vodkafan

They have been mentioned before but yeah he is a mostly forgotten writer these days. I preferred some of his other stand alone novels better.

Wow love the wolf pics

Maybe he wrote the Capt. Cook one after as it is not mentioned in my copy of Confederates In The Attic.....I found it very interesting too.

Doris Day Her Own Story 2/6 A.E. Hotchner The blurb on the back declares: " The myth shattered" .Hardly! At the beginning of the book all the intimations were that this would blow away her apple pie virginal image. Unfortunately for me it just reinforced it. Her outlook on life was completely conventional and boring. She says over and over again that all she wants is to get married and have children, that was her only ambition. However she always picked the worst possible men and let them tread all over her, her last husband keeping her working non stop and away from her son. She was not a very good mother. Her son did not live with her till he was seven and then she left all disciplinary matters to her husband, even allowing him to send the boy away to military school. Interspersed with Doris' story the best bits of the book for me was the little bits by her son and other actors who knew her well. These are what kept me reading. I really liked the strength of character of her son Terry. I had to get as far away from Doris as possible so am now reading another autobiography The Sexual Life Of Catherine M, who's philosophy of life is a tad different.

I don't play very much at all , I like Brutal Doom on my PC and sometimes get roped in to play something or other with Small Son on his 360 but half hour is enough for me. However a friend of mine at work is a big time gamer and he is all outraged about the new xbox One thing. The fact that Microsoft seem to be intent on destroying the second hand game market. He will not buy one on principle, he says it is the thin end of a wedge. After he explained the implications to me I can see why he is worried (along with a lot of other people!) I wondered if any gamers on here had any opinion on it? Sorry if it has been talked about before I did not read the whole thread... He also said that at the recent game Expo The Sony rep got a standing ovation when he said that the PS4 will not be doing the same thing as Microsoft..

Thanks for the review. I think I will give this one a miss.

Finished Confederates In The Attic. Now reading Doris Day.

Hi Julie great to hear from you.....I have read about the Roanoke colony recently it was in Bill Bryson's book Lost Continent... there is another mystery in the same area, a group of black people with blue eyes, their name begins with M I think.....They live apart and nobody knows how they got there they just appeared . I am reading a lot about America lately you lot are a lot more complicated than TV shows would have us believe. Tell me again what part do you live in ?

Reading another book about America now: Confederates In The Attic by Tony Horwitz. Started off a little dry for me but I am really into it now.

Hi Rebecca, welcome. I was going to reply to your "to buy" list but I didn't know if you had posts to add yet.

Probably you will only find it second hand on Amazon or maybe for kindle/readers though.

Love-Act 4/6 M.E. Austen This was a debut novel (written in the 80's) I picked up from a charity stall. In that visceral way that first novels often have this was very original. It just grabbed me and I could not put it down. (as the blurb promised) Shirley is a young part-time prostitute. She is not a bad person. She mainly has sex with people because she is bored. In search of something new, she answers a newspaper advert from Mr Fox asking for an actress.... This was a very original and unusual book I have never read anything quite like it. Couple things I liked about this book was that it was from an England before mobile phones, and like that "other Austen " The story was paced around letters. I would have given it a 5 but I am still a tiny bit confused by the ending. That's not a bad thing though.

The Heaven Makers 3/6 Frank Herbert This was a re-read for me prompted by a discussion about Frank Herbert. I had fond memories of it but I had forgotten most of it. The Chem are a race of aliens that, through science, have been able to make themselves immortal by periodically rejuvenating their bodies. The flip side of this is that they are on a constant knife -edge of falling into madness induced by boredom. To combat this they conceived the "story ships" by which they manipulate lesser races to tell stories for the amusement of the Chem race. Director Fraffin runs the most successful story ship ever. His ship is submerged under one of Earth's oceans. All of Earth's human history, it's wars and disasters, it's religions are all Fraffin Productions. His crew are completely loyal. It is suspected that Fraffin is up to something very illegal on planet Earth and Investigator Kelexel intends to find out what. But four previous Investigators have been somehow compromised by Fraffin before Kelexel. What is Fraffin's big secret? And if Kelexel stops him what will become of the Chem without Fraffin's films? Just as when I was a teenager, I found the ideas in The Heaven Makers quite thought provoking and I enjoyed Herbert's no frills straightforward writing style.This is considered one of Herbert's minor stories and not highly regarded by critics. I enjoyed it though.

Wasn't Spock's father the Vulvan Ambassador? Is it possible your hubby misremembered?

Have fun and a safe trip!

Hi Michelle I just caught up . Sounds like a good decision to have a rest for a while from reviewing. Happy reading!

Hi Nursenblack you have some good stuff on your blog this year! I will be stealing some for my wishlist. The Invisible Woman looks fun.

That would be so cool. Really good for those "A" type people who don't like to waste a moment.

I didn't know ANY of the names !! I been reading SF and fantasy for 40 years !

Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers 2/6 Philip Stokes The title explains it all really, I bought this as a "who's who" and thought it might be useful to my daughter who is about to study philosophy. I was a little bit disappointed as the couple of pages on each individual does not go into their theories sufficiently in my opinion to be really useful. Thankfully though, the author has placed them historically which does at least show the progression of ideas, rather than alphabetically, which would have rendered it meaningless. The most useful part of the book is the listing at the beginning which groups them into the different schools of thought. That gives a place to start for further reading.

Survival Of The Fittest 2/6 Jonathon Kellerman This was a detective murder mystery featuring a criminal psychologist teamed up with a misfit detective on the trail of a serial killer. I have read a couple very similar in this genre now and am rapidly tiring of the formula. However, there was nothing wrong with the story, it was an easy read which flowed pretty well; it did not go overboard with gory details and the rationale behind the killings was more interesting than the other stories of this type I had read. I find I am marking on the hard side at the moment so I only gave it an "OK" rating.

The Seven Curses Of London 2/6 James Greenwood This is a genuine Victorian book written by a sort of undercover reporter who wrote the book originally as a series of articles for his brother's newspaper. It is a mixture of essential information and his own opinions. Unfortunately for me it was written in the popular style of the time after Thackery where the author breaks off the narrative and addresses the reader. This was torture for me it was like reading Vanity Fair all over again. Which is why I only rated it as a 2.

Inventing The Victorians 4/6 Matthew Sweet In this book the author cycles back and has another look at the Victorians. The thrust of his work is to show us not how different they were- as is the case with almost every other book about the era- but to make us realise that we are essentially the same. All the things we assume make us modern- advertising, aggressive marketing ploys, sensational tabloid newspapers, conspicuous consumption, home shopping, personal dating, unconventional sexuality of all kinds, people worrying about society breaking down, food additives - these were all already alive and well 150 years ago. This approach was very refreshing. I enjoyed this book and will keep it as a counterbalance for some of my other Victorian books to refer to again.

Hi Athena I am reading The Heaven Makers. Should finish it today.

I am reading steadily. Just finished the Philosophy primer. Not had much time to come on here though. I do miss reading other folk's blogs. Got a few reviews to catch up on. Reading some Frank Herbert now.