What book are you reading atm??

py2006

the_monkey wrote: »

Stephen King's IT

absolute masterclass in fiction.

One of the most under rated authors EVER.

3rd time reading it, character development in this book is best I've ever read.
Only book I read and feel so sad at the end / like I MISS the characters.

If you haven't read it , I highly recommend it.

it's a long read (~ 1300 pages) but just flies by...

King is hardly underrated.

You are right, the characters in that book are amazing. I always felt king was at his best when writing about children/teens

Aglomerado

FloatingVoter wrote: »

SK rates Maeve Binchy in a similar light. Initially I thought he was taking the piss, then I picked up one my mothers books. Chapter after chapter flows. If you want to write, reading King and Binchy is a good starting point. They know people.

His own book "On Writing" is also an excellent read. Tips from the master!

Mehaffey1

Bag of Bones by Stephen King.

Loved the two part TV film but enjoying the book far more only two chapters in. Always miss the extra details and plot lines dropped from a book for the TV rendition

jaqian

Thought I'd take a break from reading sci-fi and somehow ended up reading The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells lol

Also currently reading a collection of short story called Exile and The Kingdom by Albert Camus

Thargor

KH25 wrote: »

Panem is hunger games yes? I detested the direction it went in after the first book. The only time I've finished a book and felt angry at the author.

Hunger Games/Divergent/Maze Runner etc etc and all this other young adult crap that sprung up all of a sudden are hilariously awful, the world and the characters and everything else are always so one dimensional and just plain stupid, I'm never touching any of them again.

mariaalice

Ilyana 2.0 wrote: »

I'm very slowly reading The Covenant by James A. Michener, a sort-of historical novel about South Africa. It's a bit of a random one, recommended by my dad. Seems interesting albeit slow-moving, and the author has a lovely writing style.

Centennial or Hawaii by the same author are better books, Hawaii was the first every adult type book I read.

LenaClaire

mariaalice wrote: »

Centennial or Hawaii by the same author are better books, Hawaii was the first every adult type book I read.

Hawaii and Texas were the James Michener books I read first. All of his books are pretty long, but you get so much historical information that I really like them.

conorhal

I'm really enjoying 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell', it's a charmingly quirky victorian set 'adult fairytale' about two magicians attempting to revive the practice of practical magic who become bitter rivals in the process.
It starts quite slowly but it's building into quite the gothic thriller set in a Downton Abbey sort of world where fairytales are (or at least were) true. I believe that it's been turned into a major BBC series, I hope they dont screw it up as they did with Wolf Hall.

New Home

conorhal wrote: »

I'm really enjoying 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell', it's a charmingly quirky victorian set 'adult fairytale' about two magicians attempting to revive the practice of practical magic who become bitter rivals in the process.
It starts quite slowly but it's building into quite the gothic thriller set in a Downton Abbey sort of world where fairytales are true. I believe that it's been turned into a major BBC series, I hope they dont screw it up as they did with Wolf Hall.

I'm glad someone likes it, I believe it was very successful at the time, but I must admit I found it badly written, quite tedious, and predictable...

conorhal

New Home wrote: »

I'm glad someone likes it, I believe it was very successful at the time, but I must admit I found it badly written, quite tedious, and predictable...

I picked it up in a charity shop for two euro and started reading it on holiday so I hadn't heard of it and had no expectations of it. I did wonder when it was going to get going but it seems to be headed in some interesting directions. Yeah I suspect that I can predict how it will all end, it's fairytale setup sort of demands an adherence to particular convetions and tropes but I think it's quite well written.

New Home

I picked it up in a charity shop too, and that's where it went back, too. Despite individual taste in books, it's still great when we find a book, any book, that we can get lost into.

GLaDOS

Thargor wrote: »

Hunger Games/Divergent/Maze Runner etc etc and all this other young adult crap that sprung up all of a sudden are hilariously awful, the world and the characters and everything else are always so one dimensional and just plain stupid, I'm never touching any of them again.

If it gets young people reading I think it's fine. I read some awful crap as a young teenager.

conorhal

ScienceNerd wrote: »

If it gets young people reading I think it's fine. I read some awful crap as a young teenager.

A critique of popular dystopian young adult fiction I saw a little while back made me pause and wonder if that's true. The main thrust of the artice, which was scathing of the Hunger Games series, was how nhillistic they were and how Katnis was a passive social media pawn primarily interested in what boy she wanted to kiss rather then engaged with the wider social context of the novels. It suggested a sort of disengaged passivity to many of the main female characters that made them worryingly awful role models.

conorhal

New Home wrote: »

I picked it up in a charity shop too, and that's where it went back, too. Despite individual taste in books, it's still great when we find a book, any book, that we can get lost into.

I don't suppose it was in Clondalkin was it? It would be pretty funny of I actually picked up and really enjoyed the exact same novel you binned in the charity shop!

New Home

conorhal wrote: »

I don't suppose it was in Clondalkin was it? It would be pretty funny of I actually picked up and really enjoyed the exact same novel you binned in the charity shop!

