bobblybear
-
Posts
5,318 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Books
Posts posted by bobblybear
-
-
Hello Lisa, and welcome to the forum!
-
Hello Taq, and welcome to the forum!
-
Road works, Firestarter, Rage, The eyes of the dragon - generaly all of his "pre-accident" books seemed to me very very good. Re-reading them gives me the same pleasure so I guess it's not me.
I'm currently chewing on Under the Dome but i'm on like 120 page after 3 months
I agree with a lot of what you have written. He seems to have lost his mojo from around the time he released The Regulators and Desperation, to anything before Under The Dome. I actually like Under The Dome and was relieved it seemed to be a return to the old King, and nicely followed up by 11/22/63. His best work, I think is The Stand and IT, and most of the books around that time (his earlier works) are quite enjoyable.
There's a great blog on The Guardian, with one of the writers (or journalists?) slowing working his way through Stephen King's books, in order of publication date. He's a big fan of King and has read all the books previously, and I find it very interesting to read his posts and readers comments about re-visiting some old favorites. It's here if you are interested in reading it. He's read 22 books so far, and I think he has a fair few to go.
I finished book 5 of The Dark Tower, and struggled with the beginning of 6 - is it worth me persevering or giving up, going by the above comments?
Well, it's one of those series that I was very glad that I had read, but was also relieved it was over. I struggled after Book 4 (and I also struggled with Book 1) as it seemed to be mostly filler with very little plot development. I keeping umming-and-ahhing about re-reading the series, as I keep thinking that maybe I was missing something by not enjoying the last half of the series. I'm still undecided as to whether I'll read them again, especially given there are so many other great books on my TBR pile waiting to be read!
-
Flowers In The Attic was doing the rounds when I was in high school. I remember discussing it with friends, all the incest, etc. Re-reading it as an adult (which I did a couple of years ago), I find it creepy and disturbing. I read a few others and I think she had some issues that needed sorting out. Like Kell says, they are all essentially the same plot, over and over again. I reckon she had issues!!
-
I have Tales of a Country Bobby on my Kindle, might have to bump it up a bit after reading your review
I really enjoyed it; it's a light and easy read, and one you can read a few chapters, and then put it away for a while and pick it up when you fancy.
World War Z basically sounds like a book of short stories - I have to say, I'm not so keen on having it on my wishlist after your review. Wonder if the movie is just basically people talking?
I think the movie just took the basic background of the book and developed a story around it. I really don't think it's going to have any similarity to the book aside from the title. It looks quite action-orientated so hopefully it will be more than just people talking.
I started World War Z, and didn't get very far. I don't think I'll bother now, as I'm also much more interested in human stories.
I think that's the main part that left me feeling cold towards it. I just couldn't relate to any of the characters, as they told their story in a few pages and then you never heard from them again. However, looking at Amazon, more people gave it positive reviews than negative ones, so this style must work for a lot of people.
-
Fantastic pics!!
-
I'm guessing it's something to do with both being a niche market, where people will pay a higher price, and also setting a price high enough to cover associated overheads for a small print run. That's just my quick (I'm on my lunch break) answer for the time being.
-
Pigeon English keeps popping up whenever I browse for books, I can't help but think I am meantto read it. Look forward to reading your review when you get to reading it.
I was a bit disappointed in it, as I heard so much hype about it. It's not that it wasn't a good read, I just didn't find it exceptional or worthy of all the praise.
-
World War Z - Max Brooks
This book is a series of interviews, set 12 years after the ‘victory’ against the Zombie War (or World War Z). Each chapter is an interview with a different person, offering their experiences on how they overcame the zombies. The people represented are global and from all sorts of experiences – political, military, an astronaut on the ISS, a commander in a submarine, and K-9 trainer, to name a few examples.
Apart from the first chapter or so of the book there is very little description of how the epidemic spread. It’s not a plot-driven book at all. It is literally interview after interview. I struggled with this format, as there was no continuity or any character to grab hold of and follow through to the end. It was too disjointed for my liking, with no-one real to relate to. I would have preferred a central group of characters, and following their experiences as they struggled to survive, but I guess that would be a different book entirely, and the author isn’t there to fulfil my requirements.
