Ooshie Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 (edited) Kell's suggestion of the Genre Challenge looks great! I will keep track of how I get on here... A list of the genres to remind me: Historical Fiction (Pre-WWII) Romance / Erotica Horror / Thriller Crime Fiction / Mystery Fantasy / Urban Fantasy Science Fiction / Steampunk Classic (pre-WWI) Modern Classic (post WWI to 1980s) War Supernatural / Paranormal Autobiography /Biography / Memoir Newly Published in 2012 Children’s / Young Adult Comedy / Satire Action / Adventure Graphic / Illustrated Novel Saga Speculative Fiction Mash-Up Western January Western - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry 5/5 February Biography - Talleyrand by Duff Cooper 4/5 March My March book was meant to be History (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee) but I am finding it too depressing to read all in one go and think I will read it in small chunks over the year. So instead I will choose... Contemporary Horror - Cell by Stephen King 3.5/5 April/May Fantasy - Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind June Crime - The Snowman by Jo Nesbo Edited July 14, 2012 by Ooshie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted January 3, 2012 Author Share Posted January 3, 2012 This is a copy of the review from my other thread, so apologies if you have already read that! January - Genre: Western Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Synopsis - from back of book A triumphal portrayal of the American West as it really was. Set in the 1880s, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive, an epic journey from the Rio Grande to the highlands of Montana that will try men's souls as they attempt to carve out a new life in the last remaining wilderness. Augustus McCrae and W F Call are former Texas Rangers, retired and becalmed after long years of putting down the Comanches. Gus is the romantic - a reluctant ranger who fills his days with whisky and the sound of his own voice reminiscing about the old days. Call is devoted to hard work and silence - drive, demanding and obsessed with the dream of creating his own empire. Larry McMurtry's intensely powerful novel brings alive as never before this most enduring of American myths - the frontier - recreated in a magnificent story of heroism, love, honour, loyalty and betrayal. I chose Western as my genre because I want to try some books I wouldn't usually read, and had it in mind that I hadn't ever read a Western novel. However, thinking back, as a child I read the My Friend Flicka/Thunderhead/Green Grass of Wyoming books, which were set on a ranch, and Mustang - Spirit of the Wild West by Marguerite Henry. So, it's not my first Western, just the first in a very, very long time The characters are all very well developed, and I felt you really got into the heads of every one. It is hard to choose a favourite character because of that, but if pressed I would probably choose Newt because of his good heart and innocence. The storylines are all interesting, and the descriptions, both of the characters' emotional lives and of the cattle drive itself, are excellent. The edition I have is 843 pages of small print, but I can honestly say I enjoyed every page and was devastated when I got to the end of the book - I understand there are prequels and sequels, but I am almost afraid to try those in case they don't live up to Lonesome Dove; I would definitely like to try more of Larry McMurtry's work, though. A great read, and one I thoroughly recommend to anyone who would like to try a Western. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
julie Posted January 3, 2012 Share Posted January 3, 2012 Ooshie I'm so glad you liked Lonesome Dove. It's one of my all tiem favorites. I read Streets of Laredo ,which was also very good. Probably not as good as Lonesome Dove, but how to you improve on perfection ? My favorite character was Gus, I guess because he talks a lot like I do . Plus he was REALLY cute in the movie . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Great review Ooshie! Lonesome Dove is now on my 'want' list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruth Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Ooshie, Lonesome Dove was made into a terrific mini-series If you can find it, I highly recommend it! Glad you enjoyed the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Ooshie I'm so glad you liked Lonesome Dove. It's one of my all tiem favorites. I read Streets of Laredo ,which was also very good. Probably not as good as Lonesome Dove, but how to you improve on perfection ? My favorite character was Gus, I guess because he talks a lot like I do . Plus he was REALLY cute in the movie . It's good to know you enjoyed Streets of Laredo, Julie - I think what I will do is leave it for a while until the memory of just how perfect Lonesome Dove was fades a bit, and then try one of the others. Great review Ooshie! Lonesome Dove is now on my 'want' list. I feel a bit guilty about that, as if you are anything like me then your "want" list will just keep getting longer and longer, but on the other hand it is a great read! Ooshie, Lonesome Dove was made into a terrific mini-series If you can find it, I highly recommend it! Glad you enjoyed the book. Thanks, Ruth. Actually, my Dad and I watched the series years ago and both loved it - it was one of the reasons I wanted to try the book, but I was expecting to be disappointed after how much I enjoyed the series. It can't happen often that a book and its series/film are both so good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 Talleyrand by Duff Cooper Synopsis - from The Folio Society An aristocrat who became a revolutionary; a churchman with a string of mistresses and an addiction to gambling; a trusted minister of Napoleon – this extraordinary figure whose blazing career survived five successive regimes is known to history simply as Talleyrand. Born in 1754 to one of France’s grand families and destined for the Church, Talleyrand was swept into the Revolution, then exiled, but returned to serve the Directorate. He was instrumental in the coup that brought Napoleon to power, but went on to betray him to restore the Bourbon monarchy. Although ofen