Reading - books or ereader (other kindles are available)!

[Reynard]

Thanks. That's another couple of authors to look out for.

As for 50 Shades... that's the sort of thing I avoid on principle . If EVERYONE is reading it there's no way I'm going to! Took me ages to get round to Dan Brown. He's good at setting up a "page turner" but I think his writing is rubbish.

Technically, 50 Shades should never have been published, as it's effectively fan fiction set in the "Twilight" universe. How the hell the author got around that, I don't know, because fanfic is strictly not-for-profit, because you're playing in someone else's sandbox. Either way, 50 Shades is dreadful - not the subject matter as such, but the use of language. It's just badly written, end of.

Jean M Auel hits the sweet spot with her 4th book in the series (The Plains of Passage) - oddly, it was the first one I read, after having picked it up for 20p in a charity shop because I was curious. The sixth and final book is rather meh, because it just gets too repetitive.

I've currently got two of the Miles Vorkosigan books on the go - the first one "Cordelia's Honour" which is actually two books (Shards of Honour and Barrayar), and the penultimate one "Captain Vorpatril's Alliance" which is hysterically funny. Space opera, politics and an astute observation of the Human condition, all rolled into one.

Jack Chalker's "Well of Souls" series is engrossing, although it's very odd in places. It's classic mid-to-late 70s sci-fi though.

 

[annedonnelly]

I've read all the Jean Auel ones a couple of times. Probably when they came out and then a few years ago I scoured charity shops to get them all. I'm impressed by her knowledge of prehistoric times and I'd like to see the cave paintings in France that she refers to.

I confess I've had a quick Google of the others you mentioned and I'm put off by the covers. I know, I know, you shouldn't judge, etc.

Not sure that any of this is helping the OP! Maybe he should join a book club. Though I've always thought that'd just put you under pressure to read stuff you don't like.

 

[Reynard]

I've read all the Jean Auel ones a couple of times. Probably when they came out and then a few years ago I scoured charity shops to get them all. I'm impressed by her knowledge of prehistoric times and I'd like to see the cave paintings in France that she refers to.

I confess I've had a quick Google of the others you mentioned and I'm put off by the covers. I know, I know, you shouldn't judge, etc.

Not sure that any of this is helping the OP! Maybe he should join a book club. Though I've always thought that'd just put you under pressure to read stuff you don't like.

If I remember rightly, she worked with a couple of eminent experts in the field. She does create a very vivid universe in which to set her story, and that's part of the appeal. If I have one criticism, it's that she spends a lot of time describing the landscape and settings, and it could perhaps be done much "tighter". On the other hand, that approach was very fashionable in a majority of novels written in the first half of the 20th Century.

The cover is one of the last things I look at when choosing a book. And besides, different editions of the same book will have different cover art anyway. Just look at the Harry Potter books as a classic case-in-point - one lot of covers were aimed at the kiddies, one was aimed at a far more adult audience.

I've always likened book clubs to English lessons at school, where you have to read what's on the curriculum. I've ended up with some perennial favourites, and others, I've never touched again. I always struggled with Regency and Victorian-era stuff, I enjoyed older works (I love Shakespeare, for instance), and the 20th Century material like Animal Farm, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath...

Mind, I still enjoy curling up with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe...

 

[ColinJ]

I've always likened book clubs to English lessons at school, where you have to read what's on the curriculum. I've ended up with some perennial favourites, and others, I've never touched again. I always struggled with Regency and Victorian-era stuff, I enjoyed older works (I love Shakespeare, for instance), and the 20th Century material like Animal Farm, Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Grapes of Wrath...

I read Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World in English Lit. at school. I enjoyed them and went on to read everything written by Orwell and Huxley. Then I got into DH Lawrence and John Wyndham.

I spend a lot of time reading technical stuff online, but long ago got out of the habit of reading novels. I'm trying to get back into it now. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the books on my to-read list. I was also thinking the other day that I cant remember ever reading any Dickens. I fancy trying a Sherlock Holmes novel too.

 

[Mo1959]

I read Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World in English Lit. at school. I enjoyed them and went on to read everything written by Orwell and Huxley. Then I got into DH Lawrence and John Wyndham.

I spend a lot of time reading technical stuff online, but long ago got out of the habit of reading novels. I'm trying to get back into it now. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the books on my to-read list. I was also thinking the other day that I cant remember ever reading any Dickens. I fancy trying a Sherlock Holmes novel too.

War and Peace? I read it quite a long time ago.

 

[Reynard]

I read Animal Farm, 1984, and Brave New World in English Lit. at school. I enjoyed them and went on to read everything written by Orwell and Huxley. Then I got into DH Lawrence and John Wyndham.

I spend a lot of time reading technical stuff online, but long ago got out of the habit of reading novels. I'm trying to get back into it now. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the books on my to-read list. I was also thinking the other day that I cant remember ever reading any Dickens. I fancy trying a Sherlock Holmes novel too.

Dickens is where I fall flat on my face - it's just not my

Read them because I had to, not because I actually liked them or enjoyed them.

 

[ColinJ]

Dickens is where I fall flat on my face - it's just not my

I feel like I should at least try...

I think I had a go at Ulysses once but didn't make it very far!

 

[Reynard]

I feel like I should at least try...

I think I had a go at Ulysses once but didn't make it very far!

I hope you're not talking about the poem by Tennyson...

 

[ColinJ]

I hope you're not talking about the poem by Tennyson...

I didn't even know there was one! (I'll take a look another time...)

James Joyce!

“ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

That kind of thing... I used to start reading it after nights out at the pub but I kept falling asleep before I ever got to the end of a sentence!

 

[Reynard]

I didn't even know there was one! (I'll take a look another time...)

James Joyce!

“ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

That kind of thing... I used to start reading it after nights out at the pub but I kept falling asleep before I ever got to the end of a sentence!

Aaaargh, I feel your pain... That would have me pitching a book through the window in a fit of pique. Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas is much like that.

The poem by Tennyson is much better than that. He also wrote The Charge of the Light Brigade i.e. into the valley of death rode the six hundred...

 

[ColinJ]

PS The Kindle 'Look inside' snippet for that is probably the entire book... Either that or someone very patient eventually found the end of the first sentence!

 

[Reynard]

PS The Kindle 'Look inside' snippet for that is probably the entire book... Either that or someone very patient eventually found the end of the first sentence!

The lack of punctuation would make my eyes bleed...

 

[Time Waster]

I read sherlock Holmes collected stories when I was about 9 or 10. Very accessible I think the polite way of putting it. Mind you by then I'd read iliad and odyssey (mad on Greek mythology).

Read 1984, animal farm, kill a mockingbird in gcse English language. Plus cider with Rosie. Good books. Took me to twenties to read brave new world and catch 22.

 

[DaveReading]

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas is much like that.

The first ever audio book, so to speak ...

 

[annedonnelly]

War and Peace? I read it quite a long time ago.

I tried but I always have problems with Russian names. Everyone seems to have at least three different names and I can't keep track of who's who.