Book Me, Dano.

Chat about stuff other than Transformers.
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inflatable dalek
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Book Me, Dano.

Post by inflatable dalek »

We've threads for DVD's, music, toys computer games and prostitutes, so I thought it was time for a thread on the books we were reading as well. I usually have about ten on the go, but the main ones at the moment:



Poirot and Me by David Suchet. Bought for me by my mother to go with my watching of the show, a very sweet book where Suchet comes over as a genuinely nice man with lots of good actorly annecdotes. however, as with Roger Moore's book on Bond from a couple of years ago you can feel the join between the bits Suchet wrote (thoughts on how to play the character and how well each film worked) and the bits done by his ghost writer ("The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was first published in 192X and critics at the time said...").

Shame it's not called Bigfoot and the Hendersons and Me though, even if it was pleasing he mentions that film as a fun one to make.

Skyship by John Brosnan. Brosnan's It's Only a Movie column in Starburst magazine was a huge influence on my writing style so I was pleased to see Golance put out a £2 ebook version of several of his novels as part of their "Forgotten stuff in our back catalogue we can get a bit of money out of digitally" range.

It's incredibly cheesy- as any book about the maiden voyage of a nuclear powered airship that people aren't expecting will go horribly wrong is wont to be- but huge daft fun and has just the right amount of tongue in its cheek thus far.
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Auntie Slag »

The Three Musketeers. Its alright but the best character by far is Richelou (who reminds me of Prowl), and he's not in it enough by half. Also the book is massive and taking me forever to get through. I can only handle one book at a time, but for Musketeers I took time out to go through Eugenesis again.
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Denyer
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Post by Denyer »

I vaguely remember having time to read. Flipping through Save the Cat at the moment, and am in the progress of upgrading a few things I've had as singles for years such as early Hitman and Death: The High Cost of Living with trades and hardcovers.
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Summerhayes
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Post by Summerhayes »

I can rarely handle having more than one book on the go at any given moment, but what I tend to do is line up the books I'm planning to read so I can move from one into the next without too much deliberation. It also means I can plan out to a ridiculously minute amount of detail what I'm reading next; I can space out series of books, make sure ones I'm not sure I'll like are sandwiched between sure things and so on.

I'll take a picture of the books on my shelf at some point as its currently ridiculous; I just got back from visiting family, during which I visited a massive second-hand book warehouse and bought eleven more novels to read, including eight star trek novels.

As for what I'm reading right now; book two of a four-volume edition of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which for an eight hundred year old book about two thousand year old Chinese history is surprisingly readable.
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Post by Heinrad »

Joyland, by Stephen King. He occasionally puts books out under the Hard Crime imprint, and this is one of them. Pretty good so far.

On my Kindle app, I'm reading......

Ben Hur, by General Lew Wallace. I've always liked the movie, and figured it was time to give the book a shot. And I have to say, Wallace succeeded in what he wanted to do. The detail is so exact that reading it makes you feel like you're in the desert. It's very dry, in both the literal and literary sense.
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Post by Clay »

Mostly been listening to audiobooks of public domain stuff on youtube. Currently moving through all the HP Lovecraft stuff I can find. Also listening to a lot of first-half 19th century American literature stuff for a course I'm taking (Poe, Hawthorne, Thoreau, etc.). I like the Lovecraft stuff more. :o
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Post by Notabot »

I'm a terribly slow reader, but our library just got all the Game of Thrones books on CD, and I've had some massive solo road time. I was intrigued by all the praise and the plot summaries, but I hate that HBO made the series so... HBOish. I'm a little over halfway through the second book, Clash of Kings, right now. Lots of characters and interwoven plots, but each book could be about half as long if Martin omitted a few of his "this book is an epic classic, so here is a two page list of people who were present but you'll never hear about again and the menu of what they ate" sections.

I have to wonder if the books continue to get progressively more graphic, though. I've heard more than enough rape scenes already and am honestly considering giving up on the books and just reading wiki summaries instead.
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Post by electro girl »

Recently read The Jedi Path and Book of the Sith. I've also got a couple of the Shakespeare Star Wars adaptations to get through but my main read at the moment is Concretopia about post war architecture in Britain because Brutalism is amazing!
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Post by Summerhayes »

I found the Song of Ice and Fire books to be incredibly compelling reading, certainly didn't have any issues with length. Each to their own though I suppose. As I understand it, �Martin just really, really likes food, hence the ludicrous amount of food description. I always like books that describe the characters meals in detail, not sure why.
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Post by HeavyArms »

I have been slowly reading Battlefield 4: Road To War hoping that like it's predecessor it would be better than the Battlefield 4 video game, not sure that's accurate yet.
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Post by Heinrad »

Finished Joyland, breezed through I Didn't Ask to be Born(But I'm Glad I Was) by Bill Cosby, and I just started The Cat Who Tailed a Thief, by Lillian Jackson Braun.
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Good thread this, just downloaded Lovecraft's 'The Shunned House' thanks to Clay's recommendation :smokin:
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Post by Denyer »

Clay wrote:Mostly been listening to audiobooks of public domain stuff on youtube. Currently moving through all the HP Lovecraft stuff I can find.
Any particularly good readings? Gutenberg has some great Holmes ones if you snip the website plug at the beginning of chunks;

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9556
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Post by Auntie Slag »

Blimey, I didn't know about the audio book side of things over at Project Gutenberg. That's very cool!
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Post by Summerhayes »

I was utterly convinced that was going to be a website collecting recordings of Steve Guttenberg reading classic novels. Convinced.
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Post by Heinrad »

Finished The Cat Who Tailed a Thief, and barreled through Paper Doll, by Robert B. Parker. Yes, much like Nightbeat, I love a mystery.

Next up: Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, by Dave Barry. If the hot, and hopefully single, babe behind the counter likes the same humor columnist you do, she's a keeper. Once I figure out what her name is.......
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Post by Warcry »

Dave Barry is still alive writing? He was vaguely funny twenty years ago, I suppose.

Today I started reading my dad's old copy of The Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns, which in spite of being written in 1961 is one of the most engaging technical/historical books on the subject I've ever seen. Certainly a lot more interesting and memorable than the government handbook on the subject that you need to read for their safety course.

It's also unintentionally hilarious at times because it's over fifty years old and the author had some extremely sideways ideas even for the time -- he seems really proud that a certain gun "killed all the elk and bison in the east and drove the Indians into the plains", which really isn't something you'd expect from a hunter nowadays. Even putting aside the racism, he'd have been able to go out and shoot elk and bison himself if those shortsighted assholes hadn't extirpated them. Bison are delicious, dammit!
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inflatable dalek
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Post by inflatable dalek »

Anyone else scared Warcry is doing research into guns? Which of us will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes?
REVIISITATION: THE HOLE TRUTH
STARSCREAM GOES TO PIECES IN MY LOOK AT INFILTRATION #6!
PLUS: BUY THE BOOKS!
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Post by Heinrad »

Nah, I'm not scared.

As far as I know, Dave Barry is still alive and writing. He's retired from regular column writing and is mainly doing books now.

But fear not, he still does the Year in Review and the Annual Christmas Gift Guide.
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Post by Warcry »

inflatable dalek wrote:Anyone else scared Warcry is doing research into guns? Which of us will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes?
As long as none of you are secretly a deer or other such tasty animal, or something trying to raid my garden (or have bullseyes tattooed on you), you should be fine.

Actually considering how bad a shot I am you'd probably still be fine even if you were one of those things, but if you're the scenery beside them, watch out!

(When the revolution comes you will be disposed of via hanging. :glance: )
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