Lemonade Posted May 16, 2016 Report Share Posted May 16, 2016 On 4/25/2016 at 10:19 AM, Lemonade said: Taking a break at the 50% mark. Tough read. Shit book. Reading "Billy" by Pamela Stephenson to cleanse my pallet. It's a biography of Billy Connolly written by his wife who's also a psychologist. It's surprisingly dark. Finished "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King. Shit. Also Finished "Billy" by Pamela Stephenson, which was good and "The Irish Scissor Sisters" by Mick McCaffrey, which is a true crime book about a famous murder case that happened in Dublin a few years ago. Now reading "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates. I'm only just starting it but its beautifully written so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted May 16, 2016 Report Share Posted May 16, 2016 (edited) 21 minutes ago, Lemonade said: Finished "Lisey's Story" by Stephen King. Shit. Also Finished "Billy" by Pamela Stephenson, which was good and "The Irish Scissor Sisters" by Mick McCaffrey, which is a true crime book about a famous murder case that happened in Dublin a few years ago. Now reading "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates. I'm only just starting it but its beautifully written so far. Quote from that Wikipedia article: "The killing only came to light ten days later when Noor's leg, with a sock on the end, was seen floating in the canal, a few hundred yards from Croke Park. Garda sub-aqua divers retrieved most of the rest of his body in seven parts. Noor's head and penis were never found." I live just up the canal from where he was murdered and his body parts dumped, though it was before I moved here. Though somewhere around the area his head and dick remain. Edited May 16, 2016 by Lemonade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted May 17, 2016 Report Share Posted May 17, 2016 Currently reading To the Lighthouse by Virginina Woolf. Tried it a while back but moved onto something else so I've gone back to it. It's beautifully written, I'm just not really sure what's going on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted May 18, 2016 Report Share Posted May 18, 2016 (edited) I'm getting through Great Expectations in stoats 'n' bangs just now. Ironically, I don't really know what to expect as it's the first Dickens I've read. Seems pretty funny, in a Dickensian sort of way. Edited May 18, 2016 by James Broonbreed Yer Maw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted May 25, 2016 Report Share Posted May 25, 2016 Fuck Dickens. Back to Asimov reading Foundation's edge. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted May 25, 2016 Report Share Posted May 25, 2016 Reading Guvnors, the football hooliganism book mentioned in the football thread. Standard fare thus far Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 Guvnors was entertaining enough, if a bit predictable. Just started a book I've wanted to read for ages; the Energy bus by Jon Gordon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted May 31, 2016 Report Share Posted May 31, 2016 Has anyone read much of the Dune saga? I've read Dune a while back - bit of a slog, but enjoyed it - and wouldn't mind checking out some of that shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted June 6, 2016 Report Share Posted June 6, 2016 Finished the Energy Bus which was a good and relatively short read. Some great reminders in there, especially for anyone running a team at work or outside. Now onto Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, about strategies for driving change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoonie Posted June 21, 2016 Report Share Posted June 21, 2016 Started on The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam yesterday. It's a biography about Bill Belichick and Halberstams stuff is usually awesome. It's been good so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester1470 Posted June 21, 2016 Report Share Posted June 21, 2016 Been reading a lot more this year than I have for a while, I started by re-reading most of the Shannara series after the TV series, some of them are excellent, some seem like Tolkein rip offs, I can see why they didn;t film Sword, they'd probably get sued, but it's enjoyable fluffy fantasy with some interesting characters. I then went on to finally reading the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch, I am a fan of Ben's Dr Who stuff and had heard good things about these, and in fact have had them all in hardback for ages, and been to see him talk twice at the Edinburgh Book Festival but still never read them. I really liked them and really looking forward tot the next one. I am also now reading Ben's Remembrance of the Daleks Target Adaptation as well which i'm really enjoying for the extra details he has put in. I have been buying