vodkafan

Thanks Kate! I knew of this book but as you say at the moment it is a bit pricey.....it may go down soon. I have followed Lee Jackson , he has an interesting website. A good search of his site reveals most of his information from the actual primary sources. But good luck to him for doing this, Victorian London is a passion for the bloke.

It's a very slim book- a one day read

They are certainly two different entities. The book is Susanna Kayson's real life experiences. There is a lot of humour but also her insights into what it means to be considered sane or mad and how male dominated society actually pushes young women into the latter category to keep them out of sight. The film made a drama and inflated Angelina Jolie's part so it became a lot about her. It will be interesting to see if you feel the same way about the film after you read the book!

The book is so much better! But don't expect it to bear anything more than a situational resemblance to the flm

Zathura . The kids really engage with this film. I like the dialogue between the kids in the film and I actually prefer this to Jumanji

The Curse Of The House Of Foskett sounds brilliant Steve! How can I resist this it's set in my favourite decade.

I ended up watching Jabberwocky

In The Year Of Jubilee 5/5 George Gissing Couldn't put this down. Started again from the beginning as my old kindle broke when I was only half way through...This is set in London in the year of Queen Victoria's 50 year Jubilee celebrations, (which of course you all knew was 1887 didn't you ) Six months ago when I started this the first time I thought that I wasn't going to enjoy it as much as The Odd Women and The Unclassed but the characters grew on me very quickly. One of Gissing's strengths, it seems to me, is his understanding of the minds of his women characters...thinking about this, in those times as women's actual physical options in any situation were much more constrained, so perhaps easier to work out their possible emotions in plot form....in any case, this deep understanding of the motivations of his characters (both male and female) seems sadly missing in modern writers. Gissing also makes his dialogue work so hard! In this novel his character's conversations tell most of the story for him with just a tiny description of an emotion or an action at exactly the right point to convey the maximum effect. I haven't said anything about the plot, as I don't want to spoil it. What amazes me is that this gem, like many of the best stories, is really just about a group of people ; they live and worry and struggle and die without any huge epic thing going on around them. Their story would be insignificant to everybody around them and would change nothing in history but of course it is the most important thing in their lives. The characters all seemed very real to me. Is there a happy ending? Not telling

That was a total surprise to me that she had written any. Were they from before Harry Potter?

Watched Dragonslayer last night. The dragon Vermithrax was excellent although the special effects of him flying are starting to show their age. This remains a most unusual Disney film, a little bit too frightening for very young kids.

I can't agree there I thought Dawn was total pants so didn't watch Rise.. I also have Beneath in my collection I might watch that tonight too!

It's so good to have a kindle again. When my other one broke I was in the middle of In The Year Of Jubilee by George Gissing and had more or less forgotten the plot so have started that one all over again...am also plugging away with Game Of Thrones book 1, reading about 30 pages a day at work. My friend is on holiday at the minute, by the time he gets back I will have finished it, and hopefully he will have finished Lyonesse book 1

Was cold yesterday so the kids just wanted to hibernate and watch TV. We watched Rat Race, A Christmas Carol (Patrick Stewart version) and later on I watched Cowboys And Aliens .

And far better than the newer version!

I like the sound of The Humans. Thanks for the heads up !

Ah OK thanks

But none of the others though?

Thanks Athena. Yes the first book he gave me of ASoIaF is a bit of a brick to be sure! I am about 1/4 of the way through so far. The style of writing seems rather stolid but I already like a few of the characters. It doesn't seem a very nice world everybody goes out their way to be nasty to everybody and say the most serious grim thing that comes into their heads haha.

Haven't updated this for a long time. I have a kindle again! Thoughtful Daughter has a new Kindle fire tablet so she gave me her own old kindle, which she didn't use much. I have re-registered it and downloaded those of my books from my amazon account that I need right now, about 100 books. I have separated these into only 6 collections: Jack Vance 17 books George Gissing 21 books Victorian research 13 books Victorian Authors female 18 books Victorian Authors male 31 books SF, Time Travel and everything else 24 books . Can't wait to get reading some more Gissing! I am also at this moment reading the first book of Game Of Thrones as I have a deal with my pal at work; I read the first 3 books if he reads the Lyonesse trilogy

Interesting titles...never heard of this writer. Would they be suitable for a 12 year old? One of my kids has been getting into Neil Gaiman and I am looking for something that she might like.

I watched a bank heist film called FlyPaper and rewatched AI. The "Flesh Fair" scene where they destroy old robots and the scene where David finds all the other identical Davids are my favourites.

Wow. Really very interesting. At the same time it is both very encouraging (for somebody trying to write a first novel) and yet also completely discouraging and depressing. I suppose in the end writing is like any other profession: you must ideally choose something that you can do very easily that makes the maximum money with the minimum effort; if you choose something that is hard work for you then it will be, well, hard work.

Welcome to the forum! I haven't read any of the series of books you listed but I might get around to reading Gone Girl.

Hi Brian long time no see! Your books are as interesting as ever.

Ah there you are. A bit late but welcome!