Ooshie Posted May 8, 2011 Author Share Posted May 8, 2011 I think I saw the film years ago, but I don't remember anything about it at all, so at least it's not spoiling the storyline for me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidsmum Posted May 8, 2011 Share Posted May 8, 2011 I am enjoying it so far, vodkafan, I'm about half way through. I have to admit that I am finding all the information about the Catholic church and its various sects a bit confusing, though! If I am feeling tired then I must admit I don't pick it up. Have you read it yourself yet? I read it a few years ago & seem to remember that I kept forgetting who was who in it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted May 11, 2011 Share Posted May 11, 2011 Have I missed something there Frankie ? That is what Caeser is supposed to have said to Brutus before he got stabbed. Well yes, you tried to make me read a spoiler! While Ooshie was providing it. Tut tut! Ooshie, glad you liked The Lost Symbol, I've been fearing reading it, I'm scared that it won't be as good as The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. You weathered it well though, especially since you guessed the whodunnit so early and didn't let that effect you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 .Ooshie, glad you liked The Lost Symbol, I've been fearing reading it, I'm scared that it won't be as good as The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. You weathered it well though, especially since you guessed the whodunnit so early and didn't let that effect you. Go for it, frankie, I enjoyed it just as much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted May 12, 2011 Author Share Posted May 12, 2011 Brooklyn by Colm Toibin Synopsis - from back of book It is Ireland in the 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities are scarce. So when her sister arranges for her to emigrate to New York, Eilis knows she must go, leaving behind her family and home for the first time. Arriving in a crowded lodging house in Brooklyn, Eilis can only be reminded of what she has sacrificed. She is far from home - and homesick. Then, just as she takes tentative steps towards friendship, and perhaps something more, Eilis receives news which sends her back to Ireland. There she will be confronted by a terrible dilemma - a devastating choice between duty and one great love. I was reading this for the Reading Group, and wasn't really looking forward to it that much, but I did actually quite enjoy it. I was interested in learning what happened next to the characters, and it was a short and easy read. It hasn't left me wanting to read more by the author, but it did entertain me for a couple of days. (Is that what the call, damned by faint praise? ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted May 12, 2011 Share Posted May 12, 2011 I'm happy to hear you enjoyed Brooklyn, especially after not liking the previous reading circle book that much I'm still waiting for my copy of Brooklyn to arrive, so can't yet participate in the circle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted May 21, 2011 Author Share Posted May 21, 2011 (edited) The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco Synopsis - from The Folio Society Winter, 1327. The medieval Church is rife with corruption. High in a remote monastery in Northern Italy, a young monk has been found murdered in bizarre circumstances. Brother William, a learned member of the Franciscan order, is sent to the monastery to investigate. Accompanied by his young scribe, Adso of Melk - who at the beginning of his account asks only that 'the Lord grant me the grace to be a transparent witness of the happenings that took place in the abbey' - William sets about his task. But before he has had time to become acquainted with his new surroundings, another corpse is discovered, plunged head first into a vat of pig's blood. As the murders multiply, William must navigate his way through a bewildering maze of riddles, conundrums, signs and symbols to solve the ever-deepening mystery. With digressions on everything from theological history to the intricacies of classical philosophy, from the art of manuscript illumination to the darker arts of the occult, the story provides a rich and enthralling feast of love and betrayal, skulduggery, faith and heresy. A runaway bestseller when first published in 1980, The Name of the Rose is a modern classic that will appeal to readers of histories and whodunits alike. I had been looking forward to reading The Name of the Rose for quite a long time, and I did really enjoy it. The descriptions of life in a mediaeval monastery were interesting, and I loved picturing the monastery itself and the lives of the monks, as well as the book having an enjoyable storyline. However, I have to admit that I found some of the in-depth discussions of mediaeval theology a bit confusing - I tend to do a lot of my reading in bed just before going to sleep, and I think I really needed to be a bit more awake for that! So, a good read, but not a light read, I would say. Edited May 21, 2011 by Ooshie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted May 21, 2011 Author Share Posted May 21, 2011 The Group by Mary McCarthy Synopsis - from Amazon THE GROUP follows eight graduates from exclusive Vassar College as they find love and heartbreak, forge careers, gossip and party in 1930s Manhattan. THE GROUP can be seen as the original SEX AND THE CITY. It is the first novel to frankly portray women's real lives, exploring subjects such as sex, contraception, motherhood and marriage. This was a book I hadn't heard of before, and read for the Rory Gilmore Challenge. It's another one I'm glad I was introduced to! I was a bit worried that it would be a bit full-on regarding the sex etc, but apart from a couple of short bits, there was nothing too challenging at all. I can see that it would have been regarded as perhaps fairly shocking when it was published though, and it certainly cast new light on what life was like in the 1930s! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 The Fallen Kings by Cynthia Harrod Eagles Synopsis - from Amazon 1918: German troops flood back from the Russian front for an all-out assault in France. The under-strength British reel back; the spectre of defeat haunts the land. In the front line, Bertie struggles to bring out his battered battalion; at home Jessie, carrying his child, faces her family's censure. Thomas follows the Romanovs to Ekaterinburg as Russia descends into bloody civil war. Emma drives an ambulance in the FANY, and Jack is shot down. In the last, terrifying year of the war, the Morlands are more than ever in the thick of it, winning through by courage, steadfastness and love. This is number 32 in The Morland Dynasty, a series I have been collecting since 1983. It has followed the Morland family from the fifteenth century and is due to take the story of the family up to the present day. As usual, it was an easy read and vividly described life at the time. However, out of a series of 32 books covering approximately 500 years, this was the fifth book to deal with the First World War and for me it has been at least two books too many; frankly, I am desperate for the story to move on. This has been the book I have enjoyed least of the saga so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman Synopsis - from back of book Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a perfectly normal boy. Apart from the fact that he lives in a graveyard and is being raised and educated by ghosts, and his guardian belongs to neither the world of the living nor the dead. There are dangers and adventures for Bod in the graveyard: the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer; a gravestone entrance to a desert that leads to the city of ghouls; friendship with a witch; and so much more. But is is in the land of the living that the real dangers lurk, for it is there that the man Jack lives and he has already killed Bod's family. This is yet another book I wouldn't have considered reading except for the Reading Circle, as YA novels don't generally interest me much. I really loved this book, though, and couldn't wait to find out what happened next all the way through. I think the synopsis really says enough, though, as I don't want to spoil a single page for anybody else! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 First Love by Ivan Turgenev Synopsis - from The Folio Society A group of middle-aged men sit together after dinner and the conversation turns to first love. One of them, Vladimir Petrovich, tells his story ... As a 16-year-old, spending the summer at his parents’ country house, he glimpses ‘a tall, slender girl in a striped pink dress’: the young princess Zinaida. She is five years older, impoverished and not particularly respectable, but he falls desperately in love with her. As she plays each of her suitors off against the other, Vladimir sinks ever deeper under her spell – until the discovery of his true rival comes as a terrible awakening. A short story at only 74 pages, I found this a very enjoyable tale of a young boy's first love in the world of nineteenth century Russia's aristocracy as its ascendancy faded. I have to admit, though, that I spent more time enjoying the illustrations than concentrating on the tale, so this is another one I will have to re-read at another time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraloves Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 The Morland Dynasty books sound really interesting! I don't think I've heard of a series spanning 500 years before! I think I will have to keep a look out for these books! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted June 18, 2011 Author Share Posted June 18, 2011 They are really good, lauraloves - as well as the historical storyline there is the story of the family and what happens to them over the years, and usually a romance or two as well! The very first one was called The Founding, if you are looking out for it at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidsmum Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 I've got one of the Morland Dynasty books on my TBR pile, I saw it in a charity shop but didn't buy it then checked it out on Amazon later & it got a lot of rave reviews, luckily it was still there when I went back again so I snapped it up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauraloves Posted June 18, 2011 Share Posted June 18, 2011 They are really good, lauraloves - as well as the historical storyline there is the story of the family and what happens to them over the years, and usually a romance or two as well! The very first one was called The Founding, if you are looking out for it at all. Ah thanks for the title, I wasnt sure which one came first, some lists on the internet were really quite confusing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 New York Trilogy by Paul Auster Synopsis - from The Folio Society ‘It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not…’ So begins ‘City of Glass’, the first of the three stories in Paul Auster’s hugely influential work, The New York Trilogy. The voice at the other end of the phone asks protagonist Quinn if he can speak to someone named ‘Paul Auster’ – reality intruding into a fictional world with dazzling results. In ‘Ghosts’, a private eye named Blue is hired by a man called White to investigate a Mr Black. Are they real people or characters in someone else’s fiction? And in the final story, ‘The Locked Room’, a failing writer ‘borrows’ the work and family life of his more creatively fertile friend when the latter disappears. Set in a distinctly noir New York, fiction and reality meet and identities meld unnervingly in all three stories. Auster uses – and skews – the conventions of the mystery genre to force his characters and the reader to question the concept of identity. In so doing, he creates a whole new approach to story-telling. His taut, page-turning narratives lead the reader on through increasingly labyrinthine, psychological mind-games. This is the very first illustrated edition of The New York Trilogy. Tom Burns’s evocative pictures enhance the author’s portrayal of the great city as a place of loss, a world as unfathomable, it turns out, as the very nature of existence. This is definitely a very different sort of book to most I read - none of the three stories have "answers" that tie up at the end, which usually I would hate, but I really enjoyed all three and found them very thought -provoking. Intriguing is the best word I can find to explain my feeling about this book! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain Synopsis - from Amazon 'I don't know how to tell you what I did.' The unfinished letter is the only clue Tara and Emerson have to the reason behind Noelle's suicide. Everything they knew about Noelle - her calling as a midwife, her passion for causes, her love for her family - described a woman who embraced life. But they didn't know everything. Because the unaddressed letter reveals a terrible secret...and a legacy of guilt that changes everything they thought they knew about the woman who delivered their children. A legacy that will irrevocably change their own lives - and the life of a desperate stranger - forever. Diane Chamberlain gets to the heart of the story. The cover of the book says "As Good as Jodie Picoult or Your Money Back". Well, nowadays I actually prefer Diane Chamberlain's writing to that of Picoult as I find her storytelling just as good, but without the (sometimes just unbelievable) mystical overtones. I thought it was a very original story, and had lots of twists and turns that kept me reading far too late at night to find out what would happen next! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell Synopsis - from Amazon Kay Scarpetta has been training at the Dover Port Mortuary, mastering the art of 'virtual autopsy' - a groundbreaking procedure that could soon revolutionise forensic science. And it is not too long before these new skills urgently need to be put into practice. A young man drops dead, apparently from a heart condition, eerily close to Scarpetta's home. But when his body is examined the next morning, there are stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked in the cooler. When the revolutionary 3D radiology scans reveal more shocking details about internal injuries unlike any Scarpetta has ever seen, she realizes that this is a case of murder - and that she is fighting a cunning and uniquely cruel enemy. Now it is a race against time to discover who and why before more people die. But that time is running out ... The Amazon reviews for this book were absolutely horrific, so I bought it against my better judgement and purely because I have all the books in the series so far and can't make myself stop buying them! Having said that, although it's nothing like as good as her early books, I thought it was better than some of her efforts over the past few years. But I fully admit that might just be because I have got used to her much poorer writing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 The Reversal by Michael Connelly Synopsis - from Amazon When Mickey Haller is invited by the Los Angeles County District Attorney to prosecute a case for him, he knows something strange is going on. Mickey's a defence lawyer, one of the best in the business, and to switch sides like this would be akin to asking a fox to guard the hen-house. But the high-profile case of Jason Jessup, a convicted child-killer who spent almost 25 years on death row before DNA evidence freed him, is an intriguing one... Eager for the publicity and drawn to the challenge, Mickey takes the case, with Detective Harry Bosch on board as his lead investigator. But as a new trial date is set, it starts to look like he's been set up. Mickey and Harry are going to have to dig deep into the past and find the truth about what really happened to the victim all those years ago. I thought this was a bit like a Michael Connelly book crossed with a storyline from John Grisham's early days - and since I loved Grisham's early books, then I had no complaints about this one at all! Harry Bosch is one of my all time favourite characters, and I have got to enjoy Mickey Haller too, and thought that they were both very well portrayed in this book. A great detective story with twists and turns and lots of courtroom drama, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham Synopsis - from The Folio Society 'When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong ...’ Experimental biological engineering has created ‘triffids’ – walking plants with deadly whip-like stings and an intelligence that enables them to communicate with one another. One day strange green meteors in the sky turn every human being who looks at them blind. Bill Masen, who was in hospital during the light show, is one of the few people who can still see – and as he wanders through London, he bears witness to a world in collapse. The day of the triffids has arrived. Yet, as Adam Roberts argues in his insightful introduction, the book, first published in 1951, is not only about these monstrous plants: ‘What’s going on in this superb fable is much more unsettling: the end of our civilisation, and the messy, precarious passage towards something new’. I did enjoy The Day of the Triffids, but not quite as much as I had expected. While I did always want to find out what happened next, I didn't find any of the characters tremendously engaging, and had expected the book to seem much more "horrific". Perhaps I have just read too much Stephen King over the years! I enjoyed the last Wyndham book I read, The Chrysalids, very much indeed, and I look forward to seeing what I think of The Midwich Cuckoos, which I still have on my pile to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sofia Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell Synopsis - from Amazon Kay Scarpetta has been training at the Dover Port Mortuary, mastering the art of 'virtual autopsy' - a groundbreaking procedure that could soon revolutionise forensic