a few of the new Sherlock Holmes books from Titan as they're written mostly by authors I really like from the Big Finish Dr Who and Torchwood audios, I've really enjoyed the George Mann ones so that lead me onto his Newbury and Hobbes books so I am also halfway through the first one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted June 30, 2016 Report Share Posted June 30, 2016 I'm most of the way through Neuromancer by William Gibson just now and I have little idea of what is going on. Probably worth a re-read at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 1, 2016 Report Share Posted July 1, 2016 (edited) "Porno" by Irvine Welsh. Recently put away "Michael Schumacher: The Edge Of Greatness" by James Allen; "Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone" by JK Rowling; and "Past St Combs" by Scott G. Buchan. Got a bit stuck on "Revolutionary Road" and put it down for a while. I might return to it but I wasn't really feeling it. I found it a bit dry and slow. Pages and pages of descriptive text, not much dialogue, and nothing really happening. I've seen the film so I know the ending anyway Edited July 1, 2016 by Lemonade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 1, 2016 Report Share Posted July 1, 2016 How was Past St Combs? I think I only read about half of Liquid Kids due to it being a PDF. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 2, 2016 Report Share Posted July 2, 2016 20 hours ago, James Broonbreed said: How was Past St Combs? I think I only read about half of Liquid Kids due to it being a PDF. Very good, worth a read, although the stuff about his own life in it is more interesting than the actual story. All his stuff is on Lulu.com for £2 for epub, you can convert them to .mobi files for Kindle online for free. http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=420185 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 2, 2016 Report Share Posted July 2, 2016 Cheers min, Aye, when Liquid Kids came out, it was paper copy or PDF which at the time, was a shite way to read a book . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 14, 2016 Report Share Posted July 14, 2016 I'm slowly trying to work through all of Stephen King's extensive back catalogue, which does meander across into fantasy a few times. I'm really not a fan of fantasy, I've tried and given up with the Dark Tower series so many times. Currently I'm working through "The Eyes Of The Dragon" which is a tale of a young prince who is being groomed to take over the throne, however the King is murdered by his right-hand man who frames the Prince for it, allowing his much-more easily manipulated younger brother to take over the Kingdom instead. Not something I would usually read, but to my surprise I'm racing through this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 14, 2016 Report Share Posted July 14, 2016 (edited) Because of my weird obsession with keeping records of everything, here's my current Stephen King reading stats: Novels: 27 / 36 Novels as Richard Bachman: 6 / 7 Novels with Peter Straub: 0 / 2 Dark Tower novels: 1 / 9 Short story collections: 6 / 11 Non-Fiction: 0 / 4 Novellas: 0 / 7 Total: 40 / 76 Edited July 14, 2016 by Lemonade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soda Jerk Posted July 15, 2016 Report Share Posted July 15, 2016 I've lagged way behind in my reading due to moving the length of the country and job hunting. Finally cracked back on with the NOFX book and I'm about 2/3 of the way through. Blimey, it is dark as fuck, and that puts it very lightly. They were all involved in some pretty heavy antics back in the 80s. It seems miraculous that they weren't killed, several times over, all of them, especially Erik Sandin. Each member writes a chapter at a time, and the next chapter sort of follows on. On a few occasions, what one of them thought happened actually didn't happen, or not how they thought it did. Example, (huge spoiler incoming if you're planning on reading it) Erik Melvin thought that an acquaintance of his, Raymond, a huge, gnarly, dangerous guy who killed people for fun, tried to rape his girlfriend Iris, but Iris told Melvin that she managed to escape. Fat Mike clarifies in the following chapter that she actually was raped, but she didn't want to tell Melvin, because he would try to confront Raymond and then most definitely be killed. The book then states that Melvin didn't find this out until it was put in print in this book. LA in the 80s sounds like a warzone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Broonbreed Posted July 16, 2016 Report Share Posted July 16, 2016 Readings Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. Bit of a slog as a transition from night shift to day shift has had me reading it in stots and bangs. About a quarter of the way through, seems like typical Fyodor fare, lots of characters and pompous dialogue. Not quite sure what I'm expecting to happen. Hopefully I can be nearly finished by the time I'm back onshore as this will provide yet another restriction to my reading regimen. . