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Mac

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About Mac

  • Birthday 11/09/1973

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  • Reading now?
    Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold
  • Gender
    Not Telling
  • Location:
    location, location
  • Interests
    The Great Outdoors; Scouting; Duke of Edinburgh's Award; Reading (obviously!); Writing; Gardening; Art; Film; Theatre; Music and more besides...!

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  • Website URL
    http://www.shanks-pony.com

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  1. Happy Birthday Mac. Enjoy your day. : )

  2. Saturday and I have some time to myself!!! Whoop!

    1. Eleonora
    2. wordsgood

      wordsgood

      Hello all!

       

      Hope everyone's been behaving themselves and getting lots of reading in! Hugs all around!

       

  3. Saturday and I have some time to myself!!! Whoop!

  4. Friday. Yep.

  5. Deeply Odd by Dean Koontz Coming across a sinister truck driver in the quiet Californian coastal town where he lives, Odd has a vision of three innocent children who will be horribly slaughtered by this man. Realising that his intent is now known, the truckie tries to kill Odd, but fails and flees. Odd takes pursuit, and soon discovers that he's up against not a single twisted murderer, but a network of evil men and women whose identities and motivations are mysterious and whose resources seem almost supernatural. (Courtesy of Goodreads). I've been a loyal fan of Dean Koontz since I was a teenager and have found his novels reasonably consistent in their ability to keep me turning the pages. Granted, an author as prolific as Koontz must surely have his ups and downs, but this novel kept me glued throughout. The pace is good and the character development of the protagonist (Odd Thomas) is nicely shaped. I do like the way Dean Koontz views the world and his moral take on it. It's worth reading purely for that, really, although the series of books featuring Odd Thomas are worth reading from the start - beginning with Odd Thomas - as they follow the memoirs of the chap over the course of around 18 months of his rather turbulent life. 7/10 - another well sculptured book.
  6. I've read some Kelley Armstrong, some Sophie Hannah and all of Ian McEwan's novels (Enduring Love is a superb one to start with - wonderful stuff). In terms of the amount of time you're able to give to reading: who needs work and relationships anyway...?!? (So you know, I'm kidding about the "who needs work and relationships" bit...)
  7. Nice reviews, Brian. The Hesse, in particular, intrigues me.
  8. Whenever I say to the kids I teach "Oh, I lolled out loud!" they just look at me as though I'm mental. This, in turn, makes me rofl on the floor laughing...
  9. Clear sky, washing out and pancakes on the horizon...

  10. Hey there. Just so you know, in no way, shape or form, was this topic meant as a dig at Americans. So sorry if it came across as otherwise. I'm from the North of England, so my own grasp of language is poor at the best of times!
  11. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 'What are you thinking, Amy? The question I've asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?' Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy's friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn't true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren't his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what did really did happen to Nick's beautiful wife? And what was left in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war... Wow. What a terrific book. Characterisation is unbelievably good, pulling you through huge ambiguity throughout the entire novel. I found it challenging in a very good way, and it made me question a lot of how I felt about the characters, all the while thinking what an incredibly talented author Flynn is. I can't describe a lot of what cracks off in this novel for fear of spoiling it. My advice? Read it, and read it when you don't have a lot else on, for it will eat your time. 10/10 A real, proper belter!
  12. This is becoming commonplace, particularly in coffee shops. I make a very grumpy point of asking "May I please have a doobriewhatsit?" in polite earshot of the muppet who said "Can I get a Frappalappadingdong?" I find this really annoying, too? The raised inflection? At, like, the end of every, like, sentence? What? I'm, like, what, like, massively irritating? Exactly! If one could care less about something, it therefore indicates that one actually has a definable level of care about that something. If one could not care less about something, it illustrates the point that one couldn't give two hoots about it. I see it quite a lot in thriller/crime novels and I get terribly annoyed with myself for getting annoyed by...oh, you get the picture...
  13. Here's a thing. Surely when a character (and, in my experience, generally an American character, which might be important) says "I could care less about blah blah waffle..." it means that they have a modicum of care about blah blah waffle. This does make sense, doesn't it? It's always in a context of them really not giving a monkey's whatsit about blah blah waffle, yet my logical, rational brain will not let me breeze over this. I also struggle with the word "gotten", particularly if it's written by a British author. Does anyone else have pet peeves about particular foibles in novels? Should I be taken out into a lonely field to be shot?
  14. I thought I'd let folks know that I am really, really enjoying Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It is superbly well written and utterly gripping. There you go.
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