - just didn't care about the characters, so I abandoned it. Cartwight's "The Song Before It Was Sung" was excellent. Since then I've also read Jed Mercurio's "Ascent" - about a Korean War Soviet fighter pilot who becomes the USSR's candidate for the first moon landing. Clever stuff and quite enjoyable. And also John Le Carre's "A Perfect Spy" - which I thought was AMAZING. Philip Roth apparently called it "the best English novel since the war", which sounds like hype, but he may have a point. A million miles from the Ludlum type of spy novel, and quite unlike most of JLC's other stuff, it is heavily based upon his own relationship with his con-man father. I literally couldn't put it down, first one of those reads for years. Recommended. Just started on E. L. Doctorow's "The March". Looks promising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyShears Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Steadily making my way through Cormack McCarthy's collection. 'Child Of God' at the moment is living up to his knack of having you feel affection for the most disgusting protagonists. I like American authors including: Annie Proulx Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Tropper Also just read 'In Stitches' by Dr Nick Edwards. A collection of his thoughts and experiences in an A&E somewhere in Birmingham. Insightful stuff and well recommended for a light read. He also speaks the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Lord of the Bow which is the second in a fictional series about the life and times of Genghis Khan read that the other week ... bit of a let down after the first one and not a patch on the Emperor series he did , i felt ... Only just seen your post Tony but yeah, agreed on both counts. I'm having my second crack at the Quran at the moment, bloody heavy going and pure hell-fire and brimstone so far - only about 50 pages in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted March 31, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted March 31, 2008 I've just finished the first two books in the Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter. Both very, very good. Dexters character is superb and I really got into the writing style. Has anyone read the third one, Dexter in the Dark? If so, can you confirm that it's a load of rubbish compared to the first two, as I've been put off buying it by the slating it got. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alf_stewart Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Nuts and Zoo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 One to recommend is Tom Cain - The accident man Won't give it away as to what it's about ..I seem to think it's obvious from the back cover and first few pages but just in case it isn't I won't say any more than if your a bit of a conspiracy nut it will have you saying , yeah thats how it was done and if your not it will at least have you thinking , yeah it's kinda plausable good first book and he has another one on the way which i hope will be as good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted April 13, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted April 13, 2008 Just got back from a shopping expedition and in a moment of weakness, I ventured to Barnes & Noble. This is generally a mistake as without fail, I will spend too much time and too much money there. kid : candy store :: levi : barnes & noble (and other book megastores, too, I guess; there aren't any but b&n in my vicinity, though). I returned with The Cousins' Wars by Kevin Phillips (which I read years ago and finally got around to buying) and Silverfin by Charlie Higson (aka Ian Fleming's estate tries to create their own Potter franchise... I had held off on buying any of that series until I recently noticed that several Bond fans/anoraks whom I highly respect had nothing but praise for it). I was sorely tempted to buying a rather thick trade paperback history of football (even more so when I happened upon a passage saying that Villa could have ended up as a rugby club...), but I wasn't even planning to buy any books on this expedition and was thus somewhat over budget already... ...I guess I'll have to not eat for a couple of days this week. But my mind will be well-fed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke_holte_ender Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 If you like autobiographys, get peter kay's, he's a legend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 16, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted April 16, 2008 kid : candy store :: levi : barnes & noble (and other book megastores, too, I guess; there aren't any but b&n in my vicinity, though).You sound like me. Waterstones, Borders, Smiths, independent shops, secondhand and charity shops, they're all happy hunting grounds for me. I spent far too much on books, but as addictions go, I guess it's safer than heroin and crack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted April 16, 2008 VT Supporter Share Posted April 16, 2008 I'm currently on the Algebraist by Iain M Banks. I wanted to try some of his sci-fi sinc eI like his fiction so much, and got told this was a good one to get into it because it's similar to his 'Culture' series but outside it, lets you get a taste for his brand of sci fi. And my god was it dull for about 200 pages. Just this immense feeling of it not going anywhere fast, the alien species the book deals with heavily, the Dwellers, aren't that believable, the main character this isn't terribly likeable and I found the stuff he's describing really hard to envisage. I was really struggling to slog through it. hit about page 300 and it kicks into gear, finally. Starting to turn into a bit of a page turner, finally! I've been wanting to investigate another book, House of Leaves, thats meant to be a bit of an enigma. Worth a look on up on it to see whether it might catch you're interest. It's written in a very odd way, the text's layout becomes reflective of the plot and events, so for example a chase scene sees a single word on each page for 20 odd pages . The whole book deals with the idea of a labirynth (sp?) and the way the text is laid out is supposed to encourage that feeling of being lost and confused. It's apparently a very interesting read, a bit of a horror with a load of storylines going on on the same page, footnotes made by one of the protagonists, codes and things in the text... I think that'll be my summer reading. And I fully expect someone to come and say 'It's crap' or 'that sounds awful' quite soon . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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