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trikelops Posted July 21, 2016 Report Share Posted July 21, 2016 On 14/07/2016 at 4:25 PM, Lemonade said: Because of my weird obsession with keeping records of everything, here's my current Stephen King reading stats: Novels: 27 / 36 Novels as Richard Bachman: 6 / 7 Novels with Peter Straub: 0 / 2 Dark Tower novels: 1 / 9 Short story collections: 6 / 11 Non-Fiction: 0 / 4 Novellas: 0 / 7 Total: 40 / 76 A man after my own heart. He's my favourite author, think I have every book he ever wrote. A couple of years ago I mistakenly thought I had read all of the Dark Tower series, then spotted Son Of Susannah in WH Smith's. So it gave me an excuse to read the whole series again so I could work that one into the sequence. Right now I'm reading Now and Then by Joseph Heller, more or less about his life as a kid. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 22, 2016 Report Share Posted July 22, 2016 (edited) 13 hours ago, Trikelops said: A man after my own heart. He's my favourite author, think I have every book he ever wrote. A couple of years ago I mistakenly thought I had read all of the Dark Tower series, then spotted Son Of Susannah in WH Smith's. So it gave me an excuse to read the whole series again so I could work that one into the sequence. Right now I'm reading Now and Then by Joseph Heller, more or less about his life as a kid. I've always struggled with The Dark Tower, I'm not really in to fantasy and it took me a few attempts to get through the first book. I'll finish the series though. One day.... Edited July 22, 2016 by Lemonade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trikelops Posted July 22, 2016 Report Share Posted July 22, 2016 I'm not really into fantasy much either, but there is something about the Dark Tower series that got to me. There are hints about some older civilisation, remains of cities etc that made me think of The Stand. Then the characters that appear in one book are the ones who disappeared in Black House. The priest and the street kids Eddie and his brother. it made me realise just what a clever writer Stephen King is, how he had all that going on in his head perhaps years before it actually came about in print. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted July 22, 2016 Report Share Posted July 22, 2016 2 hours ago, Trikelops said: I'm not really into fantasy much either, but there is something about the Dark Tower series that got to me. There are hints about some older civilisation, remains of cities etc that made me think of The Stand. Then the characters that appear in one book are the ones who disappeared in Black House. The priest and the street kids Eddie and his brother. it made me realise just what a clever writer Stephen King is, how he had all that going on in his head perhaps years before it actually came about in print. What are your favourites and least favourites? Of the classics I love Pet Semetary and IT but I also think he's done some of his best stuff in the last ten years. Joyland, 11/22/63, Full Dark, No Stars and Duma Key are all incredible books, I really, really loved Duma Key. I liked Cell as well although I believe it good a pretty lukewarm reception at the time. I've always thought of him as a master storyteller but an average writer, but he's a much, much better writer these days, really layered characters and he can really get you in the feels, as the kids say. There's less horror and more drama in his recent books, especially family stuff I've noticed, which make his characters a lot more sympathetic. A lot of the protagonists in his earlier work are pretty 2-dimensional. That said I was unimpressed with Doctor Sleep which was pretty poor, especially after such a run of amazing books. I wasn't keen on Lisey's Story either, but I think everyone hates that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trikelops Posted July 22, 2016 Report Share Posted July 22, 2016 Have to say I loved Duma key as well and I found Cell particularly gripping. My favourites would have to be It and The Stand I suppose. The Last three have been pretty god as well, although End of Watch was the weakest of the trilogy IMO. From a Buick 8 was pretty good as was Lisey's Story. The Tommyknockers was enjoyable as was The Shining and it's amazing sequel which I can't for the life of me remember the name of! In all honesty I think he is the best author I have ever read. It is great to pick up one of his books from time to time that I haven't read in years and give it another go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.