pontalba
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Posts posted by pontalba
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Sounds like a good read, thanks for the review! I was just thinking the other day about reliable narrators and I thought I might like to read a novel like that, what coincidence you've just reviewed something that might include something like that
Have either of you read Jeffery Deaver, and if so, how would you compare Robert Goddard to him? At the moment JD's my favorite thriller author (although I should definitely get to reading more of his books, I've only read two so far).
I think I might have to look this Goddard up and give his books a go!
Edit: Are Goddard's books stand alones?
I haven't read Deaver, but you are peaking my interest! I'll have to acquire one or three. lol
Yes, the Goddard I read was a stand alone. You know it's really awful. I pulled the one Goddard out of a group of three.....and now I can't find the other two.
Kylie! I need your organizational skills!!! hee hee
Oh well, it'll turn up sooner or later. /sigh/
btw, unreliable narrators are my favorite!
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Excellent reviews Frankie. I'll be buying The Tenderness of Wolves for sure. Thanks. I'd heard of it, but not followed up on anyone's review before.
I've read The Secret Life of Bees.....but it's been a long time, I did enjoy it.
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Hot, black tea.
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I finished Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer the other night, and it left me wanting to know more. Always a good sign in a trilogy. This is the first of said trilogy and it covers the first year of a family's life after a catastrophic event that leaves the earth heaving with tsunamis, extreme volcanic action, and it's moon in a new orbit. It is told from the perspective of a 16 year old girl in more or less diary form. The story is well told and fairly plainly told. First picking it up I was not aware it was a Young Adult book, but I'm glad I did. Some events are a bit glossed over, but all in all it is told in a realistic, straight forward manner I found refreshing.
Yeah, I've ordered the next two.
Recommended. 3.5.5
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Started The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry tonight. Like it.
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I have been watching cold case lately, it's an awesome show! Keeps you guessing till the end. They make you think it's one person, then they find another, and then another who has a link to the victim. You should consider checking it out if you haven't already seen it.
I like that show too.
Shallow as it is though, her hair really annoyed me.
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The remake was very different, and for what it was, better. Different though, to say the least. Special effects were, and I really hate to use this word, awesome.
The book was a rather quiet little story, with, for me at least, shades of "Twilight Zone".
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Oh, I read War of the Worlds when I was a kid, really ought to go back and reread. I saw the original film with Gene Barry too. NOT the one with the odoriferous Tom Cruise. /gag/
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This has been getting a bit slow, actually. I'm not as intrigued by this as A Pale View of Hills which I've read before by Ishiguro. But I love the language in this novel, it's such a pleasure to read. About 80 pages to go!
Agreed. I liked Pale View better myself.
I got The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson from the library today, I read a few pages of it and it was very engaging.
'Tis that, I tore right through it.
I've tried to read 'Life As We Knew It' several times, but never managed to finish it. I enjoyed what I did read of it though
LOL, I finished it last night, it carried me right through. In fact I've ordered the second and third of the trilogy. I don't know, I was so taken with the events, and what would happen I wanted to know asap!
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We watched Michael Collins this afternoon whilst exercising.
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About 60 pages into The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. Liking it very much!
I liked it, but found it.......well, slow, true, but more than that. It seemed a bit moribund. While I know Ishiguro's work is worthy, and parts of it are excellent, I just can't /sigh/ like him.
Received the latst Flavia de Luce and Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer in the mail today. Might start one of those.
But, ohhhh, the shelves with the TBR are cursing me!
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Dang, Julie, no idea. But I'll tell you one thing, while I don't think I'll actively search for his books, if I run across them at a Library Sale, or on the cheap I'll buy 'em.
You know, Planet of the Apes is really nothing like the film. Just sayin'. I read it years ago, and it's around here somewhere. I ought to hunt it down and examine it, or actually read it again........
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True dat! lol I was surprised to see that he'd written so many books, to tell the truth. There is a list of 19 books of is all together!
I forgot to add that there is an absolutely great quote in the front...by Joseph Conrad.