I don’t quite know how to describe it, but I felt the book was a base on which the author could express his world-views on different countries and societies and how they would approach conflict (of any sort – even human to human).
I would have enjoyed reading more about the ‘human experience’ rather than the militia or political experience, but that’s just me, and I don't think that was the point of the book.
2/6
-
Thanks Athena. I think the movie gave Miranda a more human-quality, whereas in the book she was just a she-devil. I loved Meryl Streep's performance though. She was great.
-
Now Then Lads: Tales of A Country Bobby - Mike Pannett
Mike Pannett is a police officer who has recently relocated from London back to the county of his childhood – Yorkshire.
I bought it because I liked the blurb (obviously) and it was a Kindle cheapie (back in about 2011 when I bought it), but it had sat around on my TBR pile because it just never seemed to appeal to me since then.
I have to say, I really liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It was very interesting to read about the various relationships Mike built amongst the close-knit villagers, getting them to all work together as a proactive sort of Neighbourhood Watch team. There was some light-hearted moments, such as holding up traffic so that he could escort a mole across the road. These were balanced by some heavier moments, like when he came across a group of men partaking in some illegal deer-hunting.
One thing that interested me was his mention that as a country copper you encounter more dead bodies than you’ll ever have to face in the big cities, due to policing a much larger rural area. I’d always expected it to be the other way
around.He has written a few other books, and I shall certainly pick them up at some point.
4/6
-
I've started Maggie O'Farrell's The Hand That First Held Mine for my book group, although I'm not sure it's my sort of thing, but we'll see how it goes.
I hope it picks up for you; I read it when it was first released and really enjoyed it. I am a pretty big Maggie O'Farrell fan though.
She had a magazine from which she could see which TV shows were on and she pointed out all the shows she watches and talked about them. It was pretty funny that she would also point out some of the erotic latenight programs and giggle and say 'you must watch this!'
Sounds like you had a fun conversation there, Frankie!I didn't get to really start my book until I came home, but now I'm 118 pages into The Help and I'm really enjoying it
I hope you enjoy it; I really liked it. Have you seen the movie?
I finished World War Z and I'm a bit relieved it's over. I'm now moving onto The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, which I'm hoping is a bit more lighter than what I've just finished.
-
Interesting that you are reading Blaze so soon after finishing Of Mice and Men. It's been commented in reviews that it must have been influenced strongly by Of Mice and Men. I read it a couple of years ago with that in mind, but unfortunately can't remember a whole lot about it.
-
The Devil Wears Prada - Laura Weisberger
Andrea Sachs, a not very fashion-conscious budding writer joins fashion magazine Runway in the hopes of it helping secure her dream job as a writer for The New Yorker. Her job is personal assistant to Miranda Priestly, the editor of Runway, who wreaks fear amongst her staff with her unruly demands and over-the-top behaviour.
There’s constant designer and model name-dropping, with many references to clothes and accessories (which is to be expected, given the title). But even though I’m not really into fashion, I still enjoyed Andrea's fumblings and Miranda's bossiness, and it managed to hold my interest for most of the book. It’s just under 400 pages and I think it was a bit too long, for such a simple premise. The first 300 pages was essentially the same thing:
Miranda demands something, her minions panic and fall over themselves in order to fulfil her every whim. Rinse and repeat.
Still, her demands were amusingly ridiculous enough to keep me engaged until about the 300 page mark when I’d really had enough. That of course is when the story changed it's tone/message, but I’d felt drained from what had gone before, so wasn’t particularly interested in this moralistic message that the author threw in there. I just wanted it to be over, and I wish it had stuck to what it was at the start: a funny, non-serious novel about the bitchy world of fashion.
