Mac
-
Posts
1,344 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Books
Posts posted by Mac
-
-
Crikey! This turned into a popular thread very quickly.
Something else that bugs me is when I go to the pub and sit down with my pint and I'm very, very visibly reading my book and someone comes and talks to me. I don't even know these people!
I was in my local one evening, reading my book at the bar (where the light is better) when a chap came up and said:
"Are you a Doctor, then?"
I said in reply, "No. Why do you ask? Does someone need help?"
"No, mate," said my new acquaintance. "But you're reading a book, innit? And you've got, like, glasses on."
Marvellous.
-
Great review, Kate. I'll go looking for this in the shop when I'm there (as usual) on Saturday.
Dammit.
I can't keep away.
Hope you're very well.
-
I simply googled and found it. I wanted to find a place where nice people talked about books.
I found it. I'd pay more than ten pounds a year to support this site.
Thank you, Michelle, for setting it up and making sure everyone behaves themselves.
-
The Catcher in the Rye for me - I hated it!
I'm with you there, Janet! Couldn't get to grips with it, at all!
Hope you're well.
-
100 pages a house. That's not bad going. I'm 200 years old and only 300 pages in. That's worse, I think.
-
Recieved Michael Marshall Smith - A book of short stories - What you make it (Thanks goes to MAC for introducing me to this author, I hear he is one of his faves, hopefully one of mine eventually)
At risk of sounding like one of the kids that I'm down with, Sarah, OMG, you are so going to love this book of shorts. It is, like, well chocolate, guy!
And, if you end up loving these shorts, you should have a go at Christopher Fowler. He's also a-maze-ing! Dark, gothic, creepy.
Remember: If you like it, do it. If you don't like it, do it, you might like it!
Let me know what you think. I get sooooooo excited when someone else loves the stuff I love!
-
The Stormwatcher by Graham Joyce
The Dordogne in August. Each morning, a dense damp mist drapes the landscape like thick muslin. Each afternoon, the sun beats down from an unchanging blue sky. But the rising Mistral signals a change in the weather.
In a carefully restored farmhouse with a swimming pool, James, an English advertising executive, his French wife Sabine, their two children and their friends sit uneasily around the dinner table. This should be at the beginning of a wonderful holiday, but Jessie, the eldest of James and Sabine's children, is disturbed. She talks to a face in the mirror, responds to whispered commands no one else can hear. Sabine is determined to find who in the company is poisoning her daughter's mind.
Sexual and personal conflicts, disturbing psychological failings, secrets and lies beckon the approaching storm. In a matter of days everyone is implicated in a tragedy which will sweep aside the web of deception and artifice they have built atound their lives.
When I first started reading this book, because I don't read the blurb, I thought I'd inadvertently picked up a book for teens. It very, very quickly proved to be not a book for teens. The reason I thought this way at first is that Graham Joyce is a very skilled writer. The parts written from the 11 year old's perspective reads like the thoughts of a young girl. I thought she was the main protagonist from how it was written. It's not for youngsters, this book.
The novel covers the human condition, the class system, relationships, love and betrayal. Read this and you will identify with one of the characters, of this, I am sure. During this book, I have questioned actions I've made in the past, regrets that I have; I've pondered on past relationships, making me wonder about my own need to 'fix' people; I've thought about my personality type and the impact I have on those around me. It has made me quite introspective at times, even at work with my mind supposedly on other things. But then, reading does this to me. I've always been a bit of a soul searcher and this has increased in potency since the break-up of my marriage. It's not at all attractive, I'm afraid, but I tend to keep it all to myself, fortunately for my friends.
There are so many passages I would quote from, but the following is one I particularly liked...
"Temperature is not the same as heat. Heat is a form of energy, whereas the principle of temperature is the transfer of heat between bodies. In the case of two bodies at different temperatures, heat will always flow from the hotter to the colder body until the temperatures are identical and thermal equilibrium is reached."
This comes from the tiny chapters interspersing the plot, drawing the similarities between the weather and relationships. I love the way this guy writes, and I want more of it. I'm off to Waterstone's!
I would thoroughly recommend this book (just be warned that the language can be a little 'fruity' at times...)
9/10
-
I won't be reading that book, then.
I also have Ackroyd's Biography Of London, and have been reading it since Jesus was a little lad in nappies. I think I may die before I finish it. I wonder how it ends...
Hope you're well, good fella.
-
This is really silly, but it totally bugs me when people don't indicate properly at roundabouts.
And it is tremendously annoying when one is driving and someone in the seat behind you either sneezes or coughs without covering their mouth and you can feel it go all over your freshly shaved head!
Aaaaaaarrrrrrghh!
He he he...
-
A book immediately springs to mind for me, here. It's called The Locust Room by a chap called John Burnside.
It's not really anything to do with prologues, but there is an unpleasant character in the book who we only come across in the first person (if memory serves...although I have a doubt, now that I come to write about it...) and these are separate chapters. The character is only central to the plot by way of his presence creating an atmosphere in Cambridge. I found this book very compelling and thought I'd just wave it around in case you're interested in having a look.
*waves said book around head whilst smiling impishly*
Thanks, people.
-
I love Ian McEwan as well. I started with Enduring Love, which I strongly recommend to you. I hope you're well, chum.
