mjmooney Posted May 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted May 12, 2010 Thank god you did not mention Colin Forbes in that list! Stephen King is sometimes unfairly bunched along with 'genre' writers , which he is not , as I can attest to after having read all of his work. I suggest you to try 'The running man' or 'The Stand' if you have time on your hands. No chance. I'm 56 and morbidly working out how many books I can read before I die - and my shortlist already number in the hundreds. Life's too short for me to be reading Stephen King. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jez Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Really enjoyed the new Stephen King, Under The Dome. Biggest since The Stand i think, a few obviously cliches but still hugely enjoyable. Hope they make it into a tv series. Worth buying it , then? The Stand was good but a bit too stretched out. Sorry only just seen this. Worth buying yeah, i really enjoyed it. Quite big though not sure how big, i think The Stand and IT are bigger. After i finised Under the dome, i read IT and now just started The Stand the un-cut version. For some reason liking big books at the moment! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Really enjoyed the new Stephen King, Under The Dome. Biggest since The Stand i think, a few obviously cliches but still hugely enjoyable. Hope they make it into a tv series. Worth buying it , then? The Stand was good but a bit too stretched out. Sorry only just seen this. Worth buying yeah, i really enjoyed it. Quite big though not sure how big, i think The Stand and IT are bigger. After i finised Under the dome, i read IT and now just started The Stand the un-cut version. For some reason liking big books at the moment! Cheers , I had forgotten all about the book. I am getting it from Landmark this saturday. Been a while since I read a new King book. The last one I purchased sucked :x "Rose Madder". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Thank god you did not mention Colin Forbes in that list! Stephen King is sometimes unfairly bunched along with 'genre' writers , which he is not , as I can attest to after having read all of his work. I suggest you to try 'The running man' or 'The Stand' if you have time on your hands. No chance. I'm 56 and morbidly working out how many books I can read before I die - and my shortlist already number in the hundreds. Life's too short for me to be reading Stephen King. Haha , true I am still only 26 so I can indulge. I like to mix my serious fiction with 'pop' fiction for that variety :winkold: Btw MJM , have you read Joseph Conrad's The heart of darkness? EDIT: The Running man would take you 6-8 hours max, I'd still give it a shot if I were ya. Damn good book Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted May 12, 2010 Btw MJM , have you read Joseph Conrad's The heart of darkness? EDIT: The Running man would take you 6-8 hours max, I'd still give it a shot if I were ya. Damn good book Heart of Darkness is on the long shortlist. I'll think about The Running Man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Btw MJM , have you read Joseph Conrad's The heart of darkness? EDIT: The Running man would take you 6-8 hours max, I'd still give it a shot if I were ya. Damn good book Heart of Darkness is on the long shortlist. I'll think about The Running Man. Move it up the priority list then , it is a must read. :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted May 12, 2010 Btw MJM , have you read Joseph Conrad's The heart of darkness? EDIT: The Running man would take you 6-8 hours max, I'd still give it a shot if I were ya. Damn good book Heart of Darkness is on the long shortlist. I'll think about The Running Man. Move it up the priority list then , it is a must read. :winkold: OK. But if I don't like it you have to read À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Btw MJM , have you read Joseph Conrad's The heart of darkness? EDIT: The Running man would take you 6-8 hours max, I'd still give it a shot if I were ya. Damn good book Heart of Darkness is on the long shortlist. I'll think about The Running Man. Move it up the priority list then , it is a must read. :winkold: OK. But if I don't like it you have to read À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. I deal as long as it's an English Translation. I don't do french But I am quite certain you will like it any way , going by your taste. :winkold: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethRDR Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Evil Dead , haha. Iconic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiggyrichard Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Read them both on holiday the other week. Brilliant brilliant books!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b23avfc Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 I want the motorcycle diaries but in the original spanish, in case anybody comes across it.. as you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Read them both on holiday the other week. Brilliant brilliant books!!! Always love rock n roll books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pelle Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 So far, never read a single word by Terry Pratchett, Dean Koontz, Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Wilbur Smith, Stiegg Larsson, Robert Jordan, Lee Child. Harlan Coben, Jack Higgins, james Patterson, John Grisham. I've read most of those authors and I must recommend Stieg Larsson. That trilogy is brilliant. I don't think you'd get disappointed. And Jordan is the best fantazy writer since Tolkien, though that series will e about 13 books when it's finished and as he's dead and someone else will finish it for him I really can't tell you to start now. But it is brilliant. And Ludlums books about Jason Bourne are also very good, especially the one that inspired to the Bounre-movies with Matt Damon. "Kain identity"? So, all in all, IF you ever were to find time for a few books Larsson and Ludlum would be the ones I'd recommen most of that list. I like Cusslers books, but that's more down to the things he writes about more than him being a good writer. He really isn't that good a writer. But decent stories. And I agree on Christie. I felt about the same when I started to read that book. Yet to finish it so I might change that opinion, of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 ^ Grisham is always a nice easy holiday read and good fun, not read any in years though. And no Pratchett Mike? thought his humour might have appealed slightly. Currently digging into my first Phillip Kerr book If The Dead Rise Not. Very well researched and good fun so far, though the dialogue is odd. It's really good and snappy, but for some reason feels very much like applying chandleresque dialogue onto the german protagonists, feels a bit "off" but not enough to stop it being entertaining. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted May 12, 2010 I'm probably at risk of being branded a book snob, but Grisham et al is Just Not My Sort Of Thing. Pratchett? Well I like sf, and I like Douglas Adams's sf parodies. I don't like fantasy at all (LOTR excepted), and have little inclination to read Pratchett's fantasy parodies. And, yes, I know, I know, they're not just that - but I've read a few excerpts and thought "meh". TBH I almost distrust on principle anybody who can knock out that many books so quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 fair enough! They are quick reads really and if you are being selective I can see where you're coming from Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted May 12, 2010 To elaborate a little on my (arguably) book snobbery. As it happens, I like poetry, which is a bit of a clue as to my taste in novels - I value style more highly than plot. I think most casual readers just like a good story, told in a straightforward way - hence the success of Dan Brown et al. But given a choice between that, and a book in which nothing much happens, but it is beautifully written, I'll take the beautiful writing every time. My reference upthread to Proust is a clue - a 3,000 page novel with very little in the way of plot, but lots of subtle psychological musing, written in a style (the Terence Kilmartin translation is said to be spot-on) which is positively baroque - some sentences go on for a couple of pages. And it may well be my favourite book of all time. Not to everyone's taste, I know, but I love it. So even when I read "genre" fiction, I prefer the stuff that tends to the literary end of the spectrum, rather than the mass-market bestseller. Having said that, I do like a bit of vintage pulp fiction (Raymond Chandler, etc.), but that's probably just my grumpy old man trait of valuing stuff from the old days over stuff from now. I'm the same with films and music. Old crap is better than new crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrWeedMcGrass Posted May 12, 2010 Share Posted May 12, 2010 Whats your opinion on P.G. Wodehouse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 12, 2010 VT Supporter Share Posted May 12, 2010 Whats your opinion on P.G. Wodehouse?Should have added him to the list of "I read one, I thought it was OK, I have no desire to read more". I can see he's very, very good at what he does, but it doesn't quite hit my funny bone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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