3/6
-
x
Yes! I've read one other book that was a bit like it, in the sense that it's about a person reading books, talking about their life and what influence the book had. The one I'm talking about is Nina Sankovitch - Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading, it's about a woman whose sister dies (I believe of cancer), her sister loved to read so she decides to read a lot of books for one year, to try and come to terms with her grief. I quite liked it (and put some more books on the wishlist XD). I do own a few more books about people who read books, but I haven't read those yet (they are on my soon-to-be-read pile atm).
The thing I like about this book is that the mother and son seem to discuss very contemporary books like the Steig Larsson trilogy. As I mostly read reasonably recently published books I'm hoping that a lot of them will be books I have read or will want to read.
I've finally finished a book
Finished The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber and have started Avery Nolan by Tony Faville.I hope you enjoyed The Crimson Petal and the White. It's a long read, but well worth the effort.
Finished Pyhiesi yhteyteen by Jari Tervo and tried to start The Help by Kathryn Stockett on the train, but then this very talkative lady sat next to me and started talking to me about her physical ailments as if I was a friend and we'd been in the middle of something
So I chatted with her for the 4 hours or so. Didn't manage more than three pages of the book!Oh no, people like that make me nervous. I never know what to say to them.
You handled it better than I would have. -
Hello Sarah, and welcome to the forum!
-
Hello Rebecca, and welcome to the forum!! I'm glad you've listed your Ruby as one of your loves. There are many dog/animal lovers on here, myself included.
-
Yes! It certainly helps to have a computer science degree. Math and computational theory aside, some of the characters in the book are real-world people in a fictional setting. Stephenson just assumes you know who they are.
Oh, that's me doomed then!
I shall still keep it on my TBR pile, just all the way down the bottom.
-
Have you seen a film adaptation or was this completely new to you?
I really liked Gary Sinise's adaptation. I have seen an earlier film for school but can't remember much about it.
Decided to read Zadie Smith's NW - a novel that I picked up in WH Smiths the other day partly because it had the funkiest cover I've seen for a while, and also because I read White Teeth for university this year and thought it was fantastic. This is apparently a bit different, though, so we'll see..
I'll be interested to read your review, Ben. I'd like to read it, as I loved White Teeth, but the mixed reviews have put me off a bit. Mind you, I've just looked on Amazon and White Teeth has got the same sort of mixed reviews (both average out at 3.5/5), so maybe I will really enjoy it. I just have my current pile to get through!
-
I don't know how you will progress Tunn300, but I find some chapters a lot more interesting than others. I prefer the ordinary person's experience to those chapters told by someone in a political or military position.
I can't see the film following the book at all; I think they just took the core idea (which isn't that different to a lot of 'zombie' movies or books) and put a story around it. The movie still looks great though, and I will definitely watch it.
-
x
I just looked up the synopsis of this one, I look forward to hear what you think of it after you've read it.
It may be a while before I get to it, but it does seem like a really good book for 'book-people', doesn't it?
-
We actually have a 3DS in the house now. My boyfriend exchanged his Xbox for one on Gumtree. I got to try it out before he got home. I used the 3D feature but for some reason I can't get on with it. Even wearing glasses it literally feels like my eyes are blurry so when I get one I definitely won't be using the feature that much unless I can really get used to it. Definitely still gonna buy my own though as I do really want AC:NL and I've played every Pokemon game (don't count mystery dungeon etc) and I can't miss out on X and Y.
I got AC:NL yesterday and I'm so hooked already.
It's so much fun, an impressive improvement on WW, even though that was brilliant!! I hope you get it soon.I do find the 3D a bit distracting, but it looks good on AC:NL - it doesn't strain the eyes as much. But I do actually play with 3D off.
Just had The Last of Us through the post, so shall give that a go this weekend
Oooh, I just came on here to post about this. I only heard of it a couple of days ago - it looks freaking amazing!!!
How is it? Any good?? -
I've just had a salad and now I'm chewing gum (to kill off the onion breath that I don't think my co-workers will appreciate!
). -
Chinese curry tonight with boiled jasmine rice.
Astronomy Pictures
in General Chat
Posted
That's an amazing shot!