Current reading matter

hoob · Post by **hoob** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:15 pm

Dan Brown is ok for a "ripping yarn" but his books seem to me to be full of speed and no content - or maybe I was in the wrong mood. Digital Fortress is ok too. I thought Angels and Demons to be a bit too fanciful, but then its a bit rich seeing as I'm a big SF fan. I think tis the way DB seems to take scientific speculation and passes it off as fact?

Really interesting books are David Attenborough's "Journeys into the past" and Heinrich Harrer's "I came from the stone age". He was a Nazi, but he did go to some fabulous places.

marty · Post by **marty** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:17 pm

http://sircharlescheese-cake.blogspot.com/

cj · Post by cj » Fri Jun 23, 2006 10:48 pm

Jolyon wrote:CJ- Did you get into His Dark Materials in the end? I hope so, I found them to have all the magic people claim is in Lord of the Rings but that I never found.

Still reading it, but I shall persist if only for my daughters sake as she is so excited to be sharing books with me! Now that the TV is working and footie and BB7 are on, my principles have flown out the window, and I haven't been doing much reading.

hoob · Post by **hoob** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:00 pm

Jolyon wrote:CJ- Did you get into His Dark Materials in the end? I hope so, I found them to have all the magic people claim is in Lord of the Rings but that I never found.

Anyone read or reading Geroge RR Martin's series "Game of Thrones" aka "Song of Ice and Fire"?

If you liked His Dark Materials, try The Fionavar Tapestry series (3 books)by Guy Gavriel Kay - or a single one by him called "Tigana". Not the same as HDMs but quite LOTRsy, and good. Tigana is just good.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 11:14 pm

Yes, I've read that one, and ......Fortress (forgotten the name) but they were both better written than DVC.

Jolyon · Post by **Jolyon** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 1:20 am

Deception Point is I think the best of Dan Brown's books.

Anyone else feel that the lead male in Da Vinci and Angels and Demons tells us MUCH too much about Dan Browns private sexual frustrations regarding being a shy bookish professor and NOT sexually irresistable to young European, highly educated nymphs.

And the last page of Angels and Demons. ICK ICK ICK. We sat through how many yoga comments in the book for that????

cj · Post by cj » Sat Jun 24, 2006 11:45 pm

A&D is going to be made into a film, following on the success of the DVC.

Jolyon · Post by **Jolyon** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 12:02 am

But DVC is little more than Dan Brown taking a 2nd pass at the same idea as he used in A&D!

And that is box office success, as that film is not exactly an artistic masterpiece.

englishangel · Post by **englishangel** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 9:50 am

I have just finished a book called 'Top Hook' about the NCIS (like the Military Police in the USNavy), US Navy Intelligence, CIA etc, by a father and son writing team Gordon Kent.

I will certainly be looking for more of their books.

Some time back I mentioned 'Double Eagle', by James Twining

I have just read his second book 'Black Sun' and that too is very good.

J.R. · Post by **J.R.** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 11:26 am

Just started reading another WW11 book by Douglas Reeman.

Don't know why I bother. Always the same story line, same characters with name changes and same outcome.

One more book and I can claim my free anorak.

Mid A 15 · Post by **Mid A 15** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 1:35 pm

A Father's Day present: The Freddie Flintoff Story From Cult Hero To Ashes Icon by Tanya Aldred.

From Page61..........but he returned home, a hero of sorts, to Rachael and with a lucrative new bat contract with a manufacturer called Woodworm. The company was unknown-the idea came when Mr Bob Sillett, 60, found an old bat rotted by woodworm in his garage in Billingshurst-and they needed something, someone, to get their name into the public domain. The managing director Joe, Bob's son, says: "When we wanted someone to promote the bats, there was no-one else we considered. It had to be Freddie- he was the one with the charisma."

They had just made a very wise investment. .........

cj · Post by cj » Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:16 pm

Mid A 15 wrote: Mr Bob Sillett, 60, found an old bat rotted by woodworm in his garage in Billingshurst-and they needed something, someone, to get their name into the public domain. The managing director Joe, Bob's son, says: "When we wanted someone to promote the bats, there was no-one else we considered. It had to be Freddie- he was the one with the charisma."

Ain't life funny! There's no escaping CH in any walk of life. The tentacles run far and wide!!

btw Joe Sillett was on my year, and was made band captain after Rick Slater died. I saw him last at David Elliott's funeral in March.

hoob · Post by **hoob** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:21 pm

And the Balls?

Joe was in an article in the last CH amgazine...

By the way - reading Tacitus' The Histories at t he moment....Revolution and War in ancient Rome, brilliant..

Richard Ruck · Post by **Richard Ruck** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:41 am

hoob wrote:By the way - reading Tacitus' The Histories at t he moment....Revolution and War in ancient Rome, brilliant..

In English or in Latin??

cj · Post by cj » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:57 pm

With Christmas just gone, I felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a good murder, so have worked my way through a few Agatha Christie's. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (suitably seasonal with vile family members at every turn), The Sittaford Mystery (located near us in Devon), Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, The Moving Finger, And Then There Were None (renamed after the original Ten Little Niggers was deemed inappropriate) and something else. They are wonderful studies of society and its mores and values at that time. I really enjoy them - plus I never get who did it until the reveal.