"No, it was not funny; it was rather pathetic; he was so representative of all the past victims of the great joke. But it is by folly alone that the world moves, and so it is a respectable thing upon the whole, and, besides, he was what one would call a good man."
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We went to see Broken City with Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe today. Crowe makes the perfect corrupt politician.
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Finished The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle tonight, review on my book thread. 3/5
Don't know what is next. So many books, so little time!! lol
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I wonder myself VF, I don't know Boulle's history. A bit of research would prove interesting. I knew he'd written Planet of the Apes, and as you probably know it's quite different from the film(s).
I'll look for his other 18 or so books at Library Sales, etc, but won't go way out of my way looking for them....
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Whoa, how frightening.
Julie, have you ever watched the TV series Without A Trace? I watched it a bit when it was on, but now have been watching it on DVD. Man, wowee, the stories they can come up with! Scary the number of ways a person can disappear. Without a Trace. /shiver/
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I have had to take a pay cut too Jules when I started my new job, as I am now working less hours, but actually I don't mind, as there is less stress, and by finishing later I will not be going out every afternoon for cups of tea and cakes. Not only will I save money, but I will probably lose weight then too !
Sounds better all the way 'round! Verra happy for you.
My first day in retirement and I am down with a rotten cold. My chest feels like it is full of razor blades when I cough.
Guess Retirement wasn't meant for me.
Oh, pish, you'll feel better in no time, and be running around the country with your lovely wife.
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Vodka and tonic water.
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The Bridge Over the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle. 3/5
I liked it, but man 'o man, it annoyed me. A product of it's times (written in 1954), Kwai is both stereotypical and stiff in the telling of a 1942, WWII, Pacific Theatre event.
I suppose most have at least seen or heard of the film starring Alec Guinness and William Holden. The stiff-necked Brit Colonel Nicholson whose pride blinds his patriotism somehow and the attending figures that surround him. Colonol Saito his Japanese counterpart that is head of that particular POW camp and the bridge that must be built for the Japanese invasion of Burma to go as planned.
I'd seen most of the film many years ago, and really Guinness is perfect for the part of Nicholson breathing a life into the character that is somehow flatter in the book. But I must get back to the book. Sorry.
Blind pride. Men following orders. Oppressive jungle temperatures. Partially unprepared insurgents. Boulle really brings out the similarities of nationalities, probably a bit ahead of his time, I think. A quote of the first page of the book kind of sums it up.
"The insuperable gap between East and West that exists in some eyes is perhaps nothing more than an optical illusion. Perhaps it is only the conventional way of expressing a popular opinion based on insufficient evidence and masquerading as a universally recognized statement of fact, for which there is no justification at all, not even the plea that it contains an element of truth. During the last war, "saving face" was perhaps as vitally important to the British as it was to the Japanese. Perhaps it dictated the behavior of the former, without their being aware of it, as forcibly and as fatally as it did of the latter, and no doubt that of every other race in the world."
I like that, in other words, we are all the same underneath the skin, as it were. Nationalism, racism and whatever other "isms" one can think of are essentially superfluous. It is true, and I wish more would realize it. We are creeping up on that thought, but faster, please!
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Ooshie, OMG.
I can understand your aversion in that case. I'm so sorry you (both) went through that. A terrible time, I know. -
Yesterday we watched Spellbound with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck and today we watched A Family Thing wiith Robert Duval and James Earl Jones.
Both good, I'd seen Spellbound before, but had forgotten some of it.
I'd not seen A Family Thing though....James Earl Jones is fantastic.
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Outlander (or Cross Stitch as I think it was called when I read it) is a wonderful book! I have read it twice, but I'm sure I will be back again for another read soon
Have you read any more of the series? Yes, it is the same as Cross Stitch in the UK. Annoying when they change names like that!
I really have loved the whole series and can't wait for the next one.
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On the plus side, this'll give you time to read all the books on my challenge list
Hah! Is that ever true. When the computer is down for whatever reason, our reading count goes up.
pontalba's 2013 reading list
in Past Book Logs
Posted
I've bought the other two, and will get to them soonish!