Nope, it was in Oxfam in Sligo... It was the black hardback version with the slip cover. You never know, someone else might have picked it up in Sligo and dropped it off in Clondalkin :pac:. Yeah, like there was only one copy ever printed... :rolleyes: I'm so smart I scare myself, sometimes... But yes, it would have been funny...

mariaalice

conorhal wrote: »

A critique of popular dystopian young adult fiction I saw a little while back made me pause and wonder if that's true. The main thrust of the artice, which was scathing of the Hunger Games series, was how nhillistic they were and how Katnis was a passive social media pawn primarily interested in what boy she wanted to kiss rather then engaged with the wider social context of the novels. It suggested a sort of disengaged passivity to many of the main female characters that made them worryingly awful role models.

When I was a teenager and young adult adult my favourite authors were Jacqueline Susann, Leon Uris, Sidney Sheldon and the like and I still went on to read ' decent' books as an adult.

Reading a book any book is what's important.

mariaalice

There was another author we all read as teens and use to pass around in school in the seventies, anyway the books were really popular because they had tons of graphic overwrought sex in them. Its driving me mad that I cant think of the name of the author, it was a male author and he was American, any one know who I mean.

Spunge

midnight tides, the 5th book in the Malazan series. First one that didnt confuse the fudge out of me, even though it has quite a few characters

KH25

Thargor wrote: »

Hunger Games/Divergent/Maze Runner etc etc and all this other young adult crap that sprung up all of a sudden are hilariously awful, the world and the characters and everything else are always so one dimensional and just plain stupid, I'm never touching any of them again.

I actually enjoyed the first hunger games book. The second one wasn't bad either. Sure the story is nothing groundbreaking but as people have said if it gets someone into reading then that's great.

My problem, without getting into spoiler territory, is that I think it became very obvious from the end of the second book that the author couldn't decide what she wanted to do with Katniss' character. It felt like she zig zagged all over the place especially in the third book. There was very little consistency in how she acted.

On top of that I think the story felt far too rushed in the third book. It was as if the original idea needed more time to be properly developed (maybe 4 books instead of 3). The ending also felt like it came out of nowhere and it was absolutely dreadful. Again I can't say much more than that because I don't want to give away too much.

mariaalice

Then name of the author has just come back to me ..Harold Robbins anyone else read him when you were a teen.

eisenberg1

mariaalice wrote: »

Then name of the author has just come back to me ..Harold Robbins anyone else read him when you were a teen.

The Pirate, I thought it was pure porn (back then:eek:)

LynnGrace

mariaalice wrote: »

When I was a teenager and young adult adult my favourite authors were Jacqueline Susann, Leon Uris, Sidney Sheldon and the like and I still went on to read ' decent' books as an adult.

Reading a book any book is what's important.

mariaalice wrote: »

Then name of the author has just come back to me ..Harold Robbins anyone else read him when you were a teen.

Yes, indeed, used to read all of these authors, as a teen.

Shandashey

spud82 wrote: »

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson. Brilliant book. Read it in a day

Read this myself there on holidays, flew through it & have bought his other one, the girl with a clock for a heart

Chartsengrafs

Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene. Haven't read anything by him in years. Funny book, very enjoyable.

Custardpi

Basster wrote: »

Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene. Haven't read anything by him in years. Funny book, very enjoyable.

One of my favourite Greene books. You'll never look at vacuum cleaners the same again!

McChubbin

Tried to read a chapter of The Exorcist and gave up- felt like I needed to consult a thesaurus with every sentence. It was a hard read for me and I have a varied vocabulary myself. Decided to attempt a stab at Irvine Walsh's "Filth" and it's not too bad. He writes with a Scottish accent (IE: "Didn't" becomes "Didnae") and I find I hear James McAvoy's voice in my head when I'm reading despite not seeing the movie.
That said, the thing that gets to me is that Walsh doesn't follow the usual protocols for writing dialogue in that he doesn't use quotation marks. I'm enjoying the first 2 chapters but it's a bit of a strange read in that the structure is unlike what I'm used to.

LynnGrace

eisenberg1 wrote: »

The Pirate, I thought it was pure porn (back then:eek:)

The Carpetbaggers is a title that I remember. No recollection now of what it was about!

Aglomerado

LynnGrace wrote: »

Yes, indeed, used to read all of these authors, as a teen.

And me!! Got through a fair few Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldons.

BlaasForRafa

conorhal wrote: »

A critique of popular dystopian young adult fiction I saw a little while back made me pause and wonder if that's true. The main thrust of the artice, which was scathing of the Hunger Games series, was how nhillistic they were and how Katnis was a passive social media pawn primarily interested in what boy she wanted to kiss rather then engaged with the wider social context of the novels. It suggested a sort of disengaged passivity to many of the main female characters that made them worryingly awful role models.

Hunger Games was basically a badly written rip-off of the far superior Battle Royale.

dr.kenneth noisewater

Reading American Sniper atm, interesting in ways but hard to like Chris Kyle. If you dont like America, I'll kill you is his attitude to most things. Still a bit to go so hopefully it picks up