Brian.
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Posts posted by Brian.
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Love your new Avatar! I'm glad you liked The Sisters Brothers, I had never heard of it before. You are a fast reader!
I would love to say it is a creation of mine but it's a sketch I found on deviatantart. I have a tattoo in a similar style because I really like Mexican day of the dead art. I can be a fast reader but only when the mood is right and the right book comes along. My reading mojo has been all over the place this year but it finally seems to be coming back to me properly.
How is House of the Dead so far? I have read a few Dostoyevsky books but I haven't heard of that one before.
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Finished up with The Sisters Brothers this afternoon and I'm about to start Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami.
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The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
Synopsis
It is 1851,for gold has swept the American frontier. Two brother - the notorious Eli and Charlie Sisters - are on the road to California, following the trail of an elusive prospector, Hermann Kermit Warm. On this odyssey Eli and his brother cross paths with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of - and Eli begins to question what he does for a living, and whom he does it for.
(taken from Goodreads)
My ThoughtsThis book has been on my TBR for a while and since my reading mojo seems to be at a real high at the moment it felt like the right time to read it. I have to confess that the main reason I bought it when I did was that the cover is really eye catching. I noticed on Goodreads that some of the people from BCF who I follow on there had read it and all gave it positive ratings. This would be the first western that I had read so it was something entirely new to me.
I really enjoyed the story in this book, it was simple and yet had enough to keep me interested throughout. There are plenty of characters but the story is focused around only few which meant there was no confusion during the reading. There are parts filled with action and parts of quiet contemplation, parts of humour and parts of real emotion. It is well paced and the frequent short chapters work really well throughout the book.
I can't decide why I liked the book so much, but I did and it was a very enjoyable read. I was planning on giving it 4/5 but that didn't feel quite right. Since I reserve 5/5 for books that either moved me or really grabbed my attention and this falls firmly into the later category I just had to give it a solid 5.
5/5 (It was amazing).
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I woke up this morning to the news that Phillip Hughes has died after being hit in the head by a delivery from Sean Abbott. I think the whole cricket world is in shock because although there are injuries from fast balls in cricket they are rarely serious. One of the heartening things is seeing the way in which people are also rallying around Sean Abbott. I can't imagine how he and Phillip Hughes' family feels at the moment.
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I'm sure you will enjoy them Anna.
My next book is.........
Complete with a cup of tea
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Great review. I picked this up in the book store the other day and the sheer size of it made me put it back so kudos on not being intimidated by it.
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You should definitely read Down and Out in Paris and London. I'm not a fan of his novels, but I really enjoy his non-fiction, and I've read Homage to Catalonia and thought it was good, but think DAOIPAL was even better. I read it over 20 years ago, and I still rate it as one of my great all time reads.
It's on my wishlist and I'm sure I snag a copy of it sooner to later. I picked up Burmese Days yesterday at the book store, I wanted DAOIPAL but they didn't have it in stock but I'm sure my library will have a copy I can borrow.
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Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Synopsis
'Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism as I understand it.' Thus wrote Orwell following his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War, chronicled in Homage To Catalonia. Here he brings to bear all the force of his humanity, passion and clarity, describing with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of that chaotic episode.
(taken from Goodreads)
My ThoughtsRecently I have been thinking a lot about who my favourite authors are. It's very easy for me to answer the question, 'What are your favourite books?' but the question of authors causes me some difficulty. I think this is down to the fact that I have dipped into a lot of authors but aside from some of the crime writers I haven't covered a lot of individual writers' work. While thinking about this I came to the realisation that I have really liked what I have read of Orwell and want to 'complete' his work. During this period I came across a battered copy of Homage to Catalonia in a charity shop which I considered to be a stroke of luck.
Having read 1984 and Animal Farm I was unsure how I would feel about reading a piece of non-fiction writing by Orwell. In fact, I needn't have worried as his easy reading style remained the same. My copy of the book is a version which contains the editions requested by Orwell after the book had been in print for a while. This boils down to two removed chapters in which the nitty gritty of the political make up of the different militia groups is explained. These are included as two appendices so once I had read the main edited text I also read these. I think Orwell was correct in his request at the editions and had they been included I think they would have interrupted the great flow of the book.
I didn't know a huge amount about the Spanish civil war and I learned a lot by reading this short book. The apprendices contain a lot of detail which can be a little tricky to get to grips with at times. There was a huge amount of different agendas and groups involved in the opposition to Franco so there is a lot to cover. I am glad that these chapters are included though as they do explain some key points which just add further depth to what Orwell and many others experienced at the time.
I really enjoyed it and it has only made me look forward to reading more from Orwell.
4/5 (I really liked it).
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I hope you enjoy your new books
! There are a lot of famous ones in there. I haven't read any of them but I have some on my TBR and some on my wishlist.Thanks, I'm sure I will enjoy all of them.
Wow- you have some great taste
Some of my favorites are The Bell Jar and Grapes of Wrath. For Whom the Bell Tolls is one of my top 3 books of all time. I have The Martian Chronicles, The Great Gatsby, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas and Burmese Days all on my TBR! Nice purchases (if I do say so myself 
).I've only heard good things about The Bell Jar and it appears in many 'greatest' lists so I just had get it. I confess that I know nothing else about the book but I really like it that way with my books.
Totally agree with Anna. You have awesome taste!
I've read and loved a few of them (Boyne, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck and Plath), and I have most of the rest on my TBR pile or wish list. Looks like you have lots of great reading ahead. 