-
I really enjoyed The Time Traveller's Wife. I found it very moving in parts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
-
Oooh, no, Paula! You said I'd like 'em, so I was going to get it on the strength of your recommendation, my friend.
I was just thanking Lexie, too! Everyone's really lovely, aren't they!?!
Hope you're enjoying your weekend. I've got to go and see me mum in a play tonight. Not sure what it's about. She used to be professional (actress, singer, model - insufferable, really) as did some of the other dudes in the company, so it should be alright.
I just hope mum doesn't have anything to do with sex in it.
Or swearing.
*shudders*
-
Hiya. It never ceases to amaze me how differing people's opinions can be. I really, really, reeeeeaaaallly enjoyed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I hope the fact that you were a little underwhelmed by it doesn't put you off reading the second book. I thought it was even better!
I'm almost near incapacitation with excitement about the third and final instalment!
It's blooming great news that your reviews are being used in promotional material! How'd you manage that!?! Well done, mate!
-
I also promise to read it.
-
I'm going to buy this one, as well. No wonder I don't have any money at the end of the month...
-
Unlike Mac, I have never felt the need to pick up a Phillip Pullman book. I think I am bored of them before I even start
.That makes me sound awful I know.
My friend, this does not make you sound awful at all. If the mere thought of the blessed things bores you, then avoid them at all costs. I believe that I would feel the same if someone suggested that I read a Maeve Binchy jobbie (my Nan loves them).
But Pullman really is terribly good.
Do try The Historian. I am confident that you will not be disappointed.
-
Thanks for the comments Mac
Its nice to hear that someone else felt the same about certain aspects of the book. Will you be getting her new one when it comes out?
I will indeed be purchasing her new one as soon as it arrives in Waterstone's. I love that shop!
Oooh, this is a weird story.
I used to visit the Waterstone's every Monday when I worked in Burton-Upon-Trent about...err...six years ago. There was a chap who worked there that I got chummy with and he used to recommend bits and bobs to me - particularly up-and-coming authors.
When I moved to my current house about 5 years ago, I started visiting Waterstone's in my local town. And the same fella was working in that store, so he continued to recommend new stuff.
Then, last year I was on holiday down South and I popped into a Waterstone's in Bournemouth (because I can't pass one without going in!) and the same chap was working there! He recommended something else. Good man.
But I found this more than a little strange - I promised him I wasn't some crazed stalker.
Weirdness.
-
Thanks Lexie. I'll pick one up tomorrow.
-
I shall locate some on the strength of your recommendation then, my friend. Have a great weekend.
-
I wonder if this is something I'd be into? I'm tempted to have a go, because of the 10/10 rating you've given it.
What do you reckon? It's possible you have a notion about my tastes already.
Hope you're very well.
-
Hi Rach. This was the last Harry Potter book that I read all the way through. I only got half way through The Prisoner of Azkaban before I lost interest. People keep going on at me to read more, saying they get better and better, but I can't bring myself to even buy the buggers.
I think I was spoiled a little by reading another series of books for young adults called His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. The questions his writing raised I found compelling, and his characters were full of shades of grey - nothing was as black and white as it first appears. I also loved the development of the characters. I shall cease banging on about it now.
I think another thing that put me off the Potter books was that, at the time of my reading them, I was a peripatetic teacher. Every child in every school I went into had a copy in their mitts or on their desk, like it was a talisman or something.
People were raving about how J K Rowling had given children the reading bug and that this was a marvellous thing. I agreed with this whole-heartedly, but only in the cases of the children that went on to read other authors - most of the kids went on to read all of the Potter books again, then, over time, stopped reading to play on their x-box or Playstation.
Does this post sound grumpy? I hope not, because I do not mean it to!
Maybe I should give them another go? What do you think? A part of me is resistant, because that's what I do. I resist stuff, and it's very silly of me. For example, my friends (who know me very well) were going on about how I ought to watch Flight Of The Conchords because I would love it for ages. And because eveerybody was telling me to watch it, I refused. Stubborn and stupid. Because when I finally sat down and watched it, guess what! I loved it.
I ought to be given a pill or something.
Hope this finds you well, Rach.
-
Great review, Charm. I really loved The Historian, it being in my Top *non-specified number* of books. I, like you, felt drawn into the locations she describes so well to the point where they're on another list of mine, my 'places I'm gonna go to' list.
I think I must have been in the mood for a long novel, as it's length didn't bother me, which it sometimes does (easy, ii, don't get saucy with that sentence...)
And, you guess correctly, I am a huge history fan - I wasn't at school, though. It's only since I entered my Thirties that it began to fascinate me, weirdly. I found the book eerie and it even, on a couple of occasions, gave me unsettling dreams. I'm not into vampire books at all - for some reason I just can't sink my teeth into them...but this really caught me.
Thanks for the excellent review, Charm.
-
You know Mac, in that pic of yours, you look exactly like my prof when he's drunk.
Oh, yeah, and everyone should read prologues.
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
And I can't understand why anyone would miss the prologue out.
Of course, skipping the middle, I'm totally down with...
How did you find the forum?
in General Chat
Posted
I'd pay a tenner in your name, mate, the support you give the site.
Hope you're tickety-boo.