reviled as a ‘traitor', Talleyrand only ever served one mistress, France: ‘I never abandoned a regime, until it abandoned itself’. I chose this as my February Genre Challenge book; I rarely read non-fiction, so it counts as taking me out of my comfort zone! I had found the synopsis intriguing, and just after that Talleyrand had been mentioned a few times in one of the Patrick O'Brian novels I read, and that piqued my interest enough to go ahead and read it. I was pleasantly surprised by just how readable it was. Very interesting, and not dry at all. At the end of the book there are notes on each chapter, but the book wouldn't suffer at all if those weren't read. Talleyrand himself is shown as an interesting character, and the historic events discussed are all full of interest too. However, I felt that I ended up knowing more about French history and politics than about the depths of Talleyrand's character, and this led to me giving it 4/5 rather than 5/5. Although I think it probably says more about me than about the book that I wanted more scandal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Wow Ooshie, a non-fiction book you enjoyed!! I'm very pleased for you! I do remember some of us talking about Talleyrand in December and I added it on my wishlist as well. I dare say it'll be quite good when such a fiction-lover as you enjoyed it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 I'm glad you enjoyed Talleyrand, Ooshie! I bought it just recently, and it sounds great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) Wow Ooshie, a non-fiction book you enjoyed!! I'm very pleased for you! I do remember some of us talking about Talleyrand in December and I added it on my wishlist as well. I dare say it'll be quite good when such a fiction-lover as you enjoyed it I'm glad you enjoyed Talleyrand, Ooshie! I bought it just recently, and it sounds great. Thanks guys, I am feeling very proud of myself! I hope you enjoy it, Kylie, it would just be tooo ironic if I recommended it and all you non-fiction lovers end up hating it! Edited February 19, 2012 by Ooshie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Thanks guys, I am feeling very proud of myself! I hope you enjoy it, Kylie, it would just be tooo ironic if I recommended it and all you non-fiction lovers end up hating it! Haha, that would be quite apt in a way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 14, 2012 Author Share Posted July 14, 2012 Cell by Stephen King Synopsis - from Amazon On October 1, God is in His heaven, the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He's just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He's already picked up a small (but expensive!) gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he'll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay's feeling good about the future. That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone's cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization's darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature...and then begins to evolve. There's really no escaping this nightmare. But for Clay, an arrow points home to Maine, and as he and his fellow refugees make their harrowing journey north they begin to see crude signs confirming their direction: KASHWAK=NO-FO. A promise, perhaps. Or a threat... There are one hundred and ninety-three million cell phones in the United States alone. Who doesn't have one? Stephen King's utterly gripping, gory, and fascinating novel doesn't just ask the question "Can you hear me now?" It answers it with a vengeance. As a huge fan of Stephen King's early work, I am always a bit apprehensive when I pick up something he wrote relatively recently. This wasn't too bad at all, though. For the first half of the book I wasn't that engaged with the story (I would have liked a few more pages setting the scene of normal life before the gore started flying), but it grew on me, and for the last 150 pages or so I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. For the first half, it was going to be 3/5 (average, didn't love it or hate it), and the second half was probably a 4/5, so it gets a grand total of 3.5/5 from me! Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind Synopsis - from Amazon One man, Richard Cypher, holds the key to the fate of three nations, of humanityBut until he learns the Wizard's First Rule his chances of succeeding in his task are slim. And his biggest problem is admitting that magic exists at all...A novel of incomparable scope and brimming with atmospheric detail: in a world where heart hounds stalk the boundaries for unwary human prey, blood-sucking flies hunt on behalf of their underworld masters, and where artists can draw more than your likeness, there is no place to hide, nowhere safe. Here magic makes love twice as sweet, betrayal and loss twice as bitter. Well, I quite enjoyed this. The writing probably isn't the best ever, and not all the ideas are very original, but it kept me reading and interested enough to think I will buy the second book in the series. The one thing that did irritate me was that at times it was hard to tell what age Richard was meant to be; from the storyline he is obviously meant to be adult, but quite often he is written about as though he is an adolescent. 3.5/5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ooshie Posted July 14, 2012 Author Share Posted July 14, 2012 The Snowman by Jo Nesbo Synopsis - from Amazon SOON THE FIRST SNOW WILL COME. A young boy wakes to find his mother missing. Their house is empty but outside in the garden he sees his mother's favourite scarf - wrapped around the neck of a snowman. AND THEN HE WILL APPEAR AGAIN. As Harry Hole and his team begin their investigation they discover that an alarming number of wives and mothers have gone missing over the years. AND WHEN THE SNOW IS GONE... When a second woman disappears it seems that Harry's worst suspicions are confirmed: for the first time in his career Harry finds himself confronted with a serial killer operating on his home turf. ...HE WILL HAVE TAKEN SOMEONE ELSE. A great book in a great series - 5/5! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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