Most of them are off of my wishlist and that is based mainly on the '1001 Books' list and the reviews etc by people on this forum. I can't wait to get stuck into them.
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Looks like I got a bit carried away in the bookstore today. I swear this will be the last batch of books I buy for a while.
In case the photo isn't very clear
- For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway
- The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
- Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
- The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
- The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami
- Island - Aldous Huxley
- The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
- The Samurai Inheritance - James Douglas (Part of a series but looks like it should be ok as a stand alone)
- Ham on Rye - Charles Bukowski
- Burmese Days - George Orwell
- Delta of Venus - Anais Nin
- A Wild Sheep Chase - Haruki Murakami
- The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
- The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
- The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
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Thanks for the review of the Trudi Canavan book. I almost bought one of her books today but decided against it as I suspected it was part of a series and I didn't want to pick up a book that wasn't the first in the series.
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12 Angry Men, an absolute classic and gripping despite having a tiny cast and it all being set in one room.
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That sounds good! After really liking Animal Farm, I'm interested to see if George Orwell has written some other good books.
If you haven't read 1984 then I'd recommend it. I read Animal Farm first of all and thought it was great and I liked 1984 even more.
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I started to read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell last night. I've only read the introductory chapters and the first chapter so far but I think I'll like it.
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I can only echo the sentiments about Neverwhere. I not a fantasy reader at the moment but I loved it and I thought it was excellent. He created such a vivid world that whenever I think of London now I always think of the secret world beneath the streets.
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I think my total for the year will come in at around 30 or so which is the lowest since I joined the forum and started reading properly again. Last year I hit almost 80 and I'm kind of hoping that next year I'll be back up around those number. 200 is amazing.
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I just finished reading For Whom The Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. I will rate it 10 on a scale of 1 to 5......10/5. It was a wonderful read and ranks high on my list of books I have read.
I'm glad to see that you enjoyed it so much. The only Hemingway book I've read so far is Old Man and the Sea which I really liked so I'm really looking forward to getting round to this.
It boggles the mind why I haven't got around to reading this yet, I have a strange premonition that it's a book I will absolutely love.
I'm in the same boat. I think I have it on my Kindle and even though I am sure that I will love it I still haven't got round to reading it yet.
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I always take a book with me to read on the train and inevitably end up not reading it or not reading much. It's an ideal place to get some reading done and yet, when I'm actually there I don't feel like reading for some reason.
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Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
Synopsis
Based on J. G. Ballard's own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai - a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint. Rooted as it is in the author's own disturbing experience of war in own time, it is one of a handful of novels by which the twentieth century will be not only remembered but judged.
(taken from Goodreads)
My ThoughtsI've had this book on my radar for a while. In part this is because I know the movie is meant to be excellent and also because it appears in my edition of the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die. While I was dropping off some books at my local Oxfam book shop I spied a copy on the shelf, parted with £1 and it was mine. I thought that it may sit on the TBR pile for a while but it kept calling me from the bookcase so yesterday morning I decided to give it a go.
As someone who was educated in the UK I don't know a great deal about WWII in south east Asia as most of our history lessons about the war are about the politics and the European theatre of war. I do know a little about the old colonial history of Great Britain and while it helped a little with this book it certainly isn't a prerequisite. One of the things that really stands out with the book is that there are no real heroes in the traditional sense. There is very little focus on the combatants of war and the lines of friends and enemies become very blurred. Even though he is a child in a very difficult situation I couldn't help but question some of his decisions.
Knowing that parts of the book are borrowed from Ballard's own childhood makes the tale even more harrowing. Although this is a work of fiction, due to the size of the war the things in this book are likely to have happened to someone somewhere. There is certainly no glorification of war and no nation comes off well. People will do whatever necessary to survive at times of need, even if it involves pushing others aside. This is a basic truth of the human condition and it makes the human rare seem very uncaring when faced with our past.
I whizzed through this book in no time at all and I just couldn't put it down. It has been a while since a book has done this to me and I can see why it won awards and why it has stood the test of time.
5/5 (It was amazing).
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Thanks for the review, I find anything about the cold war and soviet history very interesting. As you mentioned that it was laid out like a dissertation paper I decided to see who published it. It's published by a company called Wasteland Press who are a self publishing company so it sounds like it could have done with some more editing.
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I've had a great day reading, I'm up to page 213 of Empire of the Sun and I expect I'll probably read another 50-75 before I got to bed. I haven't been through a book at this rate for quite some time.
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After finishing my last book I picked up Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard and I'm already 50 pages into it. I can see this one being a really quick read for me and another one ticked off of the "1001 Books" list (I think it's on there).
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Although I haven't read either of the Murakami yet I would definitely read 1984 sooner rather than later as it's one of my favourite books. I started with Norwegian Wood, a book I didn't expect to particularly like but I ended up falling in love with. After that I read a lot of his smaller books, both fiction and non-fiction and really enjoyed all of them so I don't think you can go wrong no matter where you start.
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This book is on my wishlist, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Great review
!Have you read any of his other books?
Brian's Book Log 2014
in Past Book Logs
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A few people have recommended pushing it up the list so once I've done with my next book (probably the next Mankell) I think it'll be time to read it.
I still have The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov to read as well. I plan to get to one of those next year as well as so many other books, you know how it is
My tattoo covers my entire upper right arm and it was the first one I got done. I haven't had any more ink done since, but I do have a design on my bedroom wall which has been there for a few years that I hope to get done at some point. I've played around with loads of different locations for this one and I just can't decide but I think my chest is the only sensible place.