science. And it is not too long before these new skills urgently need to be put into practice. A young man drops dead, apparently from a heart condition, eerily close to Scarpetta's home. But when his body is examined the next morning, there are stunning indications that he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked in the cooler. When the revolutionary 3D radiology scans reveal more shocking details about internal injuries unlike any Scarpetta has ever seen, she realizes that this is a case of murder - and that she is fighting a cunning and uniquely cruel enemy. Now it is a race against time to discover who and why before more people die. But that time is running out ... The Amazon reviews for this book were absolutely horrific, so I bought it against my better judgement and purely because I have all the books in the series so far and can't make myself stop buying them! Having said that, although it's nothing like as good as her early books, I thought it was better than some of her efforts over the past few years. But I fully admit that might just be because I have got used to her much poorer writing! I have found that with her as well....her earlier books were terrific, couldn't wait to read them and when I was I couldn't put them down.....but they started to go downhill.....I don't think her writing style really changed...I think that may have been part of the problem with me even....all the stories seemed pretty much the same...it was getting to hard to decipher one story from the other :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 I put a couple of your reviewed books on my wishlist Ooshie thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pickle Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 I have found that with her as well....her earlier books were terrific, couldn't wait to read them and when I was I couldn't put them down.....but they started to go downhill.....I don't think her writing style really changed...I think that may have been part of the problem with me even....all the stories seemed pretty much the same...it was getting to hard to decipher one story from the other :/ This happened to me too, I read a load of them in the beggining then got fed up with a rehashing of the story as for her bringing characters back don't even go there talk about a dallas moment. I tried to read one of her later ones and gave up after a while, I found Kay Scarpetta more and more irritating as Cornwell developed her character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 16, 2011 Author Share Posted July 16, 2011 (edited) I put a couple of your reviewed books on my wishlist Ooshie thanks. Hope you enjoy them when you get to them vodkafan, although your kindle list does sound very, very long already... I have found that with her as well....her earlier books were terrific, couldn't wait to read them and when I was I couldn't put them down.....but they started to go downhill.....I don't think her writing style really changed...I think that may have been part of the problem with me even....all the stories seemed pretty much the same...it was getting to hard to decipher one story from the other :/ This happened to me too, I read a load of them in the beggining then got fed up with a rehashing of the story as for her bringing characters back don't even go there talk about a dallas moment. I tried to read one of her later ones and gave up after a while, I found Kay Scarpetta more and more irritating as Cornwell developed her character. I know, I really do need to start exercising some self-control! I'm just hopeless at stopping collecting a series I already have a lot of. I promise I will try harder! Edited July 16, 2011 by Ooshie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 17, 2011 Author Share Posted July 17, 2011 (edited) Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs Synopsis - from Amazon Dr Temperance Brennan spends her life working amongst the decomposed, the mutilated and the skeletal. So the two-days-dead body she is called to examine holds little to surprise her. Until she discovers that the man is John Lowery, an ex-soldier who was apparently killed in Vietnam in 1968. So who is buried in Lowery's grave. The case takes Tempe to the heart of the American military, where she must examine the remains of anyone who may have had a connection to the drowned man. It's a harrowing task, but it pays off when she finds Lowery's dog tags amongst the bones of a long-dead soldier. As Tempe unravels the tangled threads of the soldiers' lives and deaths, she realises there are some who would rather the past stayed dead and buried. And when she proves difficult to frighten, they turn their attention to the one person she would give her life to protect. Apparently this book was published in the USA and in hardback as "Mortal Remains", so I'm glad I didn't get caught out and end up buying it twice, which has happened to me a few times with different authors. I read this in about a day, and every time I put it down to do something else I was keen to get back to it to find out what would happen next. It was slightly confusing in parts due to lots of military acronyms (which the author does acknowledge in the book itself, with some humour!) and different identities, but I would probably have kept these straight in my mind if I had concentrated a bit more and not kept rushing on with the story. Like Patricia Cornwell, this is not as good as her first books, but I enjoyed it all the same - I think I am enjoying the books more again now that I have stopped watching the TV series Bones (despite David Boreanaz), as the books and the TV series have so many differences that one spoiled the other for me. Towards the beginning of the book, some of the language jarred on me (I never expected to read a book containing the phrase "Dolly Parton jugs"!) but that seemed to wear off as the story went on - maybe I just got used to it! Edited July 17, 2011 by Ooshie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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