ender4 Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 32 minutes ago, leemond2008 said: I was going to read the girl with all the gifts and then they started filming the movie outside where I work (Livery Street) and there were shit zombie models strewn all over the place, didn't look all that apocalyptic and all looked a bit cheap, it put me off it The film has been done with a very low budget. The average Hollywood film costs $50 mill, this film was filmed for $4 mill. Doesn't make the book as less appealing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 16 hours ago, hogso said: By the way, did anyone ever look at your Mum when she was pregnant with you and say: Now, there's an Andy Kent waiting to happen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 49 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: By the way, did anyone ever look at your Mum when she was pregnant with you and say: Now, there's an Andy Kent waiting to happen? Ahah, no, at that time my mother expected me to be a girl by the name of Lucy, so. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted October 10, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted October 10, 2016 Currently reading The Small Back Room, by Nigel Balchin. I had a vague idea it was all about bomb disposal - and although that forms the climactic part of the plot, it's not the main theme. It's essentially about the backstabbing office politics involved in the backroom scientific research area of WWII, and a superb portrait of an insecure scientist and his private demons. Considering it was published right in the middle of the war, it's amazingly hard-hitting and entirely lacking in feelgood propaganda. Excellent novel (filmed in 1948). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted October 10, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted October 10, 2016 Just said on another thread funnily enough that Stephen King The Stand is my favourite book ever. I own everything Terry Pratchett has ever read. My main books are sword and sorcery kind of things probably brought about from reading C S Lewis and Tolkien as a child. David Gemmel was my favourite author of that genre until I discovered George Martin who is just off the scale. Also like David Eddings though his books get rather samey samey after a while. When I was a kid I used to read 3 Arthur Ransome books at the same time rotating chapter by chapter as I couldn't wait to start the next book. I pretty much read exclusively on the bog now if I'm not on holiday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 Anyone read the latest Harry Potter? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chappy Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 27 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said: Anyone read the latest Harry Potter? Yes, loved it. Going in March, had the tickets for nearly a year now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted October 10, 2016 Share Posted October 10, 2016 10 minutes ago, chappy said: Yes, loved it. Going in March, had the tickets for nearly a year now! Ah good stuff, my old dear is going next year as well, she normally buys the books but hasn't as wants it as a surprise when she sees it. I may have to treat myself to the book soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 10 hours ago, sidcow said: David Gemmel was my favourite author of that genre until I discovered George Martin who is just off the scale. Only my opinion of course and whilst I love Game of Thrones you should read Joe Abercrombies first law trilogy, I rate it better than Game of Thrones. Good characters fast pace and he knew exasctly what he was doing with the story, unlike George Martin who seems to be going the directiong of the lost TV series in that he hasn't got a clue how to tie everything together and keep a decent ending Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 11 hours ago, mikeyp102 said: Anyone read the latest Harry Potter? Have it, haven't actually read it, but did go to see it back in July. It's properly magic, the stage production is fantastic. The plot is...kooky. It does lend itself wonderfully well to bringing in all manner of characters, which is nice, plus the majority of the new ones are good too. Girl I sat next to was in legit floods of tears near the end, never seen anything like it. I have no idea how well it translates to the page, but I know I would certainly have preferred to see it before reading it, so I'm glad I did. Although, I wouldn't have been able to read it before anyway, as the book wasn't out till...August, I think? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
This Could Be Rotterdam Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Just started re-reading Kolymsky Heights, slow to get going first time round but now i know how good it gets it isnt quite as difficult. Cant think of many other books that ive enjoyed so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted October 11, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted October 11, 2016 4 hours ago, leemond2008 said: Only my opinion of course and whilst I love Game of Thrones you should read Joe Abercrombies first law trilogy, I rate it better than Game of Thrones. You're the second person that has recommended those recently so i've just ordered them. They sound up my street to be fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 Some time back in the 1980s I was in Hudsons in Brum and mooching through the Penguin section I came across a huge brick of a book called U.S.A., with the picture of a typical American skyscraper on the cover. I never bought it but for years I wondered who wrote it but never actually found out, or heard it mentioned, but earlier this year the name Dos Passos came up as an answer in a crossword and when I looked it up: Ay, Caramba! Having mentioned it to someone, they were kind enough to bring a copy back from Hay-on-Wye a few weeks ago. At 1200 pages and having what looks like a quirky format, I can't decide whether to actually read it or not. Anyone read it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted October 11, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted October 11, 2016 (edited) 54 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said: Some time back in the 1980s I was in Hudsons in Brum and mooching through the Penguin section I came across a huge brick of a book called U.S.A., with the picture of a typical American skyscraper on the cover. I never bought it but for years I wondered who wrote it but never actually found out, or heard it mentioned, but earlier this year the name Dos Passos came up as an answer in a crossword and when I looked it up: Ay, Caramba! Having mentioned it to someone, they were kind enough to bring a copy back from Hay-on-Wye a few weeks ago. At 1200 pages and having what looks like a quirky format, I can't decide whether to actually read it or not. Anyone read it? Yep. **** ing magnificent, up there in my top ten. Very modernist/experimental - bits written as if they were film directions, or newspaper articles, etc. And a fascinatingly different left-wing take on America's early 20th Century. If you like it, the same author's 'Manhattan Transfer' is also good (and shorter!) Edited October 11, 2016 by mjmooney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted October 11, 2016 Share Posted October 11, 2016 8 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Yep. **** ing magnificent, up there in my top ten. Very modernist/experimental - bits written as if they were film directions, or newspaper articles, etc. And a fascinatingly different left-wing take on America's early 20th Century. If you like it, the same author's 'Manhattan Transfer' is also good (and shorter!) Thanks! From the bits I've read it seems promising but as it is such a big investment of time, I thought I'd better ask first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted October 16, 2016 Share Posted October 16, 2016 Picked up a couple of coffee tablers this year. Top one is a collection of production music album covers. It's called 'The Music Library'. Second is a Spectrum retrospective, 'Sinclair ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium'. Thinking of putting a long shelf down the hall. A couple of interesting books wouldn't go amiss. She wants the Saatchi book 'Beyond Belief'. A collection of wrong advertising. It might appear at Christmas. Any coffee table books people go back to, remembering I probably won't be allowed those nice Playboy collections? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 On 16/09/2016 at 08:02, leemond2008 said: I've got a feeling it's going to be a tough read, originially released in 1820, I'm looking forward to it though. Blimey that was a difficult read, why summarise something in 1 sentence when 2 pages will suffice. It is wrote as a story in a story in a story...then back to one of the other stories. Far too wordy (even for its time) and didn't really live up to expectations, I was expecting something comparable with The Monk but I didn't get it. Quote The year was 1865. With the close of the Civil War, there began for the South, an era of even greater turmoil. In The Clansman, his controversial 1905 novel, later the basis of the motion picture The Birth of a Nation, Thomas Dixon, describes the social, political, and economic disintegration that plagued the South during Reconstruction, depicting the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the reactions of two families to racial conflict. This study in social history was alternatively praised and damned by contemporary critics. As historian Thomas D. Clark notes in his introduction, the novel "opened wider a vein of racial hatred which was to poison further an age already in social and political upheaval. Dixon had in fact given voice in his novel to one of the most powerful latent forces in the social and political mind of the South." For modern readers, The Clansman probes the roots of the racial violence that still haunts our society. started this the other day, I'm about 70 pages in so far and its a bit of a slog, in a nutshell the South are good, the North are bad, it's only half way into the book that you can see the authors feelings towards blacks start to raise its head in a big way. Its an interesting read purely to see what some of the Souths opinions were and what their mindset was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted October 17, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted October 17, 2016 I have a mate whose Favourite Book Of All Time is 'Melmoth the Wanderer' - he's read it several times. Mrs. M read it a couple of years ago, said she quite enjoyed it, but not that much. I won't bother, gothic is not my thing. I just galloped through "Leavin' Trunk Blues" by Ace Atkins. Routine crime/noir, with the twist of being set in the world of blues music. Rather good, actually. Just starting "These Barren Leaves" by Aldous Huxley (1925). Evelyn Waugh-style social satire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 17, 2016 Share Posted October 17, 2016 crikey I wouldn't fancy reading it again, the first 1/2 of the book was really good but the problem with the 'story in a story in a story' style is that if one of the stories doesn't grab your attention it is quite easy to lose track of the main plot. The main character was actually more of a side character as well, he was only briefly in it and when he did put in an appearence it wasn't exactly thrilling stuff then. The section set in the monastry was brilliant though. I'd definitely read Lewis' 'The Monk' before